from the pen of icarus blake

Fiction

Death and Devotion

A novel about an illicit romance and the criminal underworld where rage against the ineffectual system results in the eventual self destruction of both the individual and the empire.

Status: Incomplete first draft

The Demon’s Song

An adventure into nobility, family history, and magic in a parallel Florence circa 1800. Vincente struggles with the demands of family and a revenge plot older than himself while his preconceptions of the world are turned on its head.

Status: Complete first draft, revisions in progress

Dollh0use

Three criminals awake in tubes of goo on a spaceship piloted by a human-mimic race called the Dollmlen.  They get sucked into a plot to stop a terrible godlike being made of goo.  Limbs are lost, friends are made.

Status: Incomplete first draft

Empire of the Sun

An expansive fictional multiverse based loosely on Dungeons and Dragons,but modified for my homebrew purposes with numerous stories acting within it.

• You Owe Me One – A classic D&D style adventure with a ragtag crew attempting to stop something massive and terrible threatening the very fabric of Lordell.
  Status: Plotted from birth to death, but as of yet unwritten
• Act of God – A wizard gets swept out of their world and into a completely different universe barely tethered to their own through the spirit wilds on the arm of an insane elf from 300 years in their future.  Welcome to space, you magic bastard!
  Status: Acts 1-3 fully plotted, Act 1 writing begun
• Parhelion – Three characters walk the paths of fate, encountering each other and the many mortal gods that wander the strangest places of the world.  A fae doctor, an undead druid, and an avatar of the sun god try to find their ways in life.
  Status: Limbo
• SeaDeep – An angry vampire bent on revenge constructs a pirate crew to find and murder the ex lover who turned him.  Unfortunately for him, neither of his companions know anything about sailing.
  Status: Limbo

Occultism

Notes on Agrippa’s Natural Magic (Books 1-4)

Status: Working through Book 1

Tarot Studies/Ecology Tarot

An in-depth meditation on the meanings of all major and minor arcana as well as designing the Ecology Tarot, a tarot deck based on ecological interactions between species and their environments.

Status: Some thumbnails for cards complete

Notes on Funerary Rites and Traditions Surrounding the Dead

Status: Ongoing, current research on the Egyptian Book of the Dead and mummification rites.

Ancestor Veneration

Looking at the teachings of evolutionary ancestors, past those whose names we know.  What lessons can be learned from australopithecus or paranthropus?  What do the large therapsids of the permian have to say to their distant descendants?

Status: Just for fun, ongoing indefinitely

Science

The X Factor

Looking at the historical impact of ill-preserved organisms in deep time, particularly diseases and parasites on animal and plant communities of the past.  What was their evolutionary influence?  When and why do disease and parasites arise, and why is this such a popular life history in the modern age?

Status: Ongoing indefinitely

Parasite Spotlight

I love parasites and you will be subject to them on this blog.  Spotlights parasites I think are cool, or research regarding them translated for ease of reading by laymen.

Status: Be Prepared

Article Review

Reviews of articles from popular news sources or scientific journals, giving my take on the findings and fielding any potential criticism I may have.  Discussion on these is very much welcome!

Status: As I feel like it.