I'll be back with more

in 2024!

Courting Disaster: What's With the Helmet?

As promised in my last post, here's the scene from my upcoming release, Courting Disaster, where Captain Navene Jagger, a top tier military captain on the cusp of a big promotion to command a newly commissioned battleship, is struggling to make sense of his interim assignment...

...and the helmet he's been issued to go with it. 

If you missed my earlier post about an excerpt from the opening of Courting Disaster, you can find it here.

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Jagger stood at the docking bay entrance, trying to find any positives in this gigadam boondoggle. He’d be flying solo, he reminded himself, just like the glory days of slicing through space in his Rimmcraft Stiletto. It might not be all bad. That thought tumbled and burned the moment he caught sight of the shipwreck at the end of the boarding passage.

He checked the bay number again. Yes. Right bay. He just couldn’t believe what was berthed there.

The Sheeban’s battered two-deck carcass could’ve been a clunky, mid-ranged compost hauler that had seen its best days centuries ago. They wanted him to transport an ambassador’s daughter through a very treacherous region of space in this wreck?

What was the story here?

And his newly requisitioned civilian attire? A worn set of coveralls, untailored, drab gray, and lacking any insignias. People were going to take him for a second-rate mechanic in these faded greaseskins instead of a top-flight Carduwan officer.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The garb came complete with a battered helmet and face shield. What was he supposed to be—a pilot or a test-flight dummy?

Judging by the look of his vessel, it was the latter.

The admiral couldn’t be serious about this. Maybe this was Kareek’s idea of a joke? Or an elaborate hazing meant to take him down a peg or two before he was presented with command of the Meritorious?

He glanced at the small packet the quartermaster had pressed into his hand. “There’s a purser’s safe under the pilot’s console,” the non-com had told him. “Use these lock codes to open it once you’ve cleared station and are on course for the Rift. It contains your classified directive from Command.”

This “directive” would hopefully shed a lot more light on the situation. Jagger gave the aged ship another skeptical once-over. It was always an option to refuse a mission, but—he heaved a weighty sigh—that had Career Ending Catastrophe stamped all over it. 

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Thanks for stopping by to read a bit more of my upcoming release. 

I'll be taking a short hiatus from now until the New Year (hey, where did 2023 go, anyway?), but I'll be back with more posts in January. 

Have a wonderful holiday!

Courting Disaster is at the Top of my 2024 Resolutions!

Hmm, that may have sounded a bit like a prophecy of doom, but in reality Courting Disaster is my next project with a hopeful Spring-ish 2024 release date.

The original story was published as a part of the Pets in Space 2 anthology (when the series was still young), but the new incarnation is a much revised story with new, changed and expanded scenes. It's weighing in at roughly twice the word count.

Truth be told, although Courting Disaster was my second StarDog story in the Inherited Stars series, it's the one that required the most enhancing and tweaking because it's an important precursor to the grand finale of this timeline. (And yes, I'm an admitted perfectionist and that has sometimes pulled the rug out from under my schedule. I'd say that I'd try harder to be less of a perfectionist, but really....what reader really wants that?)

In hindsight, it actually will work out well with Courting Disaster being the final StarDog story released as a standalone, because it's the perfect segue into the novel that will wrap the timeline, Inherit the Vengeance. 

So in other words, it's all good.  :)

Let me leave you with an excerpt of the opening, where the reader meets (or gets reacquainted with) the hero, Captain Navene Jagger. If you've read the anchor novel, Inherit the Stars, Jagger might not have seemed like hero material....but there's a lot more to the man than his swagger. 

[But why is he wearing a helmet on the cover, you ask? Check back for the next excerpt where Jagger asks the same question. ;) ]

Here's a first look.

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Captain Navene Jagger smiled as he gazed out the viewport of the immense space station. Talstar. Home of the Universal Flight Academy, orbiting the lush blue world of Veros. Good memories here. Heady times with his fellow cadets during the three calendars it had required to earn his wings. He’d left the program with salutatorian honors.

But without Drea.

His smile slipped. Not every recollection of Talstar was a good one. The broken engagement. The devastation in Drea’s eyes. Watching her walk away for the last time. It had been his greatest defeat—Hades, his only defeat. And he had no one to blame but himself.

He’d left Talstar the day after graduation, stripped of his plans to test her father’s Mennelsohn prototype, and promptly joined the Carduwan military.

That had been ten calendars ago. Ten very long calendars. He’d spent the first seven trying to apologize to Drea for the unforgiveable, trying to prove to her he’d changed, trying desperately to win her back.

Then Sair happened. Drea had fallen in love with an escaped slave. A nobody. Or so he’d thought.

That was when he’d finally grasped the scale of the wedge he’d driven between them by his foolish, ego-driven folly. He’d done this. He’d destroyed their relationship. Not Drea. And, gods knew, not even Sair.

That realization had sparked his transformation. He’d reinvented himself, stopped being a ladies’ man, stopped being anything other than a dedicated officer married to his career. He didn’t have love…but at least he had pride. And purpose.

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More excerpts will follow soon. 

More on a Work in Progress

Not too long ago I wrote a blog on a villain in one of my novels and on some of the dynamics surrounding villains and how they use lies to create a false narrative. If you didn't catch it, you can read it here.

Roughly twenty-one years prior to the opening of my novel, working title "Draxis," there was a legendary infamous clash that became known as the Battle for Draxis (the working title of  my WIP novella). It was the first time in their over 13,000 year history that this planet had experienced a war between two factions, where citizens died as a result of the conflict, and it shook the civilization to its foundation. 

This terrible clash arose from a lie. Or more accurately, a series of related lies and half-truths. One leader repeatedly accused his challenger of being a would-be usurper and a pariah who would lead the planet to ruin and enslave the populace (when in fact, the one making the claims was actually the one plotting to do all of those things). 

A manipulator can always find clever ways to twist the truth and turn the tables on his enemy, even when the truth should be quite obvious to any reasonably intelligent human being (...or reasonably intelligent alien, in this case). Sometimes people will buy into lies simply because they want to believe them, and because they prefer the status quo over change. Even if it promises to be for the better, many see change as disruptive and unsettling. "Don't upset the apple cart!"

My mission in writing this story is to present the unfolding drama in such a way that the reader can't be sure who is truly the Good Guy and who is the Bad Guy. Only the two opponents' actions and decisions in the course of the events will reveal their true characters.

This story is told from the perspective of Giadius [GEE ah Dee us], who is an important figure in the saga not only for who he is, but for how he later influences two central characters in the following novel. But at this point in time, he's definitely standing firmly in the grey area of doubt. He, like the reader, will have to make his own determination who to align with as events unfold.

I anticipate this story will be novella length, and if all goes according to plan, I'll release it as a companion to the full-length novel. 

Here's a quick peek at the opening, which I'm just beginning to hammer out. It's still very much a work in progress. All comments or questions welcome.

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The Great Palace 

The City of Tahr

Draxis

From the high balcony, Giadius watched a star fall from the infinite blackness of the heavens. A burning star, its light flooding the dark plazas below in an expanding circle of illumination. Sound followed the light, a low rumble that crescendoed into a terrifying roar. Next came the blasts of searing heat. Giadius raised a hand to shield his face from the burn.

In the city below him, those awakened by the calamity rushed into the streets, screaming in terror. He felt no panic. The knowledge and memories of such an event had faded from the conscience of Draxis a generation ago. But he understood. Ultas hadn't prepared his people, so what could this mean to them but the end of their world?

Members of the royal staff flooded onto the balcony beside him, freezing in place to cry and curse and stare. Giadius exploited the confusion to slip through their ranks and back inside the palace before any came to their collective senses. He sidestepped the squad of guards charging up the steps to the second level and made way down to the now unguarded entry to the royal chambers below. Pitting his full weight against the massive door, he pushed it open just enough to angle through. Outside, he found the halls of the palace deserted. 

This was his epiphany--his sign. A chance to slip his invisible bonds and disappear in the chaos. He knew what this meant. He knew who was coming. 

He would be the first to meet the invaders. 

 

Author Behaving Badly (My Take)

Or in this case, maybe the title should be "Would-Be Debut" author behaving badly. 

So we've had a bit of a blow up in the literary world that apparently came to a head in just the last few days. It apparently reared its ugly head as a big Goodreads scandal via Twitter ("X") and other social media sites.

Not being a big fan of social media, I missed this entire kerfuffle, but my Google search snagged it because it was allegedly, and very sadly, a debut science fiction romance author who appears to be at the root of the scandal. 

Over the years, I've seen similar author vs. author sabotage attempts. In the end, it always comes back to bite the one who's attempting to downgrade his or her peers' books in hopes of making theirs look more appealing. 

It almost always backfires, and sometimes -- like this instance -- spectacularly.

Authors are often accused of bad behavior (sometimes merely for trying to ethically promote their books) but this is the definition of bad behavior via a particularly vicious form of competition assassination by leaving negative reviews under an array of false identities for their (so-called) competitor's books. And according to multiple articles, it costed the author in question her debut book release, her agent, and probably her career after first attempting to blame it on a "friend," and then finally admitting responsibility.

Let me link you to one of the articles (that isn't behind a paywall) before I continue, so you can catch up on the situation:

Review Bombing and Lost Book Deals: The Goodreads Scandal Explained

Sadly, what this and a few other authors don't sometimes grasp is that they have a unique product where sales are often boosted -- not impacted -- by similar books that sell well. These aren't refrigerators we're selling, where a single sale per customer isn't probably going to be repeated for ten or so years. People who buy books buy a LOT of books, and reading one book they really enjoy often causes them to search out more books in the same vein. Authors, therefore, aren't in competition with each other, and can instead complement the success of peers by supporting them and their work, and helping to create a demand for books in the same genre. 

So instead of trying to wreck havoc on sales for our peers (and wrecking our own careers in the process), we're much better off helping to build support for their books with a good review or mention to other readers. I had a peer who used to say "A rising tide floats all boats."  

The more popular the genre, the better for all who write the books. 

How very sad this individual didn't learn that "golden rule of the publishing industry" before they brought ruin to their own would-be career. 

Other sources:  NYTimes