Tag: Russia

Book 17. Epilogue. 2/2

This should have been broken into four parts, but the first part of the epilogue was a block, so this one is, too. Enjoy. There are a few places where I couldn’t be bothered to scroll back 200 pages for names, so I used placeholders. That’s what editing is for.

I started this manuscript just over a year ago, with Konev and his scout team at point of the Russian occupation of central Canada. Thus, it is fitting that it end with him, too. But what and end: being debriefed about what happened at the CSIS prison I expected. Writing my way further in, I realized that because of what Reina had learned from rooting around Bob’s mind – and then about the future of Mars – she would want to know everything Konev knew.

And they Ivan speaks up to claim him. I didn’t see and write that until about an hour ago. They always surprise me. It’s a gift, really: “The Adventures of Sergei & Ivan” would make a great novella; it would make a great graphic novel. That boy is made of mischief and I look forward to what trouble they get in (first idea: they travel to Mars and steal that ancient device).

Now comes the hard, sober, part: editing. A multistep process: a complete read thru, shuffling material around, chapter breaks, Grammarly. Then and only then I pass it off to my copyeditor. It’s about 65,000 words, or about 245 pages in a 6″ x 9″ book. A book with no name, still. At least I can reach out to my cover designer in a day or two with the basics of what I’ll want to see. The front will be Konev and Bob, with Eloise between them, all in uniform. What else? Reactionless ships, something evocative of Canada (a can of Molson’s?), Mars. And Cartaphilus.

I’d say I need a break, but we all know I’d be lying. I’ll be writing again within weeks once I get this to my copyeditor. Thanks, everyone, for putting up with this raw MS. Please buy and review the final version once it comes out in a month or two.

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Book 17. Part Four. 8

The penultimate scene from Part Four. We’re back to Bob and his team tomorrow. I’m about finished with the Epilogue, but that may have to wait until after the conference. Or, if I’ve a moment, I may post it from there.

It’s taken a year, but I am pleased as to where everything seems to be going. I wonder what my next project will be? I’m thinking of taking it easy and writing a few short stories for the rest of summer.

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Book 17. Part Four. 4

Taking the advice of a fellow writer, I am just going to bull ahead with this and worry about head-hopping and formatting later. I had fretted myself into a standstill and that’s worse than writing dreck.

So, this is very, very raw. Raw-er than usual. One of the things I do not like as how I shoehorned the demon’s cart into this installment. I know he crops up in about three or four installments, but I needed the foreshadowing. I’ll fix it later.

With Imaginarium coming up in less than a week, I’ll be busy packing, buying food and booze, completing my very rough outline for the panel I’m hosting (I noted several assistant panelists have been added; I hope one hour is enough time), so I’ve doubts about completing the MS. But, you never know… this Part is going to be moving very fast.

And, yes: I just made up “the Three R’s.” I’m proud of that.

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Book 17. Part Four. 1

Getting back into the swing of things for this final section. As the events take place over only two days, I think it will be shorter; perhaps about 10,000 words. There may be an epilogue but I have not gotten that far.

Going back to Part One, Sergeant Major Sergei Konev of the Imperial Russia Army is back as our main character, but another shows up almost immediately. Like an invasive weed, Reina has to make an appearance, too.

More Monday. Try to have a good weekend, y’all.

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Book 17. Part Two. 1

In order to save my mind and my liver, I’m returning to the format where they show me some reels, I do what research, if any, then write it down here. No more of this “simultaneous writing” efforts for awhile.

In my two summaries of Part One, it was told from the POV of Sgt. Sergei Konev. Now we jump to Centurion Bob Hardt, who, of course, is more than he seems to be. There was a tension I introduced in Obligations of Rank and ended on a cliff-hanger in Regent which needs resolution. That is what I think Part Two is for. After that? Who knows?

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Book 17. Part One Summary, 2/2

Wrapping up the summary.

Konev and his men tend to the Canadian Lt while alerting higher-ups. To their surprise, Gen. Suvorov himself shows up in one of their reactionless motor ships. With Konev in tow, they move to the temporary HQ outside of Moose Jaw. Konev, using what little he knows of Centurion Hardt – Patel’s friend – manages to break the ice with her.

The next day, Reina interferes and orders Patel returned before things get worse. Konev and Patel set up a rendezvous with her unit just SW of Winnipeg, which, though further south, is already under the ice; the two lakes to its north acted as highways for the ice sheet, already halfway to Grand Forks. At the rendezvous point, Hardt and his team, backed by one of their S-3 flying saucers, meet them, inviting both the Canadians and Russian scout teams to a meal in a nearby abandoned golf course clubhouse.

There, the three team leaders, Konev, Patel, Hardt, stay alone on the outside deck in the freezing weather to talk frankly to one another about what seems to be going on around them. Messengers run out with orders for all three from their respective commands. Knowing more than he should – we’ll see why in the next installment (or you already know if you have the good sense to read Obligations of Rank) – Hardt renders Patel unconscious and, via some subterfuge, abducts her.

Some quotes below the fold.

Continue reading “Book 17. Part One Summary, 2/2” →

Book 17. Part One Summary, 1/2

My original idea was to see how the Russian Empire – under their Prime Minister, Thinking Machine Reina, went about taking Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba off of the Canadians. Alaska and British Columbia are already in their, well, her, hegemony, but there’s just too much oil and natural gas out there to be ignored. Russian heavy industry is building kilometer-long transports in orbit for shipments of materials to Mars, and even with reactionless motors, that demands massive amounts of energy.

The preface of the book is Major General Suvorov of the 77th Brigade having a teleconference with Reina. He and his men are in Calgary. Half of their supplies are on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. He requests a delay of three days. After some back-and-forth, Reina agrees, but states that if he’s not in motion on day four, he’s dead. She is not a nice person.

Part One is about Sergeant Sergei Konev and his scout unit, just beyond the tip of the spear. He’s 25 and from a village outside of Maikop. His #2 is Corporal Zais, an Itelmen from Kamchatka. Their first assignment is due north to Edmonton, to see if it needs a regiment to take and hold it. They find it already under a meter of ice and snow.

[For those of you unfamiliar with my future history, it presumes a Maunder Minimum beginning right before the Breakup. A little ice age.]

They proceed to Medicine Hat and strike a deal with the Mayor, who is already thinking himself independent of Canada. Pushing a little on then coming back, they come under fire. The mayor has been assassinated by Russian Special Forces troops, Spetsnaz, who belong to a military faction opposed to Reina. Konev and his unit are rescued by Centurion Bob Hardt and his men from the imperium, there as observers to the impending Russian occupation. As Russia and the imperium (and Japan and the Habsburg Empire) are the four spokes of the Polar Alliance, they occasionally work together. Reluctantly.

Some things happen and Konev’s unit is sent northeast to see if Saskatoon is also under the ice. On the way they encounter a peddler with a horse-drawn cart. He’s deeply creeped out by this. Some hours later, they see that Saskatoon has been abandoned. However, a small tribe of locals, preparing to leave to the south, are burying four of their own. They describe how a demon, disguised as a peddler, stole the flesh off of the four before killing them.

They move southeast to reunited with the brigade around Regina. Told to scout ahead east once more, they come to a surprise stop outside of Brandon. The Spetsnaz who killed that mayor have taken a Canadian officer prisoner, dragging him behind their vehicle like a dog. A fight between the units nearly ensues and Konev takes possession of the prisoner. He immediately realized he is a she: Lt. Eloise Patel. Concussed and battered, she can barely stammer out her name and rank, only saying a single name before passing out: Bob Hardt.

Wrap up of Part One tomorrow. Some pull quotes below the fold.

Continue reading “Book 17. Part One Summary, 1/2” →

“New Russia” An Update

Been awhile since I’ve mentioned what’s going on here, so there’s this. I’ve the proof copy of “Regent” in-hand and am about 1/3 through, looking for errors. A half-dozen, so far; a letter missing, a ” missing, that sort of thing. The MS for “Imperial Entanglements” is complete and my cover artist working on that. It’s format shall be similar to my other short story collection, “Empire’s Agent,” with a large, single image on the front and 2-3 on the back, all reflecting one of the stories. It may fly in the face of my “put a face front and center on the cover” policy, but we’ll see.

I got to about 23,000 words in “New Russia” and ground to a halt, again. I was able to get all three important characters, Sergeant Konev, Centurion Hardt, and Lieutenant Patel, together. And then they received orders to not be, due to politics in St. Petersburg, Ottawa, and wherever Regent Aurelia happens to be at the moment. That scene corresponds to the last scene of “Regent,” where Aurie gets shocking news from Russian PM Reina. Rather than continuing to follow Konev, and what may play out with their army politics and that odd demon they met, this will be a section shift to Bob Hardt’s (really Robert Hartmann, Crown Prince) perspective, as he and the rest of the family are called for by the regent.

I think he just abducted Eloise Patel, thinking her life in danger if she returns to either Canadian capital. I should know more later today. Hopefully another 18-22k words, then I’ll have to fold all that back into whatever the Russian are doing. No clue right now, of course, but they’ll tell me when they are ready.