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Warbot!

A teaser from the current WIP, working title 'Maroli Winter'.

The sensation of operating the breaching waldoe was an order of magnitude more intimate than the same experience within a simulation, and Myra Fowlkes knew why — the Anodyne virtual tutorial authored by the manufacturer was pathetic.

The machine’s vision was intensely sharp and focused, with more depth of field than delivered by organic optics. While waiting to deploy, she smelled silicone grease with sufficient precision to locate the source without taking a single step — it was on a flexible seal dovetailed into the spaceboat’s hatch opening.

The warbot felt like a neoprene wetsuit. Its hands were her hands, clad in half-finger diving gloves. Its feet wore hiking boots like ones she’d taken back to the store because they were too stiff, except these had so much traction she had to take weight off one ankle if she wanted to rotate.

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My Brother, How I Miss You Already

The photo was taken in 1957, at our home in Manila only one year after our family moved from Flintstone, Georgia. Our mother was thirty-seven. Our stepsister Carolyn was fifteen. I was seven.

Mike was sixteen, already a man, kind, witty, and charming, an example for me to respect from a distance for most of our lives because I was only nine when he left the nest and we never lived in the same town again.

SONY DSC

Linda and I were married at least a couple of years before she met him. Mike would have been not yet forty at the time, six-foot-three and movie-star handsome, so much so that Linda asked, “What happened to you?”

A lifetime later, I finally thought of an answer. I got a brother out of the deal.

Michael Lee Dyer passed away last night, December 4, 2023, of pneumonia, following a six-month battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was eighty-two years old, frail, suffering, aware of impending death and the most important thing he could think of during our last moments together was to say how much he loved me and how proud he was to be my brother.

Linda and I prayed that our natural father Benjamin Franklin Dyer, by all accounts another prince of a man, would be there to receive him. Godspeed, my brother. I loved you always, and will never forget you.

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Implanted!

Today I received my first-ever dental implant. See the photo. It’s #14, top left (your right) second from last molar.

Got it? Okay. So, it didn’t hurt, except when the surgeon numbed the site. What did hurt was four months ago when the tooth that used to occupy that slot was extracted, and whoo boy, that hurt a lot. It doesn’t even hurt right now, five hours later. We’ll see how that holds up tomorrow.

I won’t go into details about the procedure, except to say the ratchet wrench was kind of a surprise. The bill was not a surprise. They x-rayed my wallet ahead of time to make sure I could pay it.

My credit card still hasn’t gotten over it.

Are you tired of the same-old same-old escapist fiction you've been reading? Try John Dyer Writes, the cure for what ails you.

Seriously, buy my novels, they're great. Or at least, read my essays. They're great, too.

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YA-ing

Another teaser from a work-in-progress. 77,000 words and no title, yet.

Chapter 203

Anuraga, The Dust Cloud

Mason Fowlkes went straight from lunch to a partially shut-down docking terminal, its boarding passage absent of patrons, occupied only by a shipwright replacing airlock seals.

Mason told him, “I’m going out of slot five in a few minutes for a podcast interview. I’m cleared with the house, but …”

The man held up a hand. “I’m done with five.”

“Okay, because I didn’t want to …”

“You’re not in my way. Where’s your boat?”

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Space Soap Opera

Another teaser from work-in-progress

Espinho, Portugal

Portugal’s time zone was an hour behind Serbia, the sky still illuminated by the last rays of a setting sun; making it imprudent to land Advaita Vedanta in an alley, invisibility technology notwithstanding.

Brandon Lopez should have flown the van, a mistake painfully evident upon deboarding, unremedied by sending the spaceboat off to a parking slot in orbit.

Maryanne Orsa’s one-hundred-eighty-two-year-old English/Norwegian/AjJivadi mother, Lisbet Porter, met him at one end of the alley with a tiny dog on a leash and an admonishing tone in her voice. “Did I just see you land a spaceboat seven blocks from where I’m living?”

He cringed. “I’m an idiot.”

“That’s what you are.” She gestured. “Let’s get moving before the neighbors show up.”

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Name this book!

Seriously. I’m at 43,000 words and I don’t have a title. Here’s a teaser from Chapter 109.

The White House, Washington DC

It was four miles from the White House to a bar and grille in Arlington, where an Ivy League educated economist had been ensconced for the past hour-and-a half.

Carmen boarded the same housekeeping maroli she’d used twice, once earlier in the day, for the purpose of signing documents in her own hand. The machine was off-duty, in a dark closet, sipping nutrition through a straw out of a crushable plastic box.

She wiggled her avatar into the maroli’s form factor, arms operating two large tentacles on the top row, saying, “Hello again. Are you finished with supper?”

It tossed the box into a waste bin. “This device has eaten.”

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Spicy, but just a little

An evocative adventure/love story from the author of The Illusion of Gravity.

In 1966 Manila, an American teenager courts a CIA recruit several years his senior. It’s a mismatch, a scandal. When she ships out, it’s over. Maybe.

An uncommon spin on the coming-of-age theme, informed by the author’s upbringing in mid-century Asia. Mature content, Young Adult appropriate. Value-positive, about good character as a strategy for creating a successful life. An immersive journey to a time and place now gone forever.

All my titles are #kindleunlimited.

Featured Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

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Hijacked!

Just this week, I learned my novels have been mis-appropriated by an overseas book-pirate, upon whose website hundreds of titles are offered for free — unless you make a donation, in which case less free, except I still don’t get paid.

It’s not supposed to happen to unknown authors. Obviously, we’re talking about a thief with a discerning eye. “This guy’s going to be famous,” he’s telling himself. “I’m getting in on the ground floor.”

Not to say I approve. I filed complaints, but Icelanders are notorious for this activity, untouchable by their laws, much less ours. I have no illusions that anything will be done.

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A Satisfied Customer

A few days ago, a fellow author asked her Facebook audience, “What was the best purchase you ever made?” I replied with a photo of my eighth motorcycle, bought new in 2004.

I was fifty-four at the time. I’d taken a long break from the activity, then resumed with a 1976 Kawasaki 900, a version of which I’d owned in 1974.

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Nostalgiafied

Inspired by posts about cars people wish they still had, I found a photo of my 1962 Mercedes-Benz 220, a possession I should have kept for a lot of reasons — including the fact it would have been a good investment.

But then, remorse over cast-away treasures is a common experience as we age. Sometimes we discover such articles in a sock drawer, or hidden on a shelf, joyful we didn’t discard them after all. That won’t happen with the car — I distinctly remember selling it to a nurse who worked at Deaconess Hospital.

I had bought it from my girlfriend’s older sister in 1971, for $600. It cost $3500 new, and was only nine years old. Although afflicted with a slipping clutch, I thought it was a bargain. That said, I was in college, too poor to be an auto enthusiast, too dumb not to be.

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