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Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story (Serial Story) — Chapter 3

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The text, "Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story" over a red sun.

Characters | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Epilogue

Chapter 3: Hope arrives, Sol help us if it’s false hope

People as individuals are only predictable if you know them. People as a group are always predictable. Scared people are even more.

It took me nearly a half hour to get them to shut up and listen to me. It might have taken less time if I’d done more than look at them scathingly. 

When they’d finally calmed down, I said the worst possible thing, “These ships are our Allies, and despite their numbers they are nothing compared to what is coming.” That cost me another ten minutes of their panicking.

“The enemy we are facing wants only one thing, to destroy our sun and anyone it its way.” I thought this was a pretty good call to arms. 

I was surprised by the Venutian Queen saying, “What if we left? The old Earth corporations did it. We could find new homes.”

The head of the Psionic Clans, a thin and gangly man with bug-like eyes, answered, “Old Earth had a few billion people, and most of them probably died in the void between galaxies. Moving the trillion inhabitants of the system is impossible.”

The room was quiet and they all looked around. It didn’t take any special psychic powers for me to know what they were thinking. They were all the rich, the ruling elite. They were trying to decide if they could save themselves.

“You could spend your fortunes on leaving or you could spend them on preparing for what’s to come. With our new allies, we can create defensive turrets, mines, build new ships, and give them more than they bargained for.” I’d hoped for a “Void, Yeah!” or something equally as motivated but instead they all furrowed their brows and thought about it.

I walked out as they argued about who was going to do what.

Again I sat down on the floor and cradled my head. “Any progress?” Suzie asked me. 

“Yes, but we still have a lot of arguing to go through,” I said. She handed me some headache medicine and a bottle with water in it. “Thanks.”

“You’re getting a lot of headaches. Are you dying again?” she was glib but I could tell she was worried. 

“No. Not yet. I’m just tired of all the yelling.”

She sneered at the door and then looked at me in confusion, “But the headaches have been since we found that ghost ship.”

“Not their yelling,” I said and finished the water bottle. “The yelling in my head. Sol is really chatty and the closer our enemy gets, the louder their suns’ voices get. It’s like trying to listen to your loudest friend in front of a speaker at a Martian Metal concert.”

She whistled and replied, “Ouch.” She kissed me on the head and looked uncomfortable. She wanted what any significant other would have wanted, to stop the thing that was hurting me, but as amazing a fighter as she was she couldn’t stop an armada.

Coming back into the room, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mercurial Guild had volunteered to make the weapons, while the Venusian Empire agreed to build ships.

“Who’s going to build the matter replicators, cloaking devices, micro-sun propulsion engines, and fighter ships?” I asked.

They all looked at me like I had just spouted off a bunch of technology that didn’t exist. To be fair, that’s exactly what I’d done. 

Over the coms, Adric said, “Sir, three more ships just appeared. One of them is massive.”

“Our other allies have arrived,” I said. “They have various technologies that can help us but we have to work together.” A vision hit me and I saw how one of the ships had arrived. “Diamond Stars brought us a gift.” Before they asked, I added, “Diamond Stars is the name of the captain of one of the ships, and he hijacked one of the enemy’s ships. We can use it to try and find their weakness.”

Adric routed a call from one of the ships to the conference hall, “This is Captain Ng of the Warship Ennill. We’ve been sent by the Children of the Stars to help you. Do you accept our help?”

For once, everyone in the room deferred to me. I didn’t like being chosen as the leader but I didn’t have a choice, “This is Hal, Sun Speaker of Sol. You are more than welcome. Make your way to the third planet from the Sun. I hear we have a lot of building to do.”

Captain Ng barked a small laugh and said, “You have no idea.” 

When the coms cut out, I said, “They seem nice. Better than disembodied brains controlling ships.” The comment was ignored and I’m glad I didn’t have to explain about the fleet of Myrddin that had come to help defend us.

The other two ships introduced themselves. There was the Galavant captained by Captain Muldune; they had just come from a devastating war against the same enemy but all three of their solar systems were destroyed. The second was the Revenge captained by Diamond Stars. They followed and managed to get past part of the enemy fleet.

Through the noise of Sol and the other suns in my head, I heard, Hal? Can you hear me? This is Diamond Stars. Sol called for my help. His voice was deep and full.

Diamond Stars? I love that name! another voice in my head said. I’m Arzure Pendreicht but call me Zuri. Her voice was young and enthusiastic.

With that, I was no longer the only Sun Speaker of Sol. I had backup. Why didn’t that make me feel better?

Read Chapter 4

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:

Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story (Serial Story) — Chapter 2

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The text, "Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story" over a red sun.

Characters | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Epilogue

Chapter 2: Seren and friends get a call for help

The Children of the Stars had been travelling the universe for ten thousand years. Annie could swear that’s how long they’d been assigned to the Mother of all Star’s planet. She was sick of sitting still and wanted to be moving again. It had only been five years in reality, but it had been a very uneventful five years.

“Can’t you sit still for two seconds?” Seren asked. She was sitting on the couch with her tablet translating the ancient language of the Mother. 

In the five years since they’d discovered this place, their entire civilization had gone from hoarding technology and enslaving micro-suns to sharing their knowledge and working with the suns as equals.

When the Children of the Stars were still just crawling out into the universe, they’d discovered a planet that had been hollowed out to make room for a micro-sun. The sun had been created to power a massive computer that housed the consciousness of the original inhabitants of the planet. Something had happened and the minds merged with the sapience of the sun. They melded into a wonderful and powerful mind. 

Instead of marvelling at what they’d discovered, they stole the technology and then pushed the planet into a void between galaxies. They monopolized the technology and travelled the universe.

Since Annie and Seren had re-discovered the Mother, they’d made a lot of fascinating discoveries. The largest being the ability to speak with suns. Every sun is sapient but until recently, they’d only been able to talk to the Mother and her children.

“The suns say anything interesting?” Annie asked.

Seren pointed at what she was working on and said, “This is just a novel I’m translating. It relaxes me.” 

Laughing, Annie walked over to her wife and kissed her head, saying, “Okay. That’s weird. Cute, but weird.”

A message beeped on both their watches. It was their friend and boss, Jan, or as they were supposed to call them, Captain Ng. Emergency meeting, my office. Now!

The captain’s office was sparsely decorated and Annie would normally tease them about it, but when she and Seren entered, they saw that the room was filled with high level military.

Annie saluted and said, “Generals!”

Seren only nodded politely since she wasn’t military. 

“Good. Thank you for coming,” said the soft voice of the Mother coming from a speaker in the walls. “I have been speaking with the suns and they are concerned about what is happening in the Milky Way Galaxy.” She brought up a starmap. 

“That’s one of the old galaxies,” Seren said, looking almost hungry. “Our home galaxy, Abell 1689, is roughly five hundred million years old. Most of the galaxies we’ve travelled to are between that and five billion. The Milky Way and the old quadrant are between ten and fifteen billion years old. Who knows what we could find.” An archeologist’s dream.

“Yes, exactly,” said the large man who was head of the military in this section of the galaxy. “And something is happening there?” 

Annie appreciated the general trying to get Seren and Mother back on topic.

“Yes,” said Mother and when no one said anything she continued, “Suns have fantastic powers. When a star explodes, everything it’s made of gets scattered, but eventually enough of it comes back and starts a new star. That means that the stars in the Milky Way have died and been reborn so often that their powers are closer to a god.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Jan. “There’s no such thing as a god.” The Children of the Stars didn’t believe there was a deity, but they did believe in being reborn.

The Mother sighed, something that sounded strange from a digitised voice, and said, “Powers like a god not an actual god. Either way, one of them is screaming for help.”

Everyone stood in silence until Annie asked, “Why is a sun that has god-like powers asking for help from us?”

“He says that the other suns have banded together to destroy him and his people. He says there are two trillion people that will die.” The Mother sounded sad and disgusted at the same time.

“How can we help?” asked Seren.

“I propose we send every ship at our disposal to help them out,” the Mother replied.

The general huffed and said, “That’s not up to you alone. We need to assemble the council for something this big. An emergency meeting can happen by tonight.” He marched off muttering about logistics.

When he was gone, Seren got a huge smile on her face and asked, “What’s the real plan?”

Annie and Jan looked at her confused but Mother replied, “The council will probably refuse. I have been working on a new ship design that is smaller but could hold a few hundred fighters and a small crew. I believe I could change it into a warship and repository of knowledge. We could help upgrade their technology, which is quite primitive from the datastream the sun sent.”

“How big is this datastream?” Seren asked excitedly.

“It’s a complete history of his people, only half a million years of data. I’ll send you the compressed files.” 

The answer and offer was enough to make Seren sit down. She made the face that Annie jokingly called, “acheologasm” and started to scroll through the data.

Annie rolled her eyes and said, “If the council says no then who’s going on the ship?” She knew the answer but had to ask. The Children of the Stars had been ruled for ten thousand years by the Technomages who had been generous but brutal. When they’d found the Mother of All Stars, they’d briefly treated her as a new ruler. Mother had found the idea horrifying and they’d worked on a form of democracy. There was a ruling council but any major decisions could be voted on instantly through the star-communication network.

Jan sighed, “Whoever volunteers.”

The three friends looked at each other and nodded in agreement. They’d volunteer.Well, I wanted something exciting, thought Annie.

Read Chapter 3

While you wait for the next chapter, you can read some related stories:

Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story (Serial Story)

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The text, "Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story" over a red sun.

Characters | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Epilogue

Chapter 1: When all other negotiation tactics fail, scare the pants off them

Have you ever tried holding onto melting ice cream? No matter how hard you hold on or try to force it back into shape, it just keeps dripping. That’s what it felt like trying to convince the rulers of the solar system to listen to me.

There were members from all the systems empires: The Mercurial Guild, The Venusian Empire, The Martian Empire, The Free Peoples of Ceres, The Jupiter Protectorate, The Titan Federation, The United Moons of Uranus, the Neptunia Commonwealth, Pluto, the TNO Alliance, The Republic of Kuiper, and last but not least, the nomadic Psionic Clans.

That’s a lot of names, and frankly I wouldn’t remember them all either if I were you. Just picture a room with a lot of people who’ve hated each other for longer than anyone can remember why, and add a very tired Sun Speaker, that’s me, in the centre of the yelling. 

Let me recap what’s going on, just in case you haven’t been following. I am Hal, and when I was young I was chosen by the great god Sol, who lives in our sun, to speak for him. I am the Sun Speaker, and in millenia past, that has meant being the head of a massive system-spanning church.

Unfortunately for me, the church didn’t approve of my style of leadership and declared me a heretic. The church then appointed a jerk who would say whatever they wanted and I stole a spaceship and did my best to serve Sol and help people.

Real Sun Speakers are given special powers. We can heal the sick, summon great cleansing fire, and purify water. We also get glimpses into the future and vague orders from Sol themselves. The human body wasn’t made to channel such power and most die by thirty.

I am now almost fifty and still look thirty, thanks to the last known vial of an immortality serum given to me by my friend, doctor, and resident mad scientist.

Things were going pretty well for me until Sol started showing me visions of devastation on a system-wide level. Black ships filled with other Sun Speakers and endless soldiers. And here I thought I was unique… Unfortunately I’m not, and the other Suns are older and able to have more than one Speaker.

I had hoped I would have a few more decades before the attack arrived, but then I checked out a derelict ship and almost died fighting one Sun Speaker, and he said they were coming.

I’ve seen the fleet of ships covering everything inside the Kuiper Belt with death. They aren’t just coming for Sol, they’re coming for everything and everyone they protect.

The Grande Adjudicator of the Jupiter Protectorate screeched in frustration in the face of the Queen of Venus. She followed up with a comment about the faithfulness of his husband.

I should have interceded and stopped them from kicking off a system-wide war that would leave us weaker against the imminent threat. Instead, I left the room.

The air in the hall was cooler by several degrees. The royal palace of Mars wasn’t used to that many people in one room and was struggling to keep the temperature even. 

I put my back to the wall and slid down to the stone floor. I curled my legs up and debated crying, laughing, or locking the doors from the outside.

“Aren’t you supposed to be organizing them into a coherent defence plan?” Suzie said gently, kicking my foot. She looked like she was wearing a simple business suit, but I knew it was her light armour that projected a disguise. Her long curly black hair was pulled into a thick braid, which I knew held several spikes to dissuade anyone from pulling on it.

“Yeah. I’m not the right person for this. I’m a meddler, I pull small strings and help people. I don’t think I can do this.” I wouldn’t confide that to anyone else. Suzie and I had been together for four years now, four years of struggling to get to these negotiations.

She kicked me again. “Don’t do this. You’re the only one who can do this. You have allies in there, leverage that. Use some of that charm you keep saying you have. Do what you have to. Or would you rather I deal with them?”

“No!” I exclaimed, standing up. She was the love of my life, but as an ex-assassin, her way of dealing with people was a lot more violent than mine. I kissed her gently and added, “Thank you for believing in me.”

I turned to head toward the door and Sol chose to send me some interesting information. The worst visions can leave me crying on the floor in pain but most aren’t that bad; this was the equivalent of getting slapped behind the head.

I walked into the room and I’m not sure any of them even noticed me.

Into my comms earpiece, I said, “Adric, can you put our guests on the main viewscreen in the conference room.” The large screen had been used as a visual aid for explaining what was coming early in the conference. 

“How did you know? A ship just appeared outside Xanthus,” The asteroid past Pluto was populated by people who didn’t want to deal with groups like this. It was also home to the, arguably, best psychic in the system Caro, one of my good friends.

The screen flickered to life and a large saucer shaped ship came into view. The room fell silent for a second before they all started demanding answers at the same time.

They were cut off when Adric played the audio message that was coming from the ship. A loud deep mechanical voice said, “The Myrddin have arrived to protect Sol from the Council of Suns. Please do not resist the Myrddin, we will only harm you in self defence. The fleet shall arrive momentarily.”

Adric cut into the audio. With awe in his voice, he said, “Every trans-Neptunian outpost is reading ships. There’s tens of thousands… no, millions. The system is surrounded.”

Read Chapter 2

While you wait for the next chapter, you can read some related stories:

Alternate Reality Viewing

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The word of the day was: pareidolia

The garage was a mess of tools, metals, and things she couldn’t name. Sitting in the centre, soldering a tiny circuit board, was her best friend. “Jayne, what are you doing now?” She was sitting cross legged in front of what looked like a steampunk microwave the size of a small car.

“I figured it out last night. Just like Doc Brown, I was in the shower and boom I fell, and when I woke up I had it.” Jayne’s curly brown hair was all over the place and she had a large bruise on her temple.

“So instead of going to the hospital with a possible concussion, you built a time machine?” Miranda tried to sound scolding but it struck her both as typical and a little funny.

“Oh Picard,, no! I’d never even try. Time is too fragile and yuck.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I created a way to see into alternate realities.”

“Is this about Mal?” That was Jayne’s ex. They’d been together for four years, but after one too many nights tinkering in the garage, Mal left.

A horrified look crossed Jayne’s face and she replied, “Absolutely not. Obsessing over the path not taken would only lead to madness. I figured out a way to see the media from alternate realities.”

“Are you sure you’re not just staring into that thing and seeing what you want?”

Sighing loudly and dramatically, Jayne replied, “These are crisp, high definition, media from another reality, not some pareidolia.” Standing up and brushing off her dirt covered jeans, she took a USB drive from the machine and gestured to her friend to follow her.

They sat down on the couch in the living room and Jayne put the USB into the TV. She navigated to a file called, “1.06-Dead-Or-Alive.mkv” and pressed play.

That’s when Miranda cued in to what was happening. “You said media from another reality? You broke the laws of physics so we could watch—”

She was cut off by the intro music, “Take my love, take my land…”

Enjoy more Word of the Day stories on the stories page.

The Most Ambitious Crossover Event (on this blog)

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The text, "Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story" over a red sun.

Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

Prepare yourselves for the most ambitious crossover this blog has ever seen. Prepare for Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story.

This galactic event will span 12 months with 1000 words each month. You will follow Hal the Sun Speaker after the events of his last story as he tries to unite the warlike factions of the Sol system before it’s attacked by the fleets of The Council of the Gods. Every other month will follow a linked story you may recognize from previous serial stories.

I will try to make sure that the story is self-contained and you can follow even if you haven’t read the previous stories.

If you want to get caught up, here are all the stories that have led up to this event:

The first chapter is planned for the 29th of January.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

‘Twas the Snatching Before Christmas

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This story takes place twelve years before the events in Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. The events happen before but are loosely related to those in  Night of the Sisters, Stuck in a Cabin for the Holidays, and Making that left turn at New Albion

Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers is available at:
Local Canadian bookstores
Amazon.ca ebook
Kobo ebook
Indigo/Chapters ebook
Indigo/Chapters paperback
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests by Jen and Éric Desmarais is available for pre-order soon!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version

Monday the 24th of December, 1990 – Westmeath, Ontario

There it was, the sound of hoofbeats on the roof, followed by gentle jingle bells. For any other child on December twenty fourth, that noise would bring joy. Not so for the fourteen-year-old Jason Johnson. He knew it wasn’t Santa, and he was ready.

A little over a year ago, he’d developed powers. Like his father, he could manipulate shadows and he could also travel inside them. Hiding his powers from everyone but his best friend and his father, at night he became The Phantom. His one goal was to find and save the people who were being kidnapped from his Community. 

His father was the leader of the Aetherborn of Oldtown in Westmeath, Ontario. Aetherborn are people created from the chaos of magic with the help, mostly accidentally, of the human imagination. It meant there were a lot of pop culture and mythological people, and regular humans weren’t very accepting. 

They found safety in Oldtown, but something had been preying on the innocent Aetherborn and they’d been disappearing. Jason had heard rumours of something taking kids around Christmas. He’d spread some rumours that he’d been misbehaving and was waiting up in his all-black Phantom suit for something to happen.

He heard the noises and waited; nothing happened. Then in his mind, he heard his sister scream for help. Mindspeak was something Aetherborn could do with family.

Zoey, what’s wrong?

She didn’t reply. Either she was already too far away or unconscious. 

Jumping out of bed, he scrambled to his window and climbed the trellis to the roof just in time to see something horrible; A half goat demon with a large basket. He could see several heads poking out, asleep.

The demon didn’t fly or leap into the air, it melted into shadow and reappeared on another roof. Jason stood in shock and almost lost sight of the creature. The air left behind had an awful smell, like meat that had been in the heat too long.

The smell was incongruous with the frigid cold air. Jason regretted not having a coat under his black outfit.

Knowing there must be more kids in the thing’s lair, Jason decided to follow and save them all instead of fighting it on the rooftops. He’d have a better chance on even footing than on the snow and ice covered roofs.

Travelling by shadow was draining and Jason had never gone this far. He followed the thing across Oldtown and into the downtown core. To his surprise, the last trip had the thing land on the top of one of the new skyscrapers that housed a tech company. He’d expected a dark cave or abandoned warehouse, not the top of a shiny new building.

On the roof, he realized how new the building really was. It had a state of the art camera system and keycard lock. Jason tried the door and was pleasantly surprised that no alarms went off; it seemed nothing was hooked up yet.

The heat was thankfully on, and Jason tried to be both quiet and stay loose. His martial arts teacher had told him that he needed to be ready for a fight at any time. 

“Boo!” a loud voice said just behind him. He punched toward it but it was gone. Stumbling down the stairs, Jason reached the top floor, which was one large open office with no furniture yet. Another, “Boo”, and failed punch and he knew he was being herded.

“What do you want?”

“Krampus wants to snatch the naughty little boys and girls.” Its voice, high and nasally, came from a dark corner of the room. It looked like he was perched on a chair or a rolled up rug.  “I want to eat them too, but Beast says I cannot. Sad for me, but still fun to snatch.”

“Why’d you let me follow you?” Jason could see dozens of children asleep on the floor. He needed to stop this thing, but didn’t know what he could do if it kept disappearing every time he tried to hit it.

“You didn’t fall asleep like the others. You play with shadows like me. I wanted to have some fun.” The Krampus disappeared and reappeared right in front of Jason. He tried to punch it, but the thing was already travelling in shadow. “Ho ho. Not very fast are you? Maybe you’re not much fun.”

It was trying to make him mad. It wasn’t going to work. Zoe was an expert at making him mad and she was unconscious here somewhere.

The room was flooded with shadows from the lights outside, this should be his environment. This should be where he was in control, but he couldn’t tell when this thing was going to move.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe he could feel the shadows and they could tell him. Reaching out, he felt his senses expand, and just like that, the room was as bright as day for him. The Krampus was still perched, but Jason could see his perch was an old man with a grey-white beard.

He could also see that the Krampus was wearing an amulet of pure shadow. It didn’t travel naturally.

This time when it said, “Boo,” Jason faked a punch and grabbed at the amulet while it travelled through shadow. It ripped off the thing’s neck and Jason smashed it. A black smoke came out and tried to fly toward Jason, but a ball of glittering energy contained it first.

As he watched, the Krampus transformed, writhing into a man. It was old man Dulac, one of the Oldtown Council members. 

The former perch wiggled his eyebrows and whole body before flopping to his side, trying to get free. Jason rushed over and cut the ropes holding the man and helped him up.

The old man straightened and reached out to the shimmering ball. He waved his hands and the ball turned into a stone with the smoke hidden deep inside. The man put it in his pocket and said, “Well, well, if it isn’t little Jason Johnson.” The man’s dark brown skin looked almost grey in the shadows, and Jason could feel power emanating from him.

“Are you…?” Jason couldn’t finish. Was this just some wizard or was it Santa? With enough belief and magic, it could be.

The man laughed, he was thin and not round like on television, but it was a sound of pure pleasure. “I have been called the S word a few times.” Changing the subject, the man said, “However, now it looks like I need to deliver the children to the presents and not the other way around.”

“What about Mister Dulac?” Jason asked.

The old man walked over to the council member and poked him gently. “A small transmutation spell stored in the amulet. Nasty piece of work. I bet someone gave it to him, and he won’t remember a thing.”

Jason hoped that was true and the Council members weren’t involved in the abductions.

“Do you know everyone here?” the man who might be Santa asked. Nodding, Jason recognized them all as Aetherborn from Oldtown. “Good good. Here’s a map.” A flick of the wrist and a three dimensional overhead map of Oldtown appeared on the wall. “When I’m done with one, you point out their house.”

“Done? What are you going to do?” His tone was challenging, but the other man was an unknown wizard, and Jason was worried.

In a calming voice, he said, “It’s okay, Jason. I’m going to give them all a small freckle. Inside that freckle will be a spell that will help prevent them from being kidnapped again. It’s not much, but it’s something I can do.”

Each child was marked and Jason would point out the house, then the man would pull open a blue portal and place the kid on his bed. The portal would snap shut and they continued on with the next child.

They’d returned all the other kids and Mr. Dulac with only Zoe and himself left. As Santa, maybe, put the freckle on the back of Zoe’s neck, Jason burst into tears. “Thank you!” he said.

The man’s eyes were blue, soothing, and so sad. He hugged Jason and said, “I can’t give you one. It would change too much.” 

Through the hug and the crying, Jason said, “That’s okay. You got Zoe. She’s safe.”

Jason carried his sister to her bed and turned to see the portal closing. The old man placed a finger next to his nose and smiled. 

The boy was never sure if it really was Santa, but decided it didn’t matter because there was a man who looked like Santa out there and he helped protect Zoe. That was the best present he could ask for.

Read more holiday stories featuring Merlin:

Elemental – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2023 film Elemental.

Story

The trailers made this look like a trope-y rom-com rip-off of Zootopia. What it is instead is a wonderful story of immigration and family. The elements together in a big city is used well and not as a gimmick but a metaphor.

Score: 1

Characters

The two main charactes are animated in very traditional proportions and that’s unfortunate and stereotypical.

Their personalities are much better however and don’t fall into stereotypes too much. It did feel a little odd that neither of them had friends.

The rest of the characters and cast are fun and fairly well fleshed out.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

There are so many element puns that I can’t wait to rewatch and catch more.

The dialogue was very honest to their emotions and simplified. I liked the micro-aggressions from the well-meaning family, it gave the story some needed grounding.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The animation was amazing. Lighting, colour, detail, backgrounds, all beautiful. I loved the line art look of the fire people.

One of the fun parts of watching things with subtitles is seeing how they describe the music. Accorting to the subtitles, the music was “[Emotion] New Age music”. It was however extremely well done and worked perfectly with the tone and feel of the world.

Score: 1

Fun

This was fun in every concievable way. The 6yo said it was good but not great and the three year old concured.

The rest of the family loved it and I think it’s one of my top Pixar movies. Definitely going to want to rewatch this one.

Score: 1

Overall

The movie takes the story of an immigrant family and wraps it into a magical world of elements. The emotions are authentic and story compelling. It’s colourful, fun, and easy to watch.

Final Score: 4.5 Stars out of 5

Finally Finished Something

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Hello Readers,

Last year, before my pain became too worrisome, Jen and I wrote a book called Faymous. While writing it, we added a character who showed up in flashbacks. The further along we went, the sillier her actions became, each of us adding every flashback.

The idea was that I’d write a short story at the end that would explain everything that had happened with the character, but then pain and worry about hurting myself got in the way.

I wrote it slowly, 200-500 words a session, writing 15 minutes here and there.

I was told by my occupational therapist that I could write a little more as long as I took breaks and listened to my pain levels.

So after ten months and almost 7000 words, I finally finished the story. It’s called New Year’s Eve… on repeat, and it’s another time loop, because I apparently like the challenge.

It was fun to pull together all the threads that we’d randomly spread through the novel.

We’ve received three very nice rejections for Faymous. That means I have no idea when it’ll be published, but I’ll let you know.

We are looking for beta readers. If you’re interested, let us know!

Thank you for reading,

Éric

I Wrote a Story

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Hello Readers and Friends,

I haven’t written much in the past five months. I did, however, manage to write a short story that I’ve submitted to an anthology. I’m really proud of the story and the storytelling in it.

I’d love to tell you all about it, but it’s an anonymous submission so I can’t. I’ll let you know if I get into the anthology, if not it’ll probably go into a short story collection… Once I can write more regularly.

Writting is one of my biggest stress relievers, and losing that has been really hard. I know there are other methods (speech to text, narrating, etc) but I’m not quite ready to admit that I won’t be able to go back to my old ways of writting.

Sorry for the vague post, but I wanted to share my excitment. I hope the editors like my story as much as I do.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Faymous

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Hello Readers!

Our newest work in progress has been called The Untitled Shawna and Randal Book through the writing of the first seventeen chapters. Before that, it was called Guise and Dolls, before that, it was called Dolls of the Magic Shop.

A lot has changed in the story since it’s initial concept, and with Jen’s help, it’s infinitely better.

So without further ado, the new novel is called: Faymous

After the strangest New Year’s Eve ever, Shawna and Randal wake up in Fay. Nothing is as it seems, they can’t remember how they got there, and someone or something is hunting them. With luck, stubbornness, and a ukulele, they’ll flirt, fight, and sing their way home.

We have three chapters and two epilogues left before we’re done, but I already love this novel.

I can’t wait to share it with all of you. (Unfortunately, with editing, submissions, and schedules, we’re looking at 3-6 years)

If you’re interested in Beta reading, we’re more than happy to have the help.

Thank you,

Éric