An Open Secret

At the start of part three of this novel, when Faustina and her sons have finished dinner, it seemed pretty much that everyone knew about Laszlo’s sexual preferences but no one would talk openly about. In a way, that’s how the world and polite society used to work: you might know something untoward about a family member or co-worker, but so long as they weren’t up in your face demanding you worship their failing, society continued to function. It seems that polity has returned in the Changed world. Saying all that to say this: onboard ship, the girls have a laugh at the boys.

There’s also the first close-in images of Mars. The Red planet is rapidly not.

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Back downstairs

Was able to recover enough of my strength and mental capacity to resume writing yesterday. I don’t see any need to chronicle the rest of their deceleration to Mars, so the end of this segment will be a chapter break and leap head of more than a day. Many, many interesting revelations coming. Typically for me, some good, some… well…

I’ll be recording my next podcast on Wednesday. Anyone have any questions or topic ideas?

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Emergent Behavior

August! I swear yesterday was March. I’ve written ahead a bit and hope to keep these MS sketches updates coming. As it is, what remains of my family is off on another vacation in northern Louisiana so I shall devote my time off to try to complete the raw audio for “Foes and Rivals.” Speaking of which, I got my first customer review of “Friend and Ally.” I was, honestly, expecting at best three stars; after all, I am not a professional voice actor and my audio editing skills are that of a novice. So this was a surprise!

Back to the royals in space: not wanting to give the book an ADULT rating, I gloss over Laszlo’s and Nikita’s “moment.” Of more interest, as Les sees, is that now light-minutes away from Earth, android-Reina breaks contact with her greater self. But, as machines think so much faster than humans, her portable form is already… changing. I really wonder what shall become of her.

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Rebirth

A shorter conclusion to the reveal of my last post. I think this will serve as a chapter break in the novel. I’m rather sure the next scene is of the two young men talking and er… well. Following that will be Turnover: when the ship will briefly be in freefall to rotate end-for-end for their one gee deceleration toward Mars. Much to find out: what does that world look like right now? Will they be allowed to land? Do we get to meet Aqua, at least in some capacity?

And stand-alone Reina starts to develop a personality. This could be good or bad.

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Form follows function

As Larry Niven said in “Ringworld,” no one likes to find out they are a breeding experiment. Something which happens below the fold. Getting physically angry with Reina would be pointless; about as productive and throwing your toaster around the kitchen. Trapped on their little ship not quite halfway to Mars this adds even more tension to the mix. From what’s rattling around the back of my head, it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Beginning next Saturday everyone except me and the evil attack cat is on another vacation. I’ll use that quiet at home to push this MS aside and get as many raw chapters of “Foes & Rivals” recorded that I can. The following week will have us, here, coming back from Mars… the ship at least… will anyone be alive? And the week after that should see the end of my second audiobook recording. That will lead to several weeks of editing. *sigh*

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Vacuum sucks

A bit more into the characters onboard Lionheart: girls in their underwear and men kissing. I had no idea I was such a degenerate author. As I sus’d from the beginning of this writing project, if I look away for just a moment, Reina will take over the entire story.

In this and what y’all will see later, it is interesting to me that while of the same class (a concept hard for most Heritage Americans) the royals have things they take for granted and things which, being from opposite sides of the Earth, are a complete puzzle to one another.

Additionally, I introduce, still offstage, a new character: Aqua. A Machine from tribe Arpeggio and apparently personally interested in the Martian terraforming project. Why is he?

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Sweet and Sour

Rather than behaving myself and getting into the basement for raw audio, I wanted to continue to jot down what I had seen while driving Daughter #1 back those 1944 miles last weekend. I think I’ll be caught up tomorrow. With the ship on the move we are now in what I call the Michael Crichton phase of the story: taking a disparate group of people and locking them in until the plot shows up.

Something like Reina tossing my main character out of an airlock for “deviant behavior”…

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Vodka and Caviar

Firstly, an apology: tomorrow’s Podcast will be delayed, likely until late Friday evening. I took notes about what I wanted to talk about and even took the laptop into the quiet corner of my basement to record… and sighed. Covering 4000 miles by plane and car over last weekend, then getting tossed into unexpected tasks at DayJob (a colleague was ill so I had to cover) meant that I’m just not up to what y’all hopefully expect of my weekly banter. Before moving on, I will leave you this: the topic is a question from a listener: “What if the [Machines] had been made in China?” I had a glib answer, but the more I thought about it, the more complicated the subject became, so look forward to my discussion later tomorrow!

In the meantime I introduce some new characters below the fold, as we get ready for this Martian Holiday.

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Along the Neva

After a very short flight, followed by a contested parking spot, Laszlo finds himself walking along the southern branch of the Neva River in St. Petersburg. I’ve never been there but have heard from many that it is a beautiful city. Someday, when my books are optioned into movies, I’ll take a chartered flight; commercial flights are more and more a dry-run for slavery.

As you will shortly see, the PM of Imperial Russia, Reina, stomps onto the stage. First among equals of tribe Mendrovovitch and possibly the most dangerous of all Machines, she also attacks my stories like kudzu: taking over and displacing everything which was already there. And from the last line below the fold, it seems she is in for most of this part of the novel. Oh, well. What can I do?

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Podcast 3: The Machines – everyone else

My shortest installment to date as I didn’t want to wander into the weeds again over what I know about the other two tribes, the androids, and synths. Details such as that, I believe, will be dealt with when I turn my attention to talking about the books and stories themselves.

Even so, I cover a lot of ground in little time. Next week will see us turn to the human sides of Machine Civilization, specifically the human families of the Barretts and the Hartmanns. See everyone then!

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