Category: Civil War

Civil War, 7, end

While I have killed main characters before, this is not one of those times. Graf, unconscious and very shocky, and his team make it back to a medical facility just in time. I think the doc liked Pai’s unconventional idea: “You tied a tournequet around his neck?”

These seven parts will form the prologue of my second book of the Civil Wars. I expect it to be unpleasant and yes, there will be deaths of people some of y’all may have been reading about for years. A real civil war – think Whites and Reds; Serbs and Croats; for example – is a house to house, mind by mind affair. Nothing at all like the US War of Northern Aggression.

Thanks for reading. My next installment shall also be a short story, roughly contemporanious with this one, but set in Nazca, Peru.

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Civil War, 5

If you’re watching, yes, this is a replay of Upper Hell from Dante’s Inferno. Each level they descend represents another Circle, another kind of sin. In this shorter installment, we cover two: impetuous lust and hoarders/wasters.

And, for those new to all this, Graf and Pai, husband and wife, are first featured in Irrational Pai. Their relationship, human and Machine, is almost unique and constantly changing the world of those around them. A daughter of the ruthless Machine Reina of Russia, Pai is often at odds with her Upper Midwest farmboy husband and his sense of niceness and fair play.

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Civil War, 3

Given what we know from the prologue, Pai is increasingly in a “shoot first, ask questions later” mode. Even Graf twice mentions her acting like her mother, the most ruthless person on earth. There might be a bit more with their team, then a chapter break. Still not really decided on how to carry this kind of story forward.

I’m playing with the idea of part one of three being on the moon, part two back on earth with Alix and the children, and perhaps part three off to Mars. Or maybe somewhere more exotic. I’ll know when I’m told.

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Civil War, 2

One thing that is already bothering me is that a journal tends toward those “walls of text” which have never characterized my books. I am a dialog guy, from the show-don’t-tell group of writers. I’ll see how the rest of this first chapter unfolds, but am already toying with the idea of even-numbered chapters being Pai’s observational counterpoint to Graf’s writings to his children and their mother.

And, yes, that comes up again. Trust me, as a very socially conservative Catholic, it was and is a stress on me to have this three-way relationship. I know full well that cultures do drift over time, and here we are nearly 150 years from The Fourth Law, so I’ll keep on for now and try to muddle through. I also realize I’ll need to talk to my copyeditor about formatting. With Graf’s entries in italic, it would be confusing to use the same for his internal thoughts, which is what I’ve been using for ten books, now. Guess, I’ll figure that out, too.

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Civil War, 1

With Irrational Pai off in the hands of my copyeditor and cover designer, I was a loose ends for a bit. About 36 hours. Then, per normal, I was shown something. Most of IP was introducing the characters and the politics about fifty years on from my last novel and I knew it would be the forerunner of at least one more book. But what kind of book? Long time readers know that I like to try different things, so, borrowing from Grathew, I thought to make a kind of war diary.

This will mostly be from Graf’s POV, as he wants to leave some record for his children by Alix if he’s killed, but there will be parts where we will see that his wife, Pai, thinks of what is going on. What’s below is the a rough prologue, as I am always one to “start your story in the middle.” I’m messing about with the first chapter; as a diary, it is what I call “walls of text” versus what I normally do, which is dialog. I’m not entirely happy with the format, but am hoping to strike a balance as I keep writing.

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