Tag: outer space

What comes before ‘beta reader’? That’s what I need.

Those who’ve been reading these posts possibly know I have a SciFi novel in progress, about a country doctor in 1928 South Dakota who, among other things, meets a furry lady from another planet. You may also know that Amazon’s entry into the episodic fiction delivery business, Kindle Vella, is about to debut. Think ‘Radish’, with mega market penetration, or at least that’s what we’re given to believe.

Elbert, at 94,000 words, the ending yet to be written, might be good candidate to throw into the melee IF I can edit the first few chapters into ‘That’s right, folks … don’t touch that dial’ territory. I’m not worried about the rest of the book … there’s plenty of stuff going on after the first 30 pages, but I’m now on the 4th rewrite of the opening sonata and it’s getting hard for me to tell how I’m doing with it.

So, I show my wife version #3, and she says, “You need pirates swinging cutlasses” and I say, “It’s not that kind of story”, but I agree the book deserves something better than what I’ve written so far.

Yesterday, my brother said I need to smack the reader in the face with the core concept, right out of the gate, and I said, “That calls for a data dump, a cardinal sin that will get my tail roasted in author circles.”

But I’m going to try it anyway, on you. Call to action here – after reading Chapter 1, will you spend the tokens to get a look at Chapter 2? I would be grateful if, having taken the time to read these words, you’ll invest a little more to leave a comment. Here we go …

Continue reading “What comes before ‘beta reader’? That’s what I need.” →
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How to buy a flying motorhome on Jivada

Another work-in-process teaser, this one from Elbert, the first book in the Anye Constituency series. Illustration by Khoi Anh

Badari

The seller was a goat farmer, living on the rocky north coast not far from the SagGha temple where Guru Orsa disembarked the day they met him. He was Mahat Limar, talkative, apparently richer than King Midas, having a leasehold spanning a huge tract of land dotted with feed stalls and animal shelters.

The travel coach was kept in a barn, a space dedicated more to veterinary science than goat hospitality, but there was community on hand. Charlotte would have taken one home if she had a place to keep it. “This female is adorable!” Continue reading “How to buy a flying motorhome on Jivada” →

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The Vigil

I’ve been watching my KENP stats this month, which reveal that someone’s been reading my books!

It seems likely that it’s one reader, but the app doesn’t reveal that information – and there’s a blip on May 16 suggesting a person (maybe the same reader, maybe not) finished Silken Thread in one sitting.

Regardless, someone is consuming 30-60 pages in the Anye Legacy series every morning. If it’s one reader, then that person must have liked the first book, because Quantum Soul picked up on the chart a day after the page count for Illusion of Gravity dropped off. I can’t wait to see if Resilient pops up next.

It’s like a lottery ticket in my pocket. Am I about to be discovered? Woo!

I don’t have a punchline for this post, except to say – if you’re intrigued, check out my books. You might be next on the chart!

Keep reading. We need you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How to build an alien death ray

Another teaser from a work-in-progress novel, demonstrating that it's hard to write hard science fiction. This bit might have flaws, as I've never actually built a laser. Comments from those who have are solicited.

Chapter 167

Titan Pass, Nevada

Lasers are uncomplicated devices, but as one scales them up, they can be challenging to build. Small gas and ruby lasers are easy to make; but if one desires a large-scale diamond laser, he’d better have on hand an assortment of supplies and tooling.

Borosilicate glass pipe, taken off the bill-of-materials of a coal dust combustion reactor (for a never-to-be-assembled abrasives processing line), makes a fine armature for a lasing rod.

Insert the pipe into the chuck of a CNC lathe/vertical milling machine, trickle in refined diamond grit, pulse into a liquid state with an Anye-tech fuser mounted to a servo-driven tool arm, manipulating crystal lattice structure with components made for a quantum assembler (which you will also never finish).

Dope the mix with semiconductor manufacturing chemicals, forming internal optical circuits. Measure with a full-spectrum LED shop light and high-resolution imager (a phone camera).

Mirror coat the borosilicate pipe. Apply a suspension containing light emitting precipitate (Anye-tech homebrew chemistry) to plastic-backed graphene mesh (Japan), and wrap that around your pipe. Tap the graphene mesh for power. Finish the assembly with parasitic cooling tape (from your nanoscale fabricator) and Plasti Dip automotive wheel paint (RockAuto).

Walla! You now have in your possession a thirty-seven-centimeter-long laser core which, when powered, is capable of instantly destroying meter-thick concrete. It’s also past midnight, you’re dead tired, and you haven’t built a flying platform yet.

 

Note – Featured image by Tom Edwards, a UK cover artist.

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Space opera!

This is a teaser from what will probably be Book 6 in the Anye Legacy series. The working title is A Habit of Providence. I’m having fun, and I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

International Space Station — Earth Orbit

The International Space Station crew crowded against a viewport, taking pictures and waving, but the mission commander was inhospitable over the radio. “We’re not supposed to talk to you.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.” Elbert tossed a token into the augmented reality workspace. “Feel free to jump in.”

Pam instantiated a virtual push-to-talk widget; it felt rubbery, rough on one side, like it was really there, a surreal artifact of the universe she’d entered. “I’m Pamela Carlson, United States Army Reserve, and we’d really like to have a conversation.”

“Miss; I have the radio. Conversation over.”

Pam nudged Elbert on the shoulder, pointing out a handwritten sign taped to the inside of the viewport, saying ‘4 bars! millietheastronaut@spacecenter.de’. “It looks like you left your cell tower emulator on.”

It took ten minutes to strike an accord with the rest of the ISS crew and get on their way.

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Thought experiment …

I wrote a 9,700 word short story, a consequence of thinking ahead to Book 6 in the Anye Legacy series. It’s now making rounds at the SciFi monthly magazines for publication.

Rendezvous at the Lazy L

In 1920s South Dakota, a small-town physician learns that a local dude ranch is a destination for offworld tourists.

Black Rock, South Dakota — 1928

Francine Suraksin dallied at the gift store’s liquor display while her husband mooned over a Winchester rifle, a rite of departure he observed each season. The concessionaire — a tough-looking ex-policeman, ethnic Anye Kopin, pelt shaved so tight you could see skin — got to the point. “Buy it. You aren’t coming next year.”

That was a fact; after seven hundred years of adventure tourism along the retracement of 84 light-years previously untraveled since the Bronze Age, a time had arrived when non-humans could no longer risk dropping into the hills for calf-roping lessons, nature hikes and steak dinners. Continue reading “Thought experiment …” →

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Naked self-promotion

My Anye Legacy eBooks are finally starting to move!

According to reviewer Josh Grant at Diabolic Shrimp, the first book is “Sci-Fi with substance” with “Great action and intrigue”. Would that Josh had read all 3 – he could have said, “Literary SF, epic plots, thoughtful storytelling for grown-ups” or something like that. Not that I would coach anybody – although if you buy the books and say nice things on Amazon, I will not be offended.

Here’s the call-to-action – I need reviews and a boost in sales ranking on Amazon, else my work will never rise in the search lists enough to be noticed.  You can help by sharing my WordPress URL. What the heck – it’s only a click, and I promise not to embarrass you. The books are written-to-inspiration, rather than written-to-market, and some people think they’re pretty good.

Thanks for reading. We need you. Keep doing it. Comments welcome.

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Goaltending – John Dyer Writes

One of my goals in writing science fiction is to promote an ambience of authenticity — which can be problematic when much of the landscape is mythological. I cover part of this ground by wrapping the fantastic in the mundane — making the story more believable in a visceral sense. Thus, in Resilient, Sattva Pala is introduced as a disembodied soul, brought across a dimensional boundary, raised in the Virtuality under a cloud of presumption that she’s an angel sent by the Gods. In counterpoint, she manifests as a complicated young woman with a confusing life and all the insecurities a person experiences from living in a real world.

In The Illusion of Gravity, a manufacturing executive invests in an emerging technology startup, but doesn’t tell his boss the project is about anti-gravity — a decision that makes sense to anyone who understands how staggeringly unimaginative senior management can be. To close the loop, I devote a lot of energy to making the science plausible — and I think seasoned SF readers will notice I’m staking out my own territory in the genre.

Continue reading “Goaltending – John Dyer Writes” →

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Back into the fray ….

Now that I have 3 books to sell, it’s time to get serious about the trimmings. Who likes this version of a story capsule for The Illusion of Gravity? Who hates it? Tell me!

Imagine what it would be like if, in a thousand years, our civilization was little changed from the way it is today. This is the condition in which the Anye find themselves, centuries after building their first nuclear power plants — a mature race still traveling about in ground cars; flying spaceplanes to orbit, but no farther; suffering from disease, war and crime, languishing in hopeful anticipation of an historic moment with the potential to change everything, a blessing that never quite arrives.

 Until, in an event overshadowed by strife and circumstance, an epochal discovery unravels the mysteries of the universe. Physics student Rivan Saraf survives an experiment gone terribly wrong — only to be pursued by foreign agents, intent on either stealing his mentor’s work or killing those involved in it. It will be at Udak, on the boundary of Vidura’s icecap, where his team transforms emerging theory into applied science, demonstrating that gravity is not what everyone thought it was.

Now the question is: Will there be enough time for the Anye to forge a new destiny before an approaching catastrophe destroys them?

Set in an exotic yet familiar world — the Anye Legacy series is a provocative and deeply textured account of a divided people confronting the possible end of their existence.

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I’m ready for my close-up.

It is seventy thousand years in the past. Vidura is three million light years from Earth. Stalled in their industrial age for centuries, the Anye are poised at the edge of space under a dying sun.

Finally, in an event overshadowed by strife and circumstance, an epochal discovery unravels the mysteries of the universe. Now it remains to be seen if there’s time for the Anye to forge a new destiny for themselves.

Vividly imagined, demonstrating finesse at wrapping the fantastic in the mundane, the Anye Legacy books venture into literary science fiction territory with strong characters and a thoughtful, well-crafted narrative.

Set in an exotic yet familiar world — a playground for adventure, romance, science, intrigue and space opera — the series is a provocative and deeply textured account of a divided people confronting the possible end of their existence.

Available now, in eBook and print, on Amazon.

Enjoy!

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