Rob J. Meijer's Blog
August 28, 2018
Why I've switched to "Reader Sets Price" on Smashwords.
My first novel, Ragnarok Conspiracy was made available in preliminary version some weeks to some ago on different channels in a version that has my novelettes Orussian Quarantine and Atheist Afterlife as bonus stories. Other than my novelettes, the novel, due to financial considerations was edited by attracting beta-readers only instead of me hiring a professional editor.
As I made some money by publishing chapters on the steemit platform, and as writing for me is a hobby, not a career move, I'm not actually looking to make any real money from the book, so I considered making the book free of charge on all platforms.
Unfortunately, trying to make the book free creates problems. Amazon claims to do price matching, but in reality, it doesn't price match free books down to zero and there is no way to make a book free of charge without making it Amazon exclusive. Play does allow making the book free of charge, and so does Smashwords, but the later has a few caveats with doing so. Some of the channels that Smashwords pushes to will not accept books that are set to free.
Smashwords has a great option though. You can set the price of a book to "Reader sets price", and still set a price for retailers. The result is that anyone who wants to can now fetch a free copy from Smashwords, or if they want to, pay a small amount of money for my work. People who don't want to go through the trouble of using a USB cable to get the book onto their e-reader can still get my book from Amazon, Play, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, Bol or B&N.
On Amazon, I've set the price for all of the countries Amazon allows it for to the lowest admissible price for the 70% royalties. This means that readers in for example Brazil or India pay a much lower price for my book than people in the EU or UK.
For Play, I'm taking a different approach. While I can set the prize on Play to FREE, I've discovered that I reach many more readers by periodically do a 90% off promotion than when I make it free or when I set it to a minimum price all of the time. So now until August 31st, the book is 90% off on Play. In a few months, I'll do a black Friday promotion.
It would be cool if I could reach the maximum number of readers by making my book free on all platforms, but it has become clear to me that this just isn't practical. Having to have different strategies for different platforms is a bit of a hassle, but I think, in the end, it makes sense from an exposure perspective.
As I made some money by publishing chapters on the steemit platform, and as writing for me is a hobby, not a career move, I'm not actually looking to make any real money from the book, so I considered making the book free of charge on all platforms.
Unfortunately, trying to make the book free creates problems. Amazon claims to do price matching, but in reality, it doesn't price match free books down to zero and there is no way to make a book free of charge without making it Amazon exclusive. Play does allow making the book free of charge, and so does Smashwords, but the later has a few caveats with doing so. Some of the channels that Smashwords pushes to will not accept books that are set to free.
Smashwords has a great option though. You can set the price of a book to "Reader sets price", and still set a price for retailers. The result is that anyone who wants to can now fetch a free copy from Smashwords, or if they want to, pay a small amount of money for my work. People who don't want to go through the trouble of using a USB cable to get the book onto their e-reader can still get my book from Amazon, Play, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, Bol or B&N.
On Amazon, I've set the price for all of the countries Amazon allows it for to the lowest admissible price for the 70% royalties. This means that readers in for example Brazil or India pay a much lower price for my book than people in the EU or UK.
For Play, I'm taking a different approach. While I can set the prize on Play to FREE, I've discovered that I reach many more readers by periodically do a 90% off promotion than when I make it free or when I set it to a minimum price all of the time. So now until August 31st, the book is 90% off on Play. In a few months, I'll do a black Friday promotion.
It would be cool if I could reach the maximum number of readers by making my book free on all platforms, but it has become clear to me that this just isn't practical. Having to have different strategies for different platforms is a bit of a hassle, but I think, in the end, it makes sense from an exposure perspective.
May 7, 2015
A call to Smashwords published authors to support dyslexic readers.
When I was an adolescent, I used to be the dumb kid in the class. Basically anything language related was a total horror. In those days, the early and mid 1980s, for the average primary or secondary school teacher there was basically one diagnose for a wide range of learning problem: "The kid is slow". In those days I absolutely hated reading, I hated school, and quite frankly I had just accepted that I was "slow".
Than at one point, I don't recall the exact details, a teacher presented us with a standard IQ test. After we were scored, the teacher already surprised by me ending up there, a small group of us were given a second test (due to the inaccuracy of the standard IQ test outside of the mid range). Result: Turned out me, the dumbest kid in the class actually had been the smartest kid in the class all along. At that point in time my amazing teacher Dutch stepped in with tremendous enthusiasm. She had no training to recognize any of the wide range of cognitive impairments that we know of today, but by trail and error, she soon found something trivially simple that ended up saving me: A thick black ruler. Using my 'magic' ruler while reading, I ended up my secondary school one year later with the second highest grades for my year. Fast forward a few years and I was at a point that I never imagined possible: I had become a complete book nerd and language lover.
Fast forward an other 25 or so years. I no longer need my ruler. That is, unless some crazy indie author sees it fit to use 100% line-height for his paperback in order to keep the price down. I can basically read everything be it at different speeds depending on two out of a set of 3 factors that I will tell you about that can greatly impact how cognitively impaired people experience reading.
Line height
The number one enabler for me personally is line-height. Give me 100% line height and my reading speed slows down to a crawl. I'll probably start looking for something dark that I can use as a ruler. Give me 130% though, and my reading speed goes up to what is considered 'normal'. Next to reading speed, a larger line-height helps my ability to keep reading without any discomfort for many hours on end. Many cognitively impaired people have similar experiences. If you are a self published author, please please pretty please never be tempted to reduce your page-count by cranking down the line-height.
Font size
I can be short about this one. Font size matters to many cognitively impaired. While for some 14 point fonts are sufficient, others benefit greatly of increasing the font size up to a massive 18 point. Personally I can cope quite well with smaller fonts, but to many others a solid font size is an absolute requirement.
Font
Fonts matter to people with cognitive disabilities. Problem though: There are massive divides between different types of cognitively impaired. Some studies show that a font like Helvetica would be beneficial to dyslexic people. Give me Helvetica and my reading spead drops by about quarter. Personally I've always have had a great liking to Donald Knuth's Computer Modern. When someone suggested I looked at OpenDyslexic at first I didn't find it all that visually appealing. It in fact didn't improve my reading speed when compared to the hand full of fonts I had been preferring. Then however I tried it out for a full book. By all objective measures
it 'performed' the same as my good old Computer Modern, same reading speed, same time before I would need to take a brake. What I experienced however was beyond that, it was what I can only describe as 'full story emergence'. When reading OpenDyslexic it seems, my hypothesis is, to free up a part of my brain that is usually involved with locking down the letters to the lines and allows me to use that part of my brain to build a much more vivid image of the world the author is creating.
Tablets and e-readers
In this day of tablets and e-readers with adjustable fonts, reading can be a whole lot easier to cognitively impaired people than it was before. Unfortunately though, especially on the side of allowing non-standard fonts and on setting line-height, a lot of e-reading solutions fall short.
As far as I have found, there is one shining example when it comes to friendly reading devices and that is the Kobo reader. The Kobo reader isn't cheap though, and given that I remember how big an obstacle an undiscovered cognitive problem can be to the enjoyment of reading, the thought that the cognitively impaired should simply get themselves a Kobo reader truly doesn't cut it with me. Dyslexic people need all the support and encouragement they can get in discovering what works for them.
OpenDyslexic Version
Looking at myself and how far I have come from being the dumb slow kid in class with undiscovered cognitive issues to now enjoying my daily dose of fiction reading and even having self-published a few short stories in a language that isn't my first language, I could almost forget the doubts and struggles of those first few months. I know I also should probably not underestimate the role triple nine percentile intelligence may have played in learning to cope with my cognitive issues. As such I feel a strong need to try and help other cognitively impaired people in finding and nurturing their inner book-lover. Its not a small step to go from a situation where reading multi-line text is the stuff of nightmares to becoming a book lover.
I think its extremely important to offer a cheap or free first step. Well, I will try to walk you true one that I feel is a pretty good fit for those still at that awful side of the hump, especialy those that would benefit from the use of the OpenDyslexic font.
Looking at the font side of things, if we ignore the Kobo reader that comes with openDyslexic pre-installed, there are basically multiple possibilities for an App or reader:
Only built-in fonts supported.
Respect of epub embedded fonts.
Support for side-loading custom fonts.
We shall be looking at the second one. Most people have a tablet, and there is an excellent free e-reader app called FBReader that will respect epub embedded fonts. Alternatively, the web reader for Google Play also will respect epub embedded fonts. In any case, there are free options available to getting epubs with embedded fonts working on a tablet.
Knowing this, it becomes interesting to use a special OpenDyslexic version of epub e-book files as a tool for supporting the cognitively impaired. For Orussian Quarantine I created such an epub by hand by patching the epub that Smashwords provided. Than I figured: hey, I could automate this and I started working on a little conversion server program that I than ended up using to create an OpenDyslexic release of Atheist Afterlife: Opendyslexic Edition.
Both OpenDyslexic editions are available for free on smashwords.
Readers
If you are reading this and are cognitively impaired yourself, than I would like to offer you the free (beta) service to convert the e-books you purchased on Smashwords:
My home-PC conversion server
Authors
If you are an author and would like to publish your own e-books in an OpenDyslexic release, you may also use the same service to convert your e-book. The same service should also work for your full-size cover art file and should create a boxed version of the cover art with the text "OpenDyslexic Edition". You can than submit the generated epub plus cover art to Smashwords as an e-pub only OpenDyslexic release. This should be all you need to do if you don't want to make your OpenDyslexic version free of charge.
If you however feel it suitable to make the OpenDyslexic version free of charge; A word of caution: Many e-readers and e-reading Apps will simply ignore embedded fonts and sometimes even line-height settings and use a system wide font instead, making the OpenDyslexic release look identical to the normal one. For my own free OpenDyslexic editions I've opted to replace my standard copyright notice with the following text:
To authors who would consider this as option for a free version of their books: Please drop me a message, I'll help you with fixing the copyright notice manually.
I truly hope the above rant will convince some other Smashwords published authors to use my (beta) conversion service that I'm currently running on my home PC. If you do run into any issues or have any suggestions than please drop me a message. I believe that with the service I've created, creating an OpenDyslexic edition of Smashwords published books should be easy to do for both readers and authors.
Please Smashwords authors, consider converting your book and publishing it on Smashwords again as OpenDyslexic release. If you feel wary about making it free, fine, look at it as a zero cost way to expand your market. That too could be the act that would let a cognitively impaired person set his/her first step towards becoming a book person, and for me every dyslexic making even small progress to the enjoyment of reading fiction is a major victory.
Than at one point, I don't recall the exact details, a teacher presented us with a standard IQ test. After we were scored, the teacher already surprised by me ending up there, a small group of us were given a second test (due to the inaccuracy of the standard IQ test outside of the mid range). Result: Turned out me, the dumbest kid in the class actually had been the smartest kid in the class all along. At that point in time my amazing teacher Dutch stepped in with tremendous enthusiasm. She had no training to recognize any of the wide range of cognitive impairments that we know of today, but by trail and error, she soon found something trivially simple that ended up saving me: A thick black ruler. Using my 'magic' ruler while reading, I ended up my secondary school one year later with the second highest grades for my year. Fast forward a few years and I was at a point that I never imagined possible: I had become a complete book nerd and language lover.
Fast forward an other 25 or so years. I no longer need my ruler. That is, unless some crazy indie author sees it fit to use 100% line-height for his paperback in order to keep the price down. I can basically read everything be it at different speeds depending on two out of a set of 3 factors that I will tell you about that can greatly impact how cognitively impaired people experience reading.
Line height
The number one enabler for me personally is line-height. Give me 100% line height and my reading speed slows down to a crawl. I'll probably start looking for something dark that I can use as a ruler. Give me 130% though, and my reading speed goes up to what is considered 'normal'. Next to reading speed, a larger line-height helps my ability to keep reading without any discomfort for many hours on end. Many cognitively impaired people have similar experiences. If you are a self published author, please please pretty please never be tempted to reduce your page-count by cranking down the line-height.
Font size
I can be short about this one. Font size matters to many cognitively impaired. While for some 14 point fonts are sufficient, others benefit greatly of increasing the font size up to a massive 18 point. Personally I can cope quite well with smaller fonts, but to many others a solid font size is an absolute requirement.
Font
Fonts matter to people with cognitive disabilities. Problem though: There are massive divides between different types of cognitively impaired. Some studies show that a font like Helvetica would be beneficial to dyslexic people. Give me Helvetica and my reading spead drops by about quarter. Personally I've always have had a great liking to Donald Knuth's Computer Modern. When someone suggested I looked at OpenDyslexic at first I didn't find it all that visually appealing. It in fact didn't improve my reading speed when compared to the hand full of fonts I had been preferring. Then however I tried it out for a full book. By all objective measures
it 'performed' the same as my good old Computer Modern, same reading speed, same time before I would need to take a brake. What I experienced however was beyond that, it was what I can only describe as 'full story emergence'. When reading OpenDyslexic it seems, my hypothesis is, to free up a part of my brain that is usually involved with locking down the letters to the lines and allows me to use that part of my brain to build a much more vivid image of the world the author is creating.
Tablets and e-readers
In this day of tablets and e-readers with adjustable fonts, reading can be a whole lot easier to cognitively impaired people than it was before. Unfortunately though, especially on the side of allowing non-standard fonts and on setting line-height, a lot of e-reading solutions fall short.
As far as I have found, there is one shining example when it comes to friendly reading devices and that is the Kobo reader. The Kobo reader isn't cheap though, and given that I remember how big an obstacle an undiscovered cognitive problem can be to the enjoyment of reading, the thought that the cognitively impaired should simply get themselves a Kobo reader truly doesn't cut it with me. Dyslexic people need all the support and encouragement they can get in discovering what works for them.
OpenDyslexic Version
Looking at myself and how far I have come from being the dumb slow kid in class with undiscovered cognitive issues to now enjoying my daily dose of fiction reading and even having self-published a few short stories in a language that isn't my first language, I could almost forget the doubts and struggles of those first few months. I know I also should probably not underestimate the role triple nine percentile intelligence may have played in learning to cope with my cognitive issues. As such I feel a strong need to try and help other cognitively impaired people in finding and nurturing their inner book-lover. Its not a small step to go from a situation where reading multi-line text is the stuff of nightmares to becoming a book lover.
I think its extremely important to offer a cheap or free first step. Well, I will try to walk you true one that I feel is a pretty good fit for those still at that awful side of the hump, especialy those that would benefit from the use of the OpenDyslexic font.
Looking at the font side of things, if we ignore the Kobo reader that comes with openDyslexic pre-installed, there are basically multiple possibilities for an App or reader:
Only built-in fonts supported.
Respect of epub embedded fonts.
Support for side-loading custom fonts.
We shall be looking at the second one. Most people have a tablet, and there is an excellent free e-reader app called FBReader that will respect epub embedded fonts. Alternatively, the web reader for Google Play also will respect epub embedded fonts. In any case, there are free options available to getting epubs with embedded fonts working on a tablet.
Knowing this, it becomes interesting to use a special OpenDyslexic version of epub e-book files as a tool for supporting the cognitively impaired. For Orussian Quarantine I created such an epub by hand by patching the epub that Smashwords provided. Than I figured: hey, I could automate this and I started working on a little conversion server program that I than ended up using to create an OpenDyslexic release of Atheist Afterlife: Opendyslexic Edition.
Both OpenDyslexic editions are available for free on smashwords.
Readers
If you are reading this and are cognitively impaired yourself, than I would like to offer you the free (beta) service to convert the e-books you purchased on Smashwords:
My home-PC conversion server
Authors
If you are an author and would like to publish your own e-books in an OpenDyslexic release, you may also use the same service to convert your e-book. The same service should also work for your full-size cover art file and should create a boxed version of the cover art with the text "OpenDyslexic Edition". You can than submit the generated epub plus cover art to Smashwords as an e-pub only OpenDyslexic release. This should be all you need to do if you don't want to make your OpenDyslexic version free of charge.
If you however feel it suitable to make the OpenDyslexic version free of charge; A word of caution: Many e-readers and e-reading Apps will simply ignore embedded fonts and sometimes even line-height settings and use a system wide font instead, making the OpenDyslexic release look identical to the normal one. For my own free OpenDyslexic editions I've opted to replace my standard copyright notice with the following text:
This version of this eBook is made available at zero cost in support
of people with cognitive disabilities who don't own a reading device
with support for system wide custom fonts. This eBook is a tuned version
of the regular edition made to use a 18 point font with at least 130%
line-height that has been tuned to use the OpenDyslexic font on readers
and devices that support custom fonts. FBReader and Androids Play Books
are examples of applications that don't support system wide custom fonts
but do support embedded custom fonts in eBooks. If you don't suffer from
cognitive disabilities than please return to smashwords and purchase the
regular edition of this eBook. If you plan to read this eBook on a device
or application that supports system wide installation of custom fonts,
than also please return to smashwords and purchase the regular edition of
this eBook.
To authors who would consider this as option for a free version of their books: Please drop me a message, I'll help you with fixing the copyright notice manually.
I truly hope the above rant will convince some other Smashwords published authors to use my (beta) conversion service that I'm currently running on my home PC. If you do run into any issues or have any suggestions than please drop me a message. I believe that with the service I've created, creating an OpenDyslexic edition of Smashwords published books should be easy to do for both readers and authors.
Please Smashwords authors, consider converting your book and publishing it on Smashwords again as OpenDyslexic release. If you feel wary about making it free, fine, look at it as a zero cost way to expand your market. That too could be the act that would let a cognitively impaired person set his/her first step towards becoming a book person, and for me every dyslexic making even small progress to the enjoyment of reading fiction is a major victory.
April 24, 2015
Prologue candidate.
I am writing 'Ragnarok Conspiracy' out in the open. As I posted a few chapters earlier in 2nd draft form, I am now posting my first draft of a possible prologue. I'm cramming quite a lot of history into this short prologue that takes place about a decade before the main story, and though I've tried to do so in a way that is not to dry and telling, I don't know if I succeeded. John is a minor character in the main story (thanks Owen R. O'Neill ) whose actions end up playing a pivotal role in the plot though. The history density is meant so I can greatly reduce this kind of backdrop heavy writing in the main story. Please leave comments if this prologue draft is working or if its a mood killer.
----------------------------
"Our house so big, you can't find your way to the kitchen?; Woman, where is me dumplin?"
As he witnessed his drone formations plummet towards the earth, John remembered his dad's last words. The word his father had spoken in his regular frivolous way just moments before being killed. Any hint of chauvinistic quality in his words instantly evaporating as a result of the friendly smile that came after it. He had spoken these words in his friendly but heavy west indian accent only a fraction of a second before a miniature quant-drone, only fractionally bigger and similar shaped to the little bananaquit bird that was so common to the islands, had blown a hole through his chest the size of a cricket ball. At first glance the drone looks just like the happy little grey birds with their bright yellow chests feathers that were always so busy in their family house garden. Only looking at it better revealed the miniature pentacopter wings that actually carried the fake bird. Each time John recalled his fathers dead, his hatred for the quants grew. What kind of sick minds would devise such a killing device?
As his computer helmet went pitch dark, John snapped back to the present. EMP! Those blasted Ottomans! After years of fighting just the quants, things had now changed. Johns fighting tactics had not adjusted to match yet, and this was the worst of times to come up short. The South Atlantic GNU Defence Alliance and the New Ottoman Free Trade Alliance had gone and sign a peace treaty. A peace treaty with those horrid quants! And now those blasted Ottomans had apparently even gone and share their Electromagnetic pulse battle tactics with the quants! Those bastards! Peace with these monsters?! Never! How could they?
After what they had done to him, to his family, all that John really wanted now was to avenge his dad.
His dad, John Bridgewater senior, had been a simple dock worker in Willemstad, Curacao . A hard working man without any interest in politics whatsoever. A simple and gentle soul. Although occasionally John’s mom may have disagreed with him on that while his dad was still alive. According to John's mom, John's dad had been a “lazy pig”, a “pothead” and “inveterate womanizer” and some other things John did not care to remind himself of. Those viewpoints had all been washed away though after his dad was murdered. Killed by a quant-drone! John senior, according to everyone, would most likely have been secretly involvement in the New Zion movement. John's mom today could speak nothing but praise about her late husband. He had been a hero and a saint. A freedom fighter who died to set his people free. John could not make himself take these delusions away from his mom by telling her the truth.
John knew there was absolutely no truth in his mother's words. The quants had no reason to murder him like that. no reason at all. Dad died for nothing and it was all his fault. It was him, John "Junior" that, while only 16 years of age at that moment, had enlisted into the ranks of the New Zion freedom fighters. The quants had murdered his dad, also named “John Bridgewater” in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
Pushing back his emotions, John quickly took of his computer helmet and disconnected himself from his now dead computer interfaces. Stumbling a few times he made his way out of his van. Quickly grabbing a glider backpack on his way out. He knew that without the protection of his drone army, he was a sitting duck up here. While John would gladly have given his life to stop the launch from happening, without his drones, without even a handgun, anything that he could now do is try for a strategic retreat. Their mission had failed, the other fractions were about to end the war at a terrible price that, for some reason, only New Zion fully comprehended. Despite of his own deep hatred for the quants, it was their quantum-computer slicing technology that allowed the world to finally see the the centuries old Babylon conspiracy. It had shown that his mad old rastafarian granddad had been right all along with his crazy rantings about Babylon.
This launch, this new weapon, it may end the war with the quants and incept a new peace, but at what price. New Babylon may have fled to Mars-One, a rudimentary and small colony on Mars built to house only a quarter of the amount of people who ended up seeking refuge there. The other fractions were grossly underestimating the nastiness and cunning of New Babylon. New Babylon were not rendered harmless. They were plotting from up there right now. Plotting and scheming was their way of life. Ending the war like this would leave the planet vulnerable. As John carefully landed his glider in the reeds of a small forest lake, he realized there was a new and long struggle up ahead. A struggle to keep New Babylon from regaining control of Earth.
----------------------------
"Our house so big, you can't find your way to the kitchen?; Woman, where is me dumplin?"
As he witnessed his drone formations plummet towards the earth, John remembered his dad's last words. The word his father had spoken in his regular frivolous way just moments before being killed. Any hint of chauvinistic quality in his words instantly evaporating as a result of the friendly smile that came after it. He had spoken these words in his friendly but heavy west indian accent only a fraction of a second before a miniature quant-drone, only fractionally bigger and similar shaped to the little bananaquit bird that was so common to the islands, had blown a hole through his chest the size of a cricket ball. At first glance the drone looks just like the happy little grey birds with their bright yellow chests feathers that were always so busy in their family house garden. Only looking at it better revealed the miniature pentacopter wings that actually carried the fake bird. Each time John recalled his fathers dead, his hatred for the quants grew. What kind of sick minds would devise such a killing device?
As his computer helmet went pitch dark, John snapped back to the present. EMP! Those blasted Ottomans! After years of fighting just the quants, things had now changed. Johns fighting tactics had not adjusted to match yet, and this was the worst of times to come up short. The South Atlantic GNU Defence Alliance and the New Ottoman Free Trade Alliance had gone and sign a peace treaty. A peace treaty with those horrid quants! And now those blasted Ottomans had apparently even gone and share their Electromagnetic pulse battle tactics with the quants! Those bastards! Peace with these monsters?! Never! How could they?
After what they had done to him, to his family, all that John really wanted now was to avenge his dad.
His dad, John Bridgewater senior, had been a simple dock worker in Willemstad, Curacao . A hard working man without any interest in politics whatsoever. A simple and gentle soul. Although occasionally John’s mom may have disagreed with him on that while his dad was still alive. According to John's mom, John's dad had been a “lazy pig”, a “pothead” and “inveterate womanizer” and some other things John did not care to remind himself of. Those viewpoints had all been washed away though after his dad was murdered. Killed by a quant-drone! John senior, according to everyone, would most likely have been secretly involvement in the New Zion movement. John's mom today could speak nothing but praise about her late husband. He had been a hero and a saint. A freedom fighter who died to set his people free. John could not make himself take these delusions away from his mom by telling her the truth.
John knew there was absolutely no truth in his mother's words. The quants had no reason to murder him like that. no reason at all. Dad died for nothing and it was all his fault. It was him, John "Junior" that, while only 16 years of age at that moment, had enlisted into the ranks of the New Zion freedom fighters. The quants had murdered his dad, also named “John Bridgewater” in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
Pushing back his emotions, John quickly took of his computer helmet and disconnected himself from his now dead computer interfaces. Stumbling a few times he made his way out of his van. Quickly grabbing a glider backpack on his way out. He knew that without the protection of his drone army, he was a sitting duck up here. While John would gladly have given his life to stop the launch from happening, without his drones, without even a handgun, anything that he could now do is try for a strategic retreat. Their mission had failed, the other fractions were about to end the war at a terrible price that, for some reason, only New Zion fully comprehended. Despite of his own deep hatred for the quants, it was their quantum-computer slicing technology that allowed the world to finally see the the centuries old Babylon conspiracy. It had shown that his mad old rastafarian granddad had been right all along with his crazy rantings about Babylon.
This launch, this new weapon, it may end the war with the quants and incept a new peace, but at what price. New Babylon may have fled to Mars-One, a rudimentary and small colony on Mars built to house only a quarter of the amount of people who ended up seeking refuge there. The other fractions were grossly underestimating the nastiness and cunning of New Babylon. New Babylon were not rendered harmless. They were plotting from up there right now. Plotting and scheming was their way of life. Ending the war like this would leave the planet vulnerable. As John carefully landed his glider in the reeds of a small forest lake, he realized there was a new and long struggle up ahead. A struggle to keep New Babylon from regaining control of Earth.
March 20, 2015
OpenDyslexic version
While estimates differ, its safe to say that somewhere between 10% and 20% of people suffer from some kind of cognitive impairment that hinders their reading. Although there are clear signs that there are some quite distinct forms of cognitive impairment and that for some, definitely not all forms, there are things publishers and eReading device designers could do, helping to give large groups of people access to the joys of reading. For me, font size doesn't really affect my ability to read in any way. The font does however and what for me personally is the most essential is line spacing. For other people, the font isn't really that much of a factor but font size helps tremendously. With technology at our disposal, there should be much room for individual tuning, right? Unfortunately the industry doesn't seem to think so. My first android phone allowed me to buy friendly fonts in the application store and I was quite happy about that. Than Google released a new android version and guess what, they removed the possibility of using custom fonts. Why Google? Why? Being technically savvy, I managed to install my personal favorite font on my own old ereader that wasn't designed to support system wide custom fonts and that didn't respect embedded fonts in my favorite books either. For many people though, such things are outside of reach. The default eReading app on Android, Play Books, has the reverse problem, it does not allow adding a custom system wide font, yet it respects embedded fonts in epubs. FBReader, same problem. Other solutions like Aldiko are the worst of both worlds. No custom fonts and embedded fonts are not respected. The problems for line are often similar. As I recently turned from just being a reader to publishing my own short stories, I have set out to look what I can do to somewhat help improve the situation at least for my own products. In this blog post I'll try to describe the steps I took in creating a special edition of Orussian Quarantine aimed at the part of the cognitively impaired that benefit from special fonts, increased line spacing and/or larger font sizes. hopefully other authors will read this blog post and think to themselves; hey, these people need all the help and encouragement they can get in making reading fiction a fun experience.
The first thing I did was simply publish my short story on smashwords and download the epub file that smashwords generated.
Now an epub is nothing but a zip file. Note that unzipping won't put things needly into a single directory, so first create a directory yourself before you use unzip to unzip the epub file.
After unzipping the epub, we should add our custom font to the directory. Create a sub directory named 'fonts' and put the otf files of your preferred font into that directory.
Now we need to add the font files to something called the manifest. The manifest is a section of the XML file "content.opf". Open the file in your editor, you should see a section that starts with <manifest> that holds a set of 'item' XML tags. You will need to create an item tag for each of the otf files you just added. These should look something like this:
<item href="fonts/OpenDyslexic-Regular.otf" id="odfont" media-type="application/x-font-opentype"/>
Stay in the "content.opf" file for a moment, it has also got a tag that defines the id "uuid_id", given that universally unique identifiers are supposed to be universally unique, make a few changes to the content of this tag to make it unique. Keep to the format as originally used but change the content so you are sure it will also be unique by itself. Now copy the id and safe the file.
Now open the table of content file "toc.ncx" and look for the tag named "dtb:uid". Replace the content with the universally unique identifier you just created and safe the file.
So now we've added the new font and we have given the future epub its own unique identifier. We haven't yet changed anything about its appearance though. To do that we need to look at the file "stylesheet.css". Open this file, we are going to do quite some editing.
First thing we need to do in our stylesheet is allow it to find our font. We do this by creating a number of @font-face entries. Here is an example:
@font-face {
font-family: 'OpenDyslexic';
src:url(fonts/OpenDyslexic-Regular.otf);
}
@font-face {
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
src: url("fonts/OpenDyslexic-Bold.otf");
font-weight: bold;
}
@font-face {
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
src: url("fonts/OpenDyslexic-Italic.otf");
font-style: italic, oblique;
}
@font-face {
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
src: url("fonts/OpenDyslexic-BoldItalic.otf");
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic, oblique;
}
So now we are ready to make the ebook use our custom font. There are a number of rules in our stylesheet that we all need to look at. Remove any 'font-family' line in any of the rules and add a new line to each rule that names your font family above;
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
So now we have taken care about the font, lets look at the line spacing. For every rule with a "line-height" definition, add 30% to the definition. For every rule that doesn't yet have an explicit "line-height" definition, add one that states 130%.
So now for the last change, font size. For every rule with a "font-size" definition, add 0.5 to the definition. For every rule that doesn't yet have an explicit "line-height" definition, add one that states 1.5 .
One final step you may wish to take is update the copyright notice (for example stating the book is free but only for people with a cognitive disability who benefit from the changes you just made.
You may also want to update the cover image to contain information on it being a special edition.
So now basically we are done with the content. Time to go build our new epub.
This is a two step process. First you should create a zip file from just the mimetype file using a flag to state the content should NOT be compressed. After that, you can add the rest of the directory to the zip file (this part should compress), and rename the zip file to have an appropriate name and epub extension.
So now you are ready, go and test your epub on your epub reader or reading app, and if things check out, go back to smashwords and publish the epub as special edition.
I truly hope this post encourages other authors to try and do something similar. If you know of any ways to improve this process or the resulting epub, please let me know.
The first thing I did was simply publish my short story on smashwords and download the epub file that smashwords generated.
Now an epub is nothing but a zip file. Note that unzipping won't put things needly into a single directory, so first create a directory yourself before you use unzip to unzip the epub file.
After unzipping the epub, we should add our custom font to the directory. Create a sub directory named 'fonts' and put the otf files of your preferred font into that directory.
Now we need to add the font files to something called the manifest. The manifest is a section of the XML file "content.opf". Open the file in your editor, you should see a section that starts with <manifest> that holds a set of 'item' XML tags. You will need to create an item tag for each of the otf files you just added. These should look something like this:
<item href="fonts/OpenDyslexic-Regular.otf" id="odfont" media-type="application/x-font-opentype"/>
Stay in the "content.opf" file for a moment, it has also got a tag that defines the id "uuid_id", given that universally unique identifiers are supposed to be universally unique, make a few changes to the content of this tag to make it unique. Keep to the format as originally used but change the content so you are sure it will also be unique by itself. Now copy the id and safe the file.
Now open the table of content file "toc.ncx" and look for the tag named "dtb:uid". Replace the content with the universally unique identifier you just created and safe the file.
So now we've added the new font and we have given the future epub its own unique identifier. We haven't yet changed anything about its appearance though. To do that we need to look at the file "stylesheet.css". Open this file, we are going to do quite some editing.
First thing we need to do in our stylesheet is allow it to find our font. We do this by creating a number of @font-face entries. Here is an example:
@font-face {
font-family: 'OpenDyslexic';
src:url(fonts/OpenDyslexic-Regular.otf);
}
@font-face {
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
src: url("fonts/OpenDyslexic-Bold.otf");
font-weight: bold;
}
@font-face {
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
src: url("fonts/OpenDyslexic-Italic.otf");
font-style: italic, oblique;
}
@font-face {
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
src: url("fonts/OpenDyslexic-BoldItalic.otf");
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic, oblique;
}
So now we are ready to make the ebook use our custom font. There are a number of rules in our stylesheet that we all need to look at. Remove any 'font-family' line in any of the rules and add a new line to each rule that names your font family above;
font-family: "OpenDyslexic";
So now we have taken care about the font, lets look at the line spacing. For every rule with a "line-height" definition, add 30% to the definition. For every rule that doesn't yet have an explicit "line-height" definition, add one that states 130%.
So now for the last change, font size. For every rule with a "font-size" definition, add 0.5 to the definition. For every rule that doesn't yet have an explicit "line-height" definition, add one that states 1.5 .
One final step you may wish to take is update the copyright notice (for example stating the book is free but only for people with a cognitive disability who benefit from the changes you just made.
You may also want to update the cover image to contain information on it being a special edition.
So now basically we are done with the content. Time to go build our new epub.
This is a two step process. First you should create a zip file from just the mimetype file using a flag to state the content should NOT be compressed. After that, you can add the rest of the directory to the zip file (this part should compress), and rename the zip file to have an appropriate name and epub extension.
So now you are ready, go and test your epub on your epub reader or reading app, and if things check out, go back to smashwords and publish the epub as special edition.
I truly hope this post encourages other authors to try and do something similar. If you know of any ways to improve this process or the resulting epub, please let me know.
February 7, 2015
Ragnarök Conspiracy: Ch1..3 (rough draft)
As promised, here is a rough 2nd draft of the first 3 chapters of this work in progress. Its unedited and not even a final draft so bare with me. It should however give new readers a bit of a feel of the kind of stories that I'm working on.
Chapter 1: Bold Moves
Robert’s mind was racing. As Robert backed away from the scene of the carnage , he realized his chances of surviving might be slim. Even if he would manage to make it back to earth alive, the same powers that had managed to keep these horrific facts quiet for almost 80 years would not risk him exposing them and what they apparently had worked so hard to cover up. Robert had ignored all of his brother's hints that cautioned him against his endeavour. Cautioned him against what he might unearth. He had truly not considered actually finding something that would contradict the historical records. Least of all did Robert expect to find something as terrifying and shocking as what he was now slowly backing away from. All that he had really wanted to do was impress his mentor with a dissertation like none she had ever seen. Could whoever or whatever did this unthinkable thing still be around today after 77 years? Was he himself in direct and imminent danger right now? Or was the true danger for him personally located on earth waiting for him on his return? It was both intriguing and disturbing how the combination of decades long exposure to radiation and a lack of an atmosphere had preserved the scene of the carnage. While these discoveries scientifically exceeded the wildest dreams that Robert as a forensic science graduate student might have had regarding his idea of doing on-site research on the moon, Robert understood he was in mortal danger, and quite possibly in more ways than one. He really needed to the research what happened here, so much was absolutely clear. Not so much, as he had originally set out to, for his dissertation, all of that did not really matter right now. He needed to find out exactly what had happened here 77 years ago. What could have created such damage to the lander? What weapon could have caused these terrible mutilations of these human remains. He also needed to form hypotheses about what happened on earth after that? How had NASA managed to pass this mission of as a success back in 1969? And how could this information not have been disclosed during the early years of the repli-war.
None of the fractions or alliances had had any ties to NASA or to the old North American governmental structures. In fact, disclosing the nasty secrets and conspiracies involving old governments and large companies had been a major propaganda tool for both the corporate alliances and many of the information freedom fractions. As for the current post-war states, these definitely had had other things to worry about than keeping nasty old day conspiracies secret. There had to have been such a major conspiracy to cover this up and to keep this covered up during the war. This conspiracy had to involve pre-war , war-time and even some of the emerging modern day power structures. The idea was almost too proposperous to consider, yet there seemed to be no alternate hypothesis. How else could a tragedy like this have remained hidden? There had been many ancient pre-war conspiracy theories regarding the moon landing. Debunking these theories with on-site forensic research had in fact been Roberts bold idea for his dissertation. So many conspiracies had been disclosed during the war: the fluoride conspiracy, the pharma/carbohydrate conspiracy, the CO2 emission-rights conspiracy, the new-Babylon conspiracy, the Multi layer fractional reserve conspiracy and of course the conspiracy that started the war in the first place: The quantum conspiracy.
After the many waves of conspiracy disclosure during the war, nobody, including Robert expected any remaining old-day conspiracies could be left hidden.
No, Robert had in no way expected any trace of a real conspiracy, and certainly not one involving something as terrible as this.
Suddenly Robert felt himself losing his balance and as he slowly fell to the ground, Robert realized that his instincts were not helping him. Robert had been slowly walking backward away from the crime scene keeping his eyes focussed on the remains of the cold war moon lander. As Robert softly hit the dusty moon surface, while he realized the danger could just as well be behind him, a warm and moist feeling signaled that Robert had just lost all control over his bladder.
Oh, why didn't he listen to his brother Pete? Pete might have been a tough guy, the type of person with little interest in academic pursuits, Pete immediately guessed the true reason behind Robert’ s mission. A reason that only now Robert was starting to admit to himself. The day Robert had first tried to tactfully ask his brother for a favor with his mission, Pete’s instant response had been: “so you’re trying to impress another one of your bone ass geeky chicks?”
His mission was his way to impress his mentor. Ah dear Rachella. For one moment Robert allowed his mind to escape his predicament. Rachella was Robert’s mentor but apart from that Rachella had been the focus of Robert’s life for reasons other than his education. Not that Robert was in love with Rachella, he could not allow himself any such feelings for his mentor. A married woman of almost twice his age. Ever since that kiss however, Robert’s life had been about impressing Rachella. They had both agreed that that kiss should never have happened. That they should simply both forget about it. Rachella was married. Happily married as she had repeatedly ensured Robert. They had nothing whatsoever to offer each other and Rachella had left absolutely no doubt regarding the depths of her commitment to her husband and family.
Both Robert and Rachella had been totally caught by surprise by this one time passionate kiss that seemed to have come out of nowhere. No, there could be nothing between them. Yet ever since that kiss, Roberts every waking moment had been filled with an unexplainable urge to try and impress his mentor.
Taking his replica Apollo moon lander to the moon had been a bold and dangerous move that Robert knew very well he would never had made had he not been unexplainably obsessed with trying to impress her. It had turned out even more dangerous than he could ever have projected though. The trip to the moon in a printed replica of eighty year old technology had been dangerous enough by itself. Nothing had prepared Robert for what he had found on the Apollo 11 landing site. Yes, contrary to what Roberts research had shown, there had indeed been a 'real' conspiracy surrounding the 1969 moon landing.
All the conspiracy theorists though had been so far of the mark about what the nature of this conspiracy really was.
As Robert finally managed to gather enough courage to get up and walk towards his pod face forward, his mind refocused on the present.
What had happened here? What or who could have created such terrible carnage? Whatever had murdered these astronauts in this gruesome way, whatever tore up their bodies and their equipment, was it gone? Was Robert himself in mortal danger at this moment? Or worse, would he be in mortal danger when he returned to earth? In danger from whoever the conspirators were that had kept this carnage from the general public for almost 80 years. To what lengths would they go to protect this secret?
No! Virtually nobody back on earth knew about Roberts forensics mission to the moon. His brother Pete knew and two members of Pete’s crew, but none of them was likely to speak to anyone else about Roberts ‘mission’. No, nobody would 'yet' know about his mission . To Pete and his crew his big mission was just a silly school science project. These man that on a daily bases manoeuvred the dangerous debrisphere as it was now called, the place where the low orbit satellites used to be that were destroyed to end the replicator war. To these man , surviving a trip to the moon through virtually debris free space was about as risky as a ride on a merry-go-round. No, none of these rough and really not that talkative crowd was likely to ever mention what to him was a big and dangerous mission even without what he had just seen. As long as these guys didn't know about what Robert had discovered, nobody on earth would hear from them about his moon mission. So far Robert was safe from any conspirators. Once he got back, if he would manage to come back, Robert would need to simply keep quiet about his mission, let sleeping dogs lie. But knowledge was important now, Whatever had killed these astronauts could still be here. Robert had come to the moon fully armed with a semi professional forensics lab. He needed to work fast to gain a solid information position that he could work from. He needed to asses the dangers, both here on the Apollo 11 landing site on the moon and back on earth. He had to work quickly but methodically now. Every little bit of information might help improve Robert’s chances of survival. With sufficient data he might devise a strategy that could both help him get back to earth safely and stay under the radar of whoever was part of the conspiracy.
Chapter 2: Circle
After deploying a large number of sensors around his pod, Robert had allowed himself a nap. He had been dead tired after having been awake for almost forty hours in total. After setting up the sensor perimeter and after fine tuning a set of alarms to barely restrain from triggering each time that a bigger piece of debris hit the closest debris dumping crater some 500 km from his current position. He had been monitoring his surroundings for over twentyfour hours. Ready to launch his pod into a moon orbit at a seconds notice and not even a speck of dust had behaved oddly. Robert had finally allowed himself to feel relatively safe after having been awake for so many hours. So when after the weeks long moon-daytime, the sun set relatively quickly and darkness had set in, Robert had felt sufficiently secure to allow himself to fall asleep without having set his pod to auto-launch on sensor anomalies. When after only a few hours of sleep the alarms had triggered, Robert’s body had still been so tired of the long and stressful day on the moon that it refused to let Robert awaken from a dream. The alarms though reached Robert in such a way that a beautiful dream had turned into a terrible nightmare. While Robert was aware he was dreaming and felt he was in real danger, Robert’s body refused to let him wake up. In his dream, Robert’s pod was destroyed by an ancient looking, CCCP labeled space ship the size of a oil tanker and Robert felt himself running for his life, making slow and prolonged leaps over the moon surface. Nowhere to run to and no place to hide. To scared to even dare to look over his shoulder to see what it was was undoubtedly chasing him. Robert realized he needed to wake up out of this dream. He was struggling between two realities. On one side there was the dream reality where he was being chased by an ancient soviet space ships and whatever had emerged from it. The original Apollo 11 mission took place at a time of big tensions between the former United States of America and the old Soviet Union so Roberts mind had created this Soviet scenario and had projected it to his nightmare as a result of the alarms going off. On the other side there was the reality outside of Roberts dead tired body where the alarms were ringing to notify Robert of eminent danger.
In both realities Robert felt he was about to die. One second he was aware of the fact that he was asleep and needed to desperately wake up speak the launch command to his main computing unit. The next second the dream reality felt real enough to Robert and Robert was franticly looking for shelter on the barren moon landscape of his dream reality.
Robert finally managed to wake himself. the alarms had stopped ringing. After his long struggle to wake up from his dream, Robert had spoken the launch command. At that moment though, he realized the alarms had long stopped ringing and Robert issued the delay command just in time and asked the computer for a full analysis.
The computer reported a strange pattern of destroyed sensors and disturbed ground, yet nothing at all but dust clouds all had been registered by radar or IR sensors.
Robert could conclude only one thing: Six hundred meters. As Robert ran the numbers once more, his findings were conclusive. Six hundred meters was what had stood between his continued survival and the fate that had become the original astronauts
Something terrible had tried to get to his moonlander and failed. A two hundred meter long arc shaped region of violently disturbed earth left no doubt that whatever had created the carnage was still very much present and still very much dangerous. He wasn’t going back to the Apollo 11 landing site that much was sure. He wasn’t in any real hurry to launch though either. There was some kind of circle, Robert had concluded, with a radius of about fiveteen kilometers. Whatever this thing was, it somehow was confined to this circle and Roberts moon lander was safely beyond its reach.
At the exact center of the circle, Roberts lunar maps had shown a deep crater.
Was there some kind of beast living in the crater? If so, how could it survive without an atmosphere, without a source of food? And why the circle? It was almost as if it was a giant monster on a leash. No, the moon could not support any life. No air, no food, nothing that a life form could use to survive. The strange circular reach of whatever this was kept Robert puzzled. He needed to find out more about what was lurking in this crater and what confined it to this circle. His sensors had picked up large clouds of dust and fine sands but not whatever created these clouds. There had been regions in the cloud though that were completely void of any dust and sand particles according to his measurements. Robert had only taken low powered computing units, so he would have to wait for half an hour for dust and sand cloud measurements to render what he hoped would be an outline of whatever this object was. Once the rendering would be complete, hopefully Robert could develop a strategy to gathering more data before launching his pod back into orbit and trying to make his way back to earth to face that other danger.
Chapter 3:
Robert had positioned his reentry pod between four relatively large pieces of debris in what Pete had told him was the least dangerous section of the debrisphere. The ISS cluster, a debris cluster made up for a large part of bits and pieces of what once was an old international space station, was located on his brother’s regular route. Pete was a debrisphere miner. The task of debrisphere miners was to clean up low orbit space debris, harvesting material that could be recycled by replication printers and ejecting useless debris towards designated moon dumping sites. The dream was that in about half a century the debrisphere could be sufficiently thinned, and intercontinental tensions could have sufficiently been settled that a HEOPS deflection shield would become possible and communication satellites could once again be used. Pete had given Robert a lift to the outer limits of the debrisphere at the beginning of his trip to the moon, and Pete had helped him on his way by ejecting his replica moon lander in the direction of the moon together with a dump load of useless scraps of space junk. His trip to the moon so far should have gone quite unnoticed. Parts of the moon had long been used as dumping ground for non-reusable space debris. Nobody and nothing would consider looking for an extra piece of space debris being jettisoned towards the moon. It was the return trip that was the tricky part. With what Robert knew now about what happened on the moon in 1969, and how this information had been hidden from the public for all these decades, Robert understood the dangers he may find on earth might be worse than the dangers he had faced on the moon. His return needed to be just as stealthy as his trip to the moon. He had taken his chances for biggest part of the return trip. It had been a truly slow return trip as to remain inconspicuous. Robert had calculated a return path that would make his pod look like what Pete refered to as a wanderer. Some of the HEOPSs had grown dense over the years. Dense enough to occasionally send a larger part of space debris off into a more elliptical orbit instead of punching holes through it and contributing to the low-orbit cascade effect. These wanderers had relatively low kinetic energy though, especially at the outer ranges of their elliptical orbit. So for Roberts path from moon orbit to the debrisphere to look like a wanderer, Robert had to use a trajectory that took him an order of a magnitude more time than it would normally have taken. With what Robert had discovered, he had grown convinced that someone might be keeping close watch on things related to the moon, so he better not take chances. David had managed to get back to a low orbit position , but now the hard part was ahead. He could not remain under the radar if he used his capsule for re-entry. While the war had long ended, the current stability was still an uneasy one. Each one of the newly formed nations was routinely monitoring any object entering earths atmosphere. If there were still conspirators left, as Robert suspected, a direct entry was sure to put them on his track Robert was counting on Pete and his crew now to spot his pod and pick him up before cascading debris would hit him or worse, before a stray HEOPS sub-swarm would rip his pod apart. While Robert was relatively safe from cascading debris, shielded by large stable orbit ISS cluster debris, and while no full HEOPS was projected to hit this part of the debrisphere any time soon, the debrisphere remained a dangerous place to hide out. There might be days or even weeks to kill before his brother would come this way. But than Robert rather took his chances in the debrisphere than to expose his moon mission to whatever was left of the conspirator organisation that he had no doubt existed even today. He had no way of knowing to what lengths they would go to protect this coverup.
A low power short range radio transmission should grab Pete’s attention and get him his lift home. Robert had some time to think now. The mechanical monster that he had discovered gave him so much to wonder about. The technology was way beyond 2046 earth technology. The monster was massive in size. Despite of its size and destructive strength, it had an agility and speed that seemed physically impossible for a machine this size. None of the sensors had had the ability to register this beast. Not on sonar, not on Radar, not even on Camera when it had artificial lighting directed on it. And then there was its odd shape. This giant monster was shaped like a giant wolf. The first hint of its shape had come from Roberts rendering of the dust patterns. Only when Robert had used his orbiter had the monster become visible to the cameras and to the naked eyes. Robert had remotely controlled his orbiter to act like a directed mirror that reflected moonlight towards the moon. Doing so a monstrous pitch black wolf like monster had become visible. Its behavior was not unlike that of a rabid dog. While logically, from its strength and speed, nothing should be able to stop this beast, a thin colorful cord , less than a centimeter in diameter, somehow acted as an unbreakable leash to this wild mechanical monstrous dog. What could have created this monster? What was this cord that was stronger than any material could possibly be?
Both technologies had to be extraterrestrial. This monster must have been tied up in this moon crater for many decades. Possibly even centuries. What was its power source? Why did NASA fake a safe return for these astronauts? Why did they cover up the tragic death of these young astronauts? Who were the people that replaced the astronauts that died on the moon? How did they pull off a cover up of this magnitude, and ‘why’ did they cover it up in the first place? Robert was sure of one thing. The people who had covered up this tragedy would stop at nothing to protect their secret. Robert’s curiosity wanted to get to the very bottom of this.
He knew though that he had to tread lightly. He would have to work alone and in total secrecy on this if he wanted to get anywhere close to the truth.
Chapter 1: Bold Moves
Robert’s mind was racing. As Robert backed away from the scene of the carnage , he realized his chances of surviving might be slim. Even if he would manage to make it back to earth alive, the same powers that had managed to keep these horrific facts quiet for almost 80 years would not risk him exposing them and what they apparently had worked so hard to cover up. Robert had ignored all of his brother's hints that cautioned him against his endeavour. Cautioned him against what he might unearth. He had truly not considered actually finding something that would contradict the historical records. Least of all did Robert expect to find something as terrifying and shocking as what he was now slowly backing away from. All that he had really wanted to do was impress his mentor with a dissertation like none she had ever seen. Could whoever or whatever did this unthinkable thing still be around today after 77 years? Was he himself in direct and imminent danger right now? Or was the true danger for him personally located on earth waiting for him on his return? It was both intriguing and disturbing how the combination of decades long exposure to radiation and a lack of an atmosphere had preserved the scene of the carnage. While these discoveries scientifically exceeded the wildest dreams that Robert as a forensic science graduate student might have had regarding his idea of doing on-site research on the moon, Robert understood he was in mortal danger, and quite possibly in more ways than one. He really needed to the research what happened here, so much was absolutely clear. Not so much, as he had originally set out to, for his dissertation, all of that did not really matter right now. He needed to find out exactly what had happened here 77 years ago. What could have created such damage to the lander? What weapon could have caused these terrible mutilations of these human remains. He also needed to form hypotheses about what happened on earth after that? How had NASA managed to pass this mission of as a success back in 1969? And how could this information not have been disclosed during the early years of the repli-war.
None of the fractions or alliances had had any ties to NASA or to the old North American governmental structures. In fact, disclosing the nasty secrets and conspiracies involving old governments and large companies had been a major propaganda tool for both the corporate alliances and many of the information freedom fractions. As for the current post-war states, these definitely had had other things to worry about than keeping nasty old day conspiracies secret. There had to have been such a major conspiracy to cover this up and to keep this covered up during the war. This conspiracy had to involve pre-war , war-time and even some of the emerging modern day power structures. The idea was almost too proposperous to consider, yet there seemed to be no alternate hypothesis. How else could a tragedy like this have remained hidden? There had been many ancient pre-war conspiracy theories regarding the moon landing. Debunking these theories with on-site forensic research had in fact been Roberts bold idea for his dissertation. So many conspiracies had been disclosed during the war: the fluoride conspiracy, the pharma/carbohydrate conspiracy, the CO2 emission-rights conspiracy, the new-Babylon conspiracy, the Multi layer fractional reserve conspiracy and of course the conspiracy that started the war in the first place: The quantum conspiracy.
After the many waves of conspiracy disclosure during the war, nobody, including Robert expected any remaining old-day conspiracies could be left hidden.
No, Robert had in no way expected any trace of a real conspiracy, and certainly not one involving something as terrible as this.
Suddenly Robert felt himself losing his balance and as he slowly fell to the ground, Robert realized that his instincts were not helping him. Robert had been slowly walking backward away from the crime scene keeping his eyes focussed on the remains of the cold war moon lander. As Robert softly hit the dusty moon surface, while he realized the danger could just as well be behind him, a warm and moist feeling signaled that Robert had just lost all control over his bladder.
Oh, why didn't he listen to his brother Pete? Pete might have been a tough guy, the type of person with little interest in academic pursuits, Pete immediately guessed the true reason behind Robert’ s mission. A reason that only now Robert was starting to admit to himself. The day Robert had first tried to tactfully ask his brother for a favor with his mission, Pete’s instant response had been: “so you’re trying to impress another one of your bone ass geeky chicks?”
His mission was his way to impress his mentor. Ah dear Rachella. For one moment Robert allowed his mind to escape his predicament. Rachella was Robert’s mentor but apart from that Rachella had been the focus of Robert’s life for reasons other than his education. Not that Robert was in love with Rachella, he could not allow himself any such feelings for his mentor. A married woman of almost twice his age. Ever since that kiss however, Robert’s life had been about impressing Rachella. They had both agreed that that kiss should never have happened. That they should simply both forget about it. Rachella was married. Happily married as she had repeatedly ensured Robert. They had nothing whatsoever to offer each other and Rachella had left absolutely no doubt regarding the depths of her commitment to her husband and family.
Both Robert and Rachella had been totally caught by surprise by this one time passionate kiss that seemed to have come out of nowhere. No, there could be nothing between them. Yet ever since that kiss, Roberts every waking moment had been filled with an unexplainable urge to try and impress his mentor.
Taking his replica Apollo moon lander to the moon had been a bold and dangerous move that Robert knew very well he would never had made had he not been unexplainably obsessed with trying to impress her. It had turned out even more dangerous than he could ever have projected though. The trip to the moon in a printed replica of eighty year old technology had been dangerous enough by itself. Nothing had prepared Robert for what he had found on the Apollo 11 landing site. Yes, contrary to what Roberts research had shown, there had indeed been a 'real' conspiracy surrounding the 1969 moon landing.
All the conspiracy theorists though had been so far of the mark about what the nature of this conspiracy really was.
As Robert finally managed to gather enough courage to get up and walk towards his pod face forward, his mind refocused on the present.
What had happened here? What or who could have created such terrible carnage? Whatever had murdered these astronauts in this gruesome way, whatever tore up their bodies and their equipment, was it gone? Was Robert himself in mortal danger at this moment? Or worse, would he be in mortal danger when he returned to earth? In danger from whoever the conspirators were that had kept this carnage from the general public for almost 80 years. To what lengths would they go to protect this secret?
No! Virtually nobody back on earth knew about Roberts forensics mission to the moon. His brother Pete knew and two members of Pete’s crew, but none of them was likely to speak to anyone else about Roberts ‘mission’. No, nobody would 'yet' know about his mission . To Pete and his crew his big mission was just a silly school science project. These man that on a daily bases manoeuvred the dangerous debrisphere as it was now called, the place where the low orbit satellites used to be that were destroyed to end the replicator war. To these man , surviving a trip to the moon through virtually debris free space was about as risky as a ride on a merry-go-round. No, none of these rough and really not that talkative crowd was likely to ever mention what to him was a big and dangerous mission even without what he had just seen. As long as these guys didn't know about what Robert had discovered, nobody on earth would hear from them about his moon mission. So far Robert was safe from any conspirators. Once he got back, if he would manage to come back, Robert would need to simply keep quiet about his mission, let sleeping dogs lie. But knowledge was important now, Whatever had killed these astronauts could still be here. Robert had come to the moon fully armed with a semi professional forensics lab. He needed to work fast to gain a solid information position that he could work from. He needed to asses the dangers, both here on the Apollo 11 landing site on the moon and back on earth. He had to work quickly but methodically now. Every little bit of information might help improve Robert’s chances of survival. With sufficient data he might devise a strategy that could both help him get back to earth safely and stay under the radar of whoever was part of the conspiracy.
Chapter 2: Circle
After deploying a large number of sensors around his pod, Robert had allowed himself a nap. He had been dead tired after having been awake for almost forty hours in total. After setting up the sensor perimeter and after fine tuning a set of alarms to barely restrain from triggering each time that a bigger piece of debris hit the closest debris dumping crater some 500 km from his current position. He had been monitoring his surroundings for over twentyfour hours. Ready to launch his pod into a moon orbit at a seconds notice and not even a speck of dust had behaved oddly. Robert had finally allowed himself to feel relatively safe after having been awake for so many hours. So when after the weeks long moon-daytime, the sun set relatively quickly and darkness had set in, Robert had felt sufficiently secure to allow himself to fall asleep without having set his pod to auto-launch on sensor anomalies. When after only a few hours of sleep the alarms had triggered, Robert’s body had still been so tired of the long and stressful day on the moon that it refused to let Robert awaken from a dream. The alarms though reached Robert in such a way that a beautiful dream had turned into a terrible nightmare. While Robert was aware he was dreaming and felt he was in real danger, Robert’s body refused to let him wake up. In his dream, Robert’s pod was destroyed by an ancient looking, CCCP labeled space ship the size of a oil tanker and Robert felt himself running for his life, making slow and prolonged leaps over the moon surface. Nowhere to run to and no place to hide. To scared to even dare to look over his shoulder to see what it was was undoubtedly chasing him. Robert realized he needed to wake up out of this dream. He was struggling between two realities. On one side there was the dream reality where he was being chased by an ancient soviet space ships and whatever had emerged from it. The original Apollo 11 mission took place at a time of big tensions between the former United States of America and the old Soviet Union so Roberts mind had created this Soviet scenario and had projected it to his nightmare as a result of the alarms going off. On the other side there was the reality outside of Roberts dead tired body where the alarms were ringing to notify Robert of eminent danger.
In both realities Robert felt he was about to die. One second he was aware of the fact that he was asleep and needed to desperately wake up speak the launch command to his main computing unit. The next second the dream reality felt real enough to Robert and Robert was franticly looking for shelter on the barren moon landscape of his dream reality.
Robert finally managed to wake himself. the alarms had stopped ringing. After his long struggle to wake up from his dream, Robert had spoken the launch command. At that moment though, he realized the alarms had long stopped ringing and Robert issued the delay command just in time and asked the computer for a full analysis.
The computer reported a strange pattern of destroyed sensors and disturbed ground, yet nothing at all but dust clouds all had been registered by radar or IR sensors.
Robert could conclude only one thing: Six hundred meters. As Robert ran the numbers once more, his findings were conclusive. Six hundred meters was what had stood between his continued survival and the fate that had become the original astronauts
Something terrible had tried to get to his moonlander and failed. A two hundred meter long arc shaped region of violently disturbed earth left no doubt that whatever had created the carnage was still very much present and still very much dangerous. He wasn’t going back to the Apollo 11 landing site that much was sure. He wasn’t in any real hurry to launch though either. There was some kind of circle, Robert had concluded, with a radius of about fiveteen kilometers. Whatever this thing was, it somehow was confined to this circle and Roberts moon lander was safely beyond its reach.
At the exact center of the circle, Roberts lunar maps had shown a deep crater.
Was there some kind of beast living in the crater? If so, how could it survive without an atmosphere, without a source of food? And why the circle? It was almost as if it was a giant monster on a leash. No, the moon could not support any life. No air, no food, nothing that a life form could use to survive. The strange circular reach of whatever this was kept Robert puzzled. He needed to find out more about what was lurking in this crater and what confined it to this circle. His sensors had picked up large clouds of dust and fine sands but not whatever created these clouds. There had been regions in the cloud though that were completely void of any dust and sand particles according to his measurements. Robert had only taken low powered computing units, so he would have to wait for half an hour for dust and sand cloud measurements to render what he hoped would be an outline of whatever this object was. Once the rendering would be complete, hopefully Robert could develop a strategy to gathering more data before launching his pod back into orbit and trying to make his way back to earth to face that other danger.
Chapter 3:
Robert had positioned his reentry pod between four relatively large pieces of debris in what Pete had told him was the least dangerous section of the debrisphere. The ISS cluster, a debris cluster made up for a large part of bits and pieces of what once was an old international space station, was located on his brother’s regular route. Pete was a debrisphere miner. The task of debrisphere miners was to clean up low orbit space debris, harvesting material that could be recycled by replication printers and ejecting useless debris towards designated moon dumping sites. The dream was that in about half a century the debrisphere could be sufficiently thinned, and intercontinental tensions could have sufficiently been settled that a HEOPS deflection shield would become possible and communication satellites could once again be used. Pete had given Robert a lift to the outer limits of the debrisphere at the beginning of his trip to the moon, and Pete had helped him on his way by ejecting his replica moon lander in the direction of the moon together with a dump load of useless scraps of space junk. His trip to the moon so far should have gone quite unnoticed. Parts of the moon had long been used as dumping ground for non-reusable space debris. Nobody and nothing would consider looking for an extra piece of space debris being jettisoned towards the moon. It was the return trip that was the tricky part. With what Robert knew now about what happened on the moon in 1969, and how this information had been hidden from the public for all these decades, Robert understood the dangers he may find on earth might be worse than the dangers he had faced on the moon. His return needed to be just as stealthy as his trip to the moon. He had taken his chances for biggest part of the return trip. It had been a truly slow return trip as to remain inconspicuous. Robert had calculated a return path that would make his pod look like what Pete refered to as a wanderer. Some of the HEOPSs had grown dense over the years. Dense enough to occasionally send a larger part of space debris off into a more elliptical orbit instead of punching holes through it and contributing to the low-orbit cascade effect. These wanderers had relatively low kinetic energy though, especially at the outer ranges of their elliptical orbit. So for Roberts path from moon orbit to the debrisphere to look like a wanderer, Robert had to use a trajectory that took him an order of a magnitude more time than it would normally have taken. With what Robert had discovered, he had grown convinced that someone might be keeping close watch on things related to the moon, so he better not take chances. David had managed to get back to a low orbit position , but now the hard part was ahead. He could not remain under the radar if he used his capsule for re-entry. While the war had long ended, the current stability was still an uneasy one. Each one of the newly formed nations was routinely monitoring any object entering earths atmosphere. If there were still conspirators left, as Robert suspected, a direct entry was sure to put them on his track Robert was counting on Pete and his crew now to spot his pod and pick him up before cascading debris would hit him or worse, before a stray HEOPS sub-swarm would rip his pod apart. While Robert was relatively safe from cascading debris, shielded by large stable orbit ISS cluster debris, and while no full HEOPS was projected to hit this part of the debrisphere any time soon, the debrisphere remained a dangerous place to hide out. There might be days or even weeks to kill before his brother would come this way. But than Robert rather took his chances in the debrisphere than to expose his moon mission to whatever was left of the conspirator organisation that he had no doubt existed even today. He had no way of knowing to what lengths they would go to protect this coverup.
A low power short range radio transmission should grab Pete’s attention and get him his lift home. Robert had some time to think now. The mechanical monster that he had discovered gave him so much to wonder about. The technology was way beyond 2046 earth technology. The monster was massive in size. Despite of its size and destructive strength, it had an agility and speed that seemed physically impossible for a machine this size. None of the sensors had had the ability to register this beast. Not on sonar, not on Radar, not even on Camera when it had artificial lighting directed on it. And then there was its odd shape. This giant monster was shaped like a giant wolf. The first hint of its shape had come from Roberts rendering of the dust patterns. Only when Robert had used his orbiter had the monster become visible to the cameras and to the naked eyes. Robert had remotely controlled his orbiter to act like a directed mirror that reflected moonlight towards the moon. Doing so a monstrous pitch black wolf like monster had become visible. Its behavior was not unlike that of a rabid dog. While logically, from its strength and speed, nothing should be able to stop this beast, a thin colorful cord , less than a centimeter in diameter, somehow acted as an unbreakable leash to this wild mechanical monstrous dog. What could have created this monster? What was this cord that was stronger than any material could possibly be?
Both technologies had to be extraterrestrial. This monster must have been tied up in this moon crater for many decades. Possibly even centuries. What was its power source? Why did NASA fake a safe return for these astronauts? Why did they cover up the tragic death of these young astronauts? Who were the people that replaced the astronauts that died on the moon? How did they pull off a cover up of this magnitude, and ‘why’ did they cover it up in the first place? Robert was sure of one thing. The people who had covered up this tragedy would stop at nothing to protect their secret. Robert’s curiosity wanted to get to the very bottom of this.
He knew though that he had to tread lightly. He would have to work alone and in total secrecy on this if he wanted to get anywhere close to the truth.
Ragnarök Conspiracy: unedited draft chapters.
While I understand keeping a blog is almost mandatory for any indie author wanting to create a following, I really would prefer writing on my upcoming shorts over writing long blog entries about writing my next short ;-) As the third short in my "Tales of shrouded history" series is to be a free eBook, and as I don't have any problem with people seeing my rough unedited work in process (and possibly giving me useful feedback), I think I shall primarily be using this blog for posting my draft chapters. I already posted the drafts for the first 3 chapters on G+ before, so I'll be playing a bit of catch-up on GR with this. In any case, although its rough second draft unedited work that in that sense isn't representative of my end products, these chapters should give you a bit of a feel for the type of stories I'm working on in this series. I hope I'm not destroying my potential following by publishing this raw stuff on my blog, so I'll probably start each post with a disclaimer just to make clear they are only second draft unedited chapters.
When the whole story is complete and edited I will be releasing it as a free eBook. 'Ragnarök conspiracy' shall be the third short in my 'Tales of shrouded history' series (the first two coming available soon on smashwords at $0.99), so if the unedited chapters I'll be posting here spark your interests, please consider getting one of these two shorts that were professionally edited by the brilliant Jackie Davis.
I'll be posting the first chapter here in a few days, or you could check them out already on my G+ page if you happen to be on that social network.
https://plus.google.com/1112926318473...
When the whole story is complete and edited I will be releasing it as a free eBook. 'Ragnarök conspiracy' shall be the third short in my 'Tales of shrouded history' series (the first two coming available soon on smashwords at $0.99), so if the unedited chapters I'll be posting here spark your interests, please consider getting one of these two shorts that were professionally edited by the brilliant Jackie Davis.
I'll be posting the first chapter here in a few days, or you could check them out already on my G+ page if you happen to be on that social network.
https://plus.google.com/1112926318473...
