Starting a blog.
Hi, I'm Laurence (goes by Laury) Dahners and I write science fiction. I've mostly published on Amazon since I love the Kindle. A lot of readers communicated with me and other readers on the Amazon Author's Forums, but those don't seem to be getting much support any more and there have been a lot of complaints.
So I thought I'd start a blog here on GoodReads as well as responding to "Ask the Author" questions that are posted on this site.
I'm not sure how well this will work for those of you who like to have discussions that don't necessarily involve me? Let me know if you're aware of a way for me to facilitate such discussion that I may not be aware of.
Hope this works for at least some of you who like to express your opinions!
Laury Dahners
So I thought I'd start a blog here on GoodReads as well as responding to "Ask the Author" questions that are posted on this site.
I'm not sure how well this will work for those of you who like to have discussions that don't necessarily involve me? Let me know if you're aware of a way for me to facilitate such discussion that I may not be aware of.
Hope this works for at least some of you who like to express your opinions!
Laury Dahners
Hey Walter, thanks for your interest!Yes, those questions should be answered in the next book (though I'm working on Ell Donsaii #16 right now, so it'll be a while.
Laury Dahners
Any news on the next audible book? I think it's habitat...time frame? Can't wait lol
Joe,Sorry.
Laura got sick and couldn't record for a while. Currently she thinks she'll be done April 24 (assuming she doesn't get COVID). It usually takes a few weeks for Audible to put it up from then.
Laury Dahners
In 'Hood', Tarc speculates that it might be possible to create a printing press. I agree with Tarc that it might be best to use a font that mimics 'modern writing'. I think it might go over even better if the first book is a cookbook with recipes from the Hyllis Tavern. It might also help to avoid problems if the new (popular) king of Realth was running the printing press instead of the commoner Hyllis family in Clancy Vail (who are already doing a lot of strange things)
Walter,Good ideas. I've put them on my list of things to think about for the next book.
Thanks
Laury Dahners
Were is Zage when you need him.Bioterror! is a good book.
when i think of the book, the first scene that comes to mind is Zage jumping in his mothers lap to get comforted after the Gordito site is implicated in the Terror attack.
Laurence wrote: "Walter,Good ideas. I've put them on my list of things to think about for the next book.
Thanks
Laury Dahners"
Another book would be "How Clancy Vail stopped the plague", giving all credit to the Baron's leadership, the Geller's medicine-making (supplying the recipe), and Rrica's knowledge of epidemiology (giving that information also).
Also, now that Tarc has realized he doesn't have to be precise to make people dizzy (I believe I read this in either Sisters or Hood), he should be able to teach his father the trick (from what I understand, his father could not help/hurt people before because he couldn't see inside a body to determine where exactly to attack).
Fabulously terrific day Dr Dahners!I am just curious, if you are being called back back (either literally or metaphorically) to assist with the current crisis? If so, I hope you stay safe.
Cheers, Doug
For all who help others in this time of pandemic, may you be careful and stay safe.The help can be anything from retired medical person returning to help medically to sharing hand sanitizer with a stranger at a store which my wife did today.
We all need to work together and help anyway that we can.
DougVC,My skills as an orthopedic surgeon aren't what're needed to deal with a respiratory disease. If they get so desperate that they need someone as far from that kind of care as I am we'll be in truly desperate straits (I know it seems pretty awful already, but it could get a lot worse.)
What we need it is an antibody test (current testing looks for evidence of the virus itself in your throat, not whether you have antibodies) so we can tell who has already had asymptomatic disease and are immune to covid. Then those people could safely go back to work, restore our economy and take care of the rest of us.
For those of you who like Ell, the new bookTransporter (an Ell Donsaii story #16)
is available for preorder. It'll be out on April 9.
Ell's worked out a way to transport people, not just goods - which is going to change the world as they know it.
I had a lot of fun writing it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086HBM955
Hi,Is there a Canadian version coming out on April 9th too (please!).
Lee
Lee,I would assume so. I post them to KDP (a part of Amazon.com) and they roll them out. Australian readers get them before anyone else because they're just after the dateline. Therefore I believe Canada gets the stories at the same time as the US.
Laury Dahners
Laurence wrote: "For those of you who like Ell, the new bookTransporter (an Ell Donsaii story #16)
is available for preorder. It'll be out on April 9.
Ell's worked out a way to transport people, not just goods - ..."
Yea!
I'm from Canada. The book will be out on April 9 on kindle. Usually around 2 am for me but amazon is sometimes inconsistent with it but it will release at the top of the hour or a few minutes after regardless. If you preorder, you MIGHT get it a few hours earlier but I'm not sure.
Laurence wrote: "DougVC,My skills as an orthopedic surgeon aren't what're needed to deal with a respiratory disease. If they get so desperate that they need someone as far from that kind of care as I am we'll be i..."
Anyone with medical knowledge would be a help to any level of government and to the people worrying about will what will happen next. I am assuming you are no longer an active surgeon.
The My Pillow company has started to make masks. Starting at 10,000 per day and ramping up to 50,000 per day. Two plastic product companies are working together to make plastic face shields. These companies have the manufacturing knowledge but lack the medical knowledge. This is something that state governments could be coordinating.
I am a kindle unlimited reader, but I prefer to Laurence's books so that I can easily reread them.Looking forward to April 9th.
Does anyone know why Amazon is not sending out new book notices?
Laury, Just re-read Transmuter's Daughter for the upteenth time. That book is just screaming out for a sequel! Love it and all your books.
Yay for Donsaii 16!! I’ve been re-reading the series. Again. Am on book 12 and can’t wait for “Transporter”. Dr. Dahners, you have written some amazing fiction, with innovations on the tech side and some very compelling heroes. Keep ‘em coming! You are among my favorite authors. —John
Laurence,You might want to consider issuing some of your books in box sets. I own everything in paperback, so I haven't been buying the Kindle versions. However, I have bought box sets of several books in a series from other authors when it is significantly cheaper than buying them individually. It isn't my preference as it makes it difficult to navigate the books in the omnibus.
All of your series but the Hyllis family series and the Donsai series could be 1 box set each (Hyllis would probably be 2 box sets and Donsai would probably be at least 4 box sets). It wouldn't matter to me that these would make a large omnibus, as I usually re-read all of a series by you in one go (that is not true for other authors).
Thank you for another great read! I just finished Transporter (I couldn't put it down). Is it too soon to ask when the next one will be out? :-)
Paul Benkert wrote: "Laury, Just re-read Transmuter's Daughter for the upteenth time. That book is just screaming out for a sequel! Love it and all your books."I think about continuing Transmuter occasionally. Just have other things I'm more interested in right now. I'm very excited about the possibilities of the stasis stories, so I've started on another of those.
Dana wrote: "Thank you for another great read! I just finished Transporter (I couldn't put it down). Is it too soon to ask when the next one will be out? :-)"I'm writing a Stasis Story, probably take 2-4 months as usual. Hopefully on the shorter end, but sometimes life gets in the way and I don't set myself any deadlines - they'd make this fun hobby seem like a job.
Laury
Walter wrote: "Laurence,You might want to consider issuing some of your books in box sets. I own everything in paperback, so I haven't been buying the Kindle versions. However, I have bought box sets of several ..."
Hmm, I haven't really understood "boxed sets," but your suggestion got me to read about it. I might get around to doing it sometime, but I'd really rather be writing another book (I need a minion to do all these business things! I read about an author that gave his daughter a summer job doing such stuff but I don't have anyone around who has those skills and needs work.)
Laurence wrote: "Hey, I'm sneaking in a short new book before starting on the next Ell Donsaii story. A Pause in Space-Time (A Stasis Story #1)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082PC132B
just became available on Amazon..."
A followup to my March 2 comment.
You mention that mirrors are involved in making a stade. I don't know how you decided it works, but stades are perfect mirrors. If a stade could be used as the boundary of another stade, it would make stazed bottles, etc. easier to make because you start with a short-term stade that is the inside of a bottle. Later, the inside stade would 'un-staze' and the bottle inside would appear.
Also, they should be some mention of the lifetime of any stades they sell: it probably should not be more than 100 years even if there are no significant limitations due to power requirements. The first book did not mention power requirements, but they were creating relatively short-time stades. I would expect a stade that lasts long enough to be of practical use would require more power to make.
Walter, Ah, I didn't understand what you were saying the first time. Good idea!
Laury
Laurence wrote: "Walter, Ah, I didn't understand what you were saying the first time. Good idea!
Laury"
I didn't think of forming the inside of a bottle until days after I wrote the first message. I was thinking something like you might be able to staze a pressurized or highly cooled fuel/oxidizer to make the tanks smaller. However, thinking it over now I am not sure that you need to do this if you make the rest rocket out of light-weight items (air or even a vacuum) which means that the size of the rocket has a minor impact on the fuel requirements.
I just picked up telekinetic! I thought you were doing the next Ell book but thiz will work too! Lol
A publisher, Creative Texts, is going to release the Hyllis Family audiobooks.The audiobook for the first one, Telekinetic , is now available
amazon.com/Telekinetic-Hyllis-Family-...
Hope you like it!
--
Laury Dahners
Wag more, bark less...
I got a question mr. dahners, did you go and change "ghirit" to "ghost" i sort of remembered you used the first word, not sure how it was spelled, or am i totally mistaken? Also finished telekinesis and just like the book it was great, although I'm not thrilled with the narrator, nothing major but just his portrayal of Eva Hylillis just makes me squirm! Lol just not a womans voice I think but that's me. Lol
In the earlier books it was "ghost", then they met someone who called it "spirit" and decided to call it "ghirit" as a compromise.
Joe,Dana's right.
Sorry you didn't like the narrator. I thought he was very different, but quite interesting. I don't listen to audiobooks myself, so I'm not certainly not much of a judge.
Laury
Joe,Dana's right.
Sorry you didn't like the narrator. I thought he was very different, but quite interesting. I don't listen to audiobooks myself, so I'm certainly not much of a judge.
Laury
Thanks Dana! It's not that i didn't like him just it felt like he didn't fit. Especially when he did the female and the young girl parts! Lol i guess he sounded too old for the girls?!?! I'm not sure if I'm explaining it right but no big deal I'll still get the rest!
Just read ‘Transporter’ and it was another fun book for the series. Thanks.I had just been thinking about your portals and when you had the uncle apply glue to the back, I started wondering: what is on the flip side of a portal? Is it just another opening to its mates flip side? That would seem the easiest answer but would open up issue with how you prevent damage from happening if something was pushed through ‘the wrong side’. If it is not just a second portal, then it seems like it would need to be almost ultimately solid. There would simple be nothing on the other side you could pass through to. Either that or it would be far too easily disrupted by random particles piercing it.
I also wondered why more than one side of the Transporter pair would need to move. If one side moved and the other simple sat on the floor, wouldn’t the container just seem to rise out of the floor much like when things we simply pushed through a stationary port? It might complicate ‘relay’ transports where you continue on through a second pair, but it would minimize the failure points for a single pair system.
Thanks again for a fun couple of evenings!
Otis wrote: "Just read ‘Transporter’ and it was another fun book for the series. Thanks.I had just been thinking about your portals and when you had the uncle apply glue to the back, I started wondering: what..."
Otis,
If you think of the portals as if they're doorways, then you could think of it as if the "A" side of one opens a doorway to the "A"side of the other. The "B" sides aren't connected unless they're especially set up to do so (for instance in the Venus to Mars ports where they're trying to move twice as much atmosphere with the same amount of power.
Your second question runs into the issue of the first. If the "A" sides of the ports are all on the bottoms of the port hoops, for the person to rise up out of the floor they'd have to come up out of the "B" side of the port (which doesn't connect).
You guys know that habitat is out!?!?! Lol just got it!
Joe, Thanks for pointing it out. They were late getting the notice to me.
The new audiobook Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7) is out
amazon.com/Habitats-Ell-Donsaii-Story...
Hope you enjoy it!
Laury Dahners
For those of you who like audiobooks! Creative Texts has put Teleporter (a Hyllis family story #2) out as an audiobook. I hope you like it!
amazon.com/Teleporter-Hyllis-Family-S...
--
LauryWag more, bark less...
Hey, the pandemic has me writing more! Not sure if that's a good thing?The Thunder of Engines (A Stasis Story #2) is up for preorder on Amazon.
If you just like to buy books when they come out, that'll be on June 9
I hope you like it. I'm really enjoying writing about stasis!
amazon.com/Thunder-Engines-Stasis-Sto...
Here's the blurb:This hard Sci-Fi novel is the second book in the “Stasis Stories,” a series of tales from the near future. They tell us about Kaem Seba,a sickly and financially destitute young man with extraordinary math talents.He’s developed a theory and electronic devices that allow him to stop time within limited volumes of space-time. In this story Kaem and Arya are trying to sell “stade,”which is what they call a piece of space-time that’s in stasis. Stade has phenomenal mechanical properties because it essentially can’t be altered (time’s stopped within it). It’s stronger than any known substance because, unlike matter, stade cannot not melt, burn, bend or break. It’s also a perfect insulator and reflects all radiation.
Though it’s the perfect material for thousands of different purposes,they’ve first focused on selling it to companies that would use it to build rocket engines, because stade truly shines under such extreme conditions. He and Arya are struggling to negotiate the best prices they can, while simultaneously fighting another company’s bid to preempt their patent.As if those struggles weren’t sufficient, unfortunately, Kaem’s beloved father develops cancer. Kaem must try to help his family through that crisis while simultaneously attempting to save the new company they’re calling “Staze.”
--
Laury
Wag more, bark less...
Laurence wrote: "Hey, the pandemic has me writing more! Not sure if that's a good thing?The Thunder of Engines (A Stasis Story #2) is up for preorder on Amazon.
If you just like to buy books when they come out, ..."
You can buy the paperback version now on Amazon (it has a June 3 publishing date).
However, according to Amazon, the Kindle version still won't be released until June 11.
Finished Stasis #2. Awesome book! I assume you are writing #3 next.?
Yep, on to Stasis 3. Full of ideas for it.Glad you liked #2.
Laury Dahners
I just had a thought. Why can’t you use nuts and bolts to hold two pieces of stade together? If you have appropriately sized holes in both pieces, wouldn’t that work?
Patsy wrote: "I just had a thought. Why can’t you use nuts and bolts to hold two pieces of stade together? If you have appropriately sized holes in both pieces, wouldn’t that work?"Never mind. I was just rereading and they talk about using bolts.
Patsy,You could do it with steel nuts and bolts and in fact at one point Lee tells one of the other young engineers to do the cryotank that way (though eventually they went another route). If you used stade nuts and bolts they'd come unscrewed. Since steel isn't nearly as strong you'd lose significant strength with steel bolts. The cryotank would still be great for keeping LOX and liquid hydrogen cold, but you'd probably be afraid to set off an explosion in the tank to pressurise it.
Thanks for taking such an interest!
Laury Dahners
Fabulously spectacular day!Finished reading Stasis #2 and it is another excellent story, I am definitely looking forward to #3.
I do think they should look into stade cars. Mostly, I am thinking the chassis and bodies, for safety of the passengers, reduction of weight and rigidity of the platform. Most of the rest of the parts could remain conventional parts, at least initially. You actually would want cars to have crumple zones (as they do now) for a variety of reasons, including not wanting stade cars bouncing of each other like billiard balls and into other cars/objects. Cars should be somewhat easier to produce then things like buildings, mostly just because of their smaller size. The main characters might, even if indirectly, be involved in a car crash that inspires them to make a safer vehicle. Airplanes would be another high profit area to exploit.
You may want to have them use 3D printed composite parts (continuous carbon fiber reinforced Nylon or PEEK plastic) for connecting to the stade structures. Current technology is producing 3D printed parts that are >2x stronger then steel but 1/2 the weight of aluminum. There are limits to that in the real world but they do exist and would be a good compliment to the stade parts for many applications.
I wish I had access to stade parts for my engineering biz.
Cheers,
Doug
Doug VC,Glad you liked it. I love thinking about this stuff. Might want the compartment around the passenger out of stade and the rest of the car conventional so it'll absorb energy. I've got other ideas on making cars safer I'll save for the books.
Laury
Nice story Sir! Glad to see that you are continuing the series (although I follow ALL of your stories).If your going to go down the path of using Stade for aircraft and cars, it would be better to have Stade bodies with internal stasis fields that would trigger in an accident for a certain amount of time (ala Niven, et al). The trick will be to get the stasis generators out in the wild in a way that the tech can be protected against theft and reverse engineering...
Just a thought. Please keep up the great work! I’d love to see the Hyllis series continued. It looked like the last book got it to a potential stopping point, but I hope there’s more in store!
Thanks,
Brent
Let me know if you'd like to be on my e-mail list to be notified when new books come out.
(Those are the only emails I send - no spamming your inbox)
Laury Dahners