The other day, I found a new trailer for Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Apparently it was revealed at BlizzCon.
Looks like the Dominion has shown itself untrustworthy, on a much larger scale that just sending in a bunch of Ghosts to kill Kerrigan like the earlier, smaller teaser trailer revealed. Like, attack-by-capital-ships untrustworthy. And Valerian and Warfield might not be coming out of that treachery alive....
(Sucks for Warfield, as it seemed he was on the level and even made Rayor commander of the entire Dominion force while he was having his arm fixed. But if Valerian went into this intending treachery from the beginning, to hell with him.)
Some of the promotional material makes what's going to happen in HOTS sound really GrimDark. Raynor has gone missing, while some artwork on the Blizzard web-site depicts Kerrigan with a reinfested arm.
I hope they don't kill off Raynor and then have Kerrigan go totally insane and reinfest herself or, worse, have her think Raynor is dead, reinfest herself, and then have Raynor show up alive again and think Kerrigan is truly irredeemable even with the use of the Zerg-purging artifact. Heck, with the dialogue snippet "the girl you knew is dead," this makes it sound like despite being forcibly de-Zerged, Kerrigan is still evil.
Wings of Liberty was a lot more optimistic than the first Starcraft and Brood War, with the Dominion public rioting upon learning of Mengsk's true evil nature and the Swarm decapitated and Kerrigan returned to human form. That was pretty refreshing, considering how dark the first games really were.
One can hope they took the darkest quotes and scenes from Heart of the Swarm out of context and strung them together to make the story sound a lot more GrimDark than it actually will be--some of the promotional material describes Kerrigan only remembering some of what she did as Queen of Blades and not liking it, which shows there's hope for her. She does look pretty angsty when she's loading her rifle, while the Queen of Blades would have probably been joyfully homicidal. Raynor is only missing, not confirmed dead. And the new trailer depicts a lot of human-on-human warfare, including what looks like a military drop on a human planet.
Ending the Second Great War with Kerrigan's Zerg and Raynor's Raiders holding Arcturus Mengsk to account for his many sins would be awesome, with the Dark Voice and his Protoss-Zerg hybrid army over the horizon. However, some stuff I've read on Battle.net indicates the hybrids will be entering the sector en masse and they'll put the hurt on the player, so punishing Mengsk might not in the cards for a bit...
BTW, the soundtrack in this trailer is just awesome.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Book Review: "Twelve" by Jasper Kent. Spoilers!
I came across Pyr, a science fiction and fantasy imprint of Prometheus Books, at DragonCon this year. One of the books they had available for purchase was Twelve
by Jasper Kent. I remembered seeing Pyr's booth at DragonCon some years back, with Twelve being listed as coming soon, so my curiosity was already piqued. It looked interesting, so I bought it. Here goes the review...
Twelve tells the tale of Captain Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov, a Russian officer during the Napoleonic Wars. He and some other officers have been assigned to operate separately from the main Russian army to cause trouble for the invading French. When one of them takes the liberty of calling some old comrades from the war against the Turks who are very good at killing the French, everything seems peachy.
Until Danilov gets a little too curious and discovers just what manner of monsters they've allied themselves with...
The Good
*I really liked the concept. I haven't seen a lot of historical fiction or speculative fiction set in Russia, so this was doubly interesting.
*The book is well-paced and never boring.
*The author's attention to historical detail is good. Distances are measured in the traditional Russian measurement of verst, while the events of the book are dated using the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia at the time, rather than the Gregorian calendar, which was used in Western Europe. He even describes the difference between Russian and Western European horseshoes, the latter of which aren't adapted for the icy conditions of the Russian winter.
*The fact that the twelve who arrive to help fight the French are vampires is not immediately revealed. One has the chance to learn along with Danilov just what the Oprichniki--Ivan the Terrible's secret police, which our heroes name the twelve--are.
(Unless you read the blurbs on the back too closely, but I'll get to that later.)
*The Oprichniki's chief introduces them to the Russian characters before returning to Romania. The twelve of them are all named after the Twelve Apostles, with the one named for Judas having a rather interesting trait--I'll reveal that later in the review.
*There are some very vivid descriptive bits, like a scene where Danilov witnesses the Oprichniki throwing a body out of a barn. He describes how the body has had a good bit of flesh gnawed off and then sees the look on the dead woman's face and realized the only reason the vampires had decided to stop eating was because the victim had died. He then sees the vampires torturing and feeding on the dead woman's husband in the barn. One of the vampires bites off some pieces of him and spits something out. When Danilov comes in during the day to kill the vampires, he finds what the vampire spat out--the man's wedding ring. He then subdues one vampire and tortures him for information by opening the barn door to expose him to the sun and then closing the door again to allow him to regenerate.
"The vampire was a torturer's dream. Continuous pain could be inflicted because the body would be continually refreshed."
Wow.
There's another scene where Danilov stops to think and sits on a log. When he gets up, he disturbs the snow and reveals a silver chain. He digs for it and finds it's a bracelet and what he thinks is a branch is actually a human hand.
"I had not been sitting on a log, but on a frozen, rigid human corpse."
Now that's a good way to end a chapter.
There's another scene where another character takes a vampire prisoner and both of them are caught in a blizzard. The vampire ends up frozen solid and buried in a snowdrift, but cannot die. Danilov digs the vampire up and the sun starts melting the remaining snow and ice--and igniting the vampire. The vampire's flesh ignites, which ignites his clothing, which burns away and reveals more flesh, which is in turn ignited by the sun. Once the fires start going on his clothes and flesh, the vicious cycle accelerates into a continual chain of combustion.
*Danilov is a realistic human being with flaws. In this case, away from his wife for a long period, he visits a prostitute named Dominikiaa and becomes quite attached to her. That's a realistic problem for someone to get into in a wartime situation.
The Bad
*The book jacket describes how the behavior of the twelve new arrivals reminds Danilov of the legends of the voordalak. Given how it isn't revealed until well into the novel that the Oprichniki are in fact vampires, using the less-familiar Russian word was a good idea. The problem is, one of the first blurbs on the back of the book calls it "good vampire-hunting fun." I would have enjoyed the book much more if I hadn't known going in that the Oprichniki were vampires and discovered it along with Danilov.
*When Danilov cannot bring himself to kill Dominikiaa after he believes she has allowed herself to be made a vampire by Iuda, he very quickly reaches the conclusion that he would be damned if he killed her and damned if he allowed her to escape, so he decides that if he's going to go to hell anyway, he should allow Dominikiaa to make him a vampire so they could go to hell together. I can understand his moral dilemma--he can't bring himself to kill Dominikiaa but would have any deaths vampire-Dominkiaa inflicts on his conscience--but his solution is really quite bizarre considering his hatred of the vampires. Furthermore, this decision is made entirely too easily, in the space of about a page. And he's really detached about it too--he even thinks this would be a chance to look back and remember his own death.
*The revelation that the vampire Iuda wasn't actually a vampire, but was in fact a human who traveled with the vampires and had deceived them into thinking he was one of them was really lame. If he had been with the vampires for an extended period of time, one would think these creatures--who prey on humans the way we feed on lower animals--would have noticed. That does provide a reason for him to be named after Judas, but he doesn't actually betray the vampires. Of course, if he was a Russian-born vampire who retained loyalty to his people and opposed the Oprichniki when they began feeding on Russians as well as French, that would make him a bit more interesting...
The Verdict
An entertaining read. 8 out of 10. The sequel, Thirteen Years Later,
has been released in the United States, as has the third book in what will be a quintet, The Third Section.
Kent will continue the story all the way to the Russian Revolution, so how things turn out will be very interesting.
by Jasper Kent. I remembered seeing Pyr's booth at DragonCon some years back, with Twelve being listed as coming soon, so my curiosity was already piqued. It looked interesting, so I bought it. Here goes the review...Twelve tells the tale of Captain Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov, a Russian officer during the Napoleonic Wars. He and some other officers have been assigned to operate separately from the main Russian army to cause trouble for the invading French. When one of them takes the liberty of calling some old comrades from the war against the Turks who are very good at killing the French, everything seems peachy.
Until Danilov gets a little too curious and discovers just what manner of monsters they've allied themselves with...
The Good
*I really liked the concept. I haven't seen a lot of historical fiction or speculative fiction set in Russia, so this was doubly interesting.
*The book is well-paced and never boring.
*The author's attention to historical detail is good. Distances are measured in the traditional Russian measurement of verst, while the events of the book are dated using the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia at the time, rather than the Gregorian calendar, which was used in Western Europe. He even describes the difference between Russian and Western European horseshoes, the latter of which aren't adapted for the icy conditions of the Russian winter.
*The fact that the twelve who arrive to help fight the French are vampires is not immediately revealed. One has the chance to learn along with Danilov just what the Oprichniki--Ivan the Terrible's secret police, which our heroes name the twelve--are.
(Unless you read the blurbs on the back too closely, but I'll get to that later.)
*The Oprichniki's chief introduces them to the Russian characters before returning to Romania. The twelve of them are all named after the Twelve Apostles, with the one named for Judas having a rather interesting trait--I'll reveal that later in the review.
*There are some very vivid descriptive bits, like a scene where Danilov witnesses the Oprichniki throwing a body out of a barn. He describes how the body has had a good bit of flesh gnawed off and then sees the look on the dead woman's face and realized the only reason the vampires had decided to stop eating was because the victim had died. He then sees the vampires torturing and feeding on the dead woman's husband in the barn. One of the vampires bites off some pieces of him and spits something out. When Danilov comes in during the day to kill the vampires, he finds what the vampire spat out--the man's wedding ring. He then subdues one vampire and tortures him for information by opening the barn door to expose him to the sun and then closing the door again to allow him to regenerate.
"The vampire was a torturer's dream. Continuous pain could be inflicted because the body would be continually refreshed."
Wow.
There's another scene where Danilov stops to think and sits on a log. When he gets up, he disturbs the snow and reveals a silver chain. He digs for it and finds it's a bracelet and what he thinks is a branch is actually a human hand.
"I had not been sitting on a log, but on a frozen, rigid human corpse."
Now that's a good way to end a chapter.
There's another scene where another character takes a vampire prisoner and both of them are caught in a blizzard. The vampire ends up frozen solid and buried in a snowdrift, but cannot die. Danilov digs the vampire up and the sun starts melting the remaining snow and ice--and igniting the vampire. The vampire's flesh ignites, which ignites his clothing, which burns away and reveals more flesh, which is in turn ignited by the sun. Once the fires start going on his clothes and flesh, the vicious cycle accelerates into a continual chain of combustion.
*Danilov is a realistic human being with flaws. In this case, away from his wife for a long period, he visits a prostitute named Dominikiaa and becomes quite attached to her. That's a realistic problem for someone to get into in a wartime situation.
The Bad
*The book jacket describes how the behavior of the twelve new arrivals reminds Danilov of the legends of the voordalak. Given how it isn't revealed until well into the novel that the Oprichniki are in fact vampires, using the less-familiar Russian word was a good idea. The problem is, one of the first blurbs on the back of the book calls it "good vampire-hunting fun." I would have enjoyed the book much more if I hadn't known going in that the Oprichniki were vampires and discovered it along with Danilov.
*When Danilov cannot bring himself to kill Dominikiaa after he believes she has allowed herself to be made a vampire by Iuda, he very quickly reaches the conclusion that he would be damned if he killed her and damned if he allowed her to escape, so he decides that if he's going to go to hell anyway, he should allow Dominikiaa to make him a vampire so they could go to hell together. I can understand his moral dilemma--he can't bring himself to kill Dominikiaa but would have any deaths vampire-Dominkiaa inflicts on his conscience--but his solution is really quite bizarre considering his hatred of the vampires. Furthermore, this decision is made entirely too easily, in the space of about a page. And he's really detached about it too--he even thinks this would be a chance to look back and remember his own death.
*The revelation that the vampire Iuda wasn't actually a vampire, but was in fact a human who traveled with the vampires and had deceived them into thinking he was one of them was really lame. If he had been with the vampires for an extended period of time, one would think these creatures--who prey on humans the way we feed on lower animals--would have noticed. That does provide a reason for him to be named after Judas, but he doesn't actually betray the vampires. Of course, if he was a Russian-born vampire who retained loyalty to his people and opposed the Oprichniki when they began feeding on Russians as well as French, that would make him a bit more interesting...
The Verdict
An entertaining read. 8 out of 10. The sequel, Thirteen Years Later,
has been released in the United States, as has the third book in what will be a quintet, The Third Section. Kent will continue the story all the way to the Russian Revolution, so how things turn out will be very interesting.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
An Idea for a Left-Wing Techno-Thriller
On my message-board this morning, a Turkish (I think) member posted the following link.
"China worried by U.S. Revolt."
Apparently the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, despite its rather small size, has gotten the attention of the Chinese government. Although the Chinese government hasn't claimed it's an incipient sign of proletarian revolution or something like that--this isn't the 1960s anymore--they are actually endorsing the protesters. They make the claim that if the problems the protesters are pointing out aren't dealt with, things would get worse.
However, someone on the board seized on some Iranian officer's comparison of "Occupy Wall Street" to the Arab Spring and suggested a scenario for a bad techno-thriller--the Chinese militarily intervene in the United States to stop the "American Spring," much like how the Soviets intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia to maintain Communist rule in Eastern Europe.
That gave me an idea for the rarest of all beasts--a left-wing technothriller.
Imagine a world where the United States, due to irresponsible spending, is extremely, EXTREMELY indebted to China, much more so than today. The United States government has radically cut services and raised taxes severely, in order to pay off its foreign debt.
When protests break out and the U.S. is unable or unwilling to contain them, the Chinese intervene militarily...
(Let's say for the sake of the argument this is in the distant future where the Chinese are capable of a trans-Pacific invasion or it's more subtle, like importing Chinese police and soldiers to crush dissent in the same way the Iranian government has used foreign enforcers to crush the "Green Revolution.")
Ironically, this kind of thing has happened before, albeit typically a long time ago. Various European powers occupied Mexico during the U.S. Civil War due to non-payment of debts, while the first U.S. military interventions in Latin America were designed to forestall such things.
More recently, due to massive Third World debt and consequent structural adjustment that leads to cutting education and the like in Third World countries, there have been calls by people like Bono of U2 for debt-forgiveness.
An overt Chinese military intervention to ensure debt payments continue is much more severe than anything done by the West in recent years, but it might take something more severe to make people think. The "Republic of Gilead" depicted in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was far more monstrous than any realistic overreach of the American Religious Right would be, but I think Atwood's goal was to make a point, not depict a realistic American theocracy.
I've got enough on my plate these days, so I'm not going to be writing this. If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, have at it. Although the economics involved are rather left-wing, the fact it involves the invasion of the U.S. by a nominally Communist power with the stated aim of repressing its population for the invaders' economic benefit, a publisher of "right-wing gun porn" might actually be interested in it.
Acknowledgement of where the idea came from would be nice...
"China worried by U.S. Revolt."
Apparently the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, despite its rather small size, has gotten the attention of the Chinese government. Although the Chinese government hasn't claimed it's an incipient sign of proletarian revolution or something like that--this isn't the 1960s anymore--they are actually endorsing the protesters. They make the claim that if the problems the protesters are pointing out aren't dealt with, things would get worse.
However, someone on the board seized on some Iranian officer's comparison of "Occupy Wall Street" to the Arab Spring and suggested a scenario for a bad techno-thriller--the Chinese militarily intervene in the United States to stop the "American Spring," much like how the Soviets intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia to maintain Communist rule in Eastern Europe.
That gave me an idea for the rarest of all beasts--a left-wing technothriller.
Imagine a world where the United States, due to irresponsible spending, is extremely, EXTREMELY indebted to China, much more so than today. The United States government has radically cut services and raised taxes severely, in order to pay off its foreign debt.
When protests break out and the U.S. is unable or unwilling to contain them, the Chinese intervene militarily...
(Let's say for the sake of the argument this is in the distant future where the Chinese are capable of a trans-Pacific invasion or it's more subtle, like importing Chinese police and soldiers to crush dissent in the same way the Iranian government has used foreign enforcers to crush the "Green Revolution.")
Ironically, this kind of thing has happened before, albeit typically a long time ago. Various European powers occupied Mexico during the U.S. Civil War due to non-payment of debts, while the first U.S. military interventions in Latin America were designed to forestall such things.
More recently, due to massive Third World debt and consequent structural adjustment that leads to cutting education and the like in Third World countries, there have been calls by people like Bono of U2 for debt-forgiveness.
An overt Chinese military intervention to ensure debt payments continue is much more severe than anything done by the West in recent years, but it might take something more severe to make people think. The "Republic of Gilead" depicted in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was far more monstrous than any realistic overreach of the American Religious Right would be, but I think Atwood's goal was to make a point, not depict a realistic American theocracy.
I've got enough on my plate these days, so I'm not going to be writing this. If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, have at it. Although the economics involved are rather left-wing, the fact it involves the invasion of the U.S. by a nominally Communist power with the stated aim of repressing its population for the invaders' economic benefit, a publisher of "right-wing gun porn" might actually be interested in it.
Acknowledgement of where the idea came from would be nice...
Monday, October 10, 2011
Some Music You Might Enjoy...
Sorry for not posting in over a week, but I've been really busy with work and writing.
While I've been writing, I've been listening to music. Mostly from my iTunes collection, but often from music videos on YouTube. One music-video I listen to is entitled "Blood for the Blood God" and consists of clips from various Warhammer 40K video games strung together in such a way that it sounds like a rock anthem to the Chaos God Khorne.
(And darn it's awesome.)
And YouTube supplies suggested videos on the right side of the screen. I've found some songs this way that I'd never considered before.
The first was the instrumental piece "Preliator" by the band Globus, which puts out stirring orchestral music. It was used as the background for a slideshow of Warhammer 40K images, mostly pertaining to Khorne and the Chaos Space Marines that follow him like Kharn the Betrayer. Here it is if you want to see it.
Then I discovered the Swedish metal band Sabaton. The first song I viewed, "Masters of the World," was kind of a standard metal song with a lot of Nietzschean self-assertion going on.
Then came "40:1," which is about the Battle of Wizna in Poland during World War II. That battle is known as Poland's Thermopylae--720 Polish soldiers held 40,000 Germans for three days. They lost, but they inflicted many more casualties than they suffered. This is appropriate because I was writing a portion of Battle for the Wastelands taking place in one of the refugee camps where the remnants of the Merrill army look after civilian refugees from Flesh-Eater cruelty and periodically raid enemy territory. The Merrills are outnumbered by their Flesh-Eater enemies and even more so when facing the combined armies of the tyrant Grendel, ruler of the entire Northlands. However, the ones who survived the conquest of their homeland are the hardest of the hard-cores and they won't go down without a fight.
The last song I've purchased as a result of listening to it on YouTube so far is "Ghost Division," which is about Rommel's division and its role in the German invasion of France during WWII. Even though Sabaton is no friend of Nazism, one can honor martial prowess and sheer cojones and that's what the Germans showed during the Battle of France.
(Although they conquered France in six weeks, it was by no means a walkover like the France-bashers like to say. They outmanuevered French armies that were larger and in some cases better-equipped. Read about the Manstein Plan, the collapse of the Meuse Front, and the Channel Dash in the Wikipedia article for the cojones part.)
I might buy other songs based on the YouTube videos. Although it may seem odd to buy songs when I could simply listen to the music online, there's not much incentive to produce content when you don't get compensated for it (intangibles like fame and the joy of exercising one's creativity are nice, but they don't pay the bills). I view it as stealing, although not everyone agrees. It's also a lot easier to save an iTunes file onto my iPod than extract the music from the video, save it to my computer and then transfer it.
While I've been writing, I've been listening to music. Mostly from my iTunes collection, but often from music videos on YouTube. One music-video I listen to is entitled "Blood for the Blood God" and consists of clips from various Warhammer 40K video games strung together in such a way that it sounds like a rock anthem to the Chaos God Khorne.
(And darn it's awesome.)
And YouTube supplies suggested videos on the right side of the screen. I've found some songs this way that I'd never considered before.
The first was the instrumental piece "Preliator" by the band Globus, which puts out stirring orchestral music. It was used as the background for a slideshow of Warhammer 40K images, mostly pertaining to Khorne and the Chaos Space Marines that follow him like Kharn the Betrayer. Here it is if you want to see it.
Then I discovered the Swedish metal band Sabaton. The first song I viewed, "Masters of the World," was kind of a standard metal song with a lot of Nietzschean self-assertion going on.
Then came "40:1," which is about the Battle of Wizna in Poland during World War II. That battle is known as Poland's Thermopylae--720 Polish soldiers held 40,000 Germans for three days. They lost, but they inflicted many more casualties than they suffered. This is appropriate because I was writing a portion of Battle for the Wastelands taking place in one of the refugee camps where the remnants of the Merrill army look after civilian refugees from Flesh-Eater cruelty and periodically raid enemy territory. The Merrills are outnumbered by their Flesh-Eater enemies and even more so when facing the combined armies of the tyrant Grendel, ruler of the entire Northlands. However, the ones who survived the conquest of their homeland are the hardest of the hard-cores and they won't go down without a fight.
The last song I've purchased as a result of listening to it on YouTube so far is "Ghost Division," which is about Rommel's division and its role in the German invasion of France during WWII. Even though Sabaton is no friend of Nazism, one can honor martial prowess and sheer cojones and that's what the Germans showed during the Battle of France.
(Although they conquered France in six weeks, it was by no means a walkover like the France-bashers like to say. They outmanuevered French armies that were larger and in some cases better-equipped. Read about the Manstein Plan, the collapse of the Meuse Front, and the Channel Dash in the Wikipedia article for the cojones part.)
I might buy other songs based on the YouTube videos. Although it may seem odd to buy songs when I could simply listen to the music online, there's not much incentive to produce content when you don't get compensated for it (intangibles like fame and the joy of exercising one's creativity are nice, but they don't pay the bills). I view it as stealing, although not everyone agrees. It's also a lot easier to save an iTunes file onto my iPod than extract the music from the video, save it to my computer and then transfer it.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Productivity Update
Current Projects
*"Needs Must." The second Andrew Patel short story slated for my Kennesaw writing group's "Southern Superheroes" anthology.
*Battle for the Wastelands-What will be my first finished novel using my own worlds/characters (i.e. not fan fiction).
Last Sunday, I was up until around midnight writing Chapter 19 of Battle for the Wastelands. I'd already finished Chapter 20 and Chapter 22, so finishing this chapter helped fill a major gap. The concept for Chapter 21 I came up with at DragonCon and I plugged in the chapter between what became Chapter 22 and the unfinished Chapter 20.
This chapter was harder to write, since it isn't based on my strengths (world-building, fight scenes)--instead, it's purely dialogue/character development. Still, a woman from my Lawrenceville writing group liked it, even though I realized after I submitted it that I left out some very pertinent information.
In this one, cowgirl Alyssa Carson flirts with protagonist Andrew Sutter some more, but he isn't interested, remembering his girl from his doomed hometown. She ends up flirting with his jerkish squad-mate Will, which makes Andrew jealous. I don't have a whole lot of experience with this kind of drama, so writing it realistically is going to be tricky.
Now to finish Chapter 21, which features the villain Grendel's son Falki ending up in a rather sticky situation...
I've got 20 continuous chapters completed and when I finish 21, that'll be 22 continuous chapters. Nine to 10 more left, with bits and pieces of material already written. Got to finish by Veterans' Day...
However, I'm also committed to have two stories completed by either Nov. 1 or Nov. 15 for my Kennesaw writing group's "Southern Superheroes" project. I've completed and revised the first story "Ubermensch," which was first titled "Andrew Patel's Crisis of Conscience." The second story is entitled "Needs Must" and features an awkward team-up between the villain Andrew Patel and the heroic Silverbolt.
I've got 4,148 words on that one completed. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done by Monday or Tuesday and submit it to my Kennesaw writing group for our Oct. 8 meeting. That'll jeopardize my timetable for finishing Battle, but this whole situation was my idea in the first place, so I really can't complain.
Earlier this month, I also wrote 1,200 words on a short story entitled "A New World To Conquer," which is set in a new science-fiction universe I devised at DragonCon. I was in a panel that was getting a bit dull, so I started doodling in my notebook. I drew a roughly man-sized pterodactyl in powered armor accompanied by a human in the same gear. My mind started whirling--what kind of story would produce this?
I ended up with the basic plots of eight novels and several short stories set in universe where humanity is part of a decaying empire ruled by alien pterodactyl-analogues. When "A New World" is done, which will probably be after both of my Andrew Patel stories and possibly even after the first draft of Battle for the Wastelands, I intend to send it to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I haven't sent them anything in quite awhile, since most of the short fiction I've been sending out has been revised older material they've already rejected. If they don't want it, I suspect by that time, Digital Science Fiction would have reopened for submissions and "A New World" would be a good fit for them.
Of course, I'll run it once through each of my writing groups to make sure it's in the best possible shape...
*"Needs Must." The second Andrew Patel short story slated for my Kennesaw writing group's "Southern Superheroes" anthology.
*Battle for the Wastelands-What will be my first finished novel using my own worlds/characters (i.e. not fan fiction).
Last Sunday, I was up until around midnight writing Chapter 19 of Battle for the Wastelands. I'd already finished Chapter 20 and Chapter 22, so finishing this chapter helped fill a major gap. The concept for Chapter 21 I came up with at DragonCon and I plugged in the chapter between what became Chapter 22 and the unfinished Chapter 20.
This chapter was harder to write, since it isn't based on my strengths (world-building, fight scenes)--instead, it's purely dialogue/character development. Still, a woman from my Lawrenceville writing group liked it, even though I realized after I submitted it that I left out some very pertinent information.
In this one, cowgirl Alyssa Carson flirts with protagonist Andrew Sutter some more, but he isn't interested, remembering his girl from his doomed hometown. She ends up flirting with his jerkish squad-mate Will, which makes Andrew jealous. I don't have a whole lot of experience with this kind of drama, so writing it realistically is going to be tricky.
Now to finish Chapter 21, which features the villain Grendel's son Falki ending up in a rather sticky situation...
I've got 20 continuous chapters completed and when I finish 21, that'll be 22 continuous chapters. Nine to 10 more left, with bits and pieces of material already written. Got to finish by Veterans' Day...
However, I'm also committed to have two stories completed by either Nov. 1 or Nov. 15 for my Kennesaw writing group's "Southern Superheroes" project. I've completed and revised the first story "Ubermensch," which was first titled "Andrew Patel's Crisis of Conscience." The second story is entitled "Needs Must" and features an awkward team-up between the villain Andrew Patel and the heroic Silverbolt.
I've got 4,148 words on that one completed. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done by Monday or Tuesday and submit it to my Kennesaw writing group for our Oct. 8 meeting. That'll jeopardize my timetable for finishing Battle, but this whole situation was my idea in the first place, so I really can't complain.
Earlier this month, I also wrote 1,200 words on a short story entitled "A New World To Conquer," which is set in a new science-fiction universe I devised at DragonCon. I was in a panel that was getting a bit dull, so I started doodling in my notebook. I drew a roughly man-sized pterodactyl in powered armor accompanied by a human in the same gear. My mind started whirling--what kind of story would produce this?
I ended up with the basic plots of eight novels and several short stories set in universe where humanity is part of a decaying empire ruled by alien pterodactyl-analogues. When "A New World" is done, which will probably be after both of my Andrew Patel stories and possibly even after the first draft of Battle for the Wastelands, I intend to send it to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I haven't sent them anything in quite awhile, since most of the short fiction I've been sending out has been revised older material they've already rejected. If they don't want it, I suspect by that time, Digital Science Fiction would have reopened for submissions and "A New World" would be a good fit for them.
Of course, I'll run it once through each of my writing groups to make sure it's in the best possible shape...
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Book Review: "Tears of the Sun" (SPOILERS)
Just finished S.M. Stirling's The Tears of the Sun,
the newest novel in the Emberverse. Here's my review...
The Good
*It was an enjoyable book and a fairly quick read. Always a plus.
*Stirling clearly put a lot of care into the development of minor characters.
*I liked how the Boisean light cavalry gets lured into a trap with the prospect of sheep to steal and gets jacked.
*Good commando raid into Boise and the price that is paid for victory. Not going to say who, but the cast from the first books is starting to get mighty thin on the ground...
*Nice cliffhanger ending to set up the next book, Lord of Mountains.
The Bad
*Too much description of the food and how it tastes. I recall the description of the taste of cured meat coming up many times.
*Rudi MacKenzie, Mathilda Arminger, etc. kind of disappear for a long time.
*Too much time, including multiple flashbacks, spent on Mary Liu's treasonous dealings with the Church Universal and Triumphant and how they're exposed and dealt with. It was good to meet Odard Liu's other siblings and they do get a lot of development for characters introduced (I think) in this book, but still. I think a lot of this could have been cut from the book and been replaced with battles. See below...
*We see Rudi and company gathering for war and we later having Tiphaine d'Ath's Mary Liu flashbacks interrupted by the need to assist Rudi and friends organizing a "fighting retreat." The campaign and the battle that forced Montival's army to retreat don't get described at all. This is in marked contrast with the Pendleton campaign of the earlier books, in which the campaign and its aftermath make up a significant chunk of the book.
Given the book jacket's blurb about how Rudi knows he might die in the fight against the Church Universal and Triumphant, depicting him having a close call in a battle we see onscreen would have been awesome.
The Verdict
A good book, but Stirling can do better. 6 out of 10.
the newest novel in the Emberverse. Here's my review...The Good
*It was an enjoyable book and a fairly quick read. Always a plus.
*Stirling clearly put a lot of care into the development of minor characters.
*I liked how the Boisean light cavalry gets lured into a trap with the prospect of sheep to steal and gets jacked.
*Good commando raid into Boise and the price that is paid for victory. Not going to say who, but the cast from the first books is starting to get mighty thin on the ground...
*Nice cliffhanger ending to set up the next book, Lord of Mountains.
*Too much description of the food and how it tastes. I recall the description of the taste of cured meat coming up many times.
*Rudi MacKenzie, Mathilda Arminger, etc. kind of disappear for a long time.
*Too much time, including multiple flashbacks, spent on Mary Liu's treasonous dealings with the Church Universal and Triumphant and how they're exposed and dealt with. It was good to meet Odard Liu's other siblings and they do get a lot of development for characters introduced (I think) in this book, but still. I think a lot of this could have been cut from the book and been replaced with battles. See below...
*We see Rudi and company gathering for war and we later having Tiphaine d'Ath's Mary Liu flashbacks interrupted by the need to assist Rudi and friends organizing a "fighting retreat." The campaign and the battle that forced Montival's army to retreat don't get described at all. This is in marked contrast with the Pendleton campaign of the earlier books, in which the campaign and its aftermath make up a significant chunk of the book.
Given the book jacket's blurb about how Rudi knows he might die in the fight against the Church Universal and Triumphant, depicting him having a close call in a battle we see onscreen would have been awesome.
The Verdict
A good book, but Stirling can do better. 6 out of 10.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Lots of Internet Publicity for "Coil Gun"
Ever since Pressure Suite - Digital Science Fiction Anthology 3,
which contains my short story "Coil Gun," debuted, I've been using the Internet to market it.
For starters, since the story is set in a timeline I created on an alternate-history Internet forum, I promoted the heck out of it there. The threads about it are mostly in forums where non-members do not have access, so here's the link to the actual timeline of the world it's set in. Go to the very end for some discussion about how just how the Afrikaner Confederation will incorporate much of India and present-day Indonesia--the username whose handle is "gksa" came up with some really interesting ideas I intend to use.
And that has led to further promotion. Korsgaard, who I know from the forum, wrote a review of the entire anthology on my friend Nick's blog and reviewed "Coil Gun" individually on his own blog.
Then Korsgaard's friend Mitro mentioned my story and got some comments from Digitial Science Fiction Editor Michael Wills and then interviewed me about "Coil Gun" and the craft of writing in general.
And Digital Science Fiction was so kind as to link back to all of them on its own web-site.
Hooray for networking!
And then there's this here, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Not sure who runs it exactly, but it's some additional material on my story.
which contains my short story "Coil Gun," debuted, I've been using the Internet to market it.For starters, since the story is set in a timeline I created on an alternate-history Internet forum, I promoted the heck out of it there. The threads about it are mostly in forums where non-members do not have access, so here's the link to the actual timeline of the world it's set in. Go to the very end for some discussion about how just how the Afrikaner Confederation will incorporate much of India and present-day Indonesia--the username whose handle is "gksa" came up with some really interesting ideas I intend to use.
And that has led to further promotion. Korsgaard, who I know from the forum, wrote a review of the entire anthology on my friend Nick's blog and reviewed "Coil Gun" individually on his own blog.
Then Korsgaard's friend Mitro mentioned my story and got some comments from Digitial Science Fiction Editor Michael Wills and then interviewed me about "Coil Gun" and the craft of writing in general.
And Digital Science Fiction was so kind as to link back to all of them on its own web-site.
Hooray for networking!
And then there's this here, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Not sure who runs it exactly, but it's some additional material on my story.
Friday, September 23, 2011
I Write About Jon Huntsman
Earlier this year, I posted here about why I supported Mitch Daniels as the 2012 Republican nominee. Unfortunately, Daniels decided not to run this year.
So I set out in search of a new candidate. Mitt Romney has an alarming tendency to change his views to gather popularity, while Rick Perry doesn't seem to believe in evolution and has interfered with the investigation about whether Texas may have executed an innocent man. Rick Santorum actually used the phrase "man on dog" in an interview, while Ron Paul, who I once supported quite zealously, said he would not have authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
And then I found Jon Huntsman, who is fiscally conservative but doesn't have social views that would repel a growing percentage of the American electorate.
(Check out the book The Emerging Democratic Majority. As the U.S. grows less white, less Protestant, and less Christian generally, Religious Right-type views are more and more going to be an albatross around any candidate's neck.)
Here's a column I wrote about Huntsman for my newspaper.
Don't overlook lesser-known GOP candidate in 2012
Let me emphasize this is NOT an endorsement, since my newspaper does not endorse individual candidates. However, it is a list of reasons why Huntsman would make a good candidate. And for good measure, I don't take shots at any of the other candidates--instead, I merely explain Huntsman's strengths.
Now to find a Huntsman group in Georgia. In 2008, there were Ron Paul groups and I was even a member of one. However, searching Meetup.com found nothing Huntsman-related in Atlanta and Googling "Georgians for Huntsman" only found me an anemic Twitter feed.
The Georgia Republican primary is February 7, 2012. There really isn't all that much time left.
P.S.
If you all are ever in Little Five Points in Atlanta, be sure to check out Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q. It's better than Shane's or any other BBQ place I've even been to. I especially like the brisket.
So I set out in search of a new candidate. Mitt Romney has an alarming tendency to change his views to gather popularity, while Rick Perry doesn't seem to believe in evolution and has interfered with the investigation about whether Texas may have executed an innocent man. Rick Santorum actually used the phrase "man on dog" in an interview, while Ron Paul, who I once supported quite zealously, said he would not have authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
And then I found Jon Huntsman, who is fiscally conservative but doesn't have social views that would repel a growing percentage of the American electorate.
(Check out the book The Emerging Democratic Majority. As the U.S. grows less white, less Protestant, and less Christian generally, Religious Right-type views are more and more going to be an albatross around any candidate's neck.)
Here's a column I wrote about Huntsman for my newspaper.
Don't overlook lesser-known GOP candidate in 2012
Let me emphasize this is NOT an endorsement, since my newspaper does not endorse individual candidates. However, it is a list of reasons why Huntsman would make a good candidate. And for good measure, I don't take shots at any of the other candidates--instead, I merely explain Huntsman's strengths.
Now to find a Huntsman group in Georgia. In 2008, there were Ron Paul groups and I was even a member of one. However, searching Meetup.com found nothing Huntsman-related in Atlanta and Googling "Georgians for Huntsman" only found me an anemic Twitter feed.
The Georgia Republican primary is February 7, 2012. There really isn't all that much time left.
P.S.
If you all are ever in Little Five Points in Atlanta, be sure to check out Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q. It's better than Shane's or any other BBQ place I've even been to. I especially like the brisket.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
2011 DragonCon #2: S.M. Stirling
One of the panels I had the chance to sit in on at DragonCon was that of noted science fiction and alternate-history author S.M. Stirling.
"Currently, I'm working on a sequel to Tears of the Sun," was his answer to someone asking him about his current projects. The sequel was originally titled The Given Sacrifice, but the story took longer than he thought. It is now called Lord of Mountains and it will complete Rudi MacKenzie's story arc--make of that what you will. He does intend for more Emberverse novels taking place afterward--he and John Birmingham are working on one set in Australia.
"Galleys ramming each other Salamis-style off the coast of Darwin," is how he described that project. He also made a reference to a future Emberverse novel entitled Eric the Strong, which is (I assume) about the foundation of the Norse-reconstructionist pagan culture that our heroes come across in Maine during one of the later Emberverse novels.
He referred to the Change universe as his Hyborean Age. Robert E. Howard created the Hyborean Age so he could include things from different historical periods. Stirling wanted to have knights in armor and cowboys existing in the same world, and voila.
He is also pondering an alternate-history project in which Teddy Roosevelt won the 1912 presidential election. It will feature dirigibles, biplanes, guys in leather helmets with goggles, and, just maybe, an underwater base.
Stirling also said he may return to the world of Island in the Sea of Time, although he didn't go into detail. He said he can produce roughly a novel a year, so he only has time for 20-30 novels, barring rejuvenation technology.
Someone's phone rang during the discussion. "Die!" Stirling shouted. I thought that was pretty funny.
When asked if he has given any thought to opening up his world like Eric Flint did in his 1632 novels, Stirling said he has given thought to a shared-world anthology of Emberverse stories. However, his publisher vetoed it.
Stirling then revealed the Emberverse series has been optioned for a TV program. He warned that hundreds of properties are optioned every year, so that doesn't mean it will be made. He said the series would be like HBO's Game of Thrones, with each book corresponding to a TV season. He said TV series are more appropriate for books than movies are--a movie is more akin to a short story or a novella.
Stirling also revealed he will have a short story included in a Barsoom anthology timed to come out at the same time as the John Carter film next year. His story manages to include the Moon Men and Pellucidar. He will also have a Time Patrol story in a Poul Anderson tribute anthology.
"Short stories are sort of a Judas breed these days," he said. "You don't make enough money from them to be worth your time, but it's a hell of a lot of fun."
Ironically short stories used to be bigger sellers than novels. Robert E. Howard was the richest man in his hometown.
A woman asked Stirling about including maps for battles in his books because the battles were written confusedly. He said he tries to be as clear as possible when he writes battles.
"It's hard to be both realistic and clear about battles and fights," he said. "Especially on a large scale."
He then said that in real life, actually being a king is boring. Lots of meetings and reports. No wonder the fantasy stories end when the hero actually becomes king.
Another participant asked how the Draka series would end, or would the status quo continue for thousands of years. Stirling said the Draka were alternate-history horror, an "AH Cthulhu mythos." He said he wrote the series when he was in law school, which would explain why it was full of anger and hate.
He told the participant he was not interested in the Draka anymore, since he wrote the last book over 20 years ago.
He then discussed his life before he made it big. He spent eight years working odd jobs while trying to write, including picking tobacco and working as a bouncer in a bar for two days. He sold a short story to a British magazine for a quarter-cent a word. The magazine went under, but someone bought the rights and the story appeared 20 years later.
"I got my quarter-cent a word," he said.
He told a funny story about how he sold a story to Jim Baen, the founder of Baen Books. Baen said it was a good story, but the ending was ambiguous--what happened was the last page had gone missing.
Stirling's work began selling after he married. His career really took off with Island in the Sea of Time and things have been getting better ever since.
"You've got to have talent, you've got to have persistence, and you've got to be lucky," he said.
He said fiction sales have withstood the recent economic downturn well, but publishers have gotten more cautious. Publishing profit margins are typically three to five percent--people try to get 15 to 20 percent returns and they can't. Writing is one of the last individual craft industries. He signed a multi-book contract before the crash and he is safe.
"For people trying to break in, it's hell," he said.
An audience member asked about EBooks. Stirling said as long as people were paying for them, he is happy with them. He has a Kindle and it helps him read more, since he spends $6,000 per year on books.
As far as fan-fiction is concerned, if copyright is acknowledged, that's free advertising for him. There are people who post fan-fiction on his site.
(Hmm...that might be something to keep in mind when I become a novelist. I got a lot of practice for novels with my Harry Potter fan-fiction and so I couldn't non-hypocritically condemn fan-fiction, but I can easily imagine getting upset if someone wrote Grendel/Andrew slash fiction, romanticized the captivity of Catalina Merrill, or something icky like that.)
I got the chance to ask him a question during the session. What happened to all the Protestants in the Emberverse? I asked why it seems everyone in the Emberverse is either a neo-pagan or a Catholic. Even Frederick Thurston, who was brought up as a Methodist, became a worshipper of the Norse gods.
Stirling said that was of a joke--everyone he knows who is a member of some exotic religion started out as a Methodist. Rarely does one see, say, an enthusiastic Orthodox Jew becoming a Wiccan. He said the "either Catholic or pagan" situation was in the Pacific Northwest only and Iowa is still majority Protestant.
Someone else asked him what his long-term plans for the Draka were--who wins?
"The battle would have continued as long as I wanted to write the books," he said.
He said one doesn't kill off a good villain, unless you give them children.
Stirling then read a selection from Lord of Mountains out loud. Rudi has had a big meeting at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood and he and a bunch of others investigate a supernatural occurrence nearby. He gave Rudi and Edain faux Irish accents, which I found really funny.
"Currently, I'm working on a sequel to Tears of the Sun," was his answer to someone asking him about his current projects. The sequel was originally titled The Given Sacrifice, but the story took longer than he thought. It is now called Lord of Mountains and it will complete Rudi MacKenzie's story arc--make of that what you will. He does intend for more Emberverse novels taking place afterward--he and John Birmingham are working on one set in Australia.
"Galleys ramming each other Salamis-style off the coast of Darwin," is how he described that project. He also made a reference to a future Emberverse novel entitled Eric the Strong, which is (I assume) about the foundation of the Norse-reconstructionist pagan culture that our heroes come across in Maine during one of the later Emberverse novels.
He referred to the Change universe as his Hyborean Age. Robert E. Howard created the Hyborean Age so he could include things from different historical periods. Stirling wanted to have knights in armor and cowboys existing in the same world, and voila.
He is also pondering an alternate-history project in which Teddy Roosevelt won the 1912 presidential election. It will feature dirigibles, biplanes, guys in leather helmets with goggles, and, just maybe, an underwater base.
Stirling also said he may return to the world of Island in the Sea of Time, although he didn't go into detail. He said he can produce roughly a novel a year, so he only has time for 20-30 novels, barring rejuvenation technology.
Someone's phone rang during the discussion. "Die!" Stirling shouted. I thought that was pretty funny.
When asked if he has given any thought to opening up his world like Eric Flint did in his 1632 novels, Stirling said he has given thought to a shared-world anthology of Emberverse stories. However, his publisher vetoed it.
Stirling then revealed the Emberverse series has been optioned for a TV program. He warned that hundreds of properties are optioned every year, so that doesn't mean it will be made. He said the series would be like HBO's Game of Thrones, with each book corresponding to a TV season. He said TV series are more appropriate for books than movies are--a movie is more akin to a short story or a novella.
Stirling also revealed he will have a short story included in a Barsoom anthology timed to come out at the same time as the John Carter film next year. His story manages to include the Moon Men and Pellucidar. He will also have a Time Patrol story in a Poul Anderson tribute anthology.
"Short stories are sort of a Judas breed these days," he said. "You don't make enough money from them to be worth your time, but it's a hell of a lot of fun."
Ironically short stories used to be bigger sellers than novels. Robert E. Howard was the richest man in his hometown.
A woman asked Stirling about including maps for battles in his books because the battles were written confusedly. He said he tries to be as clear as possible when he writes battles.
"It's hard to be both realistic and clear about battles and fights," he said. "Especially on a large scale."
He then said that in real life, actually being a king is boring. Lots of meetings and reports. No wonder the fantasy stories end when the hero actually becomes king.
Another participant asked how the Draka series would end, or would the status quo continue for thousands of years. Stirling said the Draka were alternate-history horror, an "AH Cthulhu mythos." He said he wrote the series when he was in law school, which would explain why it was full of anger and hate.
He told the participant he was not interested in the Draka anymore, since he wrote the last book over 20 years ago.
He then discussed his life before he made it big. He spent eight years working odd jobs while trying to write, including picking tobacco and working as a bouncer in a bar for two days. He sold a short story to a British magazine for a quarter-cent a word. The magazine went under, but someone bought the rights and the story appeared 20 years later.
"I got my quarter-cent a word," he said.
He told a funny story about how he sold a story to Jim Baen, the founder of Baen Books. Baen said it was a good story, but the ending was ambiguous--what happened was the last page had gone missing.
Stirling's work began selling after he married. His career really took off with Island in the Sea of Time and things have been getting better ever since.
"You've got to have talent, you've got to have persistence, and you've got to be lucky," he said.
He said fiction sales have withstood the recent economic downturn well, but publishers have gotten more cautious. Publishing profit margins are typically three to five percent--people try to get 15 to 20 percent returns and they can't. Writing is one of the last individual craft industries. He signed a multi-book contract before the crash and he is safe.
"For people trying to break in, it's hell," he said.
An audience member asked about EBooks. Stirling said as long as people were paying for them, he is happy with them. He has a Kindle and it helps him read more, since he spends $6,000 per year on books.
As far as fan-fiction is concerned, if copyright is acknowledged, that's free advertising for him. There are people who post fan-fiction on his site.
(Hmm...that might be something to keep in mind when I become a novelist. I got a lot of practice for novels with my Harry Potter fan-fiction and so I couldn't non-hypocritically condemn fan-fiction, but I can easily imagine getting upset if someone wrote Grendel/Andrew slash fiction, romanticized the captivity of Catalina Merrill, or something icky like that.)
I got the chance to ask him a question during the session. What happened to all the Protestants in the Emberverse? I asked why it seems everyone in the Emberverse is either a neo-pagan or a Catholic. Even Frederick Thurston, who was brought up as a Methodist, became a worshipper of the Norse gods.
Stirling said that was of a joke--everyone he knows who is a member of some exotic religion started out as a Methodist. Rarely does one see, say, an enthusiastic Orthodox Jew becoming a Wiccan. He said the "either Catholic or pagan" situation was in the Pacific Northwest only and Iowa is still majority Protestant.
Someone else asked him what his long-term plans for the Draka were--who wins?
"The battle would have continued as long as I wanted to write the books," he said.
He said one doesn't kill off a good villain, unless you give them children.
Stirling then read a selection from Lord of Mountains out loud. Rudi has had a big meeting at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood and he and a bunch of others investigate a supernatural occurrence nearby. He gave Rudi and Edain faux Irish accents, which I found really funny.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Anthology Containing My Short Story Is Now For Sale
The third edition of the Kindle anthology Digital Science Fiction, which contains my short story "Coil Gun," is now available for purchase.
Buy it here for Kindle!
Buy it here for Kindle, the Nook, and other formats!
Also, here is some content that my loyal readers might appreciate.
For starters, here's the map of the world in which "Coil Gun" takes place.
And here's the current version of the timeline leading up to the events of "Coil Gun" and what happens afterward.
I figured you all would appreciate some background material on the world this is set in. I've got one more completed story set in this world, "Picking Up Plans In Palma," that I hope to submit to Digital Science Fiction when it opens for submissions for the fifth edition. I've also got an incomplete story set in this universe entitled "Killing The Rijnsburg" that focuses on the spaceplane attack that destroy the titular Afrikaner battle-station (and will also feature the destruction of the Montgomery as well) I can finish and send in.
I've also got some novels that take place during the lead-up to WWIII and during the war itself and its aftermath plotted out, although one won't need to read the short fiction in order to understand what's happening. Some of the characters in the novels appear (or are mentioned) in "Picking Up Plans in Palma," but that's just "showing" some of their back-story rather than "telling" it--the important stuff will be related in a "telling" away in the novel itself, although I can imagine including "Palma" text as flashbacks.
Also, for those of you who are new to me and enjoyed "Coil Gun," you might want to join my Facebook fan page.
Here's the link.
Buy it here for Kindle!
Buy it here for Kindle, the Nook, and other formats!
Also, here is some content that my loyal readers might appreciate.
For starters, here's the map of the world in which "Coil Gun" takes place.
And here's the current version of the timeline leading up to the events of "Coil Gun" and what happens afterward.
I figured you all would appreciate some background material on the world this is set in. I've got one more completed story set in this world, "Picking Up Plans In Palma," that I hope to submit to Digital Science Fiction when it opens for submissions for the fifth edition. I've also got an incomplete story set in this universe entitled "Killing The Rijnsburg" that focuses on the spaceplane attack that destroy the titular Afrikaner battle-station (and will also feature the destruction of the Montgomery as well) I can finish and send in.
I've also got some novels that take place during the lead-up to WWIII and during the war itself and its aftermath plotted out, although one won't need to read the short fiction in order to understand what's happening. Some of the characters in the novels appear (or are mentioned) in "Picking Up Plans in Palma," but that's just "showing" some of their back-story rather than "telling" it--the important stuff will be related in a "telling" away in the novel itself, although I can imagine including "Palma" text as flashbacks.
Also, for those of you who are new to me and enjoyed "Coil Gun," you might want to join my Facebook fan page.
Here's the link.
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