Incursion ready for pre-order

My sci-fi novella has just gone up on Riptide's website, so it's kind of time to lift away the blanket. I used to call it "Glyrinny Incursion", or "Glync" for short. Written after Dark Soul finished, this is the story I wrote for a reader who asked me to write a disabled hero.

Here's the blurb:

When the local authorities ask Kyle Juenger to hunt a shape-shifting Glyrinny spy, he can’t refuse. After all, he can use the reward to replace his paralyzed legs with cyberware, and maybe even to return to his home planet. Besides, he hates the morphs—those invasive, brain-eating monstrosities whose weapons cost him his legs.

Kyle’s best lead is the Scorpion, a mercenary ship armed to the teeth. Grimm, the Scorpion’s pilot and captain, fascinates Kyle. He’s everything Kyle lost with his legs, and he’s from the same home world. He’s also of the warrior caste—half priest, half savior. But Grimm’s been twisted by life as a merc, and Kyle’s stuck undercover as a criminal on the run.

That doesn’t stop Grimm from coming on to Kyle, or from insisting he’s more than the sum of his past and his useless legs. But Kyle has other concerns—like tracking a dangerous morph who could be wearing anyone’s face. And as if things weren’t complicated enough, Kyle can’t tell if Grimm is part of the solution . . . or part of the problem.

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Just to make things more interesting, Kyle is a bountyhunter with paralysed legs who's hunting a morph - an alien who can change shape at will. My partner, sharp-tongued as he it, has described this story as "Disabled German-Named Space Maori in a Haunted House IN SPAAAACE with Polymorphing Monster". Yes, I thwapped him for it.

Any story has many parents and influences, and in this case, fittingly, I can tell you more about the DNA of this (this may be spoilery, though I'd assume most people will have forgotten this blog post by the time this comes out on July 9).

"Incursion" started life as "Scorpions in Space!" (harkening back to my fantasy novel "Scorpion") and was in part triggered by Reese Dante's concept art for Scorpion, consisting of brushed, aged steel with an abstract scorpion on it. That art made me think "damn, that's sci-fi" - something that hadn't occurred before. Then there's the whole Scorpion concept messing with my head while I'm trying to assemble the prequel and sequels in my head. What's left from that, in the end, is the name of the ship and the mercenary crew. Again, the main character is an outsider.

Then a reader asked me to write a disabled hero. I hope I did a decent job - of all things, that's the bit I'm most nervous about. More stuff that got into the book was a fairly recent discussion on what constitutes a "real man" (thank you, JW - much food for thought), because the jump to "real human" wasn't far - yes, this is how my brain works. And two movies are in there somewhere, too, namely District 9 and the latest Terminator movie. Pour in, stir, serve.

Kyle is a scarred, broken hero like I love them, though Grimm has my heart.

This also has the loosest connection to Dark Edge of Honor - it's set in the Commonwealth, which has some issues with the Doctrine on one end and the Glyrinny shapeshifters on the other end. I can totally see writing more in that 'verse. For the record, the connection is so tenuous that it's really just a nod in that direction, so reading Dark Edge of Honor is not necessary to get this story. I just like to connect stories in my mind to build much bigger things from individual blocks. This appears to be my space opera setting, which is grittier than others. I assume there are more stories there - I'm fascinated by the Glyrinny, and there's the Doctrine looking for trouble, too, and Winter, and the warrior caste of Tamene (which is a Maori word and means "be assembled" - perfect name for a planet).

You can pre-order this now on Riptide's website.