PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
The horizon was lined with mountains. Blue sky, white fluffy clouds.
The giant hand that reached above the mountain and came down with a thud sent their car swerving across the highway, the ground trembling, ripping apart, screams couldn’t be heard above the thunderous cry that accompanied the hand and yet they filled the air.
“What… the…” Daddy said from the front seat.
I pointed. “It’s like my dream, daddy, Remember, when the giants attacked the world?”
Mommy’s eyes were wide. “Honey, what else have you dreamed?”
“Talk later,” Daddy said opening the car door. “We have to go. Now.”
This is a Friday Fictioneers Prompt
You can read more FF prompt responses here
Word count: 100
© Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. All Rights to the works and publications on this blog are owned and copyrighted by Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. The Owner of this site reserves all permissions for access and use of all documents on this site. NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
PHOTO PROMPT © C. E. Ayr
It was an ordinary day.
As ordinary days go.
Sunshine, a slight breeze, light, laughter, families picnicking, children playing in the local park.
Ordinary.
Until a darkening cloud appeared.
A beam of light shone down, spearing into the earth driving a wedge deep into the mantle. Amid the panic and the screams a voice boomed across the world. We are your god. Welcome us and rejoice in your coming ascension.
No one envisioned a god with tentacles and a single bulbous black eye.
No one had envisioned slavery or death.
A new ordinary became the norm.
Subservience, silence and death.
This is a Friday Fictioneers Prompt
You can read more FF prompt responses here
Word Count: 100
© Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. All Rights to the works and publications on this blog are owned and copyrighted by Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. The Owner of this site reserves all permissions for access and use of all documents on this site. NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
About the Book
A gritty, fresh Australian story with a Romeo and Juliet themed love story at its centre, from the inaugural Indigenous Writers Mentorship recipient.
Talia is sixteen, pregnant and angry. Her family is broken. She’s looking after her unwell mother. Her dad’s gone. At school she is shunned. And Johnny-the one person she thought she could count on-just walked away.
Johnny is Barkindji, smart and confused. He’s struggling with the weight of his parents’ expectations- he wants to please them, but is the future they’ve planned for him the one he really wants? He makes a decision he knows he’ll regret- leaving Talia behind.
But some love-no matter how impossible-never lets go.
Forever & Ever is a gritty, heart-wrenching love story set in a Murray-Darling river town simmering with deep-seated prejudice and long-buried secrets.
My Thoughts
This one is a heartbreaking read and beautifully penned by debut author Allanah Hunt.
Two time lines, two points of view, two lives changed in an instant.
The YA plot, set in a little Murray-Darling river town in SA, is cleverly woven between the two main characters Talia and Johnny telling the story of the same moment that changes everything for them and what comes both before and after.
These two characters have tough, gritty, human lives. Their families are not perfect. The world is not perfect. It is messy and ugly and full of truth and hate and love and heartbreak. It’s a tough look into the breaking mental health of young people going through the loss of their dreams and the weight of family expectations. It also tells the tale of learning how to deal with the very adult issues of pregnancy, loss of dreams, racism, absentee family, and mental health issues in parents who end up needing to be the one looked after by the child in the parent/child relationship. There is so much good here too. Unexpected friends who stick by you, unknown family secrets coming to light that explain much of the past, and an honestly amazing grandma whose cameo is delightful.
An in-your-face truth story highlighting the everyday racism that many try not to see, the fears connected with youth pregnancy, what it is that holds a family together or rips it apart. It is also a comment on the ugliness of everyday people and what a heavy weight parental expectations can be on their children.
Describing the book as Romeo and Juliet themed is spot on. Prepare to be destroyed by this one. I cried.
PHOTO PROMPT © James Pyles
Stomping along the alley, with hands in pockets, despite it being midday and no one around, she felt eyes on her back, watching her. She didn’t stop. Didn’t look around. She passed graffiti lined brick walls, feeling hemmed in. Just get to the end. Out in the open.
Something grabbed her hoodie, tugging her back. She spun, hands up, ready to fight her way out. There was nothing holding her. Nothing there. Colour against the black had her checking her sleeve. Chalk dust? The wall beside her rippled.
Skin crawling, she turned and ran.
… No one exited the alley.
This is a Friday Fictioneers prompt
You can read more FF prompt responses here
Word count: 100
© Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. All Rights to the works and publications on this blog are owned and copyrighted by Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. The Owner of this site reserves all permissions for access and use of all documents on this site. NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
About the Book:
Callum, Melusine and Al play in a band with no name, baffling audiences in terrible pubs across the northeast of England with their ‘sound’. Their songs tell the stories of the Solkats: fictional northern gods of small things, of mishap and mayhem. Absolutely no one knows what they’re on about. But they believe in their music, and in each other. And they’re happy.
That is, until an act of violence at a pub gig goes viral, they catch the eye of a disillusioned influencer and suddenly go from having a cult following to having a cult, following.
All the Solkats want, Callum insists, is to have effect on the world. But as fans from LA to Australia flock to Northumberland, and each gig becomes larger and more lawless than the last, this effect starts to feel scarily… real. Which poses the question: if the Solkats really do exist, which is it more dangerous to anger: a wayward group of elder gods, or your biggest fans?
Because gods and cults both demand sacrifices. And one way or another they’re going to get one…
My Thoughts:
Phew, what a ride. This debut book is gloriously lyrical in its descriptive prose and its soaring dialogue. Many times I simply stopped reading and thought, wow… what a fabulous line, who writes like this? It’s a book about a band. It’s also a dark creepy story about obsession and fandom and somehow the author has managed to give this book an underlying atonal sound that makes reading each page feel just that little bit off centre. You understand immediately as a reader that this is a book that will take you on an uncomfortable journey. The indie band just want to make the music that’s in their heads – come alive. Their music – their way. Each member of the band is a fascinating deep dive into the psyche of a creative, asking what makes them tick. What makes them see the world as they do and can anyone ever really understand.
And then there is the treatise on obsessive fandom, the perils of social media “reality,” of music that takes control of your soul, of needing to create at the expense of your own sanity, and the grubby monetisation of it all. There will always be someone to sell the skeleton or pick over the bones of what we love most. The Solkats are the most down-to-earth creatures in this dark twisty tale… which is a scary thing to think about. A fascinating read that I very much enjoyed, and weirdly can’t stop thinking about… A testament to its author.
PHOTO PROMPT © Lily
Sitting side by side.
This is the life.
I love visiting this planet.
No cities. No cars. No ships. No roads. No people. No war. No fighting. No death.
Just peace.
My mother and I bring out our chairs and just sit.
And watch.
It’s a world away from galactic war. From her being the General. Of me being a soldier. Of endless fighting for no gain other than to say they have not taken us yet. We’ll go back. We will continue to fight. To Survive. But when we need a moment to breathe, we come here.
And watch.
This is a Friday Fictioneers prompt
You can read more FF prompt responses here
Word count: 100
© Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. All Rights to the works and publications on this blog are owned and copyrighted by Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. The Owner of this site reserves all permissions for access and use of all documents on this site. NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
PHOTO PROMPT © Lori Wilson
This new way of traveling was wild.
BubbleBalloonTravelTM
At first, we laughed… no way would it take off. We underestimated the ease of use. Floating above deadlocked traffic in individual bubbles — no need to share your space with a driver. They even managed to find a way to pipe music through the liquid. Plus, the soft bobbing had a rather soporific effect. The only issue? Travel is slower than you might like. You can’t rush. It forces us to slow down. To enjoy the moment. To drift.
And its specs were released for free. No monetarisation.
This is the life.
This is a Friday Fictioneers Prompt
You can read more FF prompt responses here
Word count: 100
© Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. All Rights to the works and publications on this blog are owned and copyrighted by Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. The Owner of this site reserves all permissions for access and use of all documents on this site. NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
About the Book:
Eight hours to stop an explosion …
Eight hours to fall in love.
It’s 2067, and the Graves family has transformed Mars from a lifeless rock into a chaotic patchwork of settlements. You can buy a one-way ticket to a new life – if you’re rich.
Enter Hunter Graves: handsome, ambitious, and with spectacularly bad timing. He shows up unannounced at the United Nations base just as an emergency evacuation sends everyone scurrying for safety. And he’s left behind. Uh-oh.
Also stranded: Cleo, a sharp-tongued stowaway with no intention of dying today, and even less patience for overconfident trust fund boys. But the enemy of your enemy is the jerk who might just help you survive, so here we are.
Now, Hunter and Cleo have one shot to stop the explosion, escape alive, and deal with the inconvenient fact that they’re falling for each other.
The clock is ticking.
My thoughts:
This was a ride! What a fun adventure. I smashed through this one in a couple of days. Amie Kaufman once again hits it out of the park with this new sci fi. A battle of wits between mercenaries and young adults would already be an adrenaline fused adventure, but set it on the planet Mars and there are a lot more stakes that come into play. Like breathing for one. The use of the count down is a clever concept by the author that keeps the reader racing toward the end to see if everyone survives. Full of banter and snark this is a great read.
Both of our heroes in this story are intelligent survivors. And coming from opposite backgrounds gives them plenty to butt heads over. Cleo is a stowaway just trying to survive. Hunter is the rich boy looking for his family. Together they are stranded on a Mars settlement that is suddenly evacuated and they have to figure out how to stay alive. They are forced to work together to hide from the sudden appearance of a group mercenaries intent on controlling the empty settlement. But that’s not all the mercenaries have planned. This is a romance and a scifi and an action packed thriller all rolled into one. As always Amie Kaufman creates memorable characters and her world building is top tier. I recommend it for a great escape from the everyday humdrum of life.
PHOTO PROMPT © Fleur Lind
“Are you going to go through?”
I spin around and examine the hooded woman behind me. Shadows conceal most of her face but I can see her piercing gaze, wrinkled skin, a bulbous nose and graying scraggly hair. “I’m sorry?”
She presses in closer forcing me to back up. “The doorway. Are you going to step through?”
Her breath smells of onions.
“I was waiting for someone.”
“They’ll follow. You can’t miss your chance. Go through, now.” She grabs my arm.
The hand she cannot see falls to my cloak. I touch the hilt of the poisoned dagger. “After you.”
This is a Friday Fictioneers Prompt
You can read more FF prompt responses here
Word count: 100
© Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. All Rights to the works and publications on this blog are owned and copyrighted by Solothefirst & Laurie Bell. The Owner of this site reserves all permissions for access and use of all documents on this site. NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
Rambles, writing and amusing musings 
