Dig the title? It’s a palindrome – and one awesome discovery for a ten-year-old. Me.
Star Rats, though it wasn’t the first thing I wrote, was my earliest bestest. Actually, I was probably eleven, and wrote it probably the summer after Star Wars came out. It combined all the greatest plot points and characters from a morphing of that Lucas film with Star Trek, all set in a universe of (mostly) mice and cats.
Like most of my work today, it was long, rambling, and unfinished. But it was my first novel, eighty pages in and going strong. I distinctly remember typing away on the massive cast-iron typewriter I begged my parents for as a Christmas gift, and remember how looking at the white page above the roller, how it would disappear and I would be in another galaxy, on another world, with mice and rats that could talk and think and travel across space, outwitting the evil cats in hot pursuit.
I thought the story had some great characters, though they were blatantly ripped off from the big and small screens. Larvel was the Captain Kirk figure; Milo was his Spock. Helming the bridge of the rats’ ship was Bailey the weapons officer and Pica the engineer. Who was their nemesis? None other than Cat Mongus, the feline Darth Vader of this alternate universe.
The novel (or novella, whatever, I was just going with it as far as I could) began with promise. Dialogue and action leaped off my fingers and somehow I tapped the correct keys to translate what I was seeing onto the paper. But then I recall it sort of bogged down. Ran out of gas, about ten pages in. Something further was needed. I don’t remember my thoughts, but I do remember their result. Larvel and crew must crash land on a planet to avoid Cat Mongus, and hook up with the Dogs, our Jedi-like Zen masters of my universe. Along the way, they used pack animals (somehow they were the same size as the mice) and now came my first excursion into horror. Some “primordial” parasite, and I do remember being transfixed with that word in quotes, found its way into the mule’s ear and grew … and grew … and grew, eating brain tissue, growing, until … the mule had to be put down for mercy’s sake.
My brother and I shared a refurnished attic when we were young, and we had The Storage Room, which was part of the attic that was unfinished, where we kept our toys and furniture, and whatever else was not kept in our room. We may have spent just as much time in The Storage Room as in our room. I recall reading part of The Fellowship of The Ring there, just before we moved out. But the cool thing about it was the secret compartment. One of the floorboards could be pulled up, and we could stash items there, and our parents (who never went into the Storage Room, anyway) could never find them. My last recollection of Star Rats was tucking the 80-page novella down in the secret compartment for safe keeping.
Where it is now, I have no idea. Perhaps its still sitting in the attic rafters, undisturbed but yellowed after thirty long years. But the experience planted a seed, and now I have two second drafts of science fiction novels completed and fifteen short stories of varies genres (SF, horror, espionage, adventure). Plus a whole backlog of ideas.
It’s time to get something published!
Star Rats, though it wasn’t the first thing I wrote, was my earliest bestest. Actually, I was probably eleven, and wrote it probably the summer after Star Wars came out. It combined all the greatest plot points and characters from a morphing of that Lucas film with Star Trek, all set in a universe of (mostly) mice and cats.
Like most of my work today, it was long, rambling, and unfinished. But it was my first novel, eighty pages in and going strong. I distinctly remember typing away on the massive cast-iron typewriter I begged my parents for as a Christmas gift, and remember how looking at the white page above the roller, how it would disappear and I would be in another galaxy, on another world, with mice and rats that could talk and think and travel across space, outwitting the evil cats in hot pursuit.
I thought the story had some great characters, though they were blatantly ripped off from the big and small screens. Larvel was the Captain Kirk figure; Milo was his Spock. Helming the bridge of the rats’ ship was Bailey the weapons officer and Pica the engineer. Who was their nemesis? None other than Cat Mongus, the feline Darth Vader of this alternate universe.
The novel (or novella, whatever, I was just going with it as far as I could) began with promise. Dialogue and action leaped off my fingers and somehow I tapped the correct keys to translate what I was seeing onto the paper. But then I recall it sort of bogged down. Ran out of gas, about ten pages in. Something further was needed. I don’t remember my thoughts, but I do remember their result. Larvel and crew must crash land on a planet to avoid Cat Mongus, and hook up with the Dogs, our Jedi-like Zen masters of my universe. Along the way, they used pack animals (somehow they were the same size as the mice) and now came my first excursion into horror. Some “primordial” parasite, and I do remember being transfixed with that word in quotes, found its way into the mule’s ear and grew … and grew … and grew, eating brain tissue, growing, until … the mule had to be put down for mercy’s sake.
My brother and I shared a refurnished attic when we were young, and we had The Storage Room, which was part of the attic that was unfinished, where we kept our toys and furniture, and whatever else was not kept in our room. We may have spent just as much time in The Storage Room as in our room. I recall reading part of The Fellowship of The Ring there, just before we moved out. But the cool thing about it was the secret compartment. One of the floorboards could be pulled up, and we could stash items there, and our parents (who never went into the Storage Room, anyway) could never find them. My last recollection of Star Rats was tucking the 80-page novella down in the secret compartment for safe keeping.
Where it is now, I have no idea. Perhaps its still sitting in the attic rafters, undisturbed but yellowed after thirty long years. But the experience planted a seed, and now I have two second drafts of science fiction novels completed and fifteen short stories of varies genres (SF, horror, espionage, adventure). Plus a whole backlog of ideas.
It’s time to get something published!
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