Images from Vacuum Forged – The Novella. Or whatever the kids are calling unfinished manuscripts these days.
The Illustrated Lemur
Re-engaged
When I tabled the fourth of nine Anye Universe novels to outline the seventh, I had no idea I would keep going — and set Vacuum Forged aside for seven years.
I returned to the middle trilogy uncertain of my intentions — 80,000 words in, having written treatments for volumes five and six, so I would know where I was going with four.
Seven novels in thirteen years. Maybe I should do something else with whatever time I have left.
But then I read this.
Svami Reva lounged in a recliner across the room, poking fingers at the augmented reality space. He acknowledged their arrival without looking. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Maybe.” Suban addressed the prisoner in Low Desert. “Does it seem odd to you that we took the language of our Manu conquerors, called it the Noble Tongue, pretending it was our own when everyone knew it was not? You’d think our people had no shame.”
The man kept his eyes down. Suban dragged a chair over. “You should be afraid of me. Do you know what I am?”
That provoked a response. “A policeman. Zirna Zapha. What else?”
Continue reading “Re-engaged”Riffed
From Vacuum Forged - The Anye Migration - Volume 1 - First Draft
0 ~ Angelic
First House, Planet Vidura, 70,000 BCE
Upon the sixth anniversary of First House’s instantiation, Master Sa summoned his three most important students to tell them what they were.
Spring was early in the Northern Reach. The scent of young blossoms drifted through parlor doors. Birdsong rang in the air. Tree pollen tickled noses.
It was all, said Master Sa, an artful deception. “We call it the Anodyne Virtuality.”
Sattva took the news with a smug grin on her face. Master Sa gave her the hairy eyeball. “Your father already told you.”
Continue reading “Riffed”in media res
An early cold-open. Should I have left it in the book?
0 ~ Campfire Tale
Las Cruces, New Mexico
It was 6:03 AM Mountain Time, 26 minutes ahead of sunrise, 43 degrees Fahrenheit in town, 35 in the desert, mostly clear, the eastern sky shining pale blue with a tinge of pink.
To the northwest, still dark and full of celestial wonder, a colorful ionized-gas display marked a position downrange of the solar system’s galactic path, where Star Forge Partners, a Jivada-based materials manufacturing company, was suctioning space dust into an electrostatically charged funnel.
Furry aliens from outer space and their human partners, mitigating the potential of a cosmic-gas-fueled micro-nova burning half the Earth to a crisp, 15 years hence.
At street level, an Anye-tech fighting drone named Titter spotted a black Chevy Suburban taking a position near the Fowlkes residence.
Continue reading “in media res”When Words Alone Will Not Suffice
Ruksa Zila — An airborne estate from the pages of Maroli Tango
I will eventually have to sketch the design by hand.
Read the book at https://marolitango.substack.com/p/chapter-2
Lemurs from Outer Space
Lots of prompting. More than you might expect.
The Furry Cast of Maroli Tango
ChatGPT Categorizes Maroli Tango
I am not anticipating a movie deal
Click here to read the entire novel, near-final-draft, for free.
Your book sits in a strange intersection:
Becky Chambers + Lois McMaster Bujold + The Expanse + Ada Palmer + a family chronicle + frontier settlement comedy + theological space opera.
The nearest neighbors:
Lois McMaster Bujold
Especially the Vorkosigan Saga.
Bujold is probably your closest craft cousin for mixing space opera, family, military/political institutions, romance, comedy, competence, and moral consequence. The Vorkosigan books are long-running SF/space-opera works with major attention to family, hierarchy, personal honor, military culture, and social continuity; the series won the Hugo Award for Best Series. (Wikipedia)
Overlap with you: huge cast, aristocratic/merchant-military structures, moral comedy, family as civilization-bearing unit.
Difference: Bujold is tighter, more novel-shaped, more character-centralized around Miles/Cordelia/etc. Your work is more mosaic, serial, and civilizational.
I Posted the Finale
Find the book here, free, on Substack.
254 chapters.
101,573 words.
617 pages, with illustrations.
3 1/2 years in the making.
The manuscript will continue to be a work-in-progress until publication on KDP.
Comments invited.
John Dyer Writes 
Recent Comments