Tobey dashes down the rest of the stairs and jumps onto the Salinas desk with the bookcase of special books that mother keeps as a reminder of father. Through the arched entranceway to the living room, he sees mother reclining with a knitting needle and yarn. She seems very complacent. He yells at her in human but her brass ear horn is inconveniently lying on top of a night table. One of the doorknobs of the front door creaks open. There’s no time to physically warn her. He hisses at the door.
The door opens and the man walks with determined and heavy steps directly towards the books. Tobey waits atop the Silas desk because it’s directly across from the front doors. He notices an hourglass attached to the belt on the man’s top hat. The grains in the upper section are almost all gone. The man’s clamp hand reaches towards one of the books. Tobey swats it away.
Again, the man raises the clamp hand, and again, Tobey swats at it. The steam coming out of a pipe in the man’s top hat is wispier now. The clamp hand shakes as it tries to raise as the last grains of sand settle on the bottom of the hour glass. The mechanical arm of the clamp hand drops to the man’s side.
Tobey swats the man’s face as a reminder of his supremacy.
As he scans the steeple roofed houses across the street, a long vehicle with a steam tank engine, dark windows, and copper green roof, pulls onto the curb in front of his house. He peers closer as a man steps out the rear left door. His shoulder muscles bunch up as the vehicle takes off.
The man’s black top hat has a spout that spews out steam. As the man gets closer, Tobey leaps towards the stairs. He dashes down to the landing so he can see through the lower windows of the front door. The man has a gasmask on a brass face with bolts. The top hat has a large clock, and the belt an hour glass that slowly trickles. The collar of a brown overcoat hides most of the man’s face. A little lower, a necklace made of thin coils holds a pressure gauge against the man’s white shirt. The man keeps his hands in his pocket until he steps up to the door.
Tobey peers closer. The man removes one of his hands from a deep pocket. Tobey recoils. The hand is a brass clamp with a metal swivel wrist.
Tobey, or as most humans prefer to call him, Mr. T.L.C., stares out the half radio window in the attic of his townhouse. The monocular goggle over his left eye allows him to see clearly the townhouses across Nigel Street. Like his own home, in the front of the other townhouses have about ten leaps of lawn and sidewalks. However, his backyard is significantly longer. Enough space for a workshop to build a model blimp. That brings a moment of sadness.
When he thinks of Siku, his adopted human father, he feels a slight ache. Moreso, he misses Ulysses, the father of Avonlea. Ulysses and his slobbering joyful demeanor. Tobey was just a kitten when Ulysses also adopted her. His huge Newfoundland head and long thick nose; always sniffing for food. That both Ulysses and Siku may be lost or worse, dead, bothers him endlessly.
With the monocular goggle, his human brother Toklo made him for his nearsighted left eye, Tobey can see interesting things. He often gazes into the vertical slab of ice in the basement. Strange ice. He licked it once. The surface is wet but no moisture ever stays on his tongue.
Occasionally, he would see movement within the ice. Toklo believes that their father found a portal near the slab. However, Toklo couldn’t explore any longer because of the harsh weather. Now Toklo, and Avonlea are on an airship to rediscover the place. Tobey isn’t keen on this adventure. That’s where Tolko found the books, and the note left by their father.
There’s nothing as delicious as a familiar pain. Or a scathing pleasure.
It’s easy to say we want to change, to ‘be better’, to ‘make it’… Meanwhile bad habit, aka old friend, scratches at the entrance to your aspirations like your favourite pet wanting to be let in, hungry. Like the temptation of a bunch of minions disguised in finery and luxurious perfume, just for you. A delicacy for your consumption.
Play that sin until your heart gives in during the early hours of the morning. Too much butter? the waiter will ask casually, as you lay splayed against the leopard-skin rug in The Hall of Hesitation, clutching at the crude agony in your chest. No, you are not dying. Not today.
They will peer at you with their hands on their knees as they tell you to get up and greet the sun. It’s time to try again. It’s…
An Interview with Laura Suen, CEO of Fire and Steel
By Dan Watt
Laura Suen of FireandSteel.ca and FireandSteel.com
I met Laura Suen, CEO of Fire and Steel, at the 2018 Kitchener Comic Con. She was extremely busy but gracious enough to let me take a few pictures. I’ve wanted to interview her ever since…
Where did the creative idea to start Fire and Steel come from?
Well firstly, I always loved geeky things! My family didn’t have that much money growing up, so I remember taking so long to save up to go to Fan Expo – a comic convention — as soon as I could afford it.
My older sister is a huge geek and I really looked up to her as a kid. We would spend so much time gaming, reading fantasy novels, and watching sci fi TV shows. I of course was the generation that was raised on Saturday morning cartoons too, which included a lot of Japanese anime. Personally I also loved martial arts and do kung fu on the side, so Fire and Steel was just the perfect way to combine my love of martial arts with geeky things.
For legal reasons I can only use weapons designed or created by Fire and Steel on covers, such as the one for the weekly blogged story A Motley Sisterhood Of Pirates! However, Fire and Steel has a large assortment of weapons from a variety of styles and sources. Could you tell us about Fire and Steel’s own weapons?
So I use to work as a physicist and from that, I learned how to 3D model. It’s funny how programs that would be used to design laser ion traps can be used to design swords too. Not everything we carry is modelled by myself of course, but there are a few things that we’ve designed in house! I feel so honoured you’ve featured several of them on your book covers.
Dragon Claw katana, exclusive FireandSteel.ca
Medieval Rapier, exclusive FireandSteel.ca
Beginners Ninjato and throwing knives
exclusive FireandSteel.ca weapon
Fire and Steel has all sorts of weapons including ones we see in cosplay, magna, comics, TV shows, movies, and traditional. Could you talk about the Japanese katana?
We sell Japanese katanas of all types and quality levels, so we hope you will be able to find something that suits your needs! We sell wooden training swords called bokken and bamboo practice swords called shinai. These are traditionally used to train with and you’ll see those items showing up in anime all the time. From there, we have carbon steel katanas, which can take some light impact but are more made for display purposes because it is a softer blade. Beyond that, we also carry high carbon steel katanas, which are typically sharp (battle ready) in several different grades. The higher the number, the harder the blade. These blades can typically take a lot of impact and are what you see in a lot of our “Will It Cut” YouTube videos.
I was watching some of the video clips on Instagram and Facebook and saw something very intriguing.
You have the exact same weapons in different grades from metal to foam. This would be perfect for making a movie or TV show. Have any of your weapons been used in movies or TV shows?
Yes! Actually I’m so honoured to say you can see some of our stuff in the background of shows like American Vandals, In the Dark, The 100 and Power Rangers just to name a few.
Your foam weapons look like they’re made of metal. Great for cosplay, LARP, or if a young person wants one of the weapons. Could you tell us more about the foam weapons and their uses?
Foam weapons are great as safer alternatives for people who want to train with swords but don’t want to hurt themselves. In addition, they’re great for cosplay since many conventions and festivals, for safety reasons, do not allow steel swords to be carried around as a part of a costume, even if they’re blunted. For this reason, many people see foam as a great alternative and it saves people a lot of time since you don’t have to make your own sword anymore for your outfit!
Fire and Steel can also design specific weapons for customers. How would a customer go about ordering one of these weapons?
We do take custom requests normally, but COVID has thrown a bit of wrench in schedules and timelines. Please feel free to send us an email at support@fireandsteel.ca for a quote if you want something made – but who knows? We might already have it made and you don’t even realize it!
Fire and Steel is on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Are there are any other links you want to mention?
Our social media handle is @RealFireNSteel for TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. We also are active on TikTok as @RealFireandSteel too! Find us there. Also of course, check out our website for updates:
Book Review of King Of Battle And Blood by Scarlett St. Clair
By Dan Watt
Scarlett St. Clair’s “King Of Battle And Blood”
My brother Andrew gave me The Witcher: The Last Wish by Andrzei Sapkowski book because he wanted to discuss it. He also gave me King Of Battle And Blood: Adrain & Isolde by Scarlett St. Clair. When I first saw the cover of King Of Battle And Blood, romance novel came to mind. I wondered why my brother would give me a romance novel. Years ago, I was looking for something different to read so one of my clients recommended Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. As I was looking through a Chapters Indigo store a girl I knew from the gym I was working at, asked me what I was looking for. I told her An Interview with a Vampire. She gave me a quizzical stare and asked, “In the romance section?” I realized than that the Horror and Romance section flowed into one another.
King Of Battle And Blood is a Romance novel, it’s also a Horror novel. St. Clair writes in first person and we see and learn through the main character Isolde a medieval world where vampires and other “monsters” exist.
While I was reading King Of Battle And Blood. I kept envisioning Renée Elise Goldsberry, who plays Quellcrist Falconer in the series, as Isolde. But there is a significant age difference. Isolde is a young woman, while Renée Elise Goldsberry is ageless. Who would play the mysterious Adrian? Back to The Witcher, perhaps Henry Cavill could pull it off. Eric Bana, Chris Hemsworth might also work. But we’ll leave Adrian as a mystery.
What I really enjoyed about the book is the honesty. Isolde acts upon her emotions, which reminds me of the main character in Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death, Onyesonwu. Both are strong and determined characters who express what they think. Isolde is a princess and a warrior, and behaves as such.
St. Clair fills the story with exotic scenery and erotic description. She tells the reader the truth, how Isolde really feels. She has written a gripping Romance Horror story that will intrigue and scare you one moment while arousing you the next.
Another great book review by Brooke Nelson. I have read Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. Although there is definitely a necessary leap of faith for the reader in this book.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m pretty sure the first time I read this book, I didn’t read the entire thing. It’s an odd thought, because now, I would absolutely never DNF this, but I guess that just speaks to how tastes change over the years.
As of today,Angels and Demonsis easily one of my favorite books. The constant action and simplistic writing style blend together perfectly into a fascinating story of non-stop questions and clues.
The characters felt real, and I connected with many of them, whether that be through their personality, their work, or some other trait. The story was written in such a way that I never wanted to stop reading. (I think I read it faster than I’ve read a book in a long time.)
The writing style is straightforward. Extra fluff is never used to add to the word count…
Caedar Writing & Artwork 