WARPAINT Snippet: Cady goes home again

Here’s the short set-up. Cady has picked up a crew of talented misfits to help her stop the genocide of humanity in progress by a deadly group of outsiders—and she’s started her fight to save humankind on her homeworld of Cantata, and in her home city of Meileone.

Cady is currently in the company of the enemy, and once again in disguise.

NOTICE: This material is copyrighted, unchecked raw first draft, probably buggy. Please don’t post typos or corrections (I do my edits at the end of the first draft of the project and will not see your comments when I revise). This material may not survive to publication. Do not quote or repost anywhere or in any format. Thanks.

So my guide, who introduced himself a Yorg, and who looked like he couldn’t believe his luck, led me toward the main gravdrops, giving me a well-practiced spiel on how to drop the first time without bumping into other people, how to maneuver through traffic, how to change lanes. He would, he told me, hold my hand.

I let him, and we dropped in the lane for the timid, new, and lost, while all around me citizens zipped through the drops like fish in fast water, dancing through the beautiful maneuvers I yearned to embrace again. Once you know how to use them, the gravdrops are like flying from the top of the world to the bottom and back. I missed them, the way I missed skies made of stone and strellitas, the way I missed the comfort of enclosed space, the way I missed a city that strove always to embed the newest technology within itself, that embraced progress, that forever pushed through the barriers of what humans were and did to what they could become and might do. Meileone was in my blood, and when I dared sneak back at all, it sang the lullabies of my childhood to me, and made me ache to stay.

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12 responses to “WARPAINT Snippet: Cady goes home again”

  1. Dot Day Avatar
    Dot Day

    Beautiful–loved your catalogue of images!

  2. WandersNowhere Avatar
    WandersNowhere

    Wonderful, that last sentence especially brings the elusive feeling of home and all its warmth and nostalgia to a place that would be overwhelming and alien to the readers were they themselves there, all via the lens of character. Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is how you write sci-fi/fantasy fiction.

    1. Holly Avatar
      Holly

      😀 Thanks.

  3. sallie Avatar

    Damn … makes me want to stay there too.

  4. Rowena May O'Sullivan Avatar

    Gosh – I love the sound of this. Can’t wait to read the full.

  5. Orson Avatar
    Orson

    Young boys are going to love it! have you considered graphic novels?

  6. T.R. Larson Avatar
    T.R. Larson

    I have been enjoying the snippets and can’t wait to read the novel.

    Question: The artwork that is appearing with the snippets. Is it yours? or… Did you draw it?

  7. Joan Avatar
    Joan

    makes me want to live in the future and enjoy those feelings…

  8. Marti Verlander Avatar

    Beautiful writing, Holly! Love it!

  9. JoeTeeVee Avatar

    Awesome Holly.
    Love what it says about technology too.
    i.e. Hear-hear! 🙂

    Thanks for posting.
    Exciting to see this work in progress.

  10. Mary Avatar
    Mary

    Ooooh! This is gonna be good.

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