The Richest of Savory Meals

The far-ranging travels of Gaunatico and Duir did not except the town of Euspath.
"Euspath is a name familiar to me for an unclear reason. Clarify it," Gaunatico instructed his manservant.
"Euspath's notoriety, sir, is for its virtue, specifically the probity of its citizens."
Nor did their stay put the lie to that reputation. The locals mentioned nothing about bribes, charged prices unable to be construed as exorbitant, and caught up to them bearing the items they pretended to lose with the thought of engineering an excuse. Aside from that, the town had as much of interest as any other. Upon their retirement for the evening Gaunatico proposed to move on the next day, a plan to which Duir had no mind to object. Both slept easily and thoroughly.
They awoke chained to the ground before a pit which blessed them by concealing its depth and contents. The floor was hard, the air close, and worst of all, the place was unfurnished. Behind them, a man spoke.
"Welcome, visitors. I will initiate you into our local custom. First I will employ this dagger which I hold above you, examine it if you like, to cut out your sins. Second I will cast your sins into that pit before you, likely you have surveyed it already, as meals for my creation. Third, you will have left town by then, my creation will emerge and wreak such massacres as will excite the literary imagination for generations. Now then."
The sorcerer yanked back Duir's head and sliced down his chest from which he pulled a dark mass. He did the same to Gaunatico. Both marveled, for neither bled or was harmed at all. The two masses flew above them into the pit, whence soon they heard the terrible sound of a beast's feeding. An awful roar followed that, then silence.
The man walked to the edge and looked down. "It's dead. I didn't expect that. What do you get up to out there? Please don't tell me, since I am no hardier than my poor abomination. I will release you now."
"Don't hurry if it puts you out," Gaunatico told him. "I feel refreshed as I haven't in years. I might stay for a month."
"Please don't," the sorcerer begged.
Finis

Problems With the Title "Graf"

Your spellchecker will keep bugging you about whether you meant "graph," and then if you add "graf" to a custom dictionary or tell it to ignore the word, you'll miss all the times you did mean "graph" but misspelled it, something which happens an average of thirty-two times per novel I imagine.

Static Vs. Dynamic Characters

Before we begin, let me emphasize how important it is to make sure your main characters are dynamic. If we look at a list of hugely popular characters, we'll see . . . oh no. No, this can't be happening! Aaaaaaagh!

Addendum

If they even put themselves out that much instead of calling him "Big Lord" or some such. You might not even know they're talking about a god if they start up a conversation about it. Ridiculous.

Pantheonizing

Here we are, always trying to come up with a hot new name for the god of fire, and meanwhile real cultures would squirt out "Blazing Fire God" and go on with their day, except in a different language so it sounds all exotic. Yeesh.

Addendum

The captain's job will of course to be handsome and invite people to dinner. It's not like there will be much else to do in space. "Captain, we had to wake you! Something came up!" Nothing will come up.

The Psychology of Space Travel

In the future when we (and I do mean we, radical-life-extension brothers and sisters) can enjoy leisurely spaceship cruises, will the captain sometimes mess with the temperature because people get all weird when the weather's too constant? No. It will be a separate officer whose job that is.

The Fly's Gratitude

One day the great progenitor came upon the fly in distress. "Help me!" it cried. "I'm on this weed over here but I want to be on that one!"
The great progenitor, wise, with no thought of gain, suggested, "Have you tried flying there?"
The fly did so and was amazed at the success of the plan. "Thank you! Someday I'll come to your aid in return!"
"In what way could you ever aid me?"
"I don't know!"
Ever since then flies have flitted about us, hoping one day to be of use.
Finis

The Impracticality of Space Battle

Given the industrial capacity of interstellar empires, they'll run out of cities after which to name their ships, and then what?

The Impracticality of Space Travel

When people are on their big spaceliners and such, how are they going to get the paper delivered? Hyper-fast delivery boys earning their first Federation credits? Probably, yeah, now that I think about it.