A repository of writing by Lachlan Marnoch - short stories, fantasy, science fiction, science fact, and adjacent opinions.
This is my last week in the village of Leafshrine, a tiny community of Austia (Teensies explorator) deep in the Erefal Woods. Although I have worked with Austia before, I have never spent so prolonged a period living among them. The Austia, as a civilized species, have endured discrimination from as far back as history goes - owing chiefly, I believe, to their insectoid nature.
Read MoreWhen I first heard of Anther Strein, and of the famous Theory for which she is chiefly responsible, I was sitting in a lecture hall at the University of Manifold. I was about to fall asleep. I was wrenched rudely back to full consciousness by the sheer audacity of the assertions being made before me. Only once I had assured myself that the words emanating from the professor at the front of the room were not, in fact, generated by my own semi-conscious hallucination, but were uttered in complete sincerity, did I begin to realise the full impact of what I was hearing. The elegance of Anther’s ideas and the fundamental truth behind them struck me deeply; they cast new insight on everything I knew of the living world. I wished immediately that I had learnt of them much earlier.
Read MoreAnther Strein is a travelling naturalist in the science fantasy world of Pendant. In her studies of the astounding animals and plants of her surroundings, a question has often nagged her - how did such diversity come to exist, and how does it adapt to the ever-shifting conditions of the natural world? A dangerous idea is forming at the back of her mind: one in which gradual change, rather than instantaneous creation, is the main driving force of the natural world.
Join Anther on her journey across the continent of Proesus, as she records her observations of bizarre animals and plants and unravels the mysterious relationships between life, magic and natural selection in an enchanted world.
Read MoreThis symbol has a few different meanings throughout my Legacy universe (under construction). Within the universe's fictional history, it's been passed down from civilisation to civilisation, symbolising different things to each.
Read MoreIt's been ages since I posted last. I've been thinking a bit (a lot) lately about writing, and what it means to me and what I want to do with it. I've said this before... but I'm hoping to post a lot more in the near future. I've got plans, man, big plans1, you just wait.
So anyway, I thought I'd post this to get the ball rolling. This is a story and a universe I've been working on in bits and pieces since the Planck epoch. The Richell Prize, a novel-writing competition, prompted me in 2015 to go ahead and get the first few chapters done. I didn't make the shortlist, and I wasn't expecting to, but it did succeed in getting me to put some actual stuff down. Two years later and I haven't added much - you know how it is - but I thought I'd put it up here anyway. It's a bit rough in retrospect, and it could definitely use some work. One day, man. One day.
Legacy: The God of Night (a sample)
1 Plans are at most mild to medium in size.
Elya continued to fly the Supernought as they fled back to the bridge, which was not an easy journey given that his suit's jets, and several of Delton's bones, were broken. The ship was accelerating at full power now, away from the nucleus-forsaken rock behind them. Without the ship's inertial muffling, they would have been no more than red stains on the rear walls; even with it they were struggling to move against the acceleration.
Read MoreThe dead ship hung in space, spinning slowly. With active surfaces disabled, its hull mirrored the distant stars perfectly. Even without stealth measures it was visible only by the constellations it altered as it passed before them, blotting out stars and replacing them with new ones. As it turned, however, the craft’s interior became visible, exposed by jagged sections of missing hull. There were no sparking cables, no vapours leaking from smashed pipes. Just a broken eggshell.
From the launch bay of the SDU Dubious Honour, Delton watched the incongruous opening draw closer as the Semartus ship matched the Supernought’s velocity. She floated in the airlock with a dozen other crewmembers, both Darax and Semartus, vacuum suits ready and sealed.
My war started a long time before the Tulisan. I was getting old before they were even a blip on SDU deep space radar. I'm a veteran, you know, from the Storm border conflicts. I enlisted right out of school, as soon as I could. I was stationed on Bulwark, my homeworld, actually, which has the happy distinction of playing host to no less than three Storm invasions. And one Tulisan invasion.
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