The Damned Lies Project

A series of bizarre murders have struck Victorian London, prompting panic and sensational newspaper headlines.  The police call on stage-magician and sometimes-detective Edward Moon: past his prime, near-disgraced and terminally bored.  Together with his ever-present companion The Somnambulist, a giant who only drinks milk and is unharmed by stab wounds, they return to the life of detective work.  What follows is the unmarking of a strange plot, intersected by carnival performers, freakshow prostitutes, London’s secret service, a man who lives backwards in time, and the work of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein we discuss Evil Twin theory and my personal experiences.

It was during my time at college that my evil twin died.

Not everyone knows this, but everybody has an evil twin.  There may be some naysayers, but it is true.  Somewhere on this planet, there’s an evil twin for every person on the planet.  They may be on the other side of the globe, a thousand miles away, or just across town going to that bar you never go to.  Everyone has an evil twin somewhere.  Except me, because my evil twin died. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I talk about massive dorms, laundry etiquette, and Trent is introduced.

During college I lived in a prison.

The Jester Resident Hall was designed by a prison architect.  While this might initially provoke an amused laugh from new UT students, that laugh soon gives way to an introspective moment.  If you’ve ever been in Jester on any of the dorm floors, you slowly begin to realize that this might actually be true.  You remember the long hallways with cell-sized rooms which you could look down and just imagine pulling the switch that locks all the cell doors at once… Read the rest of this entry »

In 1942, in a small seaside town in occupied France, the Nazis plotted to form an alliance with the Deep Ones, an ancient race of aquatic beings who served dark gods.  With this alliance, the Nazis would push back the Allies in a war that had turned against them.  On the night when the alliance would be finally sealed, US guns shelled the entire site from the nearby mountain range, destroying the operation.  In the wreckage were found documents and confession of a would-be Nazi traitor.  Though the man died, his guilty explanation of the occult arm of the Nazi SS made it into the US’s intelligence organization, the OSS and their Delta Green offshoot.  The Nazi backup plan would be to find the lost city of Thule, and unleash something that would put all other doomsday weapons to shame.

Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy by Dennis Detwiller is a strange mix of themes and influences.  If you ever wanted to combine Lovecraftian horrors with WWII and Nazi occultism, you’ll find it here.  At the same time, it focuses particularly on the politics of US and British intelligence agencies that deal with the supernatural, bringing up similarities to novels like The Atrocity Archive or Declare. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I talk about Austin, UT, and registering for classes.

The Austin, Texas I lived in for college is not what you would think of today if someone were to mention Austin.

For those that know Austin, this was back before the recession, before the second tech boom, before the dot com bust, before the first tech boom, and before the zombie outbreak.  Captain Quackenbush’s café was still on the drag, Toy Joy was in a smaller location, Half Price books was still on bus routes, and Linklater’s Slacker was still somewhat relevant to the city.  UT’s football stadium was three renovations smaller, the science departments had far more accidental fires, and parking was even worse than now.  183 was not elevated and simple called “Anderson”, 290 wasn’t such a parking lot during rush hour, but there were still no good east west streets. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I talk about Becky and reminisce about college orientation.

It was when I had been in the hospital a month that Becky finally visited me.  She claimed that she had visited me right after the car accident, but I was concussed, so all I kept mumbling was something about Cocoa Puffs.  Once it stopped being hilarious she had left and just been busy.

I’ll admit that when she showed up, I flinched, expecting a punch.  Who would punch someone in hospital and in traction?  Becky, that’s who.  Throwing a punch is like some sort of social exchange for her.  If she were male, I would expect her to chest bump everyone as a greeting.  Since she is female and well-endowed, I can understand why she would find that awkward and how men would soon find that such awkwardness would lead to more punching.

She wasn’t always quite so violent, I recalled as she scrawled dirty words on my leg cast both where I couldn’t read them and couldn’t reach to scratch them out.  When I met her she was still a don’t-take-no-shit person, but she reserved her violence for those who truly deserved it.  It was until post zombie outbreak that she became more violent; but since she and I were at ground zero, so I understand that changes a person.

***

I first met Becky during orientation for college. Read the rest of this entry »

Astute readers may notice that the this website has not been updated in a month, and it has had new lies in even less time.

There are a few possible reasons for this:

1> I was kidnapped by beautiful space aliens who put me to work in their pleasure domes, providing relief for their amazonian warriors who then conquered the galaxy.  Through the help of one beautiful warrior who was willing to betray her race, I escaped and am now an intergalactic freebooter and pirate, using both blaster and technology-enhanced sword.  Also me and the girl who helped me have sex a lot.

2> Dark cultists finally succeeded in subduing me, which resulted in them removing my brain from my body.  That brain is now kept in a capsule for future travel to some alternate world where their diabolical masters sit, keening mad melodies on thrones made from the souls of countless lost souls.  I have not yet developed the ability to use telekinetic powers to login to my computer and update the site.

3> While exploring the basement of my parents old house, I found a piece of furniture that hurtled me across worlds into one mired in medieval technology where magic is real and cute woodland creatures talk.  I was given the choice to become their Hero, a savior who saved them from their dark foe or a conqueror who razed most of the forest to bring all under my thumb, establishing myself as King and tyrant.

Regardless of the reason, I hope to get back to semi-regular updates soon.  I plan to start Season 2 of the Lies, focusing on my college years in Austin, TX and Austin’s initial zombie outbreak.

I’m also toying with the site format, so you may see the site differently depending on when you show up.

Sincerely,

King Damned Lies, Oppressor of the Rabbits of Barrow Forest, Lord of Fire Wolves, Destroyer of the Bastion of Light, Slayer of Unicorns, Wielder of the Demonic Blade

Hiromi Goto’s novel Half World is a hard one for me to review.  I love the concept and the themes used in its world, but unfortunately I just could not get into the story itself.

The background of her story are three metaphysical realms: the Realm of the Flesh, where beings live their normal lives, Half World, the after-death realms where they relieve their greatest trauma to work out their issues, and the Spirit Realm where they end up after their traumas are understood and learned from.  Eventually the spirits return to the Realm of Flesh and it starts over.  But a great division happened and all the worlds became separate from each other.  Beings in the Realm of Flesh reincarnated there with their issues not resolved.  Spirits stayed in the Spirit World, distant and aloof.  And those in Half World stayed there, never dying, never moving on, just endlessly reliving their traumas.  For centuries this division has existed and only a prophecy of a child born in Half World to break the cycle. Read the rest of this entry »

Will Barbee is a reporter dispatched to cover the return of one of his former college professor’s return from the east where they were on an archaeological expedition for two years.  There he meets the alluring April Bell, a new rival reporter who both draws him to her and scares him.  Fresh off the plane, the professor begins a speech about how the box they retrieved carries the most important discovery to mankind.  He begins to talk about a darkness that has plagued mankind for millennia.  He tells of the emergence of an antichrist-like figure known as “The Child of Night” and how his discoveries of what’s in the box are vital to mankind’s survival.

Halfway through the speech, the professor dies suddenly.  While most think it a heart attack, Barbee discovers that April strangled a kitten ritualistically during the speech and somehow knows that this is related to the professor’s death.  Despite that, he asks her out to dinner and starts a strange journey into darkness.  During the day he worries about his friends, the other members of the expedition who are dying one by one.  At night, he has strange dreams where he is brought into a world of dark witchcraft and lycanthropy, where his actions are related to the bad things happening.  Are they just dreams?  What is in the box?  Who is the Child of Night? Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »