Tag: family

Civil Wars 2, 2

A quiet, transitional moment. I work PRN in a hospital and know how important it is to get patients out of their damn beds. With the shock of the moon attack in the past and his new throat installed, Graf also is ready to get out of his room and out of the hospital. I understand completely.

The next few segments will ease a reader back into their odd three-way relationship, with, of course, Robert Hartmann on the way; that’s likely in the segment after next. I do think Pai feels guilt for letting her husband get shot, but she’s not only hiding that from him, she’s hiding it from me. I’ll see what I can find out.

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Civil Wars 2, 1

Another small delay as I tried to die again. Was at hospital Emergency; apparently the overpriced bellhops who call themselves “MDs” never got round to mentioning that taking lisinopril, an ACE inhibitor, should be stopped after 5-8 years. When the ER doc found out I’d been on it for 11, I thought he would take a swing at me. Anyway, another angioedema attack and some IV meds followed by four days of prednisone. Slowly recovering. Again.

Recovering enough to get back to writing. As the Prologue started “in the middle,” as all good stories should, what will be the start of chapter one, below, backtracks to catch readers up on politics of the imperium and the Polar Alliance. There is an interesting backhanded mention of the main character.

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Nazca, 2

A bit of a “first contact” part of the story. I can just imagine what Salvy thought of an alien lizard next to him. Aleja is a clever girl and gets her visitor back to the shed where she was told to live. We do get a little foreshadowing when she sees an Anglo woman in this tiny, out of the way village.

Her uncle and aunt sound like real winners.

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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, 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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New Pai, 14. End

A bit abrupt. But, 1) this is a raw MS, and 2) it is part of at least one more book; the likely war which may involved two planets and the space in between. I’d like to have that finished by late July, but, honestly, I don’t see it. Instead, I’ve some RealLife things to get done in the spring. So, maybe I’ll just play with some micro story ideas. Some of those have turned into novels, so I never really know where I’ll be led.

I’ve gone back and broken this 52k word story into chapters. Sixteen plus an epilogue. There are still some bracketed notes at the very end as well as on paper just to my right. Like I said: raw MS. Also, while doing the chapters, I realized I’m introducing a lot here, even for those passingly familiar with Machine Civilization. So, a bit more material; but, this was designed to set the stage for the coming war, and I think it accomplishes that. Thanks for coming along for this journey.

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New Pai, 13

Interestingly, this underminds my entire arc for these two books. If Luce is banished from the DMZ, then one leg of my “religious war over the Fusions” is knocked out. Oh well, this is what I was shown to write, so I’ll work it out one way or another.

I think I’ll gloss the entire trial scene, esp as everything will be happening behind the scenes, anyway. Also, I know there is some significance to Luce’s reluctance to give up her staff and coat, but I don’t yet know what it is. Generally, a staff indicates authority and a coat or robe much the same (“I’m wealthy enough to keep warm”). How this novel wraps up, that is, the very last scene of the epilogue, will be a little odd, even for me.

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New Pai, 12

Yes, it’s been three weeks. Standard excuses for the first two: couldn’t see the ending, DayJob… The third excuse was a surprise: in my dotage I’ve suddenly developed a shellsfish allergy, so the scallops over butter noodles from Friday/Saturday before last attempted to kill me. My wife wanted to take me to the hospital but I was a mule and said no. Even so, bedridden for three days, with no food, then barely moving for two with a little toast. At one point when my wife came home from work, she said, “You like like you aged a year in a day.” Thanks, Honey.

But, just like falling off your horse’s bicycle, you get back on something. In fact, I realized one glaring and one minor issue from Part 11: glaring, that did they go off and leave the body behind? Are you kidding me? Minor, that I wanted Pai to clarify to Graf just how latently dangerous he might be. While I have rewritten that in the MS, I didn’t really see a reason to repost everything here, as these are supposed to be raws to make me think, anyway.

Having said all that, let’s get into the Epilogue. Luce finds out you do not piss off the matriarch of an entirely new race, and we catch a glimpse of Graf’s talent.

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