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Pat Luther

Pat Luther

@plutherus.bsky.social

130 followers 66 following 460 posts

Novelist and Playwright. https://pluther.us/ https://www.twitch.tv/plutherus https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Pat+Luther

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Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 3h

#WIPSnips 10/23
This was a fun one to find something for. Here we have a fight within a gradient of various forces going in different directions.

As it flew toward the hole in the window, she wished she could see what had been going on on the other side of the table. It would have made great footage to add to the video whenever she got a chance to sell it. Of the four Enforcers who had entered, she could see one outside the window, rapidly receding. Another one had managed to land on his feet and was balancing against the spin gravity and the rushing air to aim his rifle at her. She fired off a shot with her own and was gratified to see one of the snakes catch his rifle and begin wrapping around his arm.
The other two had landed against the window, one of them knocked prone by the flying table. Another table had lodged in the small hole and was blocking anything larger from getting through. Void. She had hoped to sweep most if not all of them out of the room. One was still kneeling on the window, braced against the wind and trying to aim his rifle at her. She sent the signal to the cord attached to the table she'd sent after them. When it blew, the whole window went out, spewing a long plume of debris including all three Enforcers out into space.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 3h

#WIPSnips 10/22
Sometimes the concept of what is justice in the Belt gets stretched a bit...

"And you…what, locked them in and stole their ship?"
"That's the short version, though I didn't steal it. It was lawfully given to me as the penalty for their attempt on my life. It was the alternative to formal charges, which would have sent them, most likely, to spending the rest of their lives as indentured servants on Mercury."
"That ship is their life."
"No, their lives are their lives. You know, the thing they wanted to take from me. Without the ship, they'll have to get real jobs like the rest of us."
Del could tell he didn't like it. Inside, he was seething. But he knew she was right.
"If they tried to kill you, how come you let them live?"
It was the same question Nurayda had asked.
"Because, unlike your girlfriend, I'm not a murderer," Del answered this time.
"Nurayda's not…" he started then trailed off. Del guessed he was right, but he himself wasn't so sure. They'd have a lot to talk about if they ever saw each other again.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 4h

#WIPSnips 10/21
Nothing dangerous about being armed with missiles while flying around the asteroid belt and occasionally hallucinating, right?

"Kenny knew," Bilan said.
"He's a special case. He doesn't care what's wrong with me as long as I make him money." She hadn’t really meant tell him everything to include Kenny, but she supposed it was too late to clarify that now.
"These compulsions. Sometimes they're dangerous, right? Like when they told you to launch a missile at the Rimedo offices?" Jie asked.
"Yes." His tone was accusatory, and she didn't like it. "And I didn't."
"Then where did the second missile go? I checked the records. You purchased two. You fired one at the fleeing scoot. But both ports on your bike are empty, so where did the other one go?"
"Jie…" Bilan started, with a warning in her tone. They must have talked about this while she was out.
"No accusations," he said. "I just want to understand."
Del had used the same line on suspects she was interrogating. She stayed quiet, gathering her thoughts. Bilan, she had decided she could trust. She was more friend than cop. Jie, though…she wasn’t sure how far she could trust him not to play the Enforcer.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 5h

#WIPSnips 10/20

Still floating in the middle of the room, she drew herself into a sitting position, arms and legs crossed. She had no idea how to proceed and drew upon the lessons of her youth once again. She took three deep breaths to calm her mind and reached "up," visualizing a field of glowing energy all around her. She took hold of it and pulled a luminescent strand "down" to, and through, herself.
Intoning the names of the six deities as she'd learned, she visualized the pentagram formed of lines of energy around her, as she traced it into existence in the air. For the last intonation she extended it in a great column before and behind her.
She hadn't done the full ritual for years, but wanted to be fully focused, eclipsing all other distractions. She sent her mind out. She didn't know where or how it would work. None of it made sense. It didn't have to.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 5h

#WIPSnips 10/19
A rare instance in which Del almost does her job properly.

There was so much to unpack in that sentence. It was revenge, then? Revenge against her specifically? But how did they know she would even be in this area of space? And once they found out, they’d lured her here. Because of Ashur. That begged the next question, and she asked it: “Who in the void is Ashur?”
“You don’t even remember his name?” She cried out.

Void, did she sleep with this woman’s husband or something? The woman looked like she was going to attack Del again. That was enough of that.
“All right. Turn around,” she said.
“What?” Her eyes grew wide. She had asked if her friends were dead. She probably thought Del was going to kill her. Afraid was good, but too much would be counter-productive. Hoping she hadn’t read her wrong, Del lowered her arm, no longer pointing the weapon at her and reached into a pouch at her side and pulled out a restraint cord.
“You’re under arrest,” she said, letting the woman see it. “If you cooperate, you will be taken back to Ceres to stand trial.”
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“If I wanted to do that, I’d’ve just punched a hole in your ship and let you drift off into space.”
The woman shuddered. Either she was new to all this, or she was a good actor. Considering how easily Del got here, she decided the former was the more likely possibility.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Give me your hand.”

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 5h

#WIPSnips 10/18
One of many fights Del gets into. Rock-hopper vs. Mining platform.

With nothing to scatter the light, the laser itself was invisible. It could only be seen if it hit something. She didn’t intend to be the something it hit. The platform ship was slow to maneuver. They were built to be highly precise and stable, not fast.
She closed on it in an erratic spiral, switching vectors every two to three seconds to keep it from locking on. She’d done the maneuver a hundred times in simulation. Whoever was operating this thing, though, wasn’t following the same procedures the programmers of those simulations had.
The platform tilted and spun and twice she had to perform a high-G dodge to avoid being directly in front of the laser. The operator knew what they were doing. Given the bulk of the mining platform her bike’s little missiles would be worthless against it. She would have to get inside to stop it.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 5h

#WIPSnips 10/17
Mirriam-Webster offers "relax" as the first synonym to loaf, which I don't have anywhere.

She sat back and relaxed, watching the stars. Even as fast as she was moving it seemed like she was standing still. They were so far away, the closest wouldn’t seem to move in her lifetime. She stood up and had the seat transform itself again, into its treadmill configuration. Another expensive modification that she’d added after her first corporate bonus. She’d never regretted it, as it allowed her to stay fit and alleviate boredom on long trips through the void.
As she ran, her helmet displayed one of her favorite courses: an open plain on Mars, strewn about with boulders she’d have to occasionally jump, vault, or climb over. Olympus Mons rose above the horizon in the distance. She had run across similar terrain, wearing a bulkier suit than she was now, in school competitions. Strange how she could get homesick for a place she’d dreamt her whole life of getting away from.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 5h

#WIPSnips 10/16
I was out of town for several days, so I'm catching up with these now.

“Don’t know yet. Don’t worry. Are you sure this is actually a problem?”
“The fact that I can’t trust my own mind? Yes, I’d say it’s a pretty major problem.”
“I mean, how likely is this ever to happen again? You told me it’s been years since the last time.”
“Except for today—" she started.
“It might not recur,” he said. “Sometimes drugs work differently in zero-G. After a long time at zero G, followed by a series of high-G maneuvers, while accompanied by increased heart rate and adrenaline? Who knows what could happen?”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“One episode, during a highly stressful time, and you handled it without hurting yourself or anyone else, right?”
This was more reassuring, but not necessarily true.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 7d

My first novel, Yellow Tape and Coffee, is set in modern #Portland, OR.

This is the Portland I know, which may differ quite a bit from what you've seen elsewhere, especially on certain TV shows about it.

The book is available everywhere books are sold!

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 8d

#WIPSnips 10/15

She remembered those early days, after leaving her last foster family. Living in the tunnels, hiding from the Martian Authority, unable to trust her own mind. She couldn’t go back to that. She didn’t dare go to a physician. There was too much chance that BeltSec would find out, and then where would she be? Unemployed and still unable to get the medication she needed. Out here where, as Jie kept reminding her, the slightest mistake could be fatal, she wouldn’t last long.
To the void with that thought. The future could take care of itself. She was here now. She reached back into childhood memory as she stood and pushed gently away from her broken spacecraft. Floating alone amongst the vastness of the stars, she reached over her head. With no other frame of reference, “up,” like fate, was whatever she decided.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 9d

Bilan asked the same question.
Del never found out, as she explains:

“Was he…?”
“He was breathing when I got to him. I was bawling. His parents ran in, and took him off to the hospital, and told me to wait there.” She had never told this story to anyone. She took another moment to calm herself, and was grateful to Bilan for waiting, quietly, and allowing her to. “I don’t know how long I sat there, right at the spot he’d fallen. Hours, maybe. But two people from the fostering system came and got me. The family had canceled the contract and they were going to place me somewhere else.”
“What about the child?”
“I never found out. I tried to ask but was just told that it’s over and not to try to contact the family again, but I did find out that that’s when they claimed I was possessed by demons. They said so on the official forms.”
“That’s awful! What a horrible thing to do to a child. And to just leave you alone like that? They should have at least let you know…”
“I was told it wouldn’t make any difference. They reminded me it was worse for my foster brother and that it wasn’t about me.”

Reposted by Pat Luther

Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 9d

Accessibility =/= quality or worth

It's objectively just less of a time, focus, and energy commitment to read or craft a short story, but you can still get so much out of the process. Why isn't this a default, major thing? Why does it seem so sidelined?

Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 10d

The domination of the novel as the default writing format stifles creativity, especially in newer writers who are forced to consider it as the only format that really matters. Short fiction, inherently more accessible to read and write, doesn't get the respect it deserves.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 10d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 10d

#WIPSnips 10/13
Another dark moment in Del's life. This one gets revealed pretty early, and we later find it's not the worst thing she did growing up on Mars.

“Sorry, I’m getting us off track. You said your parents thought they were demons…” Bilan started.
“Foster parents, and that was later. They changed their minds a few months before the contract was due to expire.”
“Why?”
Del looked out the window again. Somewhere out there was the tiny red dot where she grew up. “They…the way it works…sometimes it seems like information. Other times, more like a compulsion. An action I should take. I…I was playing with my foster brother; he was about a year younger than me, and we were on the balcony. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I knew—knew with no doubt at all—that I should push him over it.”
“Depths below! Did you…?”
“Push him off the balcony? Yes. I realized what I’d done as he was falling, and ran down the stairs.”
“Was he…?”

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 10d

#WIPSnips 10/12
Del has had better days.
And, though she's not thinking of them now, worse.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked over at the large cargo door standing between her and the void, its controls now clearly exposed. One push of the button and it would all be over. All of the debris from her tantrum would be blown out into space and her along with it. They’d already won, why not just stop?
For a long time, she floated, drifting, staring at that button.
She drew back. She hadn't seriously considered such a thing since she was nine years old and on her own in the tunnels of Mars. Her answer now was the same as then: spite. Anger and hatred would see her through. A poor substitute for hope maybe, but it would do. They hadn't won yet. As long as she was alive, they hadn't won.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 11d

In order:
- Green
- White
- Yellow

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 12d

#WIPSnips 10/11

When she arrived back at her own little asteroid, there was another BeltSec bike clamped outside her airlock. Inside the airlock, she peered through the inner window.
Bilan was sitting on her couch, console in hand. She waved, and waited for the airlock to pressurize.
"Welcome home," she said when Del entered. "How was your vacation?"
"The usual," Del responded. "Daring rescue, thrilling escape, ran out of missiles again. Freed an asteroid tethered to an illegal shipyard. How about you?"
Bilan's eyes grew wide, but she quickly regained her composure. "Oh, pretty much the same, except mostly correlating records over the net and doing a lot of in-depth data searches. Then I was ordered to back off."

Reposted by Pat Luther

Shadow Spark Publishing @shadowsparkpub.bsky.social · 13d

🧚 PRE ORDER ALERT 🧚

We're excited to announce that The Cursed of Atharia, Ameila Grime's (@amygrimes.bsky.social debut novel is now on pre-order. Check out the blurb below and follow the link for more info.

Preorder here: books2read.com/u/bQvrXv

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 12d

Great line from the new Naked Gun movie: “I write true crime novels based on stories I make up.” :)

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 13d

Anybody else going to be at #OryCon this year?

I'll be around, and they only scheduled me for three panels for some reason, so I'll have lots of time to meet up if anyone here wants to do so.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 13d

#WIPSnips 10/10
From that time Del accidentally cheated at cards and won.

She tapped the top card, then dropped the joker on the table next to it.
"The hole card?" the woman asked.
Wasn't that what her mind had been screaming at her? Del nodded. She didn't trust her throat enough to form words. Black spots were forming at the edges of her vision.
The woman pulled it out and handed it to Del. It was another seven. She was as shocked as anyone and didn't bother to hide it.
Seeing she was beaten, the other woman folded, then got up from the table, scooping her remaining chips into a cloth bag.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 13d

#WIPSnips 10/9
So, in Thoughtless/Careless, they don't mention "batteries" but do mention "fuel", which comes in the form of small magnetic bottles of antimatter. (i.e., very advanced batteries.)

Back on the bridge of her extorted ship she prepared to leave. She wanted to get away from this whole area as quickly as she could. Realizing she was still carrying the bag of chips from Aluna, she stuck them in a cupboard and latched the door. As she started up the ship, she noticed several messages to the ship waiting on a console. Services offered by the dock.
She scanned through the list of recommendations. Air was at seventy percent, which seemed a little low, but not in the critical range. The water tank was about half full. The capacity was astounding, though, and a half was still two orders of magnitude more than her bike carried when full. The fuel, though, which unlike air and water could not be recycled, was slightly below one percent—a critically low amount. It would still be enough to use the ship to finish her patrol and get her back to Ceres, but not much further than that.
She checked the price of a refill and was stunned by how much it cost. Far more than she could possibly afford, even with her recent windfalls. She might double the value of the ship if she filled the tanks. Any thought she had of keeping it vanished. No wonder the former crew was desperate enough to commit murder to pay their bills.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 14d

#WIPSnips 10/8
I realized there's a few different prison breaks in this story. Here's part of one of them.

Bilan laughed and laid out the breaching cord on the door.
A console next to the door lit up and the face of the man they'd spoken to earlier appeared.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Preparing to open the door if you don't," Del replied.
"I can't do that."
"No worries. We're almost done. Might want to step back, though."
"No, I mean I can't. The whole place is locked down. I don't have access."
That was interesting. She looked to Bilan.
"That doesn't sound good," Bilan said. "We'd better hurry."
Del turned back to the screen, holding up one finger.
"How about you just tell us what cell Amelia's in, and we'll leave you alone?"
"I can't do that."
"Is that because you can’t, or you're not supposed to?"
"Uh…"
"Del?"
She'd been trying but failed. "I can't read him from here. Blow the door."
Bilan stepped backward and raised her helmet.
Del followed her lead.
A second later, the cord stuck to the door glowed red hot, then white, and the center of the door fell inward.

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 14d

Couch Street

Pat Luther @plutherus.bsky.social · 16d

"We'll explain later. Right now, just say it fits with what we know of this guy."
"What later? You said you'd take me back to Ceres if I answered your questions."
"We will," Del reassured her. "Assuming that's still where you want to go."
She looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"
"Where will you go from there?"
"Venus. Like I said. Where else?"
"I have an idea about that. You said you were an engineer?"
"Del, no," Bilan interrupted. "You can't."
"Why not? You know we can't send her back, not without ensuring she makes it to Venus somehow. Even then, if they find out I talked to her then let her go she won't be safe. Whoever these people are, they’re going to want to know what we talked about. I wouldn’t put it past them to send someone to Venus to find out.”

Reposted by Pat Luther

✨#WIPSnips✨ A Daily Writing Share Tag @wipsnips.bsky.social · 17d

I’m looking forward to this interview on Twitch later!

Inviting all you #WIPsnips folx to come hang out and ask questions if you’d like!

7pm Eastern / 11pm UTC

🔗 ⬇️

David Payne @telinartho.bsky.social · 17d

11pm UTC - twitch.tv/telinartho - Interview with @rosie-j-potter.bsky.social - we'll be talking writing and Multiverse and probably cats and chickens. You never know, so you have to join in, watch, ask questions in chat. All the fun stuff!

#TwitchAuthors #WritingCommunity #Interview

Author Interview - David Payne talks with Author Rosie J. Potter. Monday, 6 October, 2025 - 11pm UTC - twitch.tv/telinartho