Moxie Meets Count Gamel in MOXIE'S PROBLEM by Hank Quense @hanque99 #Excerpt AmReading #SciFi

Scene Background:  

Moxie is on her way to meet her betrothed Count Gamel. Three apprentice knights, Percivale, Bore and Gareth are escorting her there. 

Bors rode to the top of a hill and examined a flat, boulder-strewn summit. Beyond the boulders, a grassy knoll butted against a tall outcrop that would shelter them from the wind. Bors rode past the boulders, dismounted on the grass and removed the saddle from his horse, Escrow. He grunted in pleasure as a cool breeze wafted over him.

Percivale, Gareth and Moxie joined him on the knoll and they decided to camp there. Soon, all the mounts were unsaddled, hobbled and grazing nearby.

After tending to his horse, Escrow, Bors studied the boulders. Something about them seemed strange, almost unnatural. The rocks were in lines almost like the beads on his abacus. He ignored Moxie's latest outburst of whining and continued to examine the rocks. Dark gray boulders — dozens of them — covered the area in three lines with exactly twenty rocks in each line. A fourth rank, separate from the other three, contained five rocks.

"How dare you!" Moxie roared.

Bors grabbed his sword hilt and whirled towards the sound of her voice. Moxie stood ten feet away glaring at a boulder in the middle rank.

"What's goin' on?" Percival, also on foot, asked her. Gareth stood near Percivale, looking quizzically at Moxie.

"I'm a princess, you impudent rock. Apologize this instant or I'll break you into rubble."

Bors gawked at her. The memory of a story an old hunter once told him and his father flooded his brain and almost overwhelmed him with the danger they faced. His skin crawled.

Moxie picked up a fist-sized rock.

Bors gasped. Moxie was about to get them all killed.

Moxie bounced the rock off the boulder.

Bors ran to her and grabbed her arm before she could do more damage.

"The stone insulted me." Moxie frowned at Bors as if she suspected his motives.

"Why did you throw the rock?" Percivale asked.

"Moxie just attacked one of the rock-folk," Bors said in a quavering voice.

"I did what?"

"She did what?" Percivale said. "I'm confused."

Bors waved an arm around the boulder collection. "This is a rock-moot. I've heard about them. The rock-folk come together to settle problems and make new laws. And the stone Moxie threw was a rock-baby."

"The big one degraded me." Moxie sniffed and pointed at the boulder. "It made lewd suggestions."

"Rocks can't talk," Gareth said. "Leastwise, not so we can hear them."

"I can hear them. I’m descendent from the Ancient Ones. Royal Ancient Ones, of course. And the Ancient Ones were descended from the fairies.”

"We have to get out of here," Bors said. "Fast."

"Why is the ground shaking?" Moxie looked alarmed. She grabbed Percival's arm to steady herself.

"It's the rock-folk," Bors said. "They're gettin' all worked up over Moxie's attack."

Their mounts whinnied in fear at the trembling ground. They jumped and stamped their hooves and strained at the hobbles until they broke free. The four horses ran down the hill and disappeared into the forest.

A worried Bors said, "We have to get out of here. Let's grab the saddle bags and put some distance between us and the rocks."

A boulder inched closer to Moxie's foot and she shrieked.

Percivale made a face at the sudden pain in his ear from Moxie's reaction, but didn't move, as if frozen in place.

"Someone has to get my horse," Moxie said.

"I ain't goin' through those rocks." Gareth pointed to a group of rocks rolling to form a line between them and the direction the horses went.

"We have to leave." Bors pushed Moxie in the back. "That way."

"Unhand me! And what about dinner? I'm hungry."

"Dinner will be very late tonight, Your Royal Feyness." Bors kept his hand on her back, nudging her away from the builders. He grabbed Moxie's saddle bag and handed it to her, then picked up his own.

"You expect me to carry that?"

Bors dropped her saddle bags. "If you don't carry it, it stays here and gets crushed by the rocks. I'm not carryin' yours, you are."

Bors looked at Percivale who stood without moving, his face drained of color. Bors grabbed an arm and yanked Percivale backward. Percivale blinked and gave Bors a strange look. "Come on, Perc," Bors yelled. "Snap out of it and let's get goin'."

Percivale picked up his saddlebags and trotted away from the boulders.

A few minutes later, they descended the hill.

"Moxie, look out!" Gareth yelled.

Bors turned and saw a boulder thundering down the hill. A bow wave of dirt sprayed out on both sides of its path.

Gareth dropped his saddle bags and pushed Moxie out of the way. Both landed in a heap a moment before the boulder sped past them.

"Get off me, you blundering lummox."

Gareth picked himself up and pointed to the boulder now at the bottom of the hill and rapidly losing speed. "Must have been sentry." He went over to his saddle bags, partially crushed by the boulder.

"Are these rocks stupid or something?" Moxie stood with her hands on her hips. "Commoners are supposed to ignore royal misunderstandings."

"I don't think rock-folk are impressed with your royal birth," Bors said. "Let's get movin'.

"When do you think the horses will come back?" Moxie asked. "I can't carry my saddle bags all the way to Count Gamel's."

"Those animals ain't comin' back," Percivale said. "Not after the way they got spooked. They're inna next county by now." The color had returned to his face.

"Can someone please carry my bags?" Moxie asked in a pleasant voice while fluttering her eyelids. "They have my wedding dress in it."

Bors slung his own bags over one shoulder and said, "It'll do you good to get some exercise." He turned his back on her and walked east.

"We gotta get a lotta miles from here before we can stop for me to cook the rabbits I caught." Gareth tied two hares to a saddle bag. "We better start pickin' nuts and berries if we see any."

Bors shook his head. He wished the adventure would go back to being boring again.

Moxie huffed, stamped her foot and picked up her saddle bags. She followed the three knights while raining insults and curses down on their collective heads.

Moxie had never thought that life outside the castle could be so difficult. Her escorts made her sleep on the ground with only two thin blankets: one under her and one on top of her. She had to sleep in her clothes. The men made her get up at dawn. She had to eat cold meals when it rained. They made her ride the horse all day long. The knights were disrespectful of her nobility. They often ignored her commands.

It was if she was a peasant not a princess. And now they didn’t have horses and had to walk and non one would carry her saddlebags.

Moxie dropped the saddlebags to wipe her tear-filled eyes. Gamel better be worth all this misery she thought.

Do you enjoy untypical coming-of-age stories? Well, you won’t find one more untypical than Moxie’s Problem. Moxie is an obnoxious, teen-age princess who has never been outsider her father’s castle. Until now. The real world is quite different and she struggles to come to grips with reality. The story takes place against a backdrop of Camelot. But it isn’t the Camelot of legends. It’s Camelot in a parallel universe. So, all bets are off!

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Fantasy, Sci-fi

Rating – G

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Connect with Hank Quense through Facebook & Twitter

Website http://hank-quense.com/wp/

The Three Sisters #Excerpt by Bryan Taylor #AmReading #Humor

“Why’d you become a nun?” asked Mr. Ram.

“Well, when I was a kid, my mother got me to enjoy all the music she and my father had listened to when they were kids, you know, Big Band, Glenn Miller, and she’d get me to watch all the movies she used to go see with my father when they were growing up. I really liked the movies and music from back then. They had a certain optimism, a joie de vivre, almost a naivety about life, all of which it seems like we’ve lost since then. While I was in college, there was Watergate and Viet Nam and the CIA and racial problems, and Berkeley wasn’t exactly a hotbed of contentment. If people in other countries liked our movies and music, they hated our government, and everyone around me at college was either cynical or distrustful or, or…it just all seemed so different from the movies and music my mother had shown me. It seemed to me that there had to be a better way to live life than being distrustful and cynical about everyone and everything, and besides, I thought someone had to carry the torch of American optimism, especially when everyone else was trying to put it out. And I decided that person would be me.

“I decided that what I wanted to do was to go abroad and show others that America was still a country that wanted to help people. I had thought about going into the Peace Corps, but I didn’t want to be connected with the government because if I worked for them, I was afraid that the people in the country I was going to wouldn’t trust me. So instead I became a Maryknoll nun, purposing to go down to Central America to help others and show them what America could be. My parents were Catholic, and I had met a couple of Maryknoll nuns in California. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was in the convent. My parents didn’t like the idea at first since they were Methodist, but after a while they accepted my decision.” Sister Carla had turned away from the table and was studying the floor beneath her intensely.

“What’s she doing?” asked Mrs. Ram.

“She’s trying to judge how far it is to the floor. Penguins are terribly nearsighted because their eyes are adapted to seeing underwater. So it takes them a while to judge distances. They’re quite good jumpers though. Some can jump better than they can walk.”

“So what happened in the convent?”

“Being there was quite an adjustment those first few months. Though I had taken on the idealism of the thirties, I had not taken on the Hayes Commission’s morality. I had always had boys chasing after me, but I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. You know, men are funny because it’s so easy to manipulate them. I took cues from the movies and from friends and learned to act coy and shy, or aggressive and spunky as the situation demanded. Most of them never realized how I was controlling them. They were so happy to be with me, they didn’t seem to care. What happened at the end of the date was their main concern. Not that I didn’t enjoy it either. In fact, I probably enjoyed it more than they did, but I also made sure the evening itself was just as fun.” Sister Carla jumped off the chair and started to explore the Ram’s house at her leisure.

“Anyway, the convent changed my dating habits drastically, but I adjusted quickly enough. A lot of the nuns I met there were nice, optimistic, and even idealistic, though often for different reasons from my own. Nuns are not the simplistic Debbie Reynolds types that movies make them out to be. Most of them are probably more vivacious and thoughtful than the average person. You know, they say clothes make the person, and it’s the same with nuns. Most people only see the black and white outer habits nuns wear before the world without ever thinking about what nuns wear under their habits. But to some of the more liberal nuns, their nightgowns were their pride and joy. Why, I myself had a veritable rainbow of brilliant gowns to sleep in. Under a nun’s habit lies her true nature, not in it.

“But that’s beside the point. In due time I was down in Central America, and I must admit, it turned out to be something quite different from what I had imagined. I was sent down there to work with Sister Carla, that’s whom I named our penguin after. She had already been down there for two years, and she believed in helping people’s bodies as well as their souls and went out of her way to do so. She made sure she had done everything she could for the people she was working with, and she never gave up. Whether someone woke her up in the middle of the night seeking refuge, or came to her at the church, she went out of her way to help them. It wasn’t always easy either. We were taken advantage of many times and we knew it, but we stuck by our jobs nevertheless.

“Unfortunately, Sister Carla did too good of a job,” continued Regina more solemnly. “She helped everyone regardless of whom they were and that was her fatal mistake. The government of the country we were in was rather brutal and the leftists often did their best to be as inhuman as the people they were trying to overthrow. There were rumors about some of the things that happened to people the government didn’t like. They told me about the ‘flying nun’ incidents. Government soldiers would take some nun who wouldn’t cooperate with them up in a helicopter, fly over the ocean, and then push her out the window and tell her to fly. None did. Both sides had told Sister Carla to stay in the Church where she belonged, but she and I ignored them. I guess we just figured it wouldn’t happen to us, or if it did, it was God’s will.” Regina paused.

“It was a Wednesday when it happened. I was walking home when some of the people in the village ran up to me and told me some men had taken Sister Carla away. They didn’t know who the men were or what side they were on, but she was gone. Two days later someone found her body. She had been shot twice. As soon as I heard, I went to see her body to make sure her remains were taken care of.

“I don’t know. The whole situation was just too real. Sister Carla would have wanted me to stay on, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. My heart wasn’t in it. I stayed down there a while and read the Bible every day. But everything seemed so wrong. If Paul wasn’t preaching at me, the priests were laying down rules and regulations for me. I knew how to live without some man telling me what to do. And the men in the Bible were bigger chauvinists than the men down in Central America. Just read the Bible and see how the Jews treated women back in Old Testament times. The Israelites killed all the men in battle, but raped the women they captured or made them their mistresses. Their women were just furniture. And then I realized Israel was just like Honduras or some other Center American country. Every few years there was a coup, an assassination, a war, or something like that. Nothing had changed in three thousand years.

“After Sister Carla got killed, I tried reading the Bible for solace, but everywhere I read there was nothing but death and destruction from man and from God. You read in one place where the Israelites kill 500,000 men in a few days. In another place an angel kills 185,000 men. I guess God would justify that like we justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but what I never could understand was Childermas, the Slaughter of the Innocents. God sent an angel to Joseph so he would save His Son Jesus, but He let all the other children die. Why didn’t God tell the other fathers that Herod’s men were coming to massacre their children? Why did He save His Son and not the other children? I never could understand that. Of course now I’m an agnostic, so I think it’s all a bunch of nonsense, but I never could reconcile Childermas.

Nuns just want to have fun! But when three former Catholic nuns have too much fun and get in trouble with the law, they become nuns on the run.

Driving back to Washington D.C. where they work at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Parts, the three sisters are arrested in Tennessee. After defeating the local deputy in strip poker, they escape from jail, and are pursued by the zealous Detective Schmuck Hole, who has personally offered a $10,000 reward for their capture on The 700 Club. Little do they know that when the three sisters visit the Washington Monument, their lives will change forever.

Set in 1979, The Three Sisters is a sacrilegious satire that skewers not only organized religion, but the government, the media, intellectuals, corporate greed and every other part of the establishment. Maybe not the greatest story ever told, but possibly the funniest.

Buy @ Amazon

Genre – Humor, Satire, Catholicism, Politics

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Bryan Taylor on Facebook

Website www.threesistersnovel.com

Jesse James & the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus by Alex Mueck @AlexMueck #Excerpt #Humor #TBR

The next request was one that he’d personally slipped in. He’d been working on a melody, and suddenly the lyrics had come to him.

The stranger waved down the saloon’s appreciative volume. “In the spirit of humorous songs, next comes a request I’m only vaguely familiar with. I’ll do my best.” He looked down at the paper. “It’s an anonymous dedication. It’s called, ‘Oh Susanna,’ except in this version there’s no ‘banjo on my knee.’”

“Oh, Susanna, forgive me please,

Did I mention I have sexual diseases?

You’re so pretty, and I was drunk.

I’m just a redneck scalawag punk.

Oh, which diseases you may ask?

There are many; the list is vast:

Syphilis, gonorrhea, and the clap.

If only I had my willy wrapped.”

The stranger was quick to notice a hush come over the bar. Some people still clapped along, but most squinted in puzzlement. Apparently, talk like “hanging Negroes” was perfectly acceptable discourse, but public sexual commentary was not.

He took stock of those he’d met. The sheriff retreated to the corner, and there, he poorly faked his prior comatose state. His wife was amused, and her hand did little to stifle giggles. Little Archie sat stoically. Flabbergasted, Edwards twiddled his mustache. Frank number-one-fan James was whooping it up good—all limbs in motion.

Susanna radiantly stood out amongst all. Like a cat, her green eyes appeared to casually take everything in. Her lithe body was at ease but in a blink of an eye, ready to pounce. Her blank expression tried to portray disinterest. Still, the stranger could read the emotions behind her mask. She was both scared and amused, but the small bat of an eye and nod of the head suggested she was also flattered.

Badger Bob was also an easy read. He was trying to act as if the words had no meaning to him, but the pursed lips, determined jaw, and steely gaze suggested otherwise. It was like he was afflicted with a fierce gastro anomaly but trying to be a gentleman about it.

The stranger strummed his way to the second verse.

“Oh, Susanna, forgive me please.

Did I mention I have sexual diseases?

You’re so pretty, your body so firm.

I’m the man with viral sperm.

Oh, which symptoms you may ask?

There are many; the list is vast:

Crabs, cankers, and scaly warts.

An ax should make me eunuch short.

“Probably already is.” (Laughter.)

“Oh, Susanna, forgive me please.

Did I mention I have sexual diseases?

You have nice curves, I love your shape.

I’m a loser who’s forced to rape.

Oh, how could he, thou wonder why?

I beat on girls; check your black eye.

I’m no gentleman, just a scofflaw slob,

Or better known as Badger Bob.”

At the song’s conclusion, there was a smattering of applause, unheard whispers, and a few raucous cheers from Frank James. When it died down, Badger Bob rose to his feet, took two steps toward the stranger, pointed, and barked, “Let’s take this outside.”

"“A historical fiction comedy that packs
as much heart as humor.”
—Michael Dadich, award-winning author of The Silver Sphere

When a Harvard history professor receives a thesis paper titled Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus, from Ulysses Hercules Baxter—an underwhelming student—he assumes the paper must be a prank. He has never read such maniacal balderdash in his life. But after he calls a meeting with the student, Professor Gladstone is dismayed when Baxter declares the work is his own. As he takes a very unwilling Professor Gladstone back in time via his thesis, Baxter’s grade hangs in the balance as he attempts to prove his theory.

It is 1864 as philanderer and crusader Captain Coytus embarks on a mission to avenge his father’s death and infiltrates the Confederate Bushwacker posse looking for the man responsible, Jesse Woodson James. Accompanied by the woman of his dreams, Coytus soon finds himself temporarily appointed to be the sheriff of Booneville and commissions his less-than-loyal deputy to help him carry out his plan.

But when tragedy strikes, the Captain is forced to change his immature ways and redefine his lofty mission—more or less."

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Humor, Historical Fiction

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Alex Mueck on Facebook & Twitter

Bryan Taylor & The Three Sisters Discuss Their Favorite Movies About Nuns #satire #politics

To celebrate the release of the book, The Three Sisters, I asked each of the three sisters to tell me what were their three favorite movies with nuns in them were, and then which movie they jointly chose as their favorite “nun” movie of all time.

Regina Grant: 

Since I like classic Hollywood films, I chose The Singing Nun (1966), Come to the Stable (1949), and Heaven Knows Mr. Allison (1957).  The Singing Nun is my favorite of the three.  It’s lots of fun in a mindless way, and Debbie Reynolds as engaging as ever.  You can’t help but like the movie, even if it is pure fiction. The nun it was based upon, Soeur Sourire, committed suicide 20 years after the film was made, after a life of financial difficulties. Come to the Stable was written by Clare Booth Luce who also wrote The Women.  It’s an engaging film in which some irreligious people help the sisters build a children’s hospital showing the spiritual and secular can work together. Heaven Knows Mr. Allison is set during World War II on an island in the Pacific, and is about a castaway marine who falls for a stranded nun. They work together to avoid the Japanese when they arrive on the island.  It is quite an engaging drama.

Theodora Suora: 

I prefer the more intellectually challenging films, so I chose Doubt (2008), Black Narcissus (1947) and Dead Man Walking (1995).  Doubt is my favorite of the three.  The first time you see it, you are inclined to view it from Sister Aloysius Beauvier’s point of view, but if you watch it from Father Brendan Flynn’s point of view, you’ll see his view makes just as much sense as hers, whence the doubt.  Black Narcissus is about a community of nuns who try to establish a civilized community in the Himalayas in the former bordello of a Rajah. It is wonderfully photographed and each of the characters is finely drawn. Dead Man Walking takes on the difficult subject of the death penalty and handles it with poignancy. Both Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn give wonderful performances.

Coito Gott: 

Since Theodora always tells me what a rebel I am, I didn’t want to disappoint her, and I chose Viridiana (1961), La Religieuse (1966) and Lilies of the Field (1963).  Viridiana is Bunuel’s take on what happens when an idealistic nuns meets the real world.  With some interesting twists and turns, she ends up helping the poor in ways she never would have if she had stayed in the convent. La Religieuse is based upon Diderot’s novel, perhaps a bit modernized, perhaps a bit slow, but nicely done. Anna Karina is wonderful as always.  Lilies of the Field is fun as you watch the sisters manipulate Sidney Poitier to get him to help them build a new chapel. After all, nuns are irresistible, aren’t they?

And which movie did we all choose as the best movie about nuns?  

The Trouble With Angels, of course.  There is a certain charm to this movie that make it difficult to resist despite its silliness. It’s based upon the novel, Life with Mother Superior by Jane Trahey, and has enough rebellion and antics in it to keep you entertained. We’re sure anyone who went through Catholic School could identify with the two “angels” in the film.  The sequel, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows is fun, but doesn’t work as well.  You can tell it was more of a creation of Hollywood to profit from the popularity of the first movie, but it is an interesting reflection of its time.

Of course, there are many others that didn’t make our list, but deserve an honorable mention. We decided not to include any nunsploitation films or movies that are only tangentially related to nuns.  The ones that didn’t quite make our list included Sister Act (more Whoopi Goldberg than nuns), The Bells of St. Mary’s (too saccharine), The Sound of Music (more about Nazis than nuns), Change of Habit (Elvis meets Mary Tyler Moore), The Nun’s Story (Audrey Hepburn is enjoyable, but the movie is slow), Agnes of God (good cast, too somber), Nasty Habits (Nuns meet Watergate, but lousy), The White Sister (entertaining but silent), The Devils (Ken Russell meets nuns), and of course, The Flying Nun TV Show (not a movie).

The one book which would make a really, really fabulous movie someday would be The Three Sisters, but if you can’t wait for the movie to come out, be sure and read the book.

Nuns just want to have fun! But when three former Catholic nuns have too much fun and get in trouble with the law, they become nuns on the run.

Driving back to Washington D.C. where they work at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Parts, the three sisters are arrested in Tennessee. After defeating the local deputy in strip poker, they escape from jail, and are pursued by the zealous Detective Schmuck Hole, who has personally offered a $10,000 reward for their capture on The 700 Club. Little do they know that when the three sisters visit the Washington Monument, their lives will change forever.

Set in 1979, The Three Sisters is a sacrilegious satire that skewers not only organized religion, but the government, the media, intellectuals, corporate greed and every other part of the establishment. Maybe not the greatest story ever told, but possibly the funniest.

Buy @ Amazon

Genre – Humor, Satire, Catholicism, Politics

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Bryan Taylor on Facebook

Website www.threesistersnovel.com