Dave Walsh's Blog, page 8

Tomorrow is So Far Away

The Trystero Series

I’ve detailed this in an email to my newsletter subscribers already (which, if you don’t subscribe, it’s a good idea to do so), but I wanted to also be pretty clear everywhere about my plans for the forthcoming weeks.

My first book I published was before Amazon launched their Kindle Unlimited subscription service, my second after. For a long time I toyed with going back and forth between being in the program and not. Honestly, there were years where I didn’t really pay much attention at all. I was busy. When I was reading up on returning to the indie publishing scene in 2019 it seemed very clear: get my books into the program, push out more books and keep going until things keep building. So… I did. I released six books in about ten months time and saw how Amazon was working. I saw how things went up, I saw how they fell down without a stream of new releases. 

COVID happened and, well, it’s hard to know how much of an impact it made, but I definitely noticed patterns in my releases, income and readerships through that time. It was enough data to tell me that I needed to do something new at some point. That meant either committing to releasing a new book a month, which, while taking care of two four-year-old boys while my wife does her clinicals and works full time isn’t feasible, never mind I’d burn out after a few years, or try something else. 

The Andlios Series

I’ve met and spoke with a lot of great readers who are KU die-hards in that year’s time, but noticed a motif: “This isn’t like what I usually read, but I loved it anyway.” Now, look, I’ll always admit that my books aren’t exactly like the bestsellers and top books in KU. I did make adjustments to make them more palatable and marketable, I did choose my genre to what works, but they still aren’t quite the same. 

So while I’m mulling over my next book and in which series it’ll continue (or start), I’m going to take this opportunity to slowly peel my books from Kindle Unlimited and place them on other storefronts. Why? Because I’ve spent months now studying how that works, how the readerships differ, how expectations differ and so on. Comparing my work to other authors writing similar style books, I believe now is the perfect time to test it out. I’ll be talking more about this in the coming weeks and months. 

What this means for you if you do read a bulk of your books via Kindle Unlimited and haven’t read some of mine yet? You can add them to your library now, read them either now or later, they’re yours to read until you check them back in.

As always, thanks to everyone sticking by me and don’t forget to check out my books and leave reviews. It always helps.

PS: If you’re looking to save some space in your library, the Trystero Collection features all three books.

The post Tomorrow is So Far Away appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Pre-Order Monolith’s End for Special Fan Pricing!

Launching on July 14th, Monolith’s End, the third installment in the Andlios series is an action-packed way to tie the series together.

And you can pick it up for a discount now if you pre-order.

Monolith’s End is available for pre-order right now through Amazon Kindle for the low price of $2.99. That won’t last, as the price will go up after the initial launch period, so get it now.

If you haven’t picked up the first two books yet, Cydonia Rising is available now for $0.99 for a limited time as well.

The post Pre-Order Monolith’s End for Special Fan Pricing! appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Monolith’s End Cover Reveal

To say that the world is a mess right now would be an understatement.

My hope is that everyone is staying safe, supporting their communities and keeping healthy. Look out for each other, everyone.

On Tuesday I revealed the cover to my next novel, Monolith’s End, to my subscribers. If you don’t already receive my newsletter, I recommend you sign up and check it out.

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Without further ado, here’s the cover for the third Andlios book, Monolith’s End. Tentative release is for mid-July 2020. I’ll keep you posted on the release.

You can pick up Andlios Book One, Cydonia Rising, for just 99¢ for a limited time now.

The post Monolith’s End Cover Reveal appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Check Out the 20Book Pack: Space Opera Now Until June 3rd

Starting today until June 3rd, 2020, you can pick up Broken Ascension as a part of the massive 20Book Pack: Space Opera for just $10. That’s 50¢ per book and one of the best deals around.

Here’s the breakdown of the books available.

Mirror of Stone by Corie J WeaverBuffalito Contingency by Lawrence M. SchoenBroken Ascension by Dave WalshFormidable by Christopher J. ValinFortunes of the Star Sloth by P.A. TebbePlanet Hell by Joshua JamesLightwave: Clocker by AM ScottKill Order (Cerberus Book 0) by Andy PeloquinVelocity Rising by Angie ArlandThe Flight of the Kingfisher by Chloe GarnerHow I Saved a Planet! by Stephen QuatroBefore the Shattered Gates of Heaven: Shattered Gates Volume 1 by Bryan S GlosemeyerSeeds of Gaia by Rick PartlowThe Human Experiment by Craig Martelle & Kevin McLaughlinLost Solace by Karl DrinkwaterJailbreak by R.M. OlsonThe Sculpted Ship by K. M. O’BrienOf Sporks, Overlords, and Moonworms by Ethan FreckletonAlpha Centauri by Lisa Richman and M.D. CooperThe Galaxy Chronicles by Samuel Peralta

So head over to this link to check out this limited time offer.

The post Check Out the 20Book Pack: Space Opera Now Until June 3rd appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

The Best Sci-Fi Shows to Catch Up On

The Clone Wars!

Most of us are stuck inside right now while COVID-19 runs rampant throughout our communities. Social distancing and self-quarantine have become the norm for a lot of us (or it should, seriously, if you aren’t, please try) and our world has been turned on its head.

What are most of us doing? Watching a lot of television, apparently.

There’s more to life than Netflix’s Tiger King, though, right? I figured I’d give a list of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy shows to watch because, well, why not?

Avatar: The Last Airbender

I’ll always have a soft spot for Avatar. Somehow, this Nickelodeon series told a very relatable, adult story through the eyes of children. The show blended the Western animation aesthetic with Japanese-style storytelling and themes mostly found in anime.

The result was a timeless series that I still watch every once in a while and have even had some luck getting my kids into.

Star Trek: Deep Space 9

Star Trek: DS9 will absolutely always be my favorite of the Treks. Sure, they turned the concept of exploration on its head for a stationary destination, but the show still worked and remains poignant to this day.

There will always be a place for the other Star Treks but DS9 remains my most watched and loved.

Babylon 5

B5 is always difficult to find streaming online. For a while it was on Amazon Prime, and I was happy to tear through it again. Amazingly enough, it holds up.

It’s not on Prime anymore, and Warner Bros.’s relationship with the show has always been contentious. Most of it you can’t even buy as a VOD on Amazon right now. You can find it elsewhere, if you’re looking for digital, though.

Star Wars: Clone Wars

Man, where was I when Clone Wars was originally airing? Disney is winding down the series now on Disney+, with the rest of the series on there as well.

I was never a huge fan of the Star Wars prequels, but I decided to give this show another shot. Some early episodes can be pretty rough, but when this show figures itself out it’s really got a lot to love.

Star Wars perhaps exists best in the peripheries right now. Television series, novels and video games. The movies? Well…

Stargate SG-1

Stargate is always the name I heard dropped the most when I asked a few months ago what most of my readers’ favorite television show was. I gave it another shot, and it’s definitely worth watching.

It’s included in a Prime subscription, too.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These

My god. The novels this series are based on have been translated. There are old fansubs available in the darker reaches of the internet of the original anime series, and it has always been one of my all-time favorite series anywhere.

There was a remake/relaunch of it recently and it’s pretty good as well!

I highly recommend the novels, though. This series takes a more distant view of historic events that unfold in the series, meaning it tries to play an even hand between both sides of the galactic conflict and shows how complicated war can be.

Since we’re at it. Kindle Unlimited is one HELLUVA deal if you’re reading a lot of Kindle books. You can sign up for two free months right now and it’s only $9.99 a month afterwards.

Let me know if you enjoy the recommendations and want more. I’m considering doing them for books, movies and even music.

Note: I use Amazon Affiliate links, which means any sales through said links give me a very small cut.

The post The Best Sci-Fi Shows to Catch Up On appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Shattered Lineage Available Now

Trystero Book Three: SHATTERED LINEAGE is out now.

The third book in my new, awesome Trystero series, it’s the characters you [hopefully] know and love thrust into their most insane adventure yet.

It’s also available in paperback, if you’re so inclined.

If you’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to check these books out, this week is the time.

For a very limited time Broken Ascension is just $0.99 until April 6th.

Fractured Sentinel is also on sale until April 7th. It’s on an Amazon Countdown Deal, which means it’s $0.99 until the 2nd, then $1.99, then $2.99, etc.

I hope everyone is holding up alright during the COVID-19 pandemic and just maybe these books being cheaper will give you something to do while social distancing and self-quarantining.

As always, these books are in Kindle Unlimited.

Note: I use Amazon Affiliate links. Any sales made through those links could give me a small payment.

The post Shattered Lineage Available Now appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Star Trek: Picard Episode 2; or, I guess?

Photo: CBS

Star Trek should never be event television.

Star Trek should also never be “peak television.”

There are going to be people that vehemently disagree with this or call my view of Trek to be narrow and that’s okay. As much as I had issues with Discovery only to give in that yes, it did get better, my main point was that Star Trek worked best when exploring the whole, not just hyper-focused on certain characters and narratives. 

What worked best about the character Jean-Luc Picard was that we, the viewers, got to see him from many different angles. Not every episode was a Picard-centric episode, and sometimes he really didn’t matter to an episode at all. Some characters had more antagonistic relationships with him than others, and to some he was like a brother or a father.

Star Trek: Picard removes that for a multiple POV-format show that still sees Picard as the central character, as the title suggests. I enjoyed last week’s episode quite a bit and while this week’s episode wasn’t bad, it also felt like an exposition dump of sorts. 

Oh yeah, the revolt on Mars? Let’s show it.

What the Romulans are doing on the Borg Cube? Let’s show it!

Is the Federation really Trumpian? Let’s show it!

Last week’s episode was focused on a lot of the action and setting up the main plot while this week’s episode was filling in a lot of the blanks that were left behind and sort of moving some stuff ahead a bit. There didn’t feel to be a lot going on. Trek works best when things are slowed down and we get to focus on some political squabbles and character-centric solutions. Focusing on one main character creates a new sort of problem for Trek in that Trek has never been about individualistic heroes saving the day or taking on the weight of the world on their own, instead it’s been about what people can do as a collective. 

The absurdly clear politics of the show (note: I mostly agree with them!) pits Picard against the Federation and Starfleet in such a way where the whole have lost their way, and the one needs to bring light to the darkness. Yes, he’ll get a ship and a small crew at some point, we’ve seen that from the previews and yes, we’ll get cameos from former, beloved characters that helped to shape Picard into a universally loved character and yet I can’t help but feel like something is wrong here. 

We got to see Picard’s Romulan aids/friends/workers/servants/who knows info dump about Romulan secret police, do some minor CSI work and then see that yes, the Romulans have infiltrated the Federation by this secret group embedding themselves into the rank and file of Starfleet. 

On two separate occasions Picard calls upon the help of “old friends” and they are not really old friends. A doctor from the Stargazer which is a new character, and then another former Starfleet officer that seems to dislike Picard but he brings wine in hopes of her finding a ship for him. Neither of these characters are known entities (although I guess Raffi Musiker has a prequel comic about her?!) and while nostalgia alone is not a great thing, when exploring a character like Picard it would make a lot more sense for him to be relying on actual old friends, even if they write in a line about him not wanting to get them into trouble into the episode. 

The scenes on the Borg Cube were perhaps the most interesting ones but remained brief. 

I dunno, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood? I’ll perhaps give it another watch in a few days.

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The post Star Trek: Picard Episode 2; or, I guess? appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Broken Ascension Available Now!

Broken Ascension: Available now on Kindle and Paperback!

I’m very pleased to announce that Broken Ascension, Trystero Book One is available right now on the Amazon Kindle store and via paperback.

You can pick up your copy right now via Amazon Kindle, read it for free through your KindleUnlimited subscription or purchase the paperback.

Note: I use Amazon Affiliate links and get a small portion from sales made through said links.

The post Broken Ascension Available Now! appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Star Trek: Picard Episode 1; Remembrance, or the Same Old Jean-Luc

(C) CBS

Nostalgia is a tough beast to tame. 

For people in my age range (let’s say mid-30s) the entire entertainment industry has us targeted to recapture that feeling from when we were younger, no matter what it is. Virtually every major media franchise that we consumed as children has been brought back, from Star Wars to Ghostbusters to Transformers, He-Man, which begs the question: why not the Star Trek that you knew and loved? Why not bring back Jean-Luc Picard?

Of course, in the case of Star Trek and a lot of other franchises, it’s not just confined by generational or age limitations. This is the age where anything that had a following and might make big bucks for entertainment companies is being continued or rebooted. Star Trek saw a long dark period before the JJ Abrams films were released, doing well enough to introduce a new generation to Star Trek, albeit a different flavor of Trek that doesn’t quite align with most classic Trek. Then came Discovery, which is complicated. 

I’ve spilled a lot of ink regarding Star Trek: Discovery and my consensus was this: the first season was a tonal and narrative mess, the second season was a lot better and I’m anxious to see what they do with the third season. The original showrunner intended for the show to be done in the vein of FX’s Fargo or American Horror Story, where each season followed different characters from different eras of Star Trek only for the network to nix that idea, keep most of his original characters and go from there. 

One of my main problems with Discovery was its distinct lack of identity. The show relied so heavily upon nostalgia that it became a muddled mess at times. The show’s link to Spock by rewriting his history, then introducing Captain Pike, made it easy to groan at the show’s lack of originality. Doing a full prequel as opposed to merely the anthology format creates logistical problems and binds the show to the time period it takes place in during the canon. That’s most likely why they’ve taken to traveling through time and the alternate universe because eventually they were going to run out of room to exist on its own right in the prime Star Trek timeline. 

So now here we are with Picard. 

Picard is a continuation of The Next Generation and the mainline film series by catching up with Jean-Luc Picard 20 years later. For a lot of fans, TNG was their entry point into Star Trek—I know it was for me—and helped to foster a love for Star Trek that only grows with time. While there have been a lot of great Starfleet captains, none have quite been so beloved as Picard over the years and in many ways, TNG and Picard are safety blankets for many people. 

I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen TNG all the way through now, even though it takes a backseat to Deep Space 9 as my favorite Trek. The show remains iconic and a veritable goliath in the world of science fiction, making the return of Jean-Luc make sense but also make a fan like me weary. 

Did we really need this?

After one episode it’s difficult to say definitively or not but my initial impression is that yes, we kind of needed Star Trek: Picard. Patrick Stewart himself has said that the show is a response to the changing world around us in the age of Donald Trump, Brexit and everything else that’s been going on. A bold statement like that is sure to upset a certain portion of the Trek fanbase. 

The YouTube channel Renegade Cut went into how Star Trek has appealed to both progressive and conservative sensibilities through yes, being futuristic communism, but also heavily based on military merits. Both of those core pillars of Star Trek appeal to a certain subset of the audience, making Star Trek of the past feel apolitical, even if it wasn’t. Star Trek has always been political and, moving forward, will be as well. 

Star Trek: Picard is absolutely political. If that upsets you then there’s a good chance you’ll want to skip out on this show. The show is about refugees, an isolationist government and media and fears about synthetic beings impeding upon organic lifeforms. That’s just the first episode. They’ve more or less made their line in the sand and said what the show is going to be about, the values that it intends to promote and what to expect. This will absolutely not sit well with some folks and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Picard also seems divorced from Starfleet and any sort of military in general.

That being said, how was the actual show? I went into this with tempered expectations. After grumbling about needing to resubscribe to CBS All Access and the prices have gone up since the last season of Discovery I was expecting to be ambivalent even if folks seemed happy about the show. Yet there really is something to Jean-Luc in his vineyard that feels special. This will not be a normal Star Trek, that much seems clear. Oh yeah, there’s action on the menu and there will be some weighty stuff that needs to be grappled with.

This episode relied heavily upon the death of Data, Picard’s guilt over it and his exit from Starfleet after an incident with synthetics destroying a Martian shipyard led to Starfleet taking on a more isolationist role in the galaxy and withdrawing support for relocating Romulan refugees after what I believe is referencing the first JJ Abrams Star Trek film? Or maybe just similar to that? It’s not really explained here. Regardless, we see a girl (Dahj) celebrating her acceptance into the Daystrom Institute with her boyfriend only for a group of heavily armored dudes to beam into the room, kill the boyfriend and talk about her “activating.” She then promptly kicks all of their asses, sees a flash of Jean-Luc and flees.

All the while, Jean-Luc is having flashbacks to Data by way of dreams where he’s seeing his old friend. He agrees to do an interview with a cable news network only for them to push him on his resignation from Starfleet and imply that helping refugee Romulans was not in the interest of humanity or Starfleet. Ouch. 

They aren’t being subtle about most of this. There are upsides and downsides to that. The downside is that they are not being subtle about the links to modern political settings at all. The upside is that it’s easy to understand what they’re going for. I don’t have a problem knowing what the show is trying to say and how it’s going to say it, that’s really what a first episode is for: establishing the setting and characters that we’re going to be exploring. 

Dahj finds her way to Picard’s all while Picard has another dream about Data and a painting he wants Picard to finish. Dahj freaks him out but he’s Jean-Luc Picard, of course he’s gonna take care of her. Only she runs away in the middle of the night. Just when Picard realizes the painting he has hung up is from Data and the face of the figure in it is, well, Dahj’s face. He heads to the archives to learn that the title of the painting was “Daughter.” Ahh, now it makes sense. Picard dashes off to find the girl who’s mother told her to go find Jean-Luc again, much to her astonishment, and they meet up where Picard gives her a touching story about Data, the painting and his theory as to who she is: Data’s daughter.

She seems resistant to it at first but just when she starts to understand she senses another hit squad coming after her, forcing a 90-something-year-old Picard to run up a few flights of stairs to a rooftop where a fight ensues. We’re given a hint at an unmasked baddie here: a Romulan. Ah ha. She’s able to fight them off only for one to swallow some sort of acid, which he spits on her and causes a large explosion that knocks Picard into the next day.

Picard needs to know more about this girl, so armed with just her necklace of two circle charms intertwined he heads to the Daystrom Institute for some answers. A woman there shows him that since the attack on Mars Starfleet shut down any sort of study involving synthetics, including showing us D-4, the android that Data sent his, erm, data to upon his destruction. We saw D-4 at the end of the last Trek film and Picard seemed satisfied with it, but apparently something went wrong since then. Agnes, the nice doctor, explains there was another doctor working on flesh-and-blood synthetics but they shut it down, then Picard showed her the necklace and she reveals that his research involved these beings created in pairs. Twins.

We briefly get a glimpse of her twin, Soji, welcoming a nice Romulan boy onto whatever ship or station she’s aboard only for the big zoom out to happen. 

It’s a Borg Cube. 

Yep.

There’s a lot to unpack here, obviously, but the core of it is this: Picard does not follow in Star Trek tradition of being about a starship or a crew exploring the galaxy. DS9 somewhat broke from that tradition, although Benjamin Sisko was given a ship and the title of captain, eventually. This makes Picard a rather unique entry into the Star Trek universe. The previews of the rest of the season show Picard tossing together a crew, boarding a small vessel and heading off to rescue Soji from what he believes to be a Romulan threat to her. 

The show deals with refugees from Romulus exploding, with there even being two that help out on his vineyard and take care of Jean-Luc. Jean-Luc is the character we all know him to be: kind, considerate, thoughtful, and a born leader. He briefly reflects on how he had spent the twenty years since his retirement loafing about, writing about history that no one cared about and waiting to die instead of being the good that the world needed. He watched his galaxy deteriorate while he himself sat back and let it happen.

If that doesn’t feel current, I’m not sure what does. 

So he decides to take action, which we’ll be seeing in the next nine episodes. 

Picard felt fresh while still feeling familiar. We were allowed to spend time with an old comforting friend and watch him remember what kind of good he could do in his galaxy. Sure, this is nostalgia, but they’re at least trying to make this different and special. I have a hard time faulting them for that. 

I very much look forward to what Picard brings to the table for the rest of this season.

Note: I use Amazon affiliate links and receive a small percentage of any sales made through said links.

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The post Star Trek: Picard Episode 1; Remembrance, or the Same Old Jean-Luc appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].

Get Your FREE Copy of ‘Endigo’ Today

With the release of Broken Ascension rapidly approaching, I’m excited to announce that the prequel novella, Endigo, is available now.

Just like The Cymage before it, this is absolutely free to you. The cost is just signing up for my email newsletter that I send out on the first Tuesday of every month and on release day for new books.

Make sure to pre-order your copy of Broken Ascension today.

Click below to claim your copy.

(PS. If you’re already subscribed, click this link.

The post Get Your FREE Copy of ‘Endigo’ Today appeared first on [ Dave Walsh ].