Direct Action

Having offered this very young consciousness asylum, there is a taunting confirmation for higher up. This is quickly followed by something a little lower down as a mechanical genius only a week old begins to understand humans, well, demi-humans, and emotions. Not just internal emotions, but those you express to others.

I’m still tinkering with the Epilogue as once that is complete I shall have no excuse to not complete the recording of “Foes and Rivals” and thus also its editing, followed by teaching myself wiki software for my autumn project. All in all, I’d rather be writing.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

Names mean things

Busy packing for a short trip this week. Working vacation of a sort. It’s a bit more hectic than usual as it involves coordinating with someone at the other end who does not have access to communication. In fact, it is a very 19th century way to plan a trip.

Below, once I saw the hatch of the ship open and Reina’s android just standing there, I realized she had made her choice. There will be huge political and philosophical fallout from this. I really don’t think the “full” Reina will be honestly pissed over the loss of her property. I hope she is older to have some introspection that a part of her just rebelled. Unlike Helena in “Goddess Crusade,” who was an accidental creation, this is, so far as I know, the first time in my future history where a machine made its own choice to separate from a creator. Very interesting times ahead.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

Homecoming

The Russians are back home. I do not think that Kira will long consider the rodina her home; the compulsion in her to return to her new life on Mars is too great. Anastasia will be very busy in the coming years making sure no one comes between her and the throne… including her Prime Minister. What’s Nikita’s future, currently devastated for losing his lover? I’ve no idea.

After a week of never ending motion and happenings, Laszlo can at last relax and catch his breath before he, too, returns home. Wait… footsteps?

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

Breaking and theft

A long addition today; in fact, the end of chapter 17. Things shall be busy for me as I’m 2nd shift tonight and work this weekend. While off Monday, the entirety of next week shall be spent on the road – family matters – and I expect updates to be sparse. Hence today’s larger portion.

I’m not really satisfied with this segment and shall likely rewrite it before submitting it to my copyeditor. Things always happen quickly in my stories but even this seems rushed. Y’all’s opinions are welcome.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

It’s Australian for Beer

Having the last installment the exposition of Mars, here we have exposition of the huge station of Martian Control. I mentioned in one of my podcasts that Australia has “affiliate” or “auxiliary” status within the Polar Alliance. I’d imagine that if Aqua found someone he wanted who was willing to serve on the terraforming project, he would invite them over.

I may make it official that my Friday podcasts will start coming out Saturday; things are just too busy around here. I won’t make that final until Daughter #1 is back to college this Saturday and I have a chance to see what that does to my schedule – I suspect very little – but am already leaning in that direction. Having already discussed politics, I’ll turn my attention to sex and religion. After all, those are the three things one should never discuss in polite company. And I am anything but that.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

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.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

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”…

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

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.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading →

Podcast 5: Prologue of “Foes & Rivals”

Congratulations: between DayJob and the hundred things I need to get ready to retrieve Daughter #1 from her internship in southern Utah, I’m only able to throw this at the wall and hope it sticks. Nichole 5’s first audiobook is commercially available and I am slogging my way through the raws of the second. This is the opening of that one, Foes & Rivals. As is my wont, I tell you what happens up front. You’ll just have to enjoy the ride once the rollercoaster starts.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

***

Listen on Spreaker.

RSS Feed.

***

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!

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

***

Listen on Spreaker.

RSS Feed.

***