Charles Stross' Diary (RSS Feed)
10-05-2007, 05:05 PM
Prologue: We know where you live, we know where your dog goes to school (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/prologue.html)
Chapter 1: Grand Theft Auto (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/sue-gta.html)
En garde!
You are standing in the nave of a seventeenth century Church, its intricately carved stone surfaces dimly illuminated by candles. Your right foot is forward, knee slightly bent, and you can feel the gentle curve of the worn flagstone beneath the toes of the hand-stitched leather slipper you're wearing. Your right arm is raised, and your hand extended as if you are pointing a gun diagonally across your chest, muzzle wavering towards the roof of the west wing: with your left hand, you support your right, just as if you're holding a heavy pistol. Heavy pistol about sums it up — the longsword may be made of steel and over a metre long, but it weighs no more than a Colt Python, and it's balanced so that it feels like an extension of your fingertips.
You are facing a man who is about to try to kill you. He's wearing a black kevlar-reinforced motorcycle jacket with lead weights velcro'd to it, plus jeans, DMs, and a protective helmet with a cluster of camera lenses studding its blank-faced shell. Like you, he's holding a longsword of fifteenth century design, its steel crossguards shielding his hands: which are, in turn, raised, like a baseball striker poised ready for the ball. But you don't see the biker jacket or DMs because like your opponent you're also wearing a full facial shield with head-up display, and it's editing him into a full suit of Milanese plate, the mediaeval equivalent of a main battle tank.
"Let's try that again," you offer.
Continue reading ... (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/elaine-su.html)
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/10/chapter_2_stitched_up.html)
Chapter 1: Grand Theft Auto (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/sue-gta.html)
En garde!
You are standing in the nave of a seventeenth century Church, its intricately carved stone surfaces dimly illuminated by candles. Your right foot is forward, knee slightly bent, and you can feel the gentle curve of the worn flagstone beneath the toes of the hand-stitched leather slipper you're wearing. Your right arm is raised, and your hand extended as if you are pointing a gun diagonally across your chest, muzzle wavering towards the roof of the west wing: with your left hand, you support your right, just as if you're holding a heavy pistol. Heavy pistol about sums it up — the longsword may be made of steel and over a metre long, but it weighs no more than a Colt Python, and it's balanced so that it feels like an extension of your fingertips.
You are facing a man who is about to try to kill you. He's wearing a black kevlar-reinforced motorcycle jacket with lead weights velcro'd to it, plus jeans, DMs, and a protective helmet with a cluster of camera lenses studding its blank-faced shell. Like you, he's holding a longsword of fifteenth century design, its steel crossguards shielding his hands: which are, in turn, raised, like a baseball striker poised ready for the ball. But you don't see the biker jacket or DMs because like your opponent you're also wearing a full facial shield with head-up display, and it's editing him into a full suit of Milanese plate, the mediaeval equivalent of a main battle tank.
"Let's try that again," you offer.
Continue reading ... (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/elaine-su.html)
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/10/chapter_2_stitched_up.html)