Doug Dandridge's Blog, page 18

A New Life: A Serial Short About Exodus.

Presented for your enjoyment, the first installment of a short story featuring the origin of one of my central characters in Exodus: Empires at War.  I will present this story in four parts.  Anyone interested in reading the story in its entirety can go to my website, Imagination Unlimited, or directly to the story page at Exodus Shorts.  The story can be downloaded in Word, PDF or Kindle format.  Or you can see all of my books at my Amazon Book Page.

A New Life

“Bastards,” growled Parker Murphy, slamming his hand down hard on the table.

Cornelius Walborski nodded his head in sympathy while taking a sip of the good beer.  He was treating this night.  Parker, while he wouldn’t starve, would not have the discretionary funds for nights out in the near future, if at all.

“You’ll find something,” he told his friend, raising his hand to get the attention of the serving robot.  Nothing too good for us workers, he thought as the machine flashed a light his way, then wheeled off for the bar.  Human servers were expensive, and one server specialist could run three of the robots, enough to cover the entire bar.

“How the hell am I going to find anything,” yelled his friend, attracting stares their way despite the noise deadening field around their booth. Noise deadening was the operative word, not sound proof.  People could still hear them if they talked loud enough, and a yell seemed to be loud enough.  “Those fucking bastards control all the work.”

“You won’t starve at least,” said Jonah Friedmoore, another of Cornelius’s close friends.

“I want more than to just exist,” hissed Parker, glaring at his friend.  “I want to get somewhere in life.  Not spend every day looking at the walls of my apartment.”

Cornelius nodded his head again.  He didn’t know what to say.  The dole allowed people to exist.  As Jonah had said, you wouldn’t starve, and your medical was covered, one of your rights as a citizen.  There was even the mind numbing entertainment of the vid stream, or the online library if you were someone who was into learning.  But to get ahead you needed a job, and jobs were hard to come by.  And the jobs were all controlled by.

“Those bastards,” said Parker again.  “Those greedy, privileged bastards.  I wish I could get that damned Baron alone somewhere.”

Good luck with that, thought Walborski.  Nobles had bodyguards, who would take Parker apart before he could do anything to their precious charge.

Their drinks came, and Parker downed his in a few moments.  Cornelius signaled for another.  After all, he had the luxury of two jobs, and his wife another, in a society where almost half the work force was idle. If not for the Man in the Loop accord it would have been worse, but someone needed to oversee all of those robots that worked the factories and civil maintenance

“There’s always the Fleet,” said Jonah, whose father had served in the Imperial Navy, a fact he was sure to let everyone know about, even if he didn’t join himself.

“You’ve got to have skills to get in the Fleet,” said Parker, grabbing at the next beer that the serving robot put in front of him.  “Or connections.”

Cornelius was not sure that was true.  He had always heard that the Fleet trained its recruits.  But to be away from family.  Parker had a wife, after all.

“Then join the Imperial Army,” said Jonah, never the most diplomatic of people.

“You join the fucking Army,” yelled Parker.  “Since you seem to love it so much.  Maybe you like taking orders from the Baron and people like him.  I think we need to put assholes like him in their place.”

Cornelius cringed in his seat.  The Baron was in charge of Windsor City and surroundings, and was not someone to mess with on his own turf.  Cornelius got his jobs from the Duke himself, the chief executive of the continent, but it still did no good to stir up trouble with the noble’s subordinate.  And Katlyn had her job directly through the Baron’s wife, whose husband also owned the factory Walborski worked in.

“Hey,” yelled the bartender, a real live human, walking toward the booth.  “I will have no talk of treason in my bar.  You understand me, Murphy.  Keep a tight lip on it, or get out.”

“I’ll say what the hell I want,” said Parker, standing up and glowering at the bartender, who was also the bar manager.  Parker picked up his glass and threw it at the tender, bouncing it off his arm.

“That’s assault, you asshole,” yelled the bartender back. “I’ll have your ass in jail.”

“And I’ll have you in a reconstruction tank,” yelled Parker, pushing Jonah out of the way and going for the bartender.

He can’t be that drunk, thought Cornelius, grabbing for his friend’s arm and missing.  He had to have taken something on top of the alcohol.  Not that drugs were hard to find, legal and illegal.

Parker pushed the bartender, a man he towered over, hard enough to send the man staggering back, where he fell over a chair.  Parker headed toward him, bringing a foot back to kick the man, when he wobbled on his feet, then fell to the floor in a limp mass.  Cornelius clapped his hands over his ears as the sonics sounded through the bar.  He felt a little numbness in his body as well, but nothing like his friend.  He spotted the Copeye robot in a second, floating near the ceiling, its front end, where the stunner was located, pointed at Parker.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Jonah, pulling at Cornelius’ arm.

“We’re on the thing’s memory,” said Cornelius, planting his feet and refusing to budge.  “They’ll want our statements.  You rather give it to them here, or at home.”

Moments later a pair of big police officers came walking through the door, big men in light augmentation armor.  They didn’t move with the grace of the biologically enhanced.  That was reserved for special units made up of military retirees.  But their armor gave them an advantage over any regular citizen that might want to try them.

“And that’s what happened,” said Cornelius to the officer that took his statement, after Parker had been removed from the scene.  “Look, he’s not a bad guy.  He lost his job today, and got a little messed up.”

“And how did he lose his job?” asked the police officer in a flat voice.

“He made a comment that the Baron overheard when he was touring the factory Parker worked at.”

“Teach him to speak in front of his betters,” said the cop, shaking his head.  He looked around the bar for a moment, then back at Walborski.  “You can go.  We’ll be in touch with you if we need more information.”

Cornelius nodded and walked away.  Moments later he was in his aircar, a luxury that multiple jobs gave him.  The city was lit up around him, though some of the windows of the skyscrapers were dark as the people inside went through a sleep cycle.  But many more were lit.  People on the dole didn’t have to keep regular hours.  He started to fall asleep himself along the way home, but his car knew the way.  Windsor wasn’t the largest city on the planet, which didn’t boast the largest cities in the Empire.  He dreamed one day of visiting Jewel, and see the capital city of Capitulum, home to over three billion people.  We might just be able to do that in a couple of years.  He and Katlyn were getting ahead, and recently they had actually started savings.  Interstellar travel was still expensive, too much so for most private citizens.  Unless it was a one way trip to the frontier.

“Katlyn,” he called out as he entered their apartment, again something they could afford with a regular income, a place to be proud of.  Boss Kitty, their four year old Tom, came at the sound of his voice, meowing like he was scolding Cornelius for being late to come home.  Probably just wants some food, thought Cornelius, walking to the kitchen with the cat weaving in and out of his legs.

She must be in bed, was his next thought, as he pulled a can of cat food from the cabinet, then emptied it into a frictionless bowl he pulled from the cleaner.  Maybe we can get a program for the robot that feeds the damned cat.  He shook his head at that last thought.  Katlyn liked to feed the cat, though she was quick enough to use the cleaning bot to get rid of the animal’s waste.

Cornelius pulled a joint of synthicanibus from the lower cabinet and made his way back into the living room, plopping down on the couch.  With a thought the trivee projector came on, and he was surrounded in the peaceful scene of a city park, children playing in a fountain, one of Katlyn’s favorite views. She forgot to reset it, again, he thought, flipping the surrounding scene to that of a tropical beach.  He didn’t like the park at all, as it reminded them of what they didn’t have.  And he had been to that park before, in New Detroit City, and had never seen that many children around.  Just another lie.

He ran down the list of entertainments in his mind, rejecting one after another.  He didn’t want to play a mercenary, or a tough lawman, or any of the other possibilities.  And none of the canned shows held any interest.  He dismissed the illusion with a thought and switched to a news channel, one that didn’t surround him with the surround of a studio, just replicating the anchor sitting in 3D at her desk.  Cornelius lit up the mild narcotic and took a puff, feeling the relaxation flowing through him.  Boss Kitty jumped up beside him, demanding attention, and Cornelius blew out the smoke while he kneaded the cat’s shoulder muscles.

I need to get to bed, he thought, looking at the time stamp over the tridee image.  He hadn’t slept much the last couple of nights, and even with nanite augmentation, a body eventually had to have a good night’s sleep.  Getting up he walked to the kitchen, picked up the now empty bowl and turned it over the disposal, letting the last crumbs of food slide off the surface, then put the bowl back in the cabinet.

He slid into the bed next to Katlyn, trying not to disturb her.  She woke up anyway, and turned over with a sleepy smile on her face.  She’s so beautiful, he thought, wondering how an average looking guy like himself had gotten together with her, much less gotten married.  Might be because we had been friends for so many years.  He had known her since they were toddlers, and just felt comfortable with her the whole time they were growing up.

“You’re home late,” she said, putting her arms around her neck.

“Parker lost his job today,” said Cornelius, running a hand down her arm.

“What happened?”

“He made a comment about the Baron,” said Cornelius, shaking his head.  “And it got back to the man himself, when he was touring the plant.”

“The idiot,” said Katlyn, her hands going to her mouth in shock.  “What the hell was he thinking?”

“He wasn’t,” said Cornelius.  Everyone knew in their society not to insult the nobles.  According to the constitution of the Empire they had equal rights, nobles and commons.  But the nobles still had privilege, in part due to their position in the governance of the Empire.   And in part because of their family interconnectedness and wealth.  It would be different out on the frontier, he thought, then remembered that some of those differences could be deadly.  New Detroit was a core world, and as such was well defended.  “And even worse,” he said, feeling rage rise in him at the thought of the nobles and what they could do.  “He got arrested for assault.”

“So he’s totally ruined his life,” said Katlyn.  “No work for him, doomed to be a Dole Rat for the rest of his life.”

“At least he won’t starve,” said Cornelius, knowing that he wouldn’t want to be a Rat himself.   You didn’t starve, but you also didn’t really live, other than what you could get vicariously through the trivee.  If you could afford the upgrade nanites to keep up with the transmission systems.  “And there’s always the frontier.”

Katlyn shuddered as he said that and he held her tighter.  “It might be the only way we’re going to get a reproductive license. You want a child.”

Katlyn looked up at him with a tear streaked face.  “I want a half dozen, but I know I’m never going to get that many.  Can’t your father help us?”

We’ll get a license to have a child when we’re both over a hundred, thought Cornelius.  People didn’t get reproductive licenses at a young age on a core world, which were all at the legal population limit.  Not unless you had some great skill, like a scientist, or were one of the nobles.  If they were lucky they could have a child in early middle age, when they reached that hundred year marker.  His father had been able to have two children, but only because he had the patronage of the Duke.

“Would the frontier really be that horrible?” he asked.

“Hold me,” she said, and she gripped him tight.  He held her, and things progressed until they were making love.  There was no danger of pregnancy, not while their nanites were programed to prevent such.

Filed under: Alien Invasion, Antimatter, Armor, eBooks, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Interdimensional Travel, Kindle, Military, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Proofreading, Quantum Physics, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Wormholes, Writing Tagged: Exodus: Empires at War, Serial Short Stories, Short Stories, transportation

Serial Short Stories on the Blog and Website

The last two months I have put up short stories set in the Exodus Universe for fans who can’t wait for the next book. The first, put out at the end of June on the Website, was the story of how Cornelius Walborski came to Sestius, titled A New Life. At 10,000 words it was a long short. At the end of July I added a story about Lucille Yu and The Other Universe Project titled What’s Eating You. I have blogged and tweeted both of the release dates, but really have no idea how many people have visited those pages. I will be putting up another before going to DragonCon. The stories can be read on the web page itself, or downloaded in Kindle, Word or PDF format. The plan is to keep putting them up every month, until there are enough of them to put in a volume to publish.

Today, while attending a committee meeting for the Tallahassee Writer’s Conference, the idea was brought up about putting short stories on blogs as a way of rewarding readers. I thought that was a great idea, and one that has the potential to grow a blog. So starting Monday I will be blogging my short stories, with links to the website. Since they are long, I will probably put each story out in three or four segments, published on different days, much like the old serials that used to play before the movies. For those who want to read them on the blog, they can get the entire story over a two week period. For those who can’t wait, they can go to the website and pick up the whole story. I will also be doing this for some of my other series, like Refuge and The Deep Dark Well, in the hopes of attracting more people to my work. I may also put the first twenty thousand words of novels out, giving people the chance to see far enough into the book so they can determine if its something they want to read. This is another experiment, something being an independent author allows me to do. So next blog out will be the first one in this experiment. Hope you will take the time to read it.

Filed under: Conferences, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Golden Age, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Movies, Multiverse, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Past, Plotting, Quantum Physics, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Program, steampunk, String Theory, Superheroes, Sword and Sorcery, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Writing Tagged: alternate history, books, DragonCon, Exodus: Empires at War, literature, Refuge:The Arrival, Short Stories, The Deep Dark Well

Refuge Three is Coming.

Refuge, my genre bending Fantasy/Military Fiction series is one of my favorite projects, right after the Exodus books. Unfortunately, though it is close to my heart, it is not doing near as well as the science fiction series. That said, it does have its share of fans, many of them different from the fans of Exodus. I do plan to keep working on the Refuge series, though from practicality I will be devoting more of my time to Exodus, and of course still have the third book of the Deep Dark Well Trilogy to put out, as it wouldn’t be much of a trilogy without that third book. Refuge Books 1 and 2 were centered around the arrival of Earth humans during a nuclear war in Central Europe. The atomic blasts opened thousands of temporary gates to a dimension of magic and archetypes, of mythology and terror. The inhabitants of this world use magic and what we would consider mythological creatures, dragons, trolls and such, to conquer and control vast territories. They see the groups of Europeans that come across as slaves for their own use, or, even more horrible, a source of life energy for their dark magic. But the humans bring their own weapons and equipment across, of great power and limited lifespan. And they bring across a race of Immortals who, while powerful on Earth, become Demigods on Refuge. The German and American Armies use their technological advantage to capture a large section of the Empire that wants to see them destroyed. But now the technology is gone, and the Earth humans must develop and deploy an army of antiquity to fight back.

The title of this third book is The Legions, based on the concept that the humans would develop a fighting force based on the greatest pre-gunpowder infantry the world has ever known. The powered machine technology is gone, but that does not mean all tech. The humans have thousands of years of muscled powered technology to call upon, and use the scientific method in an approach to magic. Originally this book was going to be much longer than the 120K words it has finished at. I was going to split it into two sections, moving back and forth from the campaigns of the legions and a quest by the Immortal Kurt von Mannerheim to keep an awful artifact out of the hands of the evil Ellala Emperor. I finally decided to finish the book about the legions, then visit the quest in a future book, which would allow me to get another Exodus book out in early Fall. I still have big plans for Refuge, though I realize as a cross genre work it has much going against it. I just ask that my fans give it a try. If you like lots of action this may be the book for you. If you prefer people sitting around and talking, then maybe not. And now for the excerpt.

Paul cut himself loose a little higher up than the other passengers, at the twenty meter point, depending on his great strength to absorb the impact. Part of that impact was absorbed by an Ellala who looked up in time to see the one hundred and sixty kilos of human and equipment coming down on him. There was time for one quick scream before the Elf was crushed into the ground. Paul took up the rest of the force in a squat, then rose and fired both of the triple crossbows he held, taking out two more Ellala. Troopers were coming down around him, and Paul ran toward the closest concentration of Ellala enemy, sending the final four bolts in his crossbows their way and taking down three of them. He flung the two empty crossbows, themselves stout pieces of wood and steel, toward the Ellala, then pulled his bastard sword from its sheath, making it burst into flame, then grasping the haft of his ax in his left hand.

The huge immortal hit the disorganized mass of Ellala, swinging both blades inward, then reversing them into backhand strikes. He went into overdrive, his weapons striking faster than the eye could follow, taking heads, lopping off arms, crashing through the mail of the enemy soldiers. They tried to surround him, but a flurry of strikes cleared the space around him. Then the other friendly troopers struck the mass and fought their way to the immortal.

A trooper next to Paul went down with an arrow through the shoulder, then another with one through the chest. An arrow splintered on Paul’s armor, and he took another out of the air with his sword. Looking up at the wall he saw that more Ellala had gotten up there and were raining arrows on the invaders. A large gold dragon, he thought it the one he had ridden here, flew by and took out the Ellala on the wall, while other beasts cleared the other walls.

The doors of the keep towers opened and out charged the rest of the garrison, those who had been asleep or otherwise occupied when the attack went in. Most were only partially armored, rushed from bed to meet the attack. Those attackers sent a flurry of crossbow bolts and javelins into the garrison, dropping almost a hundred of them to the ground. The rest of the garrison charged on, closing the distance and slamming into the assault force, the mass of soldiers behind them pushing them forward and the attackers back.

Paul did not budge, his great strength holding him in place. He swung his weapons and cut down every enemy Ellala within reach, while the rest swung around him to continue to press his comrades back.

Balls of fire started to strike in the mass of enemy, setting many ablaze. Paul looked back to see the big gold dragon hovering, spitting out balls of fire in a rapid pace. Two more dragons joined in, and suddenly the mass that had been pushing was gone as hundreds of Ellala burned to death. The dragons flew away, each to attack one of the tower tops where Ellala were serving heavy weapons.

Paul continued to swing his weapons, cutting down man after man in a flurry of destruction. Arrows and bolts started to fall on the enemy ranks not in contact with the legion forces, and Paul looked over to see the wall was now swarming with the Rangers who had climbed the outer rampart.

We have this thing, he thought, pressing ahead. The flames were dying down, and the entrance to the tower ahead was open. There can’t be many more of them. We have to have killed most of the garrison. Paul cut down the final two men before the entrance and ran the short distance toward the tower. An Ogre ran out, a massive creature that must have been slow in getting ready, waving a huge mace. It struck at Paul, the spiked mace seeming to come in slow motion toward the immortal. He dodged out of the way, then thrust with his sword into the monster’s gut while his ax came down on its shoulder. And the creature, for all its size and strength, was just more dying meat on the ground.

Paul was through the entrance, dodging as a pair of Elves sent arrows his way. One missed, and he knocked the other arrow out of the air with his sword. The Elves drew their next arrows back with the speed of their kind, but they weren’t used to the speed of an immortal. Paul threw his ax at one on the run and split the skull of the bowman, then took the head of the other with his sword.

More of his men came in behind him, and Paul pointed toward the stairs and ran toward them, taking them three at a time as he proceeded up. He passed one landing, then another, not meeting any resistance, and was beginning to think that he would get to the commander’s office without any trouble. He was still thinking that when the stone stairs beneath his feet started to tremble. He had no idea what was causing the vibrations, which came like the slow steps of something massive coming down the stairs. Dust fell from the ceiling, a crack appeared in the wall, and Paul knew that trouble was just around the corner.

“Back down,” he yelled at the warriors that were beginning to crowd behind him. “Now,” he yelled even louder. “Get the fuck down the bloody steps.”

The troopers, Ellala and Mo’oricans, with a pair of humans, started to back away. One of the Ellala said something about elementals, his eyes wide. Paul turned back to look up the stairs, where the heavy footfalls were getting louder. He didn’t know what was coming, but figured he was the best one here to face it.

What came around the corner was not what he was expecting. It looked something like the Thing, the one from the comics, not the movie. It was all lumpy gray rock, its head scraping the ceiling. Paul scanned it quickly for a weakness and really didn’t see one. Nothing to it but to attack, he thought, thrusting forward with his sword. The blade hit the creature in the body and barely penetrated, proving that what looked like rock actually was that substance. He pulled his sword back just before the creature swung at it, then swung it in at the monster’s arm. Again the blade rebounded after giving the creature a small nick. And the arm came around in a backhand that struck Paul in the shoulder and threw him against the wall.

Goddamn but it’s strong, he thought as he grunted in pain. The armor of his shoulder guard was actually dented, something he didn’t think possible with the heavily enchanted plate. He tried to take a step back and get his sword back around, but the creature punched him in the chest with surprising speed and sent Paul flying down the steps, his sword falling from his hand. The immortal hit the stairs and continued down in a roll. He could feel some bones break, including a vertebrae in his neck. The pain lanced through his neck, and he felt tears come to his eyes. He continued to roll until he came to the landing above the ground floor. The sound of heavy ponderous steps came from above, and Paul knew he didn’t have much time, and this was not the battleground he wanted.

Filed under: Armor, Barbarians, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Past, Plotting, science Fiction, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Writing Tagged: atomic blasts, dark magic, earth humans, Exodus series, Legions, Muscled Powered Tech, mythological creatures, science fiction series, The Deep Dark Well, Trolls

Cyberstorm: Taking The World By Storm.

My friend Matthew Mather’s near future science fiction book, Cyberstorm, is a hit. As in a bonified success. At the time of this post Cyberstorm has an unbelievable ranking of 137 in the Kindle Store, #3 in Hard Science Fiction, #2 in Dystopian and #1 in Post Apocalyptic, with an awesome 4.4 star average among 1,381 reviews. That is no fluke, not with the volume of reviews. Success to die for, and this weekend on promotion on Kindle for $1.99. Do yourself a favor and get this book at the special price. Or wait, and still get it for a very reasonable $2.99. Sure to be one of the hottest scifi books this year.

Matthew is a great guy and a great writer, and has always been willing to help other writers. His Atopia Chronicles was a great book, and successful in its own right. Cyberstorm is even better. Recently he announced that the film rights to this book had been sold to 20th Century Fox, not bad at all for an Indie Author. He is a real life Cybersecurity expert, as well as a game designer, so really knows his subject matter.

Editorial reviews include:

“Terrifyingly realistic–this book has kept me up late saying, ‘Just one more chapter…’” – Mercedes Meyer, Amazon Vine Voice top 50 Reviewer

“So great, I wish I’d come up with it myself…” – HUGH HOWEY, author of Wool (praise for Atopia series)

“The plausible nightmare scenario in this story absolutely terrifies me.” – Jeremey Bray, book reviewer for Global Geek News

“Mather is paving the road ahead and leaving phenomenal tales in his wake. CyberStorm is a full-fledged entry into the SF genre–another masterpiece!” – Wes Davies, author of The Runner

“A riveting account of the (potentially) devastating impact of cyber attacks on ordinary citizens.” – Merv Benson, book reviewer for Prairie Pundit

“CyberStorm is such a page turner. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next!” – Adria Fraser, book reviewer for Amazing Stories

Filed under: Agents, Comics, eBooks, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Kindle, Military, Movies, Near Future, PhutureNews, Plotting, Proofreading, Quantum Physics, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Tropes, Websites Tagged: 20th century fox, books, CyberStorm

The Mist.

I caught this movie on scyfy one night, or at least the last three quarters of it. On another night I caught the beginning up to the halfway point. I was very impressed. It seemed like something out of Weird Tales from the 30s or 40s. Alien dimensions opened up, things unlike anything in this reality coming through. Except this was modern day, and the rift between dimensions was big, maybe world swallowing huge. I tried to find it on Netflix and had no luck, so I immediately ordered the Blue Ray combo pack from Amazon. I also found out that it was based on a novella by Stephen King, so I went and bought Skeleton Crew, the book containing the novella and many short stories, for my Kindle, so I could start reading it right away.

I love this movie, and the novella was also really good. In fact, the movie and novella meshed pretty well up to the end. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, but let’s just say that the ending was considered to be one of the most shocking ever. It was very different from King’s ending, more hopeless and hopeful as well, and very much less ambiguous. When King was asked about the movie ending he replied that he liked it, maybe a little better than his own. How unusual is that for a movie? The Blue Ray combo pack also came with a black and white version of the movie, which has an old horror movie kind of appeal, though I personally like the color version better. Great effects, really imaginative creatures out of a nightmare, and a really good storyline. I am very hapy with my purchase.

So, what genre was The Mist. I think most people would put it in the realm of Horror, and not be wrong. The creatures and the suspense were definitely horror, and so was the blood and gore. But is also had the feel of science fiction from an earlier age, with portals opened into other dimensions. Sort of like the old black and white Outer Limits. The creatures were other worldly, insectoids with eyes and teeth, tentacles with mouths, hard claws and spikes all over the place. The only real complaint I had as a scifi writer was that the ecology of the other dimension seemed to consist of nothing but carnivores. They could have had some herbivores, that like some of those in our world were just as dangerous as the meat eaters. If you haven’t seen this movie I highly recommend it. Get your hands on it in some form, and you will be glad you have this little gem on your collection.

Filed under: Alien Invasion, eBooks, Fantasy, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Military, Movies, Multiverse, Past, Plotting, science Fiction, Titles, Tropes, Websites Tagged: Alein life, horror, insectoids, Monsters, Other Dimensions, realm of horror, Stephen King

New Cover for Aura.

Aura is my fantasy novel about three siblings, fraternal triplets, trying to survive in a land of evil. The book has sold 136 copies to date, despite a 4.8 average over four reviews, and what one reviewer said, “This has got to be one of the best reads available in this genre.” So as an experiment I commissioned a new cover for the book on the advice of a fan who owns a bookstore.

I am very impressed with this cover, which is now live on Amazon both for ebooks and paperback. It was created by friend and fellow Tallahassee Writer’s Association member Elizabeth Babski, who runs Babski Creative Studios. She worked very closely with me to get just what I wanted, from the faces of the triplets, to the pyramid and dragon. I think that she did a great job, and soon I will start to promote the book with this new cover and see what happens. She also designed a book themed logo.

I am seriously thinking of having her design the cover for the Exodus 4 book I will be putting out in the Fall. For those looking for a unique and professionally designed cover, I can think of no better place to go.

Filed under: Armor, Barbarians, Conferences, Dragons, eBooks, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fantasy, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Near Future, Plotting, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Sword and Sorcery, Titles, Tropes, Typos, Writing Tagged: Amazon, Aura, Babski Creative Studios, Book Covers, Exodus, fantasy novel

Another Journey Through Space and Time, Sort Of.

Last week I took another trip to my home town of Venice, Florida. I visited the first weekend of May of this year, the first time I had been there since my 20th class reunion in 1995. Things had changed a lot in that time. Things had not changed so much in the two months between these visits. I considered this a working trip. I am planning on writting a collaborative book on growing up in Venice with my friend, Medea Isphording Bern. We both grew up there in the 1960s and graduated from high school in 1975. Both of us attended Epiphany Catholic School, then Venice High. As towns go, Venice was not too large, not too small, though most of the people who graduated from high school left for more interesting places. Now, as a science fiction writer, most of the interesting places I visit are in my mind. While I still plan to travel, and see as much of this world as I can before my transference to whatever awaits after life, if anything, I would like to call a quiet place my base of operations. Venice fits the bill. I looked up our old house on Groveland Ave, next to Mundy Park, the location of my earlist memories. That would be a nice place to call home, and it’s over two meters above the high tide mark. If Global Warming is BS that’s not important. If it’s real, it’s vital.

When I was a child I really wasn’t interested in the variery of houses in the city. There were some that were very cool, but mostly they were just places where friends and enemies lived, some to be visited, some avoided. This time I drove all over the town, taking pictures of all the now cool to me houses. Many were built in the fifties and sixties, and represent a variety of styles. Then there are the older houses, from the 1920s and up. When I was a child I never really paid attention to the way the city was laid out by design. Streets were just things to get from point A to B and nothing else. Now the mirror image layout on both sides of Venice Ave were of great interest to this visitor. This time I took pictures of many of those houses. At another point I drove by a housing development on East Venice Avenue, what used to be called Farm Road, when there actually were farms out there. Ten or more houses in a row, all with the same roof line, all with the same screened porch on the same side of the house. How boring.

It is looking like I will be able to live wherever I want, as long as I am putting books up on the internet and selling enough of them to make a living. The trip stirred up so many more memories, and those images will be transfered to paper by early next year. No, I am not giving up writing science fiction and fantasy. But sometimes it is nice to get close to reality and explore personal history.

Filed under: eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Future Prediciton, History, Kindle, Near Future, Past, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Writing Tagged: epiphany catholic school, Florida, global warming, Nolan plan, quiet places, science fiction writer, town of venice, Venice

A Journey Through Time.

And no, I’m not talking about time travel, except for the kind that goes on in our memories. I went to visit my cousin Frank yesterday. Frank turned 80 earlier this year. He was a high school principle, and had a great many stories to tell. Currently he lives in Mayo, Florida, in a house on the banks of the Suwannee River, the one made famous by the song. Much of the property in his neighborhood is virgin forest, as is the land across the river. I drove south from Tallahassee and through Perry, seeing the old part of the town. Next was Mayo, in Lafayette County, one of the least populated counties in Florida, which has fewer residents than many small towns. Depending on the technology of GPS I missed my turn and ended up in Branford, another tiny village of a town.

Along the way I saw many old buildings that had been around since the 1920s, or 30s at the latest. I passed a courthouse, just like the kind that so many small North Florida towns possess, like miniature domed capitals. Farmer’s fields, owned by families and not corporations, stretched out on both sides of the road, with men in tractors cutting hay or plowing fields. In many ways this was the Florida I remember when my family traveled. I was born and raised in South Florida, along the Gulf Coast, where every building was fair game for demolition, and many were simply knocked down to make room for something new. More fools they for destroying their heritage. In the northern part of the state buildings are left to stand, sometimes abandoned for years, or recycled through one use after another. What I was seeing now was America much as it looked prior to, during and after World War 2. Back when there was no TV, or it just starting with a channel or two. No GPS. Oh, there were modern buildings, a bank, Hardees, McDonalds, a new hospital. But at one point I saw a bank housed in a trailer, and many buildings with rusty tin roofs. Poor people’s housing, much as it had stood for a century, now with satellite dishes hanging from the eaves.

This was America when the world was still a hopeful place, unlike today. When Americans could do anything with their energy and ingenuity, though our English cousins, with a smaller population and industrial base were just as innovative. But we had the drive and energy and determination to do what needed to be done to win a world war and survive a depression. To go to the moon. It was a trip through time, driving across that North Florida countryside. Back to better days? In some ways. Not everything those old buildings looked on in the past was noble. Courthouses like the one I saw witnessed lynchings of men whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong skin color. Klan rallies, corrupt law enforcement. Big men bullying smaller. That was part of the fabric of life in those times, and in some places it is still here.

One day I have plans to write an alternate history that explores the world prior to World War 2, and goes beyond the war that we saw to a more horrific war, the invasion of Japan that never was. I really want to do that book to honor my mother and father, and all the other people who lived through that era. To do that I need to understand them. And part of that understanding starts with viewing the world that was around them. A world that can still be glimpsed, at least structurally, in small North Florida towns.

Filed under: eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Military, Movies, Past, Plotting, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Tropes, Writing Tagged: alternate history, Family, Florida, North Florida, research

It’s All In The Numbers

I was asked a question by someone on the Bookgoodies Facebook page, or maybe it was just a comment, though I have been asked the same question before, and expect to be asked it again. How do I get my numbers? Which is a good question, considering that I really don’t know. This month, on the last day, I have almost 6,900 sales, and would like to see it hit 7,000, something I have absolutely no control over at this moment. Add to that over 350 borrows on the Kindle Owners Lending Library. Pretty good for an indie who was selling about 12 books last June on Amazon and Smashwords combined. There were some strategies I took to help move sales along, but I really have no idea how much each of them contributed to the total. I have fans comparing me to David Weber and John Ringo, or saying things like the best scifi they have ever read. I’m not sure about either of those, but the fans seem to like it. About half of my almost 400 reviews are five star, eighty four percent are four or above, so I must be doing something right in the work I produce. I get some bad reviews. While some have compared me to the greats, others have said that I should go to work digging ditches, based on what they perceive as my talent level. I am not trying to write the Great American Novel. That is not what I grew up loving. I want to write good speculative fiction. Someday I would like to win a Hugo or Nebula, though I have no control over that, and am not even sure if an indie can win those awards. No matter. I know I have talent. I have been told so by some professionals I respect. But talent is not the whole deal. I have a great imagination, and can take concepts from other stories and blend them to make them my own. Not sure if that’s the whole story either. I have done give aways on Kindle, some have led to great sales of that particular book (The Deep Dark Well), some have led to mediocre sales (The Shadows of the Multiverse) and some have led to very poor sales (The Hunger). And I believe some of those giveaways were the spark that started people reading the Exodus Series. I think that The Shadows of the Multiverse is as good as The Deep Dark Well, and The Hunger as good as either. Recently I have bought advertising for the Hunger, $500 for two months, and have so far seen 14 ebooks fly off the electronic shelf. I have a variety of books out there, a steampunk fantasy called Daemon, a two near future scifi novels, The Scorpion and Diamonds in the Sand. I put books out I have written over the past decade, after submitting them to agents and publishers and collecting rejecion letters that basically said they weren’t going to make a fortune off of me.

So what is the secret? A couple of years ago, just before I jumped into the indie publishing game, I read a book by James Scott Bell called Self Publishing Attack. The best advice in the book was to get a lot of books online, and keep putting out new ones. I had the advantage of having quite a backlog of ready to publish novels, so I was ahead of the game there. And the advice seems to have panned out. The Deep Dark Well and its Sequel have sold enough to send me on a couple of vacations. Same with the Refuge Series. Shadows of the Multiverse would pay for my gas for a year, while Daemon, Aura and The Hunger have allowed me to eat out and see some movies, and that’s about all. If any of these had been my only books on Amazon, I probably would not have been able to quit my day job. The Exodus Series allowed me to follow that dream. And I had no idea that would be the breakaway book that took me to self published full time author. So I guess the lesson is to keep putting out books, and never get so invested in one idea that you get locked into a losing proposition. I don’t think just putting out a lot of books is the complete story. They have to be good books, or at least good enough that your target audience wants to read them. And a good start to that is to write the book you would want to read, then the next one in the same vein.

Filed under: Agents, Alien Invasion, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Marvel, Military, Movies, Past, Plotting, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Tropes, Uncategorized, Websites, Writing Tagged: ebooks, Kindle, Promotions, self publishing

Infantry Weapons of the Future: Starship Troopers and Beyond: Part 4

So I have shown in the last three installments on this topic that we will probably come up with new and inventive ways to kill each other on the battlefield of the future, and that they will probably be a little bit different that what is commonly portrayed in science fiction. Along with this lethality will have to come better protection for those using the weapons. Otherwise, the life expectancy of an infantryman will measure in the minutes, if not seconds. Now, I will diverge for a moment to talk just a moment about the history of battlefield armor. One of the reasons the Spartans held out so long against the Persians at Thermopylae was better armor. Breast and back plates of bronze, helmets, greaves, and big round shields versus the wicker armor of the Immortals. The Romans also wore better armor than most of their opponents. Armor achieved is culmination with the armored knight. The plate armor offered great protection, even though it eventually got to the point where the general effectiveness of the cavalryman was degraded. Then armor went by the wayside, though it was still effective, at least the heavier grades, at stopping bullets. It was now the time of mass conscripted armies, carrying easy to master firearms. And so it went for centuries. In World War 1 the helmet made its reappearance to protect the head against that greatest of battlefield killers, artillery. I had read a study at one time that body armor was being considered in that war, and would have prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths, if not the harder to prevent woundings. Now we come to the present, where US Infantrymen wear Kevlar armor with ballistic plates that can stop most small arms rounds. The men and women are still vulnerable on their arms, legs and lower torso. The major problem with the current armor is weight, always a precious commodity in infantry warfare. An infantryman can only carry so much, and weight of armor must result in something else being left behind. Ammo is another prime consideration, and there are very few soldiers who will not pack as much ammo as they can carry, so something else must be left behind. Heavy weight means slow movement. The solution seems to be to make the weight carry itself. And so the Army is experimenting with exoskeletons that can carry the soldier and all he packs. The main problem with exos is the power supply, they use a lot of energy, and rapidly exhaust batteries. That is something I am sure will be solved, eventually.

The future battlefield will be a hell of flying projectiles, light beams, high energy explosives, and radiation. A helmet and Kevlar vest just won’t cut it. Armor will have to evolve to cover the entire trooper, and move him at speeds at least as fast as a lightly burdened man, if not faster. Robert Heinlein introduced the solution to the problem, at least in fiction, with the powered armor of his seminal work, Starship Troopers. In its day it was groundbreaking, and has since become a common trope of science fiction. Almost everyone equips their soldiers of the future with powered armor. Why? Because it just makes sense. Even a genetically engineered soldier will die quickly in the hell of the future battlefield without protection. Khan would be dying of radiation poisoning soon after entering the future battlefield, if he wasn’t first incinerated by a swarm of particle beams. So they will have heavy armor, and that armor will enhance their strength to allow them to have the ability to carry it. From there it just makes sense that the armor would have many times the strength needed to just carry it, allowing the soldier of the future to carry more gear. Flying, or at least hovering over the ground, increasing speed of movement, is also a given, whether it be from rocket propulsion or something yet to be developed but much more advanced. Of course flying around is not always a good idea either. Hovering twenty feet off the ground would probably make the soldier the most noticeable target around, but not for long. What about force fields? If such a thing can be developed, and beside the electromagnetic fields we already know about it does not seem likely, given our current stare of knowledge, there would still be limitations. Things will still penetrate and burn through. Armor and force field combinations would be the best, if such could be developed. And of course the suits would have other features to enhance the survivability of their wearers. Built in medical systems, sensor suites, deployable scout robots, as well as the nanotech within the body of each infantryman. They could still be killed. Even nanotech won’t save a man with a quarter meter wide burn hole through the center of his chest. There may be exceptions to that as well, which I will discuss in a future blog entry. Invisibility fields could also prove useful, maybe not for total concealment, since sensors would surely be developed to pierce them, but as a way to reduce enemy acquisition of targets. Anything that buys the infantry precious seconds to maneuver through the open without being destroyed would be useful.

And of course as a result of this protection, weapons will get better at destroying armor. That’s been the game of warfare since the beginning of recorded history. An example of this is tank warfare, in which the infantry acquires new weapons to destroy tanks, and new tanks are developed with heavier armor to defeat those antitank weapons. No armor would long be impervious to enemy weaponry, unless that enemy were complete idiots. It probably wouldn’t protect a soldier from a close burst nuclear, antimatter or kinetic weapons dropped from space, but proper tactics would ensure that casualties were at a minimum. It’s all about beating the odds and having enough left to fight back.

I use powered armor in all of my far future military scifi. Some would ask why? Isn’t that just copying someone elses idea? To me that would be the same as not using swords in Sword and Sorcery, or tanks in military stories. It just makes sense that such protection would be developed. The one name for soldiers on a future battlefield without good protection is Dead. Near misses by some future weapons would kill such soldiers, while an armored soldier would need a direct if not sustained hit (and with some weapons sustained would be the word). In some situations a light stealth body suit would serve, infiltration missions and raids for example. In others systems with no electronic signatures might be best. But putting lightly or unarmored troops up against soldiers in heavy battle armor would be as wasteful as sending a battalion of highly trained Airborne Rangers into a frontal assault against an entrenched mechanized infantry. Or as George Patton said when watching Afrika Corps soldiers walking into an artillery barrage, that’s just a waste of good infantry.

Filed under: Alien Invasion, Antimatter, Armor, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Military, Movies, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Industry, Sword and Sorcery, Titles, Tropes, Writing Tagged: body armor, exoskeletons, infantry weapons, John Ringo, plate armor, powered armor, Robert Heinlein, world war 1