Tag: demi-humans

“The Fallen” 3/7

Well, hello Another Dangerous Person. There is no way, none, that the PM of the Russian Empire is unaware of the unfolding diplomatic situation on Mars. Not about to let things get muddled, Reina obviously wants some skin, literally, in the game. So welcome Ivan, ladies and gentlemen.

Another slightly longer segment, but after spending the last two hours typing, I realized I’m 4000 words ahead of what I’m posting, and the Alvarez’s still aren’t yet to imperium territory for those talks. I might know where that’s going, but more importantly, I need to decide if this will be a novella (~35k words) or another novel (min 50k). Until I answer that, I cannot start Part Four.

When Sergei meets Ivan in the epilogue of Ice Inundation Intelligence, his private thought was, “how can such a nice kid be her son?”

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/7″ →

“The Fallen” 3/3

At last we get Anton Sr into the frame. He’s twenty-nine, I think, at this point. A high-caste Mexican married to a demi-human, mixed race imperial princess. With an ambassadorship. And, as we discover in this shorter segment, still, after five years, getting used to married life.

Hell, at five years my wife and I nearly got divorced. It was my fault. A twice-divorced colleague sat me down and explained: “Clayton. You’re a man and an engineer. If someone tells you a problem, you immediately want to fix it. Women are NOT like that. They talk to talk. Just pretend you’re listening and all will be well.”

And here we are, thirty-one years later. Thanks, Bill!

Section 4 will start us down the political spillway: Japs, Rus, imperials. And a very odd occurrence when they fly over the Arabia Marshes. I wonder if the plot might be showing up?

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/3″ →

“The Fallen” 3/2

As y’all have heard me say, part three is a bit harder for me. That being so, I’m planning on every-other-day updates rather than daily. I’m having to pay a lot of attention to details I’d otherwise gloss over, and it takes time.

What a lovely family. I’m trying my best to not ruin it.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/2″ →

“The Fallen” 3/1

As I mentioned in the last installment, this one is a bit harder as there is no main character, per se. That means I cannot use first-person thought without headhopping, a bad early habit of mine from some years ago.

I’m realizing now that what that does do is make me describe things more. That’s a net positive as this is a new world in the process of terraforming. So I suppose part three was meant to be this way.

We step ahead about ten years here. Saras is married, one son, a daughter pending. Back on Mars, which we saw she considers her home, she and her little boy anxiously wait for his father, her husband, to get back from Earth.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/1″ →

“The Fallen” 2/7

Dinner. I’m good with dinners. Surprised that Les ran his mouth there a little bit; as I mentioned yesterday, having those two alone for weeks and months might be changing how they act around others.

I’m thinking of wrapping up Part 2 by Friday, and then taking another multi-year step. We’ll have to see.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/7″ →

“The Fallen” 2/6

Well! Two reveals. One, we get back to what Fussy and Ed found in “Ice Inundation Intelligence,” and two, that Les and Min do, in fact, love one another. I’m guessing they would use the more precise term of agape. I do not even know if Min’s Model 12 body is kitted out for sexual intercourse. Guess we’ll have to find out. In a non-prurient way, of course.

Since they brought up the Device, I wonder how, if at all, it plays into the image of that feral girl by a stream? Many, many futures here and I am increasingly confused. Writing, in a sense, is like Schrodinger’s Cat: by typing the words, you collapse the wave equation from all the myriad ways, to one.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/6″ →

“The Fallen” 2/5

A bit of a longer segment, going into the weekend. Minerva, as I mentioned in the last segment, started off as a sliver of Reina. Left to her own computational devices, a new personality formed. That personality, like how a baby bird imprints onto its parents, is completely fixated by Laszlo Hartmann. Back when the Minerva-consciousness was still barely formed and she was still Reina, she watched Les and his boyfriend, Nikita, behave in a sexually deviant fashion. As a very young new soul, she made several mistakes based upon that observation when it came to expressing her deep feelings for her captain.

Now, five years later, she seems much more comfortable in her role as helpmate and second-in-command of INS Lionheart as it gads about the outer solar system. As I do not think she has ever been around human children before, her quick response, below, was a surprise to me.

I wonder what Saras and Min will talk about? In wifi, androids can speak mind-to-mind just as demis do, but I don’t think Min would without “copying” everything to Les. We shall see.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/5″ →

“The Fallen” 2/4

As this is still primarily a writing experiment, I am playing fast and lose with time; thus the “Two weeks later…” That’s sloppy writing but rough drafts are about ideas, not grammar.

From Part Three of “Obligations of Rank” and the short story “Ceres” in “Imperial Entanglements,” we meet Laszlo Hartmann once again. This is about five years after “Ceres,” I think, so there are changes and adjustments to his life. We’ll get to know Minerva a bit more, tomorrow.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/4″ →

“The Fallen” 2/3

This was an exercise in story whiplash. From Eloise and Saras having a pleasant banter to the younger threatening the older. I’m thinking that having Saras off on Mars, with her only real oversight being Kira and Aqua, is a mistake. We all know that Faustina kept all of her children on a short lead and was – and is – very demanding. There’s no real way for Fussy to exercise that kind of power over her granddaughter. And it is starting to show.

Almost finished with the copyedit of “Ice Inundation Intelligence,” so hope to send for a proof copy this weekend. That should point to a commercial release in late September.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/3″ →