Our first import to Unreal Engine 5.4 from Blender 4.1.
Small steps. You get that, right?
Run, robot, run!
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.
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!”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!”Call of the Muse
I’m recently enticed by a call for submissions issued by The Dark London and Transmission Roundhouse entitled “A curation of audio works from new producers”, serendipitously appearing the day I joined a podcasters support group.
It’s fate, right? I’m thinking about podcasting a novel, and some outfit throws out an opportunity to practice. May 17 deadline. Not impossible.
Now to make a decision — straight-up reading, dramatic reading, or full-on radio play?
Maybe you can help with that. Short story draft appended. Comments invited.Continue reading “Call of the Muse”
Space War!
Yet another teaser from Maroli Tango. Enjoy!
The first chapter of a story is always the hardest to finish, even when last words have been written.
Anuraga Media’s first installment of Unseen was burdened by an elephant in the room, a twist if you will, motivation to rush the backstory with documentary footage, the void of space, the glitter of stars, a giant spaceship firing lasers, subtitled communications chatter.
Visceral. Trust the audience to get the idea. Jump right in.
Continue reading “Space War!”Bar Fight!
A favorite action scene reprised from the Maroli Tango first draft, later in the narrative as a consequence of re-structuring the book, colorized for your enjoyment.
Arlington, Virginia
The landing zone was a dumpster farm behind a strip mall, half a block from a franchise bar and grill. Citra, Mason Fowlkes’ 9-meter spaceboat, was parked inconspicuously alongside a semi-trailer with a flat tire.
The sun had been down half an hour. A dusk-to-dawn fixture above a mattress store loading dock was the only ambient light source. Somebody, somewhere, was smoking a cigarette.
Continue reading “Bar Fight!”Psyched Out!
Another teaser from Maroli Tango. Now that I know who the cast is, I'm moving ideas forward in the manuscript and writing new material. I've thrown away almost 10,000 words, but the count is only down 2,000. I don't know if that's good or bad. Yes, it's still a Science Fiction book. No, I'm still not serializing it.
Titan Pass, Nevada
The Clover hab Mason Fowlkes shared with his sister was set apart by a bricklayer’s trowel fastened to a mailbox post, and a girl’s bicycle on a kickstand, propped up by a strategically located chunk of shale rock on the ground.
Erin Fowlkes appeared with her also-ten-year-old friend Kelly, who said her name, shook everyone’s hand, and rode her bike away as fast as she could.
Continue reading “Psyched Out!”
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