Category: science fiction

Death Ship

As this is a novella, and the main character is now dead, it is time to wrap this up.  Aside:  my cover designer showed me his idea of Faustina from “Worlds Without End;” while she might be a little rough around the edges and holding two rifles, he did include a “cute” feature I’d not seen.  I ret-conned it into the manuscript.  But this was the important thing:  unlike “CDC,” for just a flash of light, I was back in a happy book with relatively pleasant people; not this miasma of political terror and betrayal.

There is an epilogue to this; Barrett’s resurrection, as it were.  I have seen it and it’s even shorter.  Looks as if the entire novella will be about 35-36k words.  I don’t care.  While there is much editing to do, I am leaving this and not coming back.  I’m also off DayJob tomorrow so should have the last piece complete then.  If my next novel consists of nothing but unicorns shitting Skittles, so be it.

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Bad End, 1/2

The rough of Part Two of “Crosses & Doublecrosses” is complete.  I’ve worked ahead to fix some contextual errors in the relatively small Part Three.  Much like Jackson’s “Return of the King,” part 3 consists of a series of endings:  lives, a person, a life.

Besides that, I’m aware that waaay back in the start of Part One my timing/dating is completely off:  Sylvia and her sister Roberta arrive in Dallas as the Breakup is unfolding in the US just then.  They shortly get summoned to ExComm HQ in Austin.  From what already exists in my novels of Machine Civilization, that doesn’t work:  it was at least three months before Clive Barrett left Japan for the US to find his eldest daughter in Ohio.  That, also, would be at least three more months.  Then his travel to Texas and the formation of ExComm.  Minimum eight months; maximum twelve, total.  Let’s split the difference and call it ten.  So:  why, ten months into the collapse of the US, did Sylvia and Roberta fly from the relative safety of their extended family in upper-class Manila into an effective warzone in Dallas, Texas?

No clue.  Hope they show me.

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Cornered

Had today off.  A late start (around 1300) but was able to say down about 1700 words:  Sylvia in her new position, recruiting allies, and with a sudden, unanticipated visitor.  I think she handled herself very well.

I see one more “dream sequence,” which we know now is when she is summoned into the Machine’s world.  Then she sets off to New Mexico.  Things… things go to shit there, I’m afraid.

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Euphoria

I wrote much of this last night on bottle #2.  After Mass this morning and a few household chores I returned to it.  It stank.  Deleted and re-wrote the second half of the dream sequence then was surprised that it was Dorina on the phone and not Thaad.  These machines are like kudzu:  cropping up everywhere you least expect them.

The next day Sylvia has her first full day at her office job.  I know you guys CANNOT WAIT for that dramatic installment…  And for the person who sent me the question:  no, she and Jones do not have a relationship.  I think.

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Unknown Knowns

Had today off.  Saw a little of the political dynamic of Sylvia and the OKC politician.  The fact that Ninon, one of the three machines that has never spoken to humans just spoke up made my fingers twitch so much I could barely type.

PS  My use of “Look homeward, angel” is from Milton’s Lycidas.  I’d no idea that Tom Wolfe, whom I admire, used it for a book title.  Another moment when the intarwebs steer you to a place you do not want to be; and, if you don’t prepossess the knowledge, you are led to something wrong.

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Pro-prologue

I’m sure there’s a word for something like that.  I’ll shoehorn this intro-short into the front of WWE somehow…

I’ll have a little banner across the top front cover that says “A sequel to Echoes of Family Lost” and include the same in the descriptor of the Amazon page.  If someone wants to buy it anyway – and Lord knows I bought dozens of SF/F books as a kid, not knowing they were halfway through a series – then what’s below the fold should give them enough traxion to get into the story.

Need a good copyeditor?  Monica is your gal.

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Resurrecting the Past

I am all in:  I am going to complete the idea I had years ago called “Crosses and Doublecrosses.”  The original would have been an espionage/police procedural of over 500 pages.  I cannot stay there so long nor write it down.  This will be a novella in three acts about the temptation of the hotshot NYC lawyer Sylvia Fernandez.

I’m planning on much exposition about the background of Machine Civilization and what happens to her via the “letter” trope that authors such as C. McCullough used to such effectiveness in her early ‘Masters of Rome’ series.

I always wanted to do something different for each of my books.  This is.  Here we go.

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Life Imitates My (upcoming) Works, Part Etc.

A planned real-world test of a reactionless thruster.  These loomed large in Larry Niven’s Known Space series.  If this technology proves true we’ll have the solar system at our feet.

Below the fold an excerpt from my forthcoming novel “Worlds Without End”…

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