Dance with The Devil, Fox Meridian 10, is out now.
Tag Archives: sci-fi
The Eyes of the Huntress
The new book is out. The Eyes of the Huntress.
This one was a long time coming. I originally started it in 2015, but I decided that the main character was a little too much like Aneka Jansen and went somewhere different. Well, now she’s back.
- Smashwords
- Amazon, ASIN: B07B2D559G.
In Other News
Having a little trouble with the Twilight Empress book. I’m taking the weekend to consider a fairly drastic change in the background, but whatever happens, I’m expecting it to appear on the virtual shelves in early May.
What Comes Next: Science Fiction
Over in another thread, Mark Delagasse brought up something which is worth making more of and I need to start thinking about this ahead of time, so here we go in my usual rambling style…
Aneka Jansen. The first Aneka book, The Steel Beneath The Skin, holds a place in my heart for the very simple reason that it was my first really successful novel. Seven books later, however, Aneka is getting hard to write for and her story is going to come to an end (at least as far as me being able to write for her) in the foreseeable future. I need something to take her place.
I originally thought that Fox Meridian was going to be the new Aneka, and for some people I suspect she fits the bill. However, I’m guessing she’s not for everyone. Mark, for example, likes Aneka, but would prefer a bit less ‘skin,’ so I’d have thought Fox would work, but he didn’t mention her. Fox is pretty much a near-future setting while Aneka pushes more into space opera. Fox is kind of low-key while Aneka is based around the big stuff. Lots to consider and not so much idea what people are looking for.
So, if I’m looking for a new universe to take up the torch when Aneka is sent off to a pleasant retirement, what should I be aiming at? What is it that attracted people to Aneka in the first place? Let’s see if I can structure this a little…
- Subgenre. More or less ultra-tech (scientifically implausible stuff like force fields, anti-gravity, artificial gravity, FTL), bigger or smaller themes. More space opera or more hard SF?
- The kick-ass heroine. I have had comments that it was nice to see a guy on the protagonist list in Vampire’s Kiss, so while I am likely to have a female lead, I am not averse to developing a strong male character too. What about Aneka and her friends did people like?
- Did people like the specific setting? If so, what about it?
- This has to be mentioned: sex. There’s a lot of sex in the Aneka books. I’ve been reducing it in more recent stuff (not entirely intentionally, it just works that way sometimes). Tone it down? Keep it the same? All-out porn?
- The last element I can think of here is the connectivity to our world. Aneka’s story starts off with no one even knowing where Earth is. There’s no sense of connected history from us, here, now, to the world of the stories. Stuff gets filled in later, but this is an entirely new universe when we start (like Dune or Star Wars rather than Star Trek). Is that good, bad, or really not an issue? Is the ‘discovering a new universe’ a factor in the enjoyment of the books?
Okay… Well, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. The more the merrier and I’ll try to coalesce the undoubtedly huge range of answers into something I can work with. This should be interesting… (Just like the curse.)
Time and the Gunwitch
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate time travel stories?
Okay, there’s Doctor Who, but that treats time the same way Star Trek treats space: it’s a way of getting between adventures. And it never really treats its time travel very seriously anyway, and that’s usually the only way I can stomach time travel plots.
It isn’t that time travel makes for bad stories, it’s more that you need a really good writer to avoid turning a time travel story into one, huge, horrible, gaping plot hole. It’s especially bad when TV writers get their hands on the idea. I have never seen time travel done on TV, seriously, in any manner worth watching. It’s kind of annoying. Films don’t generally do better. I think the problem is that it’s really hard to write something involving time travel, that’s the typical kind where the time travellers are changing things, where you don’t need degrees in physics and philosophy to put it all together without making it sound stupid.
Let’s take the classic one as an example. It’s been used in a fair number of books and films, and it’s the basis for many more. Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder. I know, venerable science fiction author, big deal. I shouldn’t be going there, but… it just makes no damn sense. Time travel is used by people with more money than sense to go back in time so that they can hunt dinosaurs. They must be very careful not to change anything important (they hunt dinosaurs which are going to die soon after anyway) because tiny changes can cause unforeseen and massive changes back in the present. Someone steps on a butterfly and the world changes. Frequently the story is represented as bringing the dinosaurs back, but that’s not what actually happens in the original story, just in many of the remakes.
So, what’s the problem? Well, in the original story the changes are too subtle, or too extreme, depending on your point of view. Human society has been changed by the death of a single butterfly. Even assuming large-scale chaos theory-type conditions, changes to human society are too subtle while the probability that humans would be wiped out, along with the time travel system seems both unlikely and yet more realistic. If you switch it and bring the dinosaurs back, well, that’s beyond ludicrous: the dinosaurs were wiped out by large-scale climate change, possibly involving a huge meteorite impact: if you can stop a space rock hitting Earth by stepping on a butterfly… Well, just no.
Other plots tend to leave gaping holes, or be illogical. I’ve been enjoying The Flash recently. Good series, I like it. However, the time travel stuff thus far has had more holes in it than I care to think about. What got me into writing this post was a film I just watched on Netflix called ARQ. That features a Groundhog Day-style time loop, but it’s done very seriously and those only ever work played for laughs. (For the record, Xena and Stargate SG1 have done Groundhog Day episodes that I thoroughly enjoyed, but they were played for laughs, which is the w I like it.) Also, I was discussing time travel stories with a friend recently and I mentioned that I had written a time travel story once and I had reread it very recently…
And that gets me to the Gunwitch. She was a character I created for the Going Rogue supplement to the City of Heroes MMO. As with many of the characters I created for that game, bits of her have made it into my books, but I did a lot of pretty good stuff for Gunny and I was reminded of her recently. She was definitely one of my favourite characters and I decided that I was going to bring her back from video game oblivion. The setting had to change, of course, which does change the character a little, but I can get pretty much all that Gunwitch goodness out. Assuming nothing goes wrong – and it’s going pretty well so far – the first book will be out November/December and will be called Gunwitch: Rebirth for two reasons, one in-continuity and the other because I’m bringing her back for the book.
And one of the Gunwitch stories I won’t be doing again, sadly, is one I called Murder in the Orchard. In that one our plucky heroine is sent back in time to 1927 to investigate a string of mysterious murders which happened in an English country village. They know they have to send her back because (drum roll) they have a picture of her taken in 1927 at one of the crime scenes, so she has already investigated the crimes, she just needs to get there to do it. It was a closed loop time travel story; going back in time was simply fulfilling history which was known to have happened. It’s one of the few kinds of time travel plot I can handle without my teeth itching. Plus… I really wanted to write an English cosy mystery story with a sci-fi element…
Anyway, another wall of text there, I feel you deserve a picture so here’s the latest concept art for the Gunwitch. There will be more about her later, but that’s what you’re getting for now.
Tagged characters, City of Heroes, concept art, Gunwitch, MMO, Netflix, sci-fi, science fiction, time travel
The Ghost in the Doll
Out now.
Before the guessing game starts… That’s obviously Fox on the left. On the right is Yuriko Fukui, looking displeased. The middle character is more of a type than a specific character; read the book to find out more.
The Fox Resolution – Spoilers For Emergence
This post is related to a previous post, The Fox Dilema. It contains spoilers for Emergence, so if you haven’t read that book, stop reading now.
Posted in Aneka Jansen, Fox Meridian, Opinion, Writing
Tagged characters, sci-fi, technology, uploading
It Has Emerged
Probably a better title for when I release the book, but…
Someone suggested I should post more frequently, even if it’s just something about what stage the writing’s in. Maybe some word counts… Almost certainly not going to do that, because it might be depressing for one thing. And I’m not going to promise to post regularly because… Well, my brain doesn’t work like that. I am lousy at the social media thing because I just plain don’t think of it as a thing to do. Possibly an age thing: I’ve been doing stuff internet related since before it was a thing, but I don’t have the mindset for what it’s become. But…
Since I seem to be in the mood currently (this’ll be 3 posts in 2 days! go me!), here’s the progress update. (And, yes I have updated the What I’m Working On page.)
Emergence is code-complete. That means it’s got all its words in it and it’s moved to the ‘awaiting editing’ phase.
I’m currently working on the plotting for The Ghost in the Doll, a title which will make far more sense when you start reading it, honestly. Yes, it’s also obviously a play on both The Ghost in the Machine and The Ghost in the Shell (which, of course is a reference to The Ghost in the Machine in itself, meta-references FTW!), but there are in-universe elements which will be revealed. First hints in Emergence.
But before I start writing GitD, Frostburn will get its first edit run. As I recall, there’s a missing scene I need to write, so that’s going to take a little longer than usual, but I expect to get started on GitD by the end of this week, barring unforeseen meteorite strikes or robot invasions.
In case you’re wondering, I don’t currently have the slightest clue what’s going to come after GitD. I should probably do something seriously different, but we’ll see where my mind is wheeling in a month.
Criminal Minds Are Everywhere
Well, they’re on Amazon and Smashwords. Criminal Minds, the 4th Fox Meridian book has now been released.
You can find it:
(Very slow from Amazon this time. Links above, but some regions may not be live yet.)
Elsa, Where Are You?
Let it Sn(G)o(w)! (My little niece is really into Frozen. Truth be told, I rather like it to.)
Anyway, here in Manchester, UK, it’s snowing. Big, thick, sticky flakes have been falling all morning and show no sign of stopping. We’re not that high up here and it’s a little too warm and wet for anything to build up. We are not talking winter wonderland here. But we’ve got snow. Real, proper, wintery snow, in March. Not very British.
It’s a perfect day to go through proofs of a novel! Okay, so it’s never a perfect day to go through proofs, but I have no desire to go outside so… Criminal Minds is back from Kate, my wonderful proofreader, and I’m working through the edits. It takes a while. Never let it be said that writing is all fun and inspiration. Also, sometime in the next day or two I need to come up with a cover and I have no ideas for that right now. However, expect to be seeing Criminal Minds at Amazon and Smashwords before the weekend is out.
I’ve booked the next Ultrahumans book (still no name…) for proofreading in mid-April, so that is going to be the next book out after Criminal Minds. This will deal with the aftermath of the demise of the Tonaldo crime-family, finally reveal what’s going on with that mysterious find in the Southern Ocean, and take us to San Francisco.
And then… Well, next Wednesday is probably going to be a break day as I spend most of it running around a disease-ravaged New York (I’ve got Tom Clancy’s The Division coming on Tuesday, but Amazon never seem to deliver games to me in a timely manner, so Wednesday…). I’ve started writing something called The Collective, but I’m saying nothing more about that one right now because I’m not entirely convinced about it. On March 18th, Daredevil season 2 is out, and on the 28th I’ve got tickets to see Batman vs. Superman in glorious IMAX 3D (never done IMAX 3D before, which is why I’m bothering with the gimmick). This kind of sudden influx of superhero imagery could easily result in me throwing my hands up and leaping into Ultrahumans 4 which is called Frostburn (you note I know that, but I still haven’t figured out a title for book 3…). I know what’s in it, so it’s just a matter of writing it down and I’ll probably be in the mood… We’ll see.
Posted in Fox Meridian, News, Ultrahumans
Tagged amazon, Criminal Minds, ebook, sci-fi, smashwords, snow, superheroes, The Division
Continuity of Reality
Someone mentioned the idea of crossover-style stories in a comment and this is not exactly about that, but it’s related: how connected are the universes my novels take place in?
First off, what universes are we talking about:
- Thaumatology: This world came first, so it’s first in the list. A fantasy reality with a modern, alternate history setting. Magic exists, and demons and fae, and there are at least three connected dimensions with travel between them. The setting does take a view that magic can be explained through science: humans (the protagonist for example) have created a branch of physics called thaumatology to study it. However, the Thaumatology Earth was fairly magic-free before 1945.
- Aneka Jansen: Starting out with a relatively hard science basis, Aneka’s universe has progressed to more and more “magic science.” I could do an entire article on what I consider “magic science” to be, but when Aneka kicked off the only real super-science elements were FTL (travel and comms) and gravity manipulation. Over the course of time we’ve had force fields and wormholes work their way in.
- Ultrahumans: A superhero reality where a mysterious “cosmic power” gives some people the ability to do amazing things.
- Unobtainium: A steam/retropunk world where the “Miracle Metal” Unobtainium has been discovered and has forged a surge in technological development which did not happen in our world. In the 1920s they have near-indestructible warships, super airships, powered exoskeletons, and nuclear reactors.
- Reality Hack: You haven’t seen this one yet and I won’t spoil too much yet, but this is an urban fantasy setting with a twist, and a system of magic which involves, well, hacking reality.
- Fox Hunt: (You heard it here first folks!) The book to follow Reality Hack is currently called Fox Hunt and the setting for it is a near-future, hard-science one. It’s bright cyberpunk: the world has its cruddy, dark side, to be sure, but it’s not a typical near-future dystopia either. So, science, no magic, and that’s all you’re getting for now.
So, do I put all my worlds in one, overarching cosmos? Could Ceri Brent take a step sideways and visit Aneka? Well, let’s put that one to bed first: no because there’s one thing I don’t like and that’s time travel, and Aneka’s world is a thousand years after Ceri’s as well as being a dimension away. Aside from the possibility of comedy short stories, Ceri and Aneka are not going to meet. (And can you imagine it? Ella and Lily would vanish into a bedroom and never be heard from again. No. Just no.)
On the other hand, there is a little hint in Steel Beneath the Skin that Aneka’s world is part of the same cosmology as the Thaumatology books. It’s subtle and I always wondered whether anyone ever noticed it, but it is there. (And no, I won’t say what it is, because I’m evil.) In truth I’ve never really come to a solid decision about whether the Ultrahumans cosmic power and Unobtainium are explained via the same processes as Thaumatology’s magic, but I could certainly make an argument for it.
Reality Hack is a very special case and is definitely not governed by the same rules as the other worlds. You’ll get more on the reason for that (assuming you haven’t guessed) in the next few days as I ramp up to its release. Fox Hunt’s setting is the same, but for different reasons: it’s a hard-science setting so you are not going to see the kind of fantastic stuff which exists in the other books. Fox Hunt is about technology as it might progress in our world, plus the usual kickass heroine, no need for magic.
So, a lot of my stuff probably exists within the same cosmological reality with the same fundamental laws of physics modified by conditions within a particular universe. (If you want to know how the magic works, you need to go read some of Ceri and Cheryl’s papers on thauminos and the Super-Magic Field. They’re a bit heavy on the maths though.) It’s theoretically possible to have some of the characters wander from one storyline to the other. Outside of non-canonical short stories done mainly for comedy, however, don’t expect to see it from me. The worlds I make are separate for a reason and they’ll be staying that way.
Posted in Aneka Jansen, Reality Hack, Thaumatology, Ultrahumans, Unobtainium
Witches and Ray-Guns 