Doug Dandridge's Blog, page 8

You Had To Have Been There, Part 1.

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Mountains around Tucson as seen from my hotel.

As related in an earlier blog, I took a trip out to Tucson, Arizona on February 21st to meet with publisher Shahid Mahmud to discuss a book deal.  I was carrying the signed contract, the deal was actually done, but Shahid likes to meet with his authors before they start their projects.  He had offered to buy me the round trip tickets to Tucson (and why we were in Tucson was part of the previous blog) and hotel room for the three nights we would be there.  I had another idea.  I had always wanted to see that part of the country, so I asked for the cash, then bought a one way ticket to Tucson on Tuesday and a return ticket from Las Vegas on Sunday.  Now I wish I had added even more days, but I can always go back.  We met in the afternoon into the evening, so I had mornings and early afternoons to explore.  So the second day it was back to the airport to get a rental car.  I learned that it costs a lot more to take a one-way rental, picking up at one airport and returning to another.  More information for planning future trips.

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View in Saguaro National Park.

I had always wanted to visit a desert region in the Southwest, and this was my chance.  I have an idea for a post-apocalyptic series, and part would be set in a desert, whether an existing one or one created by the apocalyptic event.  I have read of people using Google maps to gain background information.  Jim Butcher has admitted to using Google Earth to look up locations in Chicago for The Dresden Files.  I have done so myself for books set on Earth.  But I remember reading about how the guy who wrote The Battle For Crete visited the locations and said you could see terrain features not visible on any map, or even most photos.  So I learned on this trip.  If you want to see an area you are going to write about, really see it, you have to go there.

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Saguaro in front of Tucson Airport.

First thing I noticed in Tucson was the Saguaro cactus in front of the airport.  The next were the mountains all around the almost flat bowl that the city was built in.  You could see several ranges from anywhere in the city, and every range was different.  There were sharp pointed mountains, wide low peaks, all kinds of different spurs and valleys radiating out.  I took a year of geology in college, and seeing all of the mountains were a treat.  At the time I didn’t know how much of a treat I was in for.

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Mountain overlooking Saguaro National Park.

I had no plan, so I looked to the GPS that came with the car.  Saguaro National Park looked interesting, so off I went to the eastern part of the park.  I passed by an aircraft graveyard on the way, and made a note to stop and take some pictures on the way back.  Saguaro was not a large park, but it had a great view of a massive low mountain, Mt. Mica, and the drive through offered some great views.  And, of course, there were a lot of cactus.  I dubbed that area the Desert of Pain, since almost every plant seemed to have some kind of thorn.  I had to wonder how the cougars in the park made their way through the undergrowth.  I met a Florida State alum at one of the stops.  Saw a lot of what passed for creeks through the park, washes, which I guess comes from the fact that if you camp in them you will be washed away when it rains, whenever that is.  On the way back to my hotel I stopped outside one of the aircraft graveyards, where the armed forces store their old and obsolete airplanes.  I took some pictures, hoping that I wasn’t doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.  But the aircraft are all very old, and I wouldn’t think they would have any secrets worth safeguarding.

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One of Tucson’s aircraft graveyard.

The next day I headed for Mt. Lemmon, the tallest peak in the area at over nine thousand feet.  There is a ski resort at the top, though you can’t see it from the valley.  I could see the mountain from the hotel in South Tucson, and it looked to be a couple of miles away.  Wrong, and another lesson.  The water starved air is so clear that everything looks closer than it is, especially to eyes used to seeing things in the heavy humid air of Florida.  I drove at least twelve or fifteen miles to get to the foothills.  You can’t see the road going up the mountain from the valley.   What you could see where the scores of bicyclists heading toward the mountains.  They were all over the place, struggling up the slope, then gliding back down into the valley.  It was as winding a road as I’ve ever been on, with great vistas of gorges and valleys.  Most of the valleys were filled with saguaro.  There are different biomes higher up.  I had planned to go to the top, but at the six thousand foot mark I started to feel a little light headed.  I imagined myself going off the road into a gorge, a couple of screaming bicyclists on my hood.  I thought it best to head back down.  I had seen most of the mountain, and the great views of the city.  So I headed back.

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View of Tucson valley from Mt. Lemmon.

Observations on the Sonoran desert, which was the local biome.  It’s dry.  Really dry.  Even though it was from cool to cold, I would still get dehydrated in less than an hour as the moisture in my lungs was pulled out of my body by the water starved air.  There was vegetation everywhere, growing out of the sand.  It got a little chilly at night, into the forties, and got up to the low sixties during the day.  I got used to this over the couple of days I was there, and figured that would be the temperature I would have to endure throughout the trip.  I kind of forgot the size of the area I was going to traverse over the next couple of days.  Note to self, look up information on the areas you are going to travel through.  Most of the yards in Tucson didn’t have grass.  They had cactus.  Even the sports fields for the most part were dry, with brown grass.  It seemed to me that it would actually be really hard to get lost in the desert.  All you have to do is pick out a mountain that is in the direction you want to go and head for it.  Remembering that it’s probably ten or more miles away, and you will be dehydrated in a mile.  And assuming that there’s nothing in the way (more on that next blog).

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Anteater.

With the rest of the morning to kill I went to the local zoo and to the Museum of the Horse Soldier.  The museum, which was one small building, still had a lot to see concerning cavalry from the civil war up through World War 2.  Everything is grist for the mill, and I am sure that someday I will be able to use the information I gathered there.

I really hadn’t had a plan for my travels, so I went out for a map that Wednesday night looking for a map.  GPS is great when you know where you want to go.  Not so much when you don’t.  I had to go to four different gas stations or drug stores to finally find one.  That night I looked it over and made my plans.  The next day we broke from meeting at six.  I was already checked out of my hotel, so I hit the road, hoping to get as far north as I could before stopping.  I took I-10 up through Phoenix, then up I-17 toward Flagstaff.  I didn’t see much of Phoenix, only what you can see at night from the highway.  On the way up I saw a lot of mountains, beautiful every one.  And noted the trailers out in the desert, sitting by themselves, and wondered how people lived out there when they had to cart in all of their water.  How do they shower?

It was really dark by the time I got north of Phoenix.  I mean almost pitch black, and the interstate was missing most of its middle road reflectors, making it difficult to tell if you were in your lane.  And the elevation markers kept going up.  Four thousand feet, then five thousand, then six thousand.  I remembered how I had gotten light headed on Mt. Lemmon at six thousand feet.  Then it went down to five thousand, then four thousand some miles further, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  The worst is over, I thought.  Then it started going back up, until the elevation marker outside of Flagstaff read seven thousand feet.  There were no hotels, and very few gas stations, so I kept going.  Then I was in Flagstaff, elevation seventy-five hundred feet, and found a hotel off of I-40, heading for Winslow.  It was nineteen degrees out, and all I had for warm weather clothing was a leather jacket and a light sweatshirt.  Nineteen might not have been much for the locals, but it was threatening cold to this Florida native.  I struggled to my room in the Arctic cold (to me) and finally got to bed at a little past eleven.  The adventure continued the next day.

Filed under: Kindle, self publishing, Writing Tagged: Arc Manor, Arizona, Deserts, Phoenix, Saguaro Cactus, Shahid Mahmud, Travel, Tucson

Lockdown: A Zombie Anthology

 

 

 

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You might be surprised to know that I did a zombie story that just came out in an anthology.  All of the other authors were predominantly horror writers.  I wrote one vampire novel years ago (The Hunger).  In fact, I prefer vampires, then liches for my undead needs.  But I mentioned to one of the people involved, Greg Ferrell, who lives in Tallahassee, that I would be interested in writing a zombie story.  As said, all of the other authors are well known in the field, including some best sellers.  But I have sales numbers in my genre, and that will get you a lot of invites.  So there I was.  And as some very successful people have told me in the past, don’t turn down an invitation if you are able to do what they want.  It always helps to get exposure.  And thanks to authors Mike Evans, Kindra Sowder, Claire C. Riley, Katie Cord, James Dean, William Allen, Kya Aliana and of course, Greg P. Ferrel.

Lockdown is set in a state of the art building that has been locked down at the beginning of a zombie outbreak.  We could choose any kind of business we wanted.  The only restrictions:  no firearms; and the world must have never before experienced a zombie outbreak.  I was given the eighth floor, I believe, and I chose a medical supply company run by an ex-doctor and a woman who had been a combat medic in Iraq.  That gave me a lot of possibilities for the characters to come up with zombie killing weapons when the floor started flooding with undead.

The release was just over a week ago, and it shot up to number one in new release horror, jumping ahead of some superstars in the field.  They had a big online party.  I really didn’t participate in that, since I’m not really one of the in crowd in this genre.  Surprisingly, I found some people on there who were fans of my space opera.  One mentioned that he wondered if I was that Doug Dandridge, the writer of his favorite science fiction series.  I’ll just say one thing about that.  As far as I know, there are three Doug Dandridge’s in the United States, and I think I am the only author.  I lucked out on the name, one that doesn’t have to compete with a bunch of people with the same nom de guerre.  Good luck if you’re John Smith.

I gained some new Facebook followers from that promotion, many of them fellow authors.  It’s always good to connect with these people.  You never know when an opportunity might arise to work on something, or to promote each other.  Lockdown was a fun project, and I would be open to writing more horror in the future, though science fiction and high fantasy will always be my true loves.  Lockdown is available on Amazon.

Filed under: Kindle, Plotting, self publishing, Writing Tagged: Anthologies, Claire C. Riley, Greg P. Ferrel, horror, James Dean, Katie Cord, Kindra Sowder, Kya Aliana, Lockdown, Mike Evans, William Allen, zombies

Two Book Deal with Arc Manor.

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I just got back from out west, where I had a meeting with publisher Shahid Mahmud and his assistant, Lezli Robyn.  I met Shahid two years ago on the Sail to Success cruise he sponsors.  I went on the cruise again this year, and on the last day of the program Shahid asked me if I would be interested in doing something with his company.  In the words of Kevin J Anderson, who has mentored me in the past, “I can do that.”

It was interesting how we ended up in Arizona, since I’m from Florida and Shahid is from Maryland.  This was supposed to be a collaboration with another successful independent author who has also had a lot of short stories published in major science fiction magazines.  Shahid sent me the money for tickets and a hotel, while he bought tickets for himself and his assistant.  I wanted to do a little traveling in the region after the meeting, so I bought a flight in to Tucson, then out from Las Vegas.  At the last minute the other author dropped out of the project, so I still had a trip to Arizona.  We had three days of meetings in a local Denny’s, while I spent the mornings looking around the area and taking pictures (855 on the entire trip.  Aren’t digital cameras wonderful).

 

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I brought the signed contract with me and gave it to Shahid before the first meeting.  This was to cover the legal aspects of what we would be discussing.  I have twelve months to produce the first book, which will be edited along the way, then six months after that delivery to give him the second book.  It will be a unique space opera/military science fiction universe I had already started to develop.  After I am finished and Arc Manor has promoted it, other authors will be invited to write in it.  I may be able to swing a couple of people, but it’s up to Arc Manor to decide who will write in it.  I may do some more books, and I have been asked to do at least one short story well before the publication of the first novel to help generate some buzz.  I don’t want to go into any more detail.  Nothing about the financial arrangements, which are between myself and the publisher.  I think I am getting a very good deal, and one which could boost my exposure considerably, helping me in my independent publishing endeavors as well.  The funny thing was I told Shahid at first that I didn’t need an advance, since I put my own books out without one.  He insisted that I take one, with the advice that you never turn down money.  Have to remember that.

 

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I will be producing an outline on the first book as well as a series arc before the end of the month.  Arc Manor will handle the cover, editing, and promotion, including a website, though I will be putting up content on that site, including sketches of ships, maps, and so on.  I am really excited about this opportunity, which, though just one of many coming up, could turn out to be a really big deal for myself and Arc Manor.  For those who don’t know, they publish Galaxy’s Edge, a mag edited by Mike Resnick; a series of books pairing new and established authors; short stories by Larry Niven, and reprints by many famous authors including Robert Heinlein.  This is my first traditional publishing deal, and I hope the first of many.  Don’t worry, I will still be putting out books in my several independent series.  After all, it takes time for traditionally published books to come out, and indie novel still bring in money within a couple of months.  More news on this deal to come, though Arc Manor will wait until it is near ready to come out for their release.  Blogs to follow on the rest of the trip, and some observations that will appear in future books.

Filed under: Conferences, eBooks, Kindle, Military, Plotting, self publishing, Titles, Writing Tagged: Arc Manor, Galaxy's Edge, Lezli Robyn, Shahid Mahmud, Space Opera, Tucson

Review of Asbaran Solutions: Book Two of The Revelations Cycle.

 

Asbaran Solutions can be found on Amazon here.  First, a confession.  I have known Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey for several years, having met them at Liberty Con in Chattanooga.  But I have met a lot of authors at conventions, and sometimes I review their books.  Also, I don’t do bad reviews.  I’m not in this to make enemies, and a bad review can come back to bite you in the ass.  That said, I also don’t do reviews that I wouldn’t stand behind.  I have been asked to contribute to an anthology set in this Universe.  With all the items on my plate at the moment, including a new book contract, I would only agree to write a story for a Universe that I enjoy reading myself.  This series is a winner, and I was happy to accept.  Now on to the review.

The Revelations Cycle is set in a Galaxy populated by thousands of technologically advanced sapient species.  After a history of disastrous wars, combat has been ritualized to lessen its destruction of valuable property and reduce collateral damage.  And not all species are natural warriors.  Some are unable to defend themselves, while others are bloodthirsty barbarians who revel in combat.  Bring in humans, not the most bloodthirsty, but with the aid of combat armor, one of the most proficient.  Humanity needs cash to be able to enter the Galactic Market, and they really don’t have anything to offer, except their lives.  So mercenary companies earn the cash that Earth needs.  There are a large number of companies, but the most famous of all are the Four Horsemen, the only survivors of a disastrous mission in the past that wiped out all of the other companies involved.

Mercenaries are used to secure valuable targets, or to take them away from competitors.  Some weapons and tactics are forbidden, including the use of biological weapons and bombardment from space.  Some of the alien species don’t always play by the rules, which leads to complications, including those in this story.  Nigel Shirazi is the oldest son of the current leader of Asbaran Solutions, one of the Four Horsemen.  His displays of temper have gotten him thrown out of several colleges, and out of his inherited position.  When a contract target is taken from Asbaran by a force of aliens, using forbidden weapons, the males of the family attempt several assaults to get it back, losing their units and their lives in the process.  When Nigel’s sister is captured, it is up to him to rally the bankrupt company and accomplish the mission, bringing in a grand payday that will save the company, and rescue his sister as well.  Don’t want to spoil the story, so that’s all I’ll say.  Just know that it is a tight, action packed tale that is sure to please fans of military science fiction.  There is a lot of violence, and Kennedy reminded me a little of George R R Martin in the way he killed off characters.  But war is a bloody business, and Kennedy captures the camaraderie of living on the edge of the combat soldier.  Highly recommended.

Filed under: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Far Future, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Intelligent Life, Kindle, Military, science Fiction, self publishing, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged: Chris Kennedy, Mark Wandrey, The Revelations Cycle

Sail to Success: Stingray City Bahamas.

 

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Kind of late getting around to this post.  I promised the guys at Stingray City that I would blog on their attraction, and it was worth telling the world about.  This year, before going on Sail to Success, I decided that I wanted to schedule some shore excursions.  I was looking for a swim with the dolphins excursion, but everything I could find interfered with my class schedule, especially the panels I was hosting.  I finally found one with stingrays.  Stingrays?  Aren’t they dangerous?  I mean, look what happened to Steve Irvin.  I knew a little bit about them, probably not as much as I should, since I grew up on the coast.  And I figured it couldn’t be that dangerous, could it?  If it were, they wouldn’t let a bunch of dumb ass tourists interact with them.  It looked interesting, so I signed up.

The excursion was at Great Stirrup Cay, the island owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines.  There really wasn’t a lot there, with the exception of the beach and some concession stands.  We came ashore in a boat that could have served well as a landing craft, about an hour before the start.  I located the excursion booth, then went to sit on the beach for a little while, talking with Shahid Mamud for part of the time.  Then it was to the booth to check in.  There was only one couple there, and I was thinking this thing might not be that popular.  Ten minutes before the start it started to fill up, and I started to wonder if there might be too many people.  We started off about ten minutes late, since some of the passengers had to wander off to get another drink.  Then it was a short walk to the docks.  I was having trouble walking in the sand that day, and they called a cart to give me a ride.  Saved a lot of pain in my hips.

There were two boats, both open jobs with room for about a dozen passengers, with two crew aboard each.  It was a quick high speed run out to the enclosure where they kept the stingrays, then another dock.  There were masks and snorkels for those who wanted them, then it was into the water.  The cold, cold water.  I was thinking, since the Bahamas were right off the coast of South Florida the water would be about the same as where I grew up.  What I didn’t know was the Bahamas are not in the Gulf Stream, and the Atlantic is a cold ocean.  It took some getting used to, but eventually I was in, with everyone else way ahead of me, already feeding the stingrays.  I looked to my right and a tight vee formation of rays heading right for me.  I was reminded of the silicon creatures in Island of Terror.  But since no one else was screaming as they were being attacked, I figured it was safe enough.  The rays parted before they got to me and gracefully swung around my body.  Graceful.  That was the best word to describe the rays.  They weaved around the people in the water, hardly ever touching anyone, like birds of the water.  You could feed them, and since they didn’t have teeth the worst that could happen was a hickey on your hand.

The guides were all natives of the Bahamas, living on a nearby island and coming to work by boat.  One described the island they lived on as paradise.  They gave out information about the rays, and it was obvious to this observer that they liked working with their charges.  They had names for all the rays, who are not permanent captives, but are rotated back to the wild periodically.  The net enclosure was there to protect the rays from hammerhead sharks, their primary predator.  They seemed excited to interact with people, especially since there was food in the bargain.  The lead guide stated that they ate a high priced diet of ship, oysters and scallops.

I really could not get over how graceful the animals were.  It was like they were flying in the water.  Not the fastest of birds, but extremely maneuverable.  They wove in and out of people.  Every once in a while a wing would touch me.  Their skin is rough, but a covering of slime makes that skin slick, and it was not unpleasant.

And then came my turn to hold one while my picture was taken.  Yeah, that white boy is me.  I don’t get out much, being a writer.  The animal was surprisingly docile, staying still while I supported it in the water.  It was a terrific experience holding a wild animal of the shark family.

I would recommend Stingray City Bahamas to anyone who happens to go on one of the cruises that stops at one of the nearby islands.  Yeah, I wanted to swim with the dolphins, but the rays were also very cool.  The staff was friendly and well informed, and, being a scifi writer, I had images of different creatures in my mind based on the rays.  But the ones I develop might elicit some screaming and yelling when they are let loose on the spectators.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Book Review: Cartwright’s Cavaliers, by Mark Wandrey. 5 Stars.

 

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Cartwright’s Cavaliers can be found here.  First a confession.  I have known Mark Wandrey since attending my first Liberty Con (I will be going to my fourth this year).  I met Chris Kennedy at that first Liberty Con as well.  This is an honest review.  I don’t do bad book reviews, since I’m not out to make enemies.  I simply won’t do a review of something I don’t think has merit.  That said, I loved this book, volume one of the Four Horsemen universe.  It is a galaxy filled with aliens, some fairly harmless, others terrifying.  War is codified by laws which limit its destructiveness, or are supposed to.  Planetary bombardment from orbit is outlawed.  Most biological weapons, from microbes up to Kaiju class monsters, are outlawed.  War is conducted by mercenary companies (in the meaning of a commercial enterprise, since some of the companies are very large, more than battalion size).  There are companies that specialize in ship to ship combat, and those that are ground specialists.  Several of the alien species have mercenaries, but humans make up some of the best and most rewarded of the class.  In fact, the economy of Earth depends on the income brought in by her mercenary companies.  And the greatest of the mercenary companies are the Four Horsemen, of which Cartwright’s Cavaliers are one of the most storied.

Jim Cartwright, the son of the hard as nails leader of the Cavaliers, is determined to become a mercenary.  Smart, tough, unable to quit, he is cursed with the genes of his mother, and is overweight and unable to make the physical grade.  His father dead, killed on a contract, his mom is in charge of the company, and she spends the family fortune.  Jim graduates from school to find that everything his family has owned is now caught up in bankruptcy court.  He is broke, almost penniless, and the company he has grown up in is no longer in existence.  Until he meets some of his father’s former employees who have a contingency plan.

Most of the people following my blog know that I make my living writing military science fiction/space opera.  I make my bread and butter out of action scenes.  And Cartwright’s Cavaliers had excellent action.  If you like great action, soldiers in armor, and even some giant robots battling fierce aliens, this book is for you.  Very well written, well edited, few errors.  Chris Kennedy will be writing the next volume of the series, and I think he and Mark will be alternating novels from that point in this, the Revelation Cycle series.  Again, highly recommended, five stars.  Do yourself a favor and pick up this book..

Filed under: Uncategorized

Sail to Success 2016, Part 3.

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Last stop on the cruise was Grand Stirrup Cay.  The other stops were major populated islands in the Bahamas.  Grand Stirrup Cay was a private island, owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines.  I found out on this trip that another nearby island was owned by Royal Caribbean.  Last year I skipped this island.  This year I had signed up for the swimming with sting rays excursion.  It was really the only one I was interested in that fit in with my workshop schedule.  So I rode the landing craft to the island and sat in a beach lounger and waited.  There was a nice beach, the island was pretty, but besides the beach and a few places to eat and drink, there was really nothing there.  A band eventually set up and started to play, but by that time I was on my way back to the ship.  The sting rays were really cool, the crew that ran the excursion were great, and I will be putting up a blog on Sting Ray City Bahamas in the near future.  I just say here that I really enjoyed the excursion, and was very happy that I had signed up for it.

 

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As usual classes started at 2 PM, so first I grabbed some lunch.  I really don’t remember if it was this day or the day before, but I saw Mike Resnick, his wife, and a student and spouse talking at one of the tables.  I said hello on my way by, and was invited to sit at the next table.  Again, always cool to be around Mike and hear his tales of the industry past.  Then it was class time, a three hour manuscript critique with Nancy Kress.  Now two of the students gave the same piece to critique to both Jim and Nancy.  Don’t know why.  I guess they wanted two opinions on the samples.  I gave Nancy the opening chapter of the novel I will try to sell to Baen.  Jim had critiqued chapters 2 and 3 the day before.  As always, there were a lot of good suggestions and some that had me shaking my head.  Whenever people with absolutely no experience or knowledge of the military give opinions on military scifi or fantasy, I basically file their suggestions away as calls for more detail, so those people will understand what the hell is going on.  Nancy suggested more detail in my chapter too, a good point, but one that will be difficult to implement since I will probably have to start cutting to get this thing down to the length the agent thought it should be.

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After dinner, spent on the rear deck watching the islands retreat in the dark, we had the last two sessions.  The first was Sharpening Your Prose with Jack Skillinghead, followed by Jack and Mike presenting What Kind of Writer do you Want to Be (to which my answer was, a well paid one).  And then we had the closing.  I was about to go to my room and write, when Shahid asked if he could talk to me.  Can’t say what it was about, yet, and more to follow, but let’s just say it was something that got me excited.

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The next day, Miami.  After breakfast on the rear deck, then packing, I headed out of the ship with luggage in tow.  They will take your bags for you and you can claim it at the docking facility, if you want to wait for several hours.  I didn’t, so I headed in and to customs.  The agent closely examined my newly acquired cane, looking for insect bore holes, then let me go.  Paid for parking and I was off.  Last year I drove straight home, stopping for a couple of naps on the way.  This year I went by way of Alligator Alley, which is now I-75, but still a toll road.  I wanted to see the Everglades, and it was worth the detour.  I stopped in Venice, my old home town, for the night and had some great seafood, then headed to Tally the next day.

Sail to Success was definitely a success for me.  I talked with the people I wanted to talk with, and some terrific possibilities opened up.  Not sure if that will happen to people starting out who don’t already have a body of work, but the networking and educational opportunities are still there.  I would recommend this workshop to anyone who wants to become a better writer while learning some of the in and outs of the field.  The faculty is first rate, the ship is cool, the Bahamas beautiful, and the cost is not that much when you consider all that you are getting.  A lot of shorter workshops cost as much or more when you figure in travel and hotels.

Filed under: Uncategorized

My Bibliography of Online Books.

People have told me in the past that they have not been able to find all of my books.  If you read my space opera, then all of the books of that type will eventually appear on the ‘People who bought this also bought’ list.  However, you won’t find my fantasy or near future scifi there.  So here it all is, at least what I have so far, with links to their individual Amazon sales pages.  All are also available on Kindle Unlimited with the exception of Machine War 3.  It will appear on KU in a couple of months.  Hope everyone finds this helpful.  And to those with new Kindles, try one of my books.  I don’t think you will be disappointed.

The dates alongside each book is the year it was written, not the publication date.  The earliest any book was published was December 13, 2011. when both The Deep Dark Well and The Hunger were published.  Right now I am sitting at just over 4,000 reviews on Amazon, with a 4.6 * average.  On Goodreads, a little harder Audience, I have 4,166 ratings with a 4.12 * average.

Books by Doug Dandridge

Science Fiction

The Deep Dark Well Series

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The Deep Dark Well:  (2004)  An Adventure 40,000 years in the making.  Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama.  She’s used to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole, halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future.  Pandora must discover the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars.  Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down the roads of Barbarism.

To Well and Back:  (2013)  Pandora Latham is back, working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization.  But first she has to deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own.  Pandora is angry at the hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.

Deeper and Darker:  (2014) Pandora Latham is on the warpath.  Watcher, her lover, and the only man who can once again unite the Galaxy, is a prisoner of the Totalitarian government of the New Galactic Empire.  The Empire thinks they have the upper hand, but they have never faced someone like Pandi, and the peoples of the Galaxy that she has rallied to her cause.

Theocracy:   (2011)  A young gunpowder era monk becomes the only hope for his doomed world as he is caught up in the game of empire between two more advanced cultures.

The Exodus Series

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Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1:  (2010)  The introduction to the Exodus Universe.  Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years to a new home.  Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to be going well for the New Terran Empire.  Until the enemy appears once again at the gates.  And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2:  (2010)  The saga continues.  The Ca’cadasans attack at the moment when the government of the Empire is at its most chaotic.  There are other enemies as well, waiting for their chance to fall on the overwhelmed humans.  And a young man with no ambition for power finds himself in the position he most dreads.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3:  (2013) Sean is rescued, but he is not about to go back to the safety of the capital without striking back at the Ca’cadasans who have invaded his Empire.  But will his decision put the lives of thousands at risk, as well as risking the safety of his own Empire, by depriving it of its leader.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4:  (2013)  Sean is crowned Emperor, and attempts to organize the Empire for war against the Ca’cadasans.  But he finds that planning battles and winning battles are two different things. Defeat follows defeat.  Can anyone snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?  Or will the new Emperor fail before his reign even really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger:  (2014)  Cornelius Walbroski enters the rigors of Ranger training, becoming one of the augmented warriors of the Empire.  But his first assignment, Azure, is one of the most deadly planets in the Galaxy, even prior to the coming of the Cacas.  Can Cornelius survive his first mission?  Or will a promising career end before it really begins?

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle:  (2014)  Sean and the Empire need a victory before human morale goes completely into the black hole.  He develops a plan to bring the Ca’cadasans into battle in space of his choosing.  But the Cacas are not an easy opponent, and they have plans of their own, for the Donut.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:  (2014)  The Empire has weathered the Ca’cadasan onslaught, and now it’s the time to strike back with an offensive of their own.  A victory could win the war.  But will it?

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers:  (2015)  The Cacas have been ejected from Imperial space, for the moment.  But millions of citizens of New Moscow are still held captive in death camps in their former empire, processed for rations for the large aliens.  Sean is determined to save as many as he can, and the Fleet and Army are prepared to carry out his directive; free the prisoners at all costs.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front:  (2015)  The exploration mission sent around the edge of the Ca’cadasan Empire has found the other Empire at war with the large aliens.  They are not as expected, and Sean must order his military to perform actions that could vilify him in the eyes of his new allies.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy:   (2016)  The Fenri, all but beaten, have not given up, and their new plan promises random death and destruction in the Empire.  The Cacas have launched a new offensive against the Klavarta, and their new commander is much more intelligent than the last.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: (2016)  Day of Infamy:  The Ca’cadasans come up with a bold new plan to destroy the heart of the Empire, and the gigantic station that is the source of the New Terran Empire’s technological edge.  Using their own newly created wormhole, they will deep strike into the Supersystem.  The result could doom the Empire.

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command:  (2015)  Three novelettes concerning Exploration Command, the arm of the Fleet tasked with pushing back the boundaries of the Empire, and discovering the technology needed to win the war.

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Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Beasts of the Frontier:  (2016)  Three novelettes and three short stories about the dangers of the frontiers of the Empire.  The Cacas are not the only threat.  Sometime the danger is the wild, at other times, other humans.

 

Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova:  (2015)  When a civilization is discovered that has a special ability that would be of tremendous benefit to the Empire, great excitement is generated.  When it is found that a nearby blue giant star is due to supernova in less than a year, destroying that world, excitement turns to a frantic race to save as much of that species as possible.  And enemies from the past, lurking in space, bring forth a new war to the embattled Empire.

 

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Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole:  (2016)  The Machine Intelligences are back, with a vengeance.  While the Empire is busy fighting a war of survival against the Cacas, the murderous killing machines they had created hundreds of years prior are now ready to strike back.  And the Imperial stronghold of Bolthole is in their sights.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above:  (2016)  The Machines are on the move, their planet killers headed for Bolthole.  The human fleet is outnumbered and outgunned.  But the humans have some technological tricks up their sleeves, and the genius of an unconventional commander.  Will it be enough?

Other Scifi

Diamonds in the Sand:  (1998)  When a perfectly healthy scientist falls dead of an apparent heart attack, it is up to Sarasota Police Detective Lieutenant Gary Lariviere to find out what really happened.  The scientist was working on Nanotechnology, a secret desired by everyone from the Government to the Mob.  There are too many suspects, including the woman that Gary comes to love.  The Army had made Gary better than human, but had they prepared him for the terrors that had been unleashed by the new technology?

The Scorpion:  (2006)  The Scorpion had been the world’s deadliest living terrorist.  Kestral McMann had been in on the kill.  Now The Scorpion is back as a mind upload, using clones to penetrate the tight security of an isolationist United States.  McMann is the only man who can stop him.  But can McMann survive the threat of his own side, and the insane President who leads the Nation, in time to stop The Scorpion from plunging the Great Satan back into the Stone Age?

The Shadows of the Multiverse:  (2005)  Something has been periodically wiping intelligence from our Universe through the ages.  It’s back, and it’s up to three unlikely heroes, the Captain of a Battle Cruiser, a Physicist turned Archeologist, and a Child, to save the intelligence of the Universe from Monsters from another Dimension.  Can they learn to use the powers of their unusual Quantum Minds to defeat creatures that have been playing the game for billions of years?

 

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Afterlife:  (2010)  What if you didn’t believe in the afterlife of the World’s Religions?  And what if science offered you the alternative, survival within the Virtual World of a computer, where your mental abilities are magnified and you can do anything you want?  And what if the World decided that your way was wrong, and declared war on you, meaning to destroy your reality?  What would you do?  Afterlife, a tale of survival at all costs.

We Are Death, Come For You:  (2011)  When aliens strike the Tau Ceti colony, humankind knows that something bad is on the way.  They prepare as best they can, but will it be enough against superior technology?  The aliens are death worshippers, and only the extinction of the human race will satisfy their evil intent.  There are wonders of tech on the horizon, but can they be deployed in time?  Or will humankind have to depend on the smallest of their techs to save them?

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

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Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1:  (2010)  A nuclear war in Central Europe opens the gates between dimensions, sending millions of Earth Humans into a land of myth, archetypes and fantasy.  The Evil Emperor of the Ellala Elves sees the humans as energy to fuel his transformation to immortality.  But the humans have brought their own weapons with them, as well as a race of Demigods who will battle the fantastic armies of Refuge.  The war is on, and only one side will ultimately survive.

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2:  (2010)  The Ellala have a plan to destroy the human military and capture the civilians.  And the humans find that their weapons will soon cease to function.  So it’s use it or lose it for the Earth Humans, and they use it with a vengeance.  Tanks against Mages, Attack Helicopters against Dragons, and Nuclear Weapons against Death Gods.  And the other peoples of the planet come forth as allies to the humans that they see as the fulfillment an Ancient Prophecy.  But will it be enough?

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions:  (2012)  The human invaders are now without their technologies, at least those using explosives and internal combustion engines.  But they still have knowledge of many other techs, especially the arts of warfare as practiced by the greatest infantry of the ancient world.  Will it be enough to stand up to the half lich Emperor and his magical forces.

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:   (2014)  When the evil half lich Emperor sends his minions on a mission to find the Crown of the Lost Gods, an artifact which can control the minds of millions, it is up to Kurt von Mannerheim to stop them.  Along with his fellow immortal, Jackie Smith, the human Physicist/Mage James Drake, the Ellala Ranger Fenris and the Grimakan Priest Garios, they must head to the frozen north to foil the plan, and ensure that the evil artifact never sees the light of day.

Refuge: Doppelganger: (2006)  Set thousands of years after the arrival, Kurt von Mannerheim, the Immortal Emperor of the Imperium of Free Nations, must give up everything to save his Empress, the Elfin Princess Gwenara Elysius von Mannerheim.  The world is at a crisis point as the Evil Tarakesh Empire, under its Immortal Emperor Heinrich Stuppleheim, prepares to overrun the world with its Nazi Ideology.  And Kurt must face a creature of legend that may prove too much for even his physical and mental abilities.

Other Fantasy

The Hunger:  Abused wife, drug addict, prostitute; Lucinda Taylor had been victimized by men all her adult life.  Left for dead by her pimp, Lucinda was turned by a passing vampire.  When he is destroyed she becomes a free agent, slaking her hunger for blood on the bottom dwellers of society, the type of men who once victimized her.  The crime boss of Tampa is her next target, and the City by the Bay is about to become a bloodbath.  But can Lucinda avoid those who are hunting for her; the Priest, the FBI man, and a pair of Vampires who would like nothing better than to send one Avenging Vampire forever into the dark?

Daemon:  A Steampunk Fantasy.  The world is dying, the victim of the magic used by society for the last three hundred years.  Daemon Corporation thinks they have the answer, stealing the life from other worlds, bringing from other dimensions the intelligences that inhabit them for sacrifice on Earth.  But something has come with them, a force that is killing the employees of Daemon Corp.  It is up to Forensic Mage Detective Jude Parkinson to find a way to stop the unstoppable, while keeping the head of Daemon Corp from silencing him to keep the dark secrets of the company out of the public eye.

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Aura:  Triplets are born on a world where the magical Aura decides the fate of its owner.  Ariel is a girl with more than double the normal Aura, destined to become a mighty Priest or Mage.  Aiden has a less than normal Aura, and is destined to be a soldier or laborer.  While Arlen has no Aura at all, and is seen as an abomination in the eyes of the Church of Baalra the Dragon God, which has no power over those with Negative Auras.  Fate will rip the siblings apart, then bring them back together as they battle to defeat the Dragon God and leave the Evil Empire, before Ariel is taken as the Avatar of Baalra, his mortal vessel on Earth.

Books with other Authors:

Five By Five 3: Target Zone:  Novellas by New York Times Bestsellers Kevin J. Anderson and Michael A. Stackpole, along with Prometheus Award Winner Dani and Eytan Kollin, Baen Author Sarah A. Hoyt, and Exodus Empires at War Author Doug Dandridge, make this a must have book for the military science fiction aficionado.

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Bellator:  An anthology of military science fiction and fantasy, with my Exodus: Empires at War story Slacker.

Fight the Monster: Find the Cure for MS:  An anthology of horror and dark fiction, featuring my short story, Midnight Sun.

Filed under: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, Antimatter, Armor, Barbarians, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Warfare, History, Intelligent Life, Interdimensional Travel, Kindle, Magic, Military, Multiverse, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Quantum Physics, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Space Program, steampunk, String Theory, Undead, Vampires, Wormholes Tagged: Afterlife, Aura, Bellator, Daemon, Diamonds in the Sand, Exodus, Exodus: Empires at War, Exodus: Machine War, Exodus: Tales of the Empire, Fight the Monster, Refuge, The Hunger, The Scorpion

Sail to Success 2016, Pt 2.

Sail to Success 2016, Pt 2.

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Now the great thing about workshops like this and Superstars is that you get to interact with the faculty, who in most cases are people who are where we want to be.  This time I was sort of faculty, but also a student, and I was able to sign up to have lunch or dinner with a faculty member.  Since the class was small this year, we were actually given two to eat with.  Since I had excursions for Wednesday and Thursday, and didn’t want to miss out on the meetings, I tried to get either Tuesday at lunch or any dinner.  I was able to schedule Eleanor Wood at lunch on Tuesday, which left Eric.  Eric didn’t want to schedule dinners, since he was on the cruise with his wife and wanted that time for them, but he did schedule to meet up in the meeting area right after lunch on Tuesday.

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I didn’t go into the meeting with Eleanor trying to get her as my agent.  Well, not really, though there was always the hope, since she is a big name in the business.  I talked with her for the entire hour, getting information on agents and publishers, like how my ratings on Amazon and Goodreads probably wouldn’t mean much, since it is well known that people get lots of fake reviews on those platforms.  I don’t, but there is no way to prove that.  And how my total sales numbers and money made would be more important in trying to sell to a publisher who likely never heard of me, but how to prove that.  Well, I have 1099s from the end of the years as well as Amazon payment and sales reports from each month, so I had that covered.  I led with my strongest selling point, that I was not a one book wonder and had produced over thirty books.  We discussed the fantasy from which the excerpts I was introducing to the workshop came from, and other ideas I had.  I won’t go into details about what came from that meeting.  Suffice it to say that I was hopeful at the end.  And without a workshop like Sail to Success I never would have gotten that opportunity.

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I met with Eric right after, and mainly had questions about collaborations and publishing in general.  Mike Resnick was in the room, and soon joined in.  Interesting conversations, especially with Eric giving his opinion that while most collaborations went well for him, there were some nightmares.  It gave me a whole new appreciation for the process.  Then on to classes:  Query Letter and Contracts; Developing Property Rights; Working with Editors/Publishers/Agents.  I had been to these lectures before, but as always, new information came out.  Dinner, and then I was up with Doing it Yourself: Self Publishing Your Book.  I had written a book about this topic, and made several presentations in the past, so I basically winged it.  I think I did fine, and presented most of what I had wanted to put out there going in.  I had forgotten a few of the points I wanted to cover, but nothing big.  After that were the last two lectures of the day: Working with Magazines and Anthologies; and Getting Past The Magazine Slush Reader.  Then we were through for the day.  I did a little writing, then to bed, to wake up to the sun and another island, Nassau.

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That morning I had signed up for the glass bottom boat excursion to one of the reefs.  Cool trip past all of the sights of the harbor, including our ship next to another titan of the sea.  The guide pointed out the houses of the stars, including houses of Opra, Tom Cruise, Robert De Nero, and the house once occupied by Elvis.  This island reminded me a lot of where I grew up in Florida, the houses of rich people (which we weren’t), the large boats.  Then we moved on top of the reef, getting a look at schools of colorful fish that cruise this wildlife refuge.

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I had the first session, Using Modern Tools to Sell Your Own Book, an area in which I had some expertise, though I definitely didn’t know everything.  After that we had The Professional Approach to Writing, followed by The 1632 Universe and How To Write For It.  After dinner Jim Minz, Senior Editor at Baen Books, held his critique session.  First he raked me over the coals for using non standard formatting, while preaching the Chicago Manual of Style (which I have since bought), then got into how much he liked my story.  I skipped the session on Tips To Increase Your Productivity, since I believe I have that covered, and met with Jim to talk about submissions to Baen.  Again, I won’t go into detail, except to say I left that meeting feeling very good about the future.  And then it was back to the cabin to do some more writing, then to bed.

There was a lot to do after the sessions on the ship, but I really didn’t feel up to it, and, while the cruise was a fun trip, it was business before everything else.  I needed to get in bed in time to get enough sleep, since the sun was my alarm, and the sun waits for no one.  Next: Sail To Success 2016, Part 3.

 

Also, with Christmas coming up, remember that I have a lot of books on Amazon for those getting new Kindles, including my latest release, Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above, sitting on Amazon with 11 reviews and a 4.7 star average.  The series has now hit 16 books across the two subseries and story collections, so if you want to jump into a long series, you might want to try this one.

 

Filed under: Agents, Conferences, eBooks, Fantasy, Kindle, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Typos Tagged: Arc Manor, Baen, Eleanor Wood, Jim Minz, Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, Sail to Success

Sail to Success 2016, Part 1.

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I went on the Sail to Success cruise in 2015.  It was a great experience, I learned a lot, and I got to sit at the front in an instructor’s chair for a couple of sessions to give my take on self-publishing.  I really wasn’t planning on coming back this year, though I was thinking about returning to the beautiful Bahamas.  Then, in February, Shahid Mahmud, the publisher of Arc Manor and the organizer of the cruise, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.  The entire cruise and workshop for a significant discount, and all I had to do was sit at the front of the class and wax poetic on the joys of self-publishing.  I couldn’t turn that down, and I immediately got some ideas to promote myself on the trip.  More on that later.

The ship, the Norwegian Sky, was large, if not the largest of the cruise ships sailing the Caribbean and Atlantic.  At over 78,000 tons, it is actually larger than the Titanic (52,000 tons).  Some of these monsters of the sea tip in at over 225,000 tons, twice the displacement of a nuclear powered supercarrier.  Still, Norwegian Sky was large enough.  They quote the capacity of the ship at 2,004 guests with double occupancy, but some staterooms might have one occupant (like mine) while others had whole families crammed into them.  So I would say well over two thousand passengers, probably closer to twenty-five hundred.  The ship sailed from Miami at 5:00 PM on Monday, December 5th, 2016.  I checked in at 11:00 AM, after spending the night in Miami.  I was using a cane to help me get around, and I didn’t ask for any special accommodations, but someone noticed my cane and I was whisked through the boarding procedure and was on the ship in fifteen minutes.  Later I came to determine that I did need special accommodations, since I didn’t seem to be as mobile as last year.

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Cabins were available at 1:30 PM, and I had planned to take a nap, but since my luggage didn’t arrive until about 3:30, I was not able to get in my nap.  And then we had the lifeboat drill, which was totally FUBAR, with just about everyone violating the rules of the drill, talking loudly, laughing, texting.  In fact, I was not marked down as having attended, and received several nasty notes about having to attend a makeup the next day.  A phone call from my cabin cleared that up.  So I was in my stateroom.  Last year I had about five outlets in the room, and only one bottle of water, along with multiple bottles of liquor.  I don’t drink, and I was often dehydrated at night with no way to get drinkable water.  So I brought along six one liter bottles of water.  This year I had two outlets total, and there were six bottles of water in the fridge, along with daily replenishment.  Unfortunately, I was only able to plug in my white noise generator and my CPAP, and not my alarm clock.  No problem, leaving my curtain open meant I woke up with the sun, which worked perfectly.

So that evening we met to meet and greet the faculty, which was basically the same as last year.  Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency; multiple award winners Nancy Kress and Mike Resnick, best seller Eric Flint; short story specialist Jack Skillingshead; and Baen editor Jim Minz.  The only workshop I have ever been to that has a lineup in this range of quality is Superstars, Kevin J Anderson’s conference in Colorado Springs.

After introductions they plunged right into two sessions, Publishing Business 101 with Eric Flint and Eleanor Wood, followed by The Importance of Character Building with Nancy Kress.  These were basically repeats of last year’s presentations, still, every time a topic is presented the instructors can’t help but make them a little different, and I did learn from these presentations.  Then we were through for the night, and it was back to my stateroom to work on a novel.  This year I had a porthole stateroom on the eighth deck, instead of the balcony room on deck nine.  A little smaller, but still comfortable in a ‘I can’t take more than three steps without running into a wall’ way.

 

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I hadn’t signed up for any shore excursions last year, though I did snag a tour on Nassau.  This year I signed up for two, on Wednesday and Thursday, but Tuesday was free.  I stepped ashore at Freeport harbor, and caught a taxi to the city.  But I never really got to the city.  The taxi van went from the group of tourist trap buildings to another group of tourist trap buildings that looked almost the same.  I never really saw the city of Freeport.  I did get to see some of the island, which reminded me of where I grew up in Florida.  Pines, palms and palmettos, a lot of exposed sand, and flat terrain.  Some hurricane damage here and there, lots of roundabouts and cars driving on the wrong side of the road.  The architecture was similar to Florida as well, along with Burger King, Dominoes, and other icons of the States.  That was what I wanted to see, not the tourist traps.  Still, found an awesome hand carved cane in one of the hole in the wall shops, and bought a coffee mug at a drug store, and my shopping for this trip was done.  Then it was back to the ship for my meeting with the agent.  Continued in part 2.

Filed under: Agents, Conferences, eBooks, Fantasy, Plotting, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Tropes, Writing Tagged: Arc Manor, Baen Books, Eleanor Wood, Eric Flint, Jack Skillingshead, Jim Minz, Mike Resnick, Norwegian Sky, Sail to Success, Shahid Mahmud, Workshops