It's finished--for true, this time

My simple short stories are never as simple and straightforward they pretend to be when they insinuate themselves in my mind. Prince Koindrindra Escapes evolved from a make-it-all-up lark to a research-intensive labor pretty quickly. And the short, punchy sections grew to be significantly larger than could readily be considered "short." All in all, the whole thing blew past my original length target by more than a thousand words. That's my story as a writer--I never met a short-short I couldn't turn into a novella.

It was the gravest of sins to defy the king. Koindrindra was many things, but he was not depraved.

Koindrindra’s younger brothers Rakotondrandria and Siferanarivo--the twins had not yet grown into their proper names--argued that these Europeans held great power in their guns and their ships and their numbers. That they were more worthy than the loyal and brave Malagasy.

Koindrindra’s brothers were fools.

General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck swept through Portugese East Africa with an army of only 30,000, routing the French and Portugese before him. The Germans were celebrated by the natives as a liberators, and 50,000 Portugese, French and South African troops fled the mainland to Madagassikara.

The good news is that the first draft is complete, and I have a viable story to subject to humiliation at Turkey City on Saturday. I'm curious to see how Bruce Sterling would rewrite this into something completely different. I even managed to so some light rewriting here and there, planing down some of the extremely rough edges. A consistent tone is still the most elusive aspect of this story. I'm going to have to make some serious decisions over the next day or so, but no matter what I do, it's still going to be an extremely silly alternate history piece.

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