Three of My Digital Fiction Publishing Short Stories Are Now "Wide"

Once upon a time, I independently published a bunch of short stories on Amazon.com for the Kindle. Digital Fiction Publishing took a liking to many of them and bought the rights to re-publish them as standalone stories and in collections for a generous royalty package. However, since the short stories are often available elsewhere as part of collections, they and the DFP collections are not part of Kindle Unlimited. This means they can be published anywhere.

After checking with the publisher to make sure he had no plans to publish the stories outside of Amazon (having "his version" and "my version" of the stories on Barnes and Noble, Kobo, etc would just be silly), I have published several of my DFP stories "wide" beyond Amazon's borders. They come with their original cover art courtesy of Alex Claw, using the mighty Draft2Digital.

"The Beast of the Bosporus"-This is cosmic horror in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft, but instead of being set in rural New England (as his stories typically were) or in rural Georgia (as my novel The Thing in the Woods is), this is set in the early modern Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans have rebuilt their navy after the defeat at the (Battle of Lepanto), but the empire's decline is already beginning. What is Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha to do? It might involve a creepy book bound in human skin. Non-Amazon links here.

"Beast" also had some tie-in short fiction on the blog to go with it. One piece is a faux historical journal article about Sokollu's death that also ties in some incidents in real-history that might be explained by what happens in the story itself. I also have journalistic interviews with Sokollu himself, as well as his rival don Joseph Nasi.

Picking Up Plans in Palma-This is an alternate history novelette set in my Afrikanerverse, in which an earlier Dutch settlement of the Cape of Good Hope leads to a world where the United States and the League of Democracies face off against the apartheid-like Afrikaner Confederation and its illiberal allies. You can see the mostly-completed timeline here. Connor Kelly, an American defense analyst of Irish Catholic background, has to infiltrate the Confederation to retrieve plans for an orbital battle-station. Problem: He has only the most minimal training in espionage fieldcraft and he's romantically involved with an Afrikaner emigre. This is going to be fun. Non-Amazon links here.

Illegal Alien-This is a story about a group of Mexicans trying to sneak into the United States in search of better lives, only to encounter actual extraterrestrials instead. What can I say? I really, really like bad puns. :) Non-Amazon links here.

This story also has some short tie-in fiction. One is a faux report on the aftermath of the incident from a government agency of some sort, while the other is an interview with Patrido Guzman, the story's protagonist. The latter gets into what's going on in Mexico that pushes Guzman to try to emigrate to the United States--NAFTA, the Mexican drug war, mistreatment of women in factories, etc.

Two of my remaining DFP short stories--"Lord of the Dolorous Tower" and "Lord Giovanni's Daughter"--aren't wide yet because they were first-rights purchases and don't have cover art. I'll need to commission some if I want to release them wide as well. The same applies to "Coil Gun," the first story DFP purchased for Digital Science Fiction #3: Pressure Suite, since it was never released as a standalone either. I'll let you know.

The Future of the Afrikanerverse

One upon a time, a young man (I'm assuming) on the Web's premiere alternate-history discussion forum whose handle was Reddie posted a challenge--write a scenario in which there's a cold war between the United States and "the apartheid juggernaut." Instead of S.M. Stirling's Draka, the Africa-centered white-supremacist regime would be of Afrikaner stock and instead of a Nietzsche-wannabe master-race ideology, their ideology would be Afrikaner Calvinism.

Well, I took that challenge. Instead of the Domination of the Draka facing off against the Alliance for Democracy, I created a world in which the traditionalist-reactionary Afrikaner Confederation and a motley crew of allies like the Sikh Empire in India, Tibet, and Thailand faced off against a League of Democracies encompassing the rest of the world. I wrote multiple versions of the timeline as I went along (here is the current version) and even sold some short fiction set in that world. My first story, "Coil Gun," I sold to Digital Fiction Publishing in 2011 for $0.05 a word, my first "pro" sale. The story appeared in their anthology Pressure Suite and in fact inspired the cover art. DFP eventually bought the reprint rights for another story set in that world, "Picking Up Plans in Palma." That one appeared in their collection Cosmic Hooey as well as the stand-alone.

(Both stories also feature in my independently-published short story collection Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire.)

I've been working on a lot of projects since then, including a military science fiction novella set in Lindsay Buroker's Fallen Empire universe, but my brain is an idea generating machine. I've pondered many possible ideas for stories to tell in this world in the future. Here are some of them:

*The "Armageddon Trilogy." The novelette (it's not long enough to be a novella) "Palma" is at its heart a family saga. Journalist Katje de Lange emigrates to the United States with the reluctant blessing of her father David, against the strong opposition of her Theonomic zealot brother Thomas, as a result of the Confederation growing more authoritarian and more hostile toward women having careers. In America, where she's actually rather conservative despite being a flaming liberal by Afrikaner standards, she ends up romantically involved with Irish Catholic intelligence analyst Connor Kelly. Kelly ends up being sent into the Confederation in a harebrained scheme to retrieve some vital data, which is the main plot of "Palma." The proposed trilogy of novels picks up a few years later as World War III looms and follows the extended Kelly-de Lange family through it.

(This is a long-shot project considering how the acceptance for publication of my teen horror novel The Thing in the Woods means my next finished novel will likely be its sequel and how, owing to Ms. Buroker's huge fan-base, writing Kindle Worlds stories for her will likely make me lots of short-term cash. However, it never hurts to have many irons in the fire.)

When combined with some other ideas for stories featuring various de Lange ancestors as the Confederation is built and Kelly's own forebears in different versions of the American Revolution, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, this could be something like James Michener's generations-long stories. Think Michener's Covenant (South Africa) or Poland (guess) or James Clavell's Tai-Pan and Noble House, which both center around wealthy European-descended trading families in the Far East. Considering how the Draka series is a family saga of the von Shrakenbergs (and a spinoff branch fathered by one raping an enslaved Frenchwoman, who gives birth to twins after escaping to America), that's appropriate.

*Screenplays for "Coil Gun" and "Palma." I've actually written 85 pages or so for a "Coil Gun" spec script. This isn't the 1980s anymore, so villainous South Africans aren't in, plus it offends the zeitgeist in other ways like depicting a nuclear war as survivable with sufficient anti-missile weapons and good civil defense. I'd pondered pitching it as an animated film to reduce production costs. "Palma" might be easier to handle, as it's basically a run-and-gun you could film in Florida or somewhere else similarly warm to mimic East Africa.

*Another short story entitled "Killing The Rijnsburg." I promise I came up with the title before Bill O'Reilly started writing his historical books. I started writing this long ago, but abandoned it after failing to find a first-rights buyer for "Palma." The Rijnsburg is the Afrikaners' major orbital battle-station and taking it out is a major part of the WWIII battles in space. This battle is mentioned in "Coil Gun" and the plans for it are the McGuffin in "Palma," so it's thematically appropriate the third story be about the battle-station's destruction. Maybe when Digital Science Fiction starts accepting new stories again...

*There are various other individual story ideas I haven't really developed. One follows the neglected son of "Palma" antagonist Eugene Visser (seriously, Visser never even mentions him in the story, although be fair he has no real reason to) as he tries to do his dead old man proud by committing terrorist attacks against American occupation fores after the Confederation falls. Another features a dug-in Afrikaner regiment dying to a man to the tune of "In Christ Alone" to allow some women and children to escape an oncoming army.

Per that last point, although the Afrikaner Confederation is objectively an authoritarian, semi-theocratic (especially later) racist evil empire, there is much to admire about their culture. Things like faith, duty, honor, and bravery, all of which are held in far less esteem these days. My Afrikaners are less blatantly gross than the Draka, so it's easier to write them as protagonists. Given how the Afrikaners' evil especially offends the zeitgeist (they're racists and religious bigots), I could imagine that would grind a few folks' gears, even if I make characters like David de Lange (and not his zealous son or the sadistic Visser) the protagonists.

A Timeline of the World of "Coil Gun" and "Picking Up Plans In Palma"

When I first became interested in alternate history in high school, one of the early books I read was The Domination and its sequel Drakon, both of which are part of S.M. Stirling's Draka series. The series is controversial in the AH community--although it's considered one of the major founding texts of the sub-genre (alongside Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South, which is more a time-travel story), its plausibility is somewhat lacking to say the least. Stirling himself said the point of the series is that everything that can go wrong does.

On the forum, the user whose handle is reddie suggested a "realistic quasiDraka"--a cold war between the United States and "the apartheid juggernaut" (a sort of super-South Africa under white minority rule). That got the creative wheels turning. I wrote an embryonic timeline that served as both a homage to and critique of the Draka world and within a few years wrote "Coil Gun" (my first professional sale; it first appeared in Pressure Suite: Digital Science Fiction #3) and later "Picking Up Plans in Palma." I've got some ideas for additional short stories and even a trilogy of novels depicting the events of WWIII from the perspectives of, among others, some (surviving) cast members of "Palma," but I'm focused on other projects right now.

However, since SM Stirling has the appendices and timeline from the three books that went into The Domination available online, here's the current version of the timeline where the two stories take place. It's still a bit patchy in places and it's a work in progress. After all, this is the sixth iteration of the timeline and I might well end up making a seventh, especially if I end up writing novels set in the universe.

Some highlights:

*Although a point of divergence in the late 16th Century might "butterfly" the United States completely, I still need it to be there for story reasons. However, we have a completely different cast of Founding Fathers and a very different war. The same with the U.S. Civil War.

*One of the first major enemies the Afrikaners face is the Sultanate of Oman. They don't get a lot of notice in most histories I've read, but they get their due here. And having taken a class where Oman's history was explored in greater depth, I'm revising that aspect of the story. Hint: Just because two nations are enemies at one point doesn't mean they can't become allies later, especially if one experiences a major problem.

*The French Revolution isn't corrupted or ultimately repressed. However, there is a proto-fascist Bourbon pretender who causes trouble later. Furthermore, the French ally/puppet the Batavian Republic remains in existence for much longer than in our history. Although I haven't integrated that into the existing TL or v.7.0, basically the Dutch East India Company forsakes Amsterdam for Cape Town, giving the Afrikaners the Netherlands' Asian possessions right away. This helps explain their rapid expansion, which the disease environment in Africa would make very, very difficult to say the least.

*The 1848 revolutions are much, much more successful. However, that doesn't mean the French Republic and the newly-united Germany are going to be friends...

*There's a more successful analogue to the Taiping Rebellion. Thanks to the influence of the Afrikaners, it's more orthodox in its beliefs. Instead of being Jesus's brother, the leader of the rebellion believes himself to be something akin to Jehu, only called by God to destroy the Qing Dynasty rather than the House of Ahab.

*There's still a Soviet Union, but Leon Trotsky ultimately succeeds Lenin and not Stalin. Why I use real-life personalities for this when I don't for the American Revolution or Civil War is beyond me. This will require some changes...

*Project Orion. Oh yes. If you want more information, here's a really cool book.

Russia Intent on Making Itself Leader of the "Anti-Western" World

Here's an article from the Washington Post I found online today that I wanted to share with you all. The gist of it is that although U.S. President Barack Obama states the U.S. is not in a new Cold War with semi-dictator Vladimir Putin's Russia because the latter lacks an ideology and a bloc of nations surrounding it, the reality is somewhat opposite. Putin instead seeks make Russia (and by extension himself) the leader of a bloc of nations opposed to "Western" values that include, among other things, tolerance of homosexuality, social liberalism in general, etc.

Below is cartoon showing Russia's supposed glories (including the Soviet victory in WWII and the space program as well as its medieval heritage) in contrast to the supposed decadent drug-addled homo-fascism of the European Union. Click on the image to see all of the gory details.

The first thing that came to mind was not some political stand or another (my opinion on that matter can be found here), but the world my Afrikaner stories "Coil Gun" and "Picking Up Plans in Palma" (both of which appear in my collection Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire) take place in. The world features a cold war between the League of Democracies, led by the United States, and a bloc led by the Afrikaner Confederation, a white supremacist empire spanning the Indian Ocean basin. Here's the timeline.

Members of the latter bloc refer to their alliance as "the Self-Determination Compact." It consists of various illiberal regimes like the Confederation, the Taiping regime in southern China, Tibet, the Persian Empire, Thailand, the Hejaz, the Rashids, Afghanistan, and the Sikh Empire. Ostensibly a defensive alliance against outside forces threatening their "traditional cultures," what they really are is an anti-Enlightenment pact consisting of a white-supremacist/Christian-supremacist empire, a weird semi-theocracy, a theocracy, several monarchies, and a semi-theocratic state with a weighted franchise much like old Prussia that gives the Sikh minority disproportionate power compared to the Hindu and Muslim majority.

The sort of Enlightenment liberalism represented by the United States and its allies is a threat to these more-or-less anti-democratic regimes. It's like the anti-revolutionary Holy Alliance was brought forward a century, its obscurantism toned down just enough to permit the kind of military advances science provides (to a point) and prevent a total explosion of the oppressed masses (the Confederation is a democracy for whites like apartheid South Africa, while most of its allies have at least some constitutionalism going), and allowed to claim the language of self-determination for foreign consumption.

Fortunately I'm thinking that if something like this is Putin's aspiration, it's likely that China is going to end up in charge, not Russia. Russia is a glorified petro-state, while China has a productive economy. By alienating Russia from Europe and the United States, Putin more likely has doomed it to a future of being dependent on China.

Some Kindle Formatting Advice...

If you self-publish short fiction on Amazon.com for the Kindle like I have, I just figured out something that could be very beneficial for you.

Something I've noticed if one uses Tab to indent paragraphs and then uploads from Word directly to Amazon Kindle Direct, the paragraph indentation sizes vary. Most of the time they're the same size or vary only slightly, but occasionally you get really severe indentations that look like you hit Tab twice. That's not good.

Today when I was uploading "Picking Up Plans In Palma," I decided to use block-style paragraphs--no indents and a space between each paragraph. The result was much, much more readable. As a self-publisher I've already got one strike against me--I don't need more due to mediocre formatting. I went back and reformatted all but two of my stories into block paragraphs and I'll do the remaining two later.

I hope this proves useful to any indie writers out there...

Another Afrikanerverse Story Is Coming

My first story set in my Afrikaner Confederation timeline, "Coil Gun," appeared in Pressure Suite - Digital Science Fiction Anthology 3. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will announce that my second story, "Picking Up Plans In Palma," will be available soon on Amazon for the Kindle.

Here's the cover for you, courtesy of Alex Claw.

In its current form, this story is 7,500 words long. My friend Sean C.W. Korsgaard is giving it one last look-over before I post it. Although it's possible he could find so many places for me to cut that I could send it to additional paying markets (it's rather long for a short story), that seems rather improbable at this juncture.

After that, I'll post the second Andrew Patel story, "Needs Must." The first story, Übermensch, is already available for purchase. Alex has already done a cover for a collection of four Patel/Silverbolt tales, so all I need to do is just write two more. :)