Fritz Lang’s Destiny [Serial]

New Release // Fritz Lang’s Destiny

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The thing I serialised for over a year on this site has been wrestled into one giant PDF that you can now read for free.

Using Fritz Lang’s Destiny as a very loose anchor, it’s a picaresque haze crawl across Europe, myth + myth simulacrum, best of all discarded worlds, includes: Slovene Quixote, Asaji in morning light, Krsnik, Cantonese, aswang intrigue, spine demons, ferry succubus, ennui, mania, delusion, sex under a Querelle poster.

Starts with a Slovene guy [plus green knife] talking to a locked cabinet and unravels from there…

It’s pretty long, around 700 pages. Started Chapter One in 2014, left it for a long while then came back to it two years ago [2021] and turned it into something much more unwieldy.

Special mention to Soren Haxan and his brilliant King of Knives, which served as spiritual inspiration for chapters 8-13.

At one point, I did think about submitting, but no one’s taking something this long. And I’m not sure it really fits anywhere. Not experimental enough for experimentalists, and too weird/off the rails for mainstream sci-fi/fantasy presses. Never mind, I still have my death loop thing for those guys. And Dranonika for the experimentalists.

To start reading, click on the pic below [cover looks a bit like a zine, I know]:

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[Destiny] Chapter 57: Dracula, Minus The Mist

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[Author’s Note]

After just over a year and 57 chapters, this serial has finally reached an end.

Could probably go on for another 100 or so chapters – you can pretty much make drama out of anything if you put your brain to it – but this feels like the right place to stop.

Just like in Destiny [the Fritz Lang film], character decisions have been made. But no arcs cos I don’t really believe in them. Both Sila and Joanna could regress at any moment. Follow a dark mood or a charitable one. Like any of us.

Hopefully, the plot/character actions weren’t too explicit. I did model it on films like Spirit of The Beehive where a lot of things are left unsaid. Gotta pay attention to details, work a little bit as a reader. And me as a writer. Some chapters really took me to the brink, especially the alien planet parts. How do you make something feel genuinely alien? By drawing black squares, obviously.

Future-wise, I’ll go back through and edit everything and then put the whole 173,000 word novel up as a free PDF. At some point. I have a feeling the early chapters need some trimming. The manic flow of the thing has to be sorted out too, don’t want it to be too exhausting, and it should only shoot off in frenetic directions at the right times. I’m pretty sure that isn’t the case as it stands right now.

Quite a bit to do then.

In the meantime, there’s still Void Galaxia, the other serial on the site.

A mix of sci-fi and experimental. Or experimental hidden in the costume of a sci-fi serial. It’s up to Chapter 31 at the moment, which is around halfway, and the second half is by far my favourite.

And in 2023, another serial…Dah Station 7. That one could run on for hundreds of chapters as it’s my Star Trek analogue. 27 chapters already written. 5 volumes outlined.

Also, I’m not much of a self-promoter, but all of my books are on this site, with a free PDF to read if you don’t have the cash to buy the paperback.

For sci-fi, try Planet Rasputin.

For pure lunacy, try KRV.

For sleaze and castle dynamics, try Castle Damijana.

For bleak/blunt autofiction, try Charcoal.

Thanks to anyone who made it this far.

Oli

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Now for the final chapter…

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[Destiny] Chapter 56: Death Is Escalator

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This could be the end of the autobahn. At some point it had to be. But there were rat eye headlights in the distance. And no sign of curves or junctions. Not even the chance to turn.

Just a little bit further, said Sila, pocket blonde albatross perched on his shoulders.

To Ljubljana, she replied.

If we’re lucky, the doors to the cabinet factory will be unlocked.

If it’s still there.

Cabinets too.

The autobahn continued. The headlights became tiger eyes became squid eyes became Cthulhu eyes became godhead. The child demon pretended to slip, as an excuse to dig nails into Sila’s chest. He refused to say ouch. Called her a challenging daughter instead. Challenging yet ethereal. Worth it five times over.

Five times over the rim of Hell, she thought.

But didn’t say out loud.

The autobahn narrowed, coloured itself in.

Ja, this pink slime is completely normal, Sila explained, pointing Søren’s arm towards the gutters at the side of the road.

Castle must be nearby, answered Joanna.

Albeit a darker tone than expected.

Not that I want to go up there.

Are you still cold?

But I probably should. Just for old time’s sake. To see the Argento red wall.

Here, take the duvet back.

The tree where you…

No, it’s gone, hasn’t it? I forgot. Never mind, I’ll buy you a new one when we get to Brasov. Assuming they have bedding shops.

I feel cold.

Cabinet factory, stab professor, train, tomorrow morning Brasov. Bedding shop. Bedding.

Joanna pulled her arms in tight. Slipped the fingers inside her skin and hugged herself. In the gutter, the pink slime expanded, called out to her. Whispered in unorthodox Cantonese.

Prepare self for object-real.

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[Destiny] Chapter 55: Mir A Cull Child

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Argento red

stretched out wall skin

not calling out loud not coy just

giallo red

horror knife cut red

death is red and red is

in front stolid, old stone, door-like

leading me through with legs of hydrogen legs of

gliding legs

ineffable legs

ensconced in lux cavity within castle wall

lies the inevitable

just what I thought it would be

one of HIS taunting cabinets, door ajar, open as I greenly approach, stocked with human façade, the face

mine but

skin pale blue, grey, something between

feet and legs wet

cabinet floor now a swimming pool

slowly drowning in pink water

dentist fluid

on legs arms neck bone fingers

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The cabinet gorged on the dark and the dark gorged back, subsuming everything pink and with form until it got bored of all that and let the tracing begin.

Sila pursued the psycho trail, eyes half cut, picking out

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[Destiny] Chapter 54: Purple Ruin

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zakaj je skočila v luknjo?

za ljubezen?

osamljenost?

Long pauses were objectively frowned upon, but Sila stopped anyway, staring into the pale green orb he was inputting Slovene into, trying to make sense of his own questions.

Those three weeks, was she lonely?

A gradual slide into it, or an attempt to lift up out of it?

Was it a knowing slide?

Had she really wanted to fuck last night or was it simply programmatic? A solitude reflex?

She sucked me off, I licked a bit, came inside her, that didn’t happen before. That meant something. But then she put the pillow over her face when I was inside her. Made some moaning noises, not very convincing.

Talked afterwards.

What is this place, when are the others coming, what’s with the toxic plant and language inputting, it’s kind of like an Ernst-designed prison, the usual stuff.

A sharp flash of green, followed by that odd vibration on the inside of his eye sockets.

Sila refocused, typed out more Slovene.

Glanced at Joanna’s reflection in the haze of his input orb.

She wasn’t far, just a few feet away, swiping something something something in Cantonese.

He squinted, trying to read the impossible.

And even if he could make out the words, he wouldn’t know what they meant. Or what was actually a word. One character or two? Demarcated by what punctuation? A comma?

It was beyond him

Beyond Fulci too.

But not Engineer Many and his amazing translation machine.

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[Destiny] Chapter 53: Garden Dome Organism

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V naslednjem kabinetu se bo pojavil

V naslednjem kabinetu se bo pojavil

V naslednjem kabinetu se bo pojavil

V naslednjem kabinetu se bo pojavil

V naslednjem kabinetu

Not sure this is what you want for your database.

Bad night’s sleep, I guess.

Sorry.

Don’t even like cabinets.

Ignore.

Wonder what Joanna’s typing?

picture words were dense, weird, not unlike the Gundex Gudexxx nute language system, minus the strafe auxiliaries. Definite auxiliaries? Org-zil-lee-air-reez or org-zi-luh-reez? Say it fast, no anxiety. Or don’t say it at all.

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[Destiny] Chapter 52: Engineer Many

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Green text on the health guidelines

green skin on the Kontolian

green laser fire

green exhaust fumes

before the reactor blew

green mood from Captain Wong

green assistant engineer

green cum

turned pale-green

oxidised wiped up and replaced by

cartoon green particles

up to her knees and rising, a trigger going off in her brain, hand-dragging her back to this shade of reality, putting her face to face with the same purple orb that god knows how many minutes, hours, days earlier had absorbed itself into her and

it wasn’t purple sparkles engulfing her

they were green

why?

Ignorant or non-telepathic, the purple orb flexed some of it mist leftwards and spelt out a list in cloud particles. The heading text: Frequently Asked Questions [that may not be asked].

What is this place?

Who are you?

What are you?

Where’s my friend/lover/sibling/parents/actor/pet/prey?

What’s this green stuff around my legs?

Why is it rising?

Is it sentient?

How did I get here?

Where is here exactly?

Can my species and your species fuck?

Are those really two moons?

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[Destiny] Chapter 51: Varo-Scape

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Not Tai O exactly

but shacks on stilts, waterless, simulacrum desert lifted from Almodóvar Chicken outskirts, totems with flashing lilac light, beam communication system, mountain face with cut-out alcove for the local baron to dwell

no sign of baron security, thugs

air particles sparse

avoiding her mouth, nose, that’s what it felt like, moving her face, amber-stuck, then her arms, legs, fingernails, crawling over the weird rough dirt, trying to

‘… … … …’

Joanna dropped back down, gasping for atoms, head tilted towards the hazy structures nearby.

There had to be someone

a guard, lookout of some sort

farmer, farmer kids, desperate cows

wayward Almodóvar Chicken staff

Sila Søren sheriff alien outreach

‘Machine,’ she mumbled in Cantonese, rolling up her eyelids another millimetre.

Vision or vision-esque, maybe real, but

was it?

From where?

No idea, no way to answer, no choice but to observe as, in the middle of what looked from her eyes like the town square, only oval-shaped and barren, a large pale-green orb rose up out of the dirt, and sprouting out of that orb was a white totem with a blinking purple light on top and, as it got higher, a small valve slid open and fired out something small and mechanical, possibly a drone-dart.

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[Destiny] Chapter 50: Void Helenism

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Being framed in darkness, in complete darkness, could be survived psychologically, mentally for about forty eight seconds, but when it still didn’t end after that time, when you stopped bracing for the ground you assumed was imminent then you had no choice but to detach from object-end-finality and start inventing your own frames.

That is what Solaris was about

on some level.

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First frame, unprovoked

the ship cabin from Genoa to Barcelona, slow slug walk from bed to bathroom to beach with the demon biting her way back into their business to the aswang floating head to the Krsnik wretch to

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Second, third, fourth frames sketched Sila plus arguments, that fucking space show he watched all the time, the walk down the autobahn, the cabinet pics on his screen, his claim that this one was the one, her open tab of Ljubljana city centre, pleas for silence, obedience

directing him towards the tree

hiding behind a red-soaked castle wall

apologetic, enthused

desperate

blood dripping from Denzel Washington’s neck

French from all angles

Tak offering up a bag of grey vasic, even though it never came in bags

offering again, with knife

and again and again and again and

again with different weapons, different smiles, in different European settings before switching via jump-cut to Hong Kong

Yute Long, her and a tiny couch

enduring TVB

laugh-weeping at a vampire flinging a Dutch thief off a bridge in Amsterdam using only his eyes

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[Destiny] Chapter 49: Dim Green Light

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Chicken costumed as Frankenstein

Chicken costumed as a mermaid

Chicken costumed as Alain Delon

Chicken costumed as a matador

Chicken costumed as a cyborg

Chicken costumed as another chicken in a chicken mask

All chicken, all poorly drawn, all poorly inked, all nothing to do with Pedro Almodóvar, who she was starting to suspect wasn’t actually the basis of this service station-stroke-restaurant out in the middle of nowhere.

Following the thought, she pulled up a map of the area on her phone, zoomed in and spat out Red Sonja in man town breath as she saw the word Almodóvar next to her own blue dot.

Well, now it made sense.

To a degree.

Though why was the nearest chicken dressed like the glasses guy from Re-animator?

She looked down at the surviving coffee granules in her cup, mostly sludge at the bottom, murky, deformed, then heard a voice in cautious Spanish and looked back up.

One of the staff was trying to wake the old guy sleeping on the table next to the toilets.

And getting nowhere.

Another was mopping the floor near her feet.

Then there was the woman still trying to scrub the stain off the one film poster in the place. Something in Portuguese that, based on the main pic, was an old horror film. Possibly giallo. Had the colour range for it.

Joanna sipped ghost coffee and watched the woman scrub.

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