Our first import to Unreal Engine 5.4 from Blender 4.1.
Small steps. You get that, right?
Run, robot, run!
Hacked!
On October 16, an unknown person registered an Internet domain associated with a business I once owned, activated an obsolete email address, and used the credential to destroy my Facebook accounts.
What a shock that was and, as you can imagine, Facebook doesn’t seem to care.
So, I’m off Facebook, perhaps permanently.
Just for fun, imagining a world in which you cared about what I’m up to on a daily basis, where would you like to find a record of that? Instagram? TikTok? YouTube? Elsewhere?
In the meantime, find me on X at @johndyerwrites
Image by MV Studio MV from Pixabay
Ship in a Bottle
It’s anyone’s guess how far this project will go. It could turn out to be a task better left uncompleted, at which point a loss of interest will be prudent. But, in the meantime, construction of my Loyal House 3D model is entering its third year and progress is being made.
I have not had my nose to the grindstone. The Blender file has languished since production of cover art for Ghosts of Ancient Vidura.
But, with an unfinished novel advancing toward publication, an author’s thoughts naturally turn to matters of self-promotion. One-minute video clips. Drama. Suspense. Spectacle. Better, perhaps, than the last time I tried it.
Continue reading “Ship in a Bottle”Blurbled!
A first draft book description for Maroli Tango. Comments welcome.
Sometimes, no matter what’s going on, you have to make it about you.
Earth, 2026 — an alien civilization’s backwater territory; an epicenter of impending catastrophe. In fifteen years, a solar event will scorch the planet. Coming up after that, an ice age looms. Two million light years away, the Unseen have demonstrated the means to settle a grudge.
United States President Carmen Benequista is tired of dealing with it. Embattled, worn out, she is visited in a dream. Her deceased husband says, “Find someone to share your life while it can still make a difference.”
It’s not a rocket science proposition. Her steady companion, Space Mafia kingpin Brandon Lopez, 15 years her junior, is waiting for a signal.
Meanwhile, first-contact survivor Mason Fowlkes, soon to be 16, is growing up fast as an apprentice Ship’s Mechanic aboard the Anye migration vessel Anuraga. The work life is great; the home life not so much.
French Air Force lieutenant Marie Jourdaine is on the rebound after a brief stint as the world’s youngest female fighter pilot. Things are kind of working out, and kind of not.
Right there in the middle is a legion of consciousness-elevated maroli labor appliances, a product of ancient Anye technology, monstrous in appearance, sweet of disposition, intent on discovering their place in the universe.
It’s been a bumpy ride, fraught with challenges. Maybe it’s time for our heroes to take care of themselves.
Read This First
Here’s the deal — you might want to read The Illusion of Gravity first because it’s the first volume of a series.
Alternatively, you can start with one of the other books and backtrack later to find out what you missed. There’s no penalty.
Literary Science Fiction, focused on story, not just space ships and ray guns. Entertaining. Immersive. Ambitious. Value-positive. Fun. Written for grown-ups. Suitable for young adults. The opposite of dark, smutty, ugly, pessimistic.
Amazon makes it easy to find out if a book is something you want to read. Go to the Kindle listing. Click below the cover art on the ‘Read Sample’ button. Give it a few pages. You’ll know soon enough.
The Illusion of Gravity can be found here. Discover my catalog here. Check out my blog for other essays. Thanks for reading. We need you.
Self-Referencing
Not intentionally. It just happened. Another teaser from Maroli Tango.
Chasm City, Anchor Freehold, Eeka
Chasm City was named for a deep rift in the planet’s mantle, beyond which lay a torn-up wasteland, thought by experts to have suffered a natural calamity in the distant past, dismissing an ancient oral history describing laser bombardment from outer space
A third of the city was built upon an impossibly massive bridge spanning the chasm, promoted by the architect as a platform for an airborne community, someday, when anti-gravity was invented.
Continue reading “Self-Referencing”Evocative
Or at least, that's what I intend. An inflection point in the current WIP, Maroli Tango, hot off the author's desktop.
Blustery weather conditions over the South Atlantic had moved across Ruksa Zila’s course an hour after sunrise. By midmorning, gusts were strong enough to bend trees.
At the owner’s residence, top of the hill above RZ’s hospitality village, cloudy skies loomed, great room patio doors shook. Five hundred meters below, turbulent seas churned.
Continue reading “Evocative”Podcast!
Another teaser from Maroli Tango. Third editing pass. A lot of revision and shuffling around of narrative threads. The writing's getting better, I hope.
Nashville, Tennessee
Conservative pro-wholesome-values commentator Mark Washburn sat at a dining table in what might have been his home.
He said, “There’s a new sheriff in town; a Zirna Zapha NGO that goes by the name of Osadhi, in recent weeks beating up on organized crime in an effort, they say, to choke off the money and muscle that keeps Earth’s most toxic powerbrokers in business.
Our guest pilots the spaceboat Sthiti Osadhi on raids. He describes himself as a bus driver, roadside mechanic, locker room attendant and more recently, publicist. This week, Mason Fowlkes launched a new streaming service, Classic Cosmic TV, delivering vintage content from the planets Vidura and Jivada.”
Continue reading “Podcast!”Therapied!
So, at around 119,000 words, I realized Mason Fowlkes was a pivotal cast member with a relatable story. Oops. Time to shuffle chapters and fill in backstory. It's therapy, for both of us. Maroli Tango, in progress.
Community Resources was headquartered on Residential Deck 5 (RD-5). Day care. Classrooms. Crafts center. Fitness center. Jump Ball court. Thrift Exchange. Library. Meeting rooms. Etcetera.
There resided the Family Services department, under the direction of the distinguished Anye Samudri elder Brian Lama, no relation to Dalai Lama, although possessing similar bearing and rectitude.
Continue reading “Therapied!”Family Drama!
According to fellow author Ashley Manning, that's what I've been writing these last several years, in a Sci-Fi framework, which he could have said is very avant-garde of me, but didn't. Nevertheless, here's a fresh example from the work-in-progress. You decide.
There were no federal authorities on hand to witness a CH Banks spacevan landing in the street, but Russell and Nancy’s next-door neighbors were absolutely on station.
The man’s fourteen-year-old Chihuahua barked herself wheezy and had to be picked up. His wife came out with their granddaughter, all of them in pajamas, forcing Brandon Lopez to deboard and apologize for the ruckus, even though it wasn’t his fault and everybody knew it.
The granddaughter was star-struck, delaying their getaway by running into the house for a glossy mail solicitation from February, featuring United States President Carmen Benequista at a charity auction on the arm of her frequent companion, former NSA security auditor, U.S. Navy veteran, number two executive at CH Banks International, Space Mafia heavyweight, Filipino-American Brandon Lopez, age 45.
Continue reading “Family Drama!”
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