The Quantum Universe: Casting a Broad Net.

Posted by dougdandridge on May 24, 2020
Posted in: Alien Life, Antimatter, Far Future, Future Warfare, Multiverse, Nanotechnology, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Uncategorized, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

QU1

The Quantum Universe an be found on Amazon here. And on Amazon UK here.

Several years ago I attended a workshop presented by my friend David Farland called Greenlighting Your Novel. In the workshop David told us how Hollywood made their decisions on what movies to make based on their predicted potential audiences, and how some authors did the same with their books. Through the last year I have been studying Hollywood and the movie making business. Frankly, most audience members aren’t passionate on the backgrounds of their movies like this movie goer. While I might rage against Disney for altering the backgrounds of the Marvel Superheroes I grew up with, or completely destroying the Star Wars Franchise, most movie goers are what are known as the popcorn audience. They are really only there to be entertained, and could care less about the history of the franchises.

With that in mind I have been worldbuilding a number of new series, including a space opera, a post-apocalyptic and a high fantasy. The latter two will come out later this year or early next, while the first book of the space opera series is out now. I will continue to write Exodus: Empires at War at a reduced rate. Basically, I am running out of ideas for that series, while this new one has spurred the creative processes to new heights. The first book, The Quantum Universe: Book 1: Taking the Void, has been out on Amazon for several days, unannounced, which was part of an experiment I ran to see how much publicizing really means for sales. It actually had some sales, letting me know that there are people out there looking for my new releases.

So, you may ask, What is The Quantum Universe? In the Amazon blurb I said it was a little bit Star Wars, a little bit Star Trek, a little bit Exodus: Empires of War, and a lot of new stuff. It still has much of the real scientific facts as we understand them as Exodus had. And it builds on the theory that the Universe we see is built upon a foundation of the massive energies of the Quantum Foam, the theoretical construct at the Plank Scale, the smallest possible measurement. I imagined the Foam as a roiling mass of energy, incomprehensible, that gave birth, temporarily, to our physical universe. Temporarily? What, fifteen billion years and counting? Well, compared to eternity it is a blip. Organic brains are Quantum structures, capable of interacting with the foam, leading to Psi powers and superhumans. Nine human nations, six major alien races and numerous with lesser influence, it is quite a tapestry to paint a series upon. The Foam figures largely in everything. Ships draw their energies from it, minds draw on its power to manipulate the macro universe, and matter can be destroyed and returned to it, making the disintegrator beams of popular scifi possible.

And it’s a love story as well, with an isolated noblewoman and ship commander finding her soul mate in a trillionaire industrialist on a personal crusade to kill pirates like those who raped and killed his wife and daughter. Anyway, I fell in love with the ideas within this series, and hope to write at least twenty books in it, learning from the lessons of my first successful series, Empires at War. Because, to be frank, I knew little about series when I started that one. It just kind of took off, and I was just along for the ride. I hope you will come along with me on it.

And now, the excerpt:

“Navigator,” shouted Captain the Lady Kathryn Howard over the cacophony of klaxons and damage alerts sounding throughout the bridge. “How soon can you plot a course back through the jump point.”

“As soon as the helm can get us around and the engineer can power up the engines,” shouted back Lieutenant Sg Yohiri Yamaguchi, her eyes unfocused in the way of a Psi accessing the quantum realms.

The Osaka shook from yet another hit, this one more vicious than any that had come before. The damage schematic over the engineering board lit with a riot of red all along the eight hundred- and seventy-four-meter hull, but most of it centered in the area that they now needed the most.

“That hit went right through our screens and took out the stern jump engines, ma’am,” came the panicked voice of Commander Matthew Luis, the chief engineer, over the intercom.

“Shit,” cursed the captain under her breath. They still had the forward jump engines, but activating them without the accompanying stern units would simply rip the ship in half, propelling half of it back to the star they had come from while the rear of the vessel came apart. There was no guarantee that the bow would complete the journey either. Chances were they would all die if they tried that jump.

Kathryn glanced quickly at the score of holos that hung in the air around her command chair, then to the central plot, showing the system they were in and all the ships and planets they knew about. It was an M class star, one jump point, with a close in gas giant and a planet marked as inhabitable in orbit around that world. She looked to her left, where a number of stations curved around the plot, including the Driver position and her Psi Navigator’s station. To the left were the Weapons Station, and one down the Defensive position. Sensor and Com occupied the other side of the arrangement, while some more crew sat at their posts along the octagonal walls of the bridge.

“We still have eighty percent power on the blink drive,” called out the engineer from his station near the zero point extractors.

“Helm. Can you see a way out of here?” Howard shouted at the driver of the ship, Chief Warrant Officer Chosingar.

The eye stalks of the alien rotated back to look at her, the orbs moving from side to side then down in an approximation of a negative. “They have us surrounded, ma’am. I would risk collision no matter which vector I took.”

Not that it would matter, thought the captain. At eighty percent power, about two hundred and forty lights, the cruiser would not be able to outrun the smaller vessels around her. Even as that thought entered her head the ship shook once again from another hit driving through her shields. A few were in danger of falling completely, losing the protection of the hull by the hardened space around it.

“Got another,” yelled Lt. Commander Sergey Zolotov, the weapons officer. “That one won’t be bothering us anymore.”

“Just get on the next one, Commander,” said the captain in an admonishing tone. “You can congratulate yourself later.”

The officer nodded and went back to work, sending orders to his weapons crews. There was a tendency of those in charge of the weapons to want to fire back at every ship targeting their own vessel. Zolotov was smart, concentrating all of their firepower that could bear on a single target until it was gone. So far he had taken out a frigate and a corvette. The flare of the last ship was still on the forward viewer, plasma spreading out into the space around it.

And that could be us in a couple of minutes, thought the captain, fear running through her, as the ship shook again from multiple hits. How in the hell did we get into a mess like this?

Currently they had a destroyer, three frigates and twelve corvettes around them. None were transmitting any kind of recognition code as was mandated for all of the various fleets of the six-primary species in the Galactic Council. She could only assume they were pirates. In fact, she had known that the two corvettes she had chased through the jump point were pirates, and had thought it a good idea to make sure they caused no further trouble.

Great call, Kathryn, she thought, closing her eyes for a moment and shaking her head. This wasn’t even Terran Empire space. The light cruiser was out in the Void, a region on the edge of the Galaxy where stars were further apart than in the arms, to show the flag. The multiple millions of stars in the region were not under the governance of any of the major powers, though there were many overlapping claims, none pressed. This very region of the zone was claimed by two human and two Vox powers, and all were likely to have ships out here among the thousands of breakaway colonies. She had not looked forward to running into any of the other powers, especially the arrogant Voxannadril, but at the moment she would kiss one of the furballs if they came to her rescue.

Problem was, for all her size, the Osaka was really no better than an oversized destroyer. About twice the mass of the ships that the spacers of larger vessels had called Tin Cans since the days of the wet navies, due to their lack of armor, a light cruiser was just an enlarged version, capable of longer deployments, carrying more weapons, and no more capable of absorbing damage. Still, the cruiser could take on any two destroyers. Problem being that they were surrounded by more than three times their mass in warships.

“We’re picking up a quancom call from that freighter the pirates were menacing,” said Lt. JG Marcus Washington, looking back at her with wide eyes.

“Tell them we’re kind of busy here. Maybe they might want to consider making a run for it while their pursuers are busy.”

If the freighter could find a place to hide, unlikely, they might be able to jump out when the pirates left, if they did.

“Their captain is telling us to hold on, help is on the way.”

The cruiser shook again, a hard-hit tearing through the outer shields and piercing the thin armor. Howard looked over at the damage schematic, a chill running up her spine as she noted the blinking red over the medbay area in the heart of the ship.

“Doc,” she called out over the intercom. “Status.”

“We were hit by a quantum beam, ma’am,” came the voice of a med rating. “Medbay is a wreck. And the doc is gone. Hit by the beam, vaporized.”

The quantum beam, the most devasting weapon the ship carried, compressed and expanded space at the point of impact. Matter didn’t react well to that kind of motion, most times converting to vapor in an instant. Many times fading from reality altogether, back to the quantum foam that was the matrix of the Universe.

The young woman sounded on the verge of tears and Howard couldn’t blame her. She also couldn’t allow it to go on. “Get it together down there, uh?”

“Petty Officer Suarez, ma’am.”

“Get it together, Suarez. Take care of the people down there, and I promise I’ll get us out of this.”

The captain felt bad about the lie, but whatever it took to get one of her crew back to work. They might all be dead in a couple of minutes, but if they weren’t it would be because everyone had done their jobs.

“The destroyer is dead in space,” called out Zolotov, pumping a fist in the air. “I’m..”

The officer’s speech turned into a scream as his console sparked with shimmering power, the force of the quantum crystals powering the weapons feeding back into the controls. The officer jerked, then slumped in his chair, wisps of smoke rising from his nano armor.

“Corpsman to the bridge,” called out the captain over the intercom. “Someone take over the weapons.”

“Ma’am,” shouted Washington, staring at a com screen over his station. “That freighter just took out one of the frigates.”

“With what?” called out a shocked commanding officer.

“I don’t know what, ma’am. But whatever it was, it totally vaporized the frigate.”

That sounded like a class one quantum beam to the captain. Her own ship only carried banks of class threes. It’s a Q-ship? she wondered, thinking of armed freighters that were equipped to ambush pirates. But surely they hadn’t planned on fighting this many of them at once.

“Picking up incoming fighters, ma’am,” called out the PO who had assumed command of weapons from a secondary console. “And what appear to be a quartet of corvettes behind them.”

What in the hell did we poke our noses into here? thought the captain as the ship shook from another hit.

“The pirates are starting to turn away,” shouted the weapons PO in triumph.

“Kill as many as you can,” growled the captain, pointing a finger at the viewer.

The petty officer nodded and got to work. A quintet of quantum beams struck one of the enemy corvettes, blasting through its shields and converting ten thousand tons of matter to glowing particles. The ship went into a tumble, no longer able to do anything but fight for its life. Two glowing balls zipped from the torpedo tubes and hit one of the frigates, blasting through the side and sending it into a tumble as well. This tumble abbreviated as the small warship converted to plasma, its old-fashioned matter-antimatter reactors overloading.

The freighter killed another pair of pirates, while the rescuing corvettes and fighters took care of the rest. In a moment the fight was over. There were no survivors.

“Engineer. What do we have left?”

“Not much, ma’am. Jump drive is gone. Blink drive is gone. Most of our shields are gone. I can still give you full power to weapons and reactionless drive, but that’s about it.”

“Well, get what you can back to working order. We just got rescued, but I’m not so sure about who they are.” Not that we could handle what they have around us, she thought. That class one quantum weapon could take out the Osaka with one blast in her weakened condition.

“Getting another call, ma’am.”

“From the freighter?”

“No, ma’am. From that light carrier appearing on our sensors.”

What in the hell did we get into here? she thought once again.

Refuge: Book 6: The Last Battle is out on Amazon.

Posted by dougdandridge on March 21, 2020
Posted in: Barbarians, Fantasy, History, Military, Multiverse, Nuclear Weapons, Vampires, Writing. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Refuge6Ver1

Get it in the US Here.  In the UK Here.

I thought I was going to finish out this series. Enough people still like it for me to consider continuing, just not more than a book every couple of years. Still, I was thinking of ending it here. But something happened along the way.

I wrote two very long books, two hundred thousand words plus each, back in 2010. They were the first books I had written with the intention of self publishing. Due to many things, procrastination among them, I didn’t start self-publishing until December 31, 2011. For the next nine months I sold a total of forty odd books, not really enough to consider quitting my day job. I did a giveaway for The Deep Dark Well, which must have primed the pump. I gave away over four thousand of that book, which has gone on to sell over seven thousand since. Meanwhile, I had taken the two books I wrote in 2010 and cut them both into two books each, the first two volumes of Exodus: Empires at War and Refuge respectfully. I released Refuge first, in October 2012, thinking it had the most promise. After all, it had the most imaginative story line, about Earth people transported to another dimension where magic, dragons, elves and dwarves were real. It did okay, about three thousand books in the first three months, then went on to over eight thousand in the years since. The second book did almost as well, with little drop off.

I released the first book of Exodus: Empires at War in November 2012, and it took off. By the time I released the second book of the series, in January 2013, it had already sold five thousand books, and went on to hit the thirty thousand mark over the years. Obviously Exodus was the book that was going to allow me to quit my day job. In March of 2013 I did indeed quit my State job, and never looked back. I went on to write seventeen Exodus books, and now am contemplating the end of that series, after five or ten more books.

Refuge, on the other hand, kind of died out with book three, when I removed probably the most important aspect of the story. It was technology versus magic, modern armies versus ancient forces. I think that was the part that appealed to most people, but I had planned from the beginning to lose the tech and go back to basics. The Earth people would have to learn how to use what was around them, including magic. I had planned to introduce new/old tech as the series moved along. Trains, airships, even steam powered guns and artillery. But the next two books fell off too far, too fast. So I introduced the steam tech early. I had planned for twenty books, maybe more, and had developed the story line over a thousand years, since my main protagonists basically lived forever. And some of the evil antagonists as well, including the former SS man Heinrich Stuppleheim. So while writing book 6, which was to be the last in the series, I introduced Heinrich, and realized I could pull his story together and finish it in one book. So there will be more. Not often, but I will try to get one out every couple of years, so that the people who still enjoy the series have something to look forward to.

And now for the excerpt.

King Heinrich Stuppleheim, Heinrich the First, and probably the only, since he was an immortal, sat his throne in the great hall of the castle he had made his own. He no longer had the weapons that had won him a kingdom, defeating the Ellala elves and their red human servants with ease. Heinrich, once a full supporter of the Philosophy of Racial Purity, the doctrine espoused by the Fuhrer, wasn’t really sure what to do with the people of his kingdom. The elves were obviously a superior race, above even humans, with their long-life spans and affinity to magic. Not superior to Heinrich though, with his possibly infinite life span and immunity to any magic they might throw at him. That had surprised their mages, throwing their most powerful spells at him to no affect while he cut them down with impunity.

Heinrich had been a member of the Waffen SS, fighting on the Eastern Front, before getting his transfer to Auschwitz and the vital job of ridding the world of the Jews. Then he had been transferred to the Western Front, the Das Reich Division, the famous Death’s Heads, it in need of warm bodies. He had finished the war there, killing a Wehrmacht officer of his general proportions, and hiding out as a prisoner of war. Free a year later, despite being very recognizable to those he had tormented in the concentration camp, standing two meters tall and thin as a rail, he had worked the system. Having telepathic powers had helped, since with time he had been able to drive the witnesses mad, their behavior erratic enough that they were discounted.

After the war, his freedom won, the soldier had done the only thing he was good at. Soldiering. He worked as a mercenary officer in Africa, taking care of many of the border wars and revolutions that were a constant among what he thought of as the subhumans of the continent. He still thought of them as less than human, but he had changed his mind some as they became the soldiers he led. They may not have been the equal of white people in his mind, but they fought well and were loyal, so he gave them a pass. He still preferred his couple of hundred European and American troops, but if he were to lead a significant force, he needed to have the blacks on board.

It didn’t take long for him to give the Jews a pass as well. He followed them in the news, how they had taken their own country from the Arabs who outnumbered them twenty to one. Then fought a number of wars, always outnumbered, always victories, thanks in part to homegrown ingenuity and tactical flexibility. And their scientists had impressed. From the ones who had developed the Atomic bomb that Germany had proved incapable of producing, to their award winners in physics, chemistry and medicine, he had come to accept that the Fuhrer had been wrong about them as well. They weren’t Untermensch, but Ubermensch, just like the Germans, and if Hitler had enlisted them on his side, especially their scientists, things might have been much different. Or maybe not, since the odds had always been long against the Reich.

The immortal didn’t know what opened the dimensional gate to this world. There were no nuclear weapons used on the small piece of the Sudanese desert his battalion was in, taking down the animist rebels for the majority Muslim government. He had heard later that the closest bomb that had gone off had taken Cairo. It was enough to open the gate that transferred his nine hundred heavily armed troops, along with tens of thousands of Sudanese, and even a couple of thousand Arabic Egyptians, here with him.

It was difficult to look down on fellow Earth humans when they were the only allies one could depend on in this strange world. The mercenaries had cut down everything the natives had sent at him, until the ammo was gone. The Sudanese, with a tradition of swordsmanship, had then come to the fore. The faith of the Arabs and Sudanese had made them immune to magic as well. And Heinrich had found that his psychic powers had amplified a hundred-fold on this world. When the people of the land he was in had rallied against him he had blasted them with mental agony, while charging the enemy mages and shrugging off their magic until he cut them apart with the great sword he had started carrying when his firearms became useless.

“Your majesty,” said the Ellala, Felendal, who had become his steward and liaison with the other people. “General Gor-Shug is here to see you.”

“Send him in,” said Heinrich with a cold smile. He glanced back at his two bodyguards, three meter tall demons that he had called up during a blood ceremony. The red creatures wore the black uniforms of the SS, Death Head symbols on their collars, Swastikas on their left arms. Heinrich couldn’t use the standard magic of this world, but he had discovered that blood magic worked, the power coming from the dying victim and not passing through him.

“My King,” growled the ugly creature who marched into the throne room and gave a slight bow. He wore full plate armor, also in the black that was Heinrich’s favorite color, SS insignia prominent.

At first Heinrich hadn’t known what to make of the Orcs. They obviously were inferior to humans, in everything except physical strength and ferocity. That was enough to make them useful, and the Orcs of the nearby mountains would only serve under a general of their own. So the king had aided Gor-Shug in conquering the other Orcs of the mountains, and they had become part of the army of the Kingdom of Alsacia, as Heinrich had named it. He had become the king of the Orcs using their own traditions, a fist fight to prove who was the stronger. No other race on the planet beat the Orcs in a brawl, but Heinrich, with his superior speed and strength, had beaten Gor-Shug to the ground, and earned the undying loyalty of the savage people, who were now the heart of his army.

“The dwarves of the mountains refuse to bend the knee.”

Heinrich scowled at the Orc, not liking what he heard. He really hadn’t expected the proud warriors of the Grimikin, the Mountain Dwarves, to submit without a fight. Heinrich had conquered many villages of the lesser dwarves, the Dimikin, the forest variety. Those were good enough craftsmen and farmers, but everyone Heinrich had talked to had agreed that the Grimikin were the best metal smiths on the planet. And Heinrich wanted them working to produce weapons and armor for his forces.

“You know what to do,” he told Gor-Shug. “Kill as many as you have to until they submit. But make sure you leave enough of a population to mine and smith for me.”

“They have powerful earth magics,” said the Orc, frowning.

“Then take a regiment of my Muslims with you.”

The Orc smiled, a horrific sight to one not used to them. Heinrich had gathered every Muslim who had translated to this region during the exodus from Earth. He now had over a hundred thousand of them, among them thirty thousand adult warriors who were immune to magic. Those not raised to the sword had been trained by those who had been. As long as Heinrich let them worship Allah they were his. He really didn’t care if they worshiped a rock as long as they fought for him.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 17: The Rebirth is out.

Posted by dougdandridge on January 28, 2020
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, Far Future, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Nanotechnology, Space Industry, Space Navy, Space Program, Wormholes, Writing. Tagged: . 3 Comments

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Yesterday, January 27th, 2020, a day which will hopefully not live in infamy, I released the 17th book of the Exodus: Empires at War main series. I can be found here on Amazon.US, and here on Amazon.UK. And of course it can be found on Amazon sites around the world. This book took a little longer than my last, which was finished in less than a month. Just over two months is still better than the five it took for book 15. If you have read the last two books, you know that something has changed for the Ca’cadasan empire. The immature Emperor who thought with his glands is no longer in charge, and the thinking admiral, Mrastaran, is in his place. And everything has changed. The Caca fleet is no longer tasked with impossible mission that were leading to their destruction. They are into hit and run, using tactics from Earth’s past and new technologies to set up ambushes in furthering their new objectives.

This sets up a new story arc that will continue into several more books, setting up the finale’ for the series. Or maybe not. Things change when I am writing, and the Cacas may be around longer than I figured.

And now for the excerpt:

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about this new Emperor,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski. “So he’s smarter than the average Caca. That isn’t saying much.”

Admiral Lenkowski,” said the Countess Grand Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk, attending the conference from over nine thousand light years away, in the Nation of New Earth. “I have the utmost respect for you. So please take this the right way when I say that you are letting your own arrogance get in the way of a thoughtful approach to the problem.”

Sean smiled. Beata had a reputation of saying what she meant, no matter how much it hurt the feelings of the one she was talking too. She was actually developing some diplomatic acumen. She was developing the diplomacy to fit in with her elevation to Countess.

“They’re all dumb as rocks,” continued Len. “Sure, they sometimes get lucky, but they always seem to make the same mistakes, over and over.”

“This one is different,” said Beata. “He actually thinks before he acts. I counsel caution where he is concerned.”

Sean could tell from her expression that she was trying to hold back some comments. He happened to agree with her as far as this new Emperor was concerned. After studying the battle extensively, he could see that any human commander would have had trouble dealing with him. His respect for Bednarczyk had gone up several notches after going over her records from the battles. He still wasn’t sure if she was on the level of Lenkowski or Mgonda, but she was damned close.

“A secondary campaign on a secondary front,” scoffed Len, his eyes boring into the image of Bednarczyk. “I’m sure he won’t give an experienced fleet commander the same level of difficulty.”

Here it comes, thought Sean, preparing himself for the backlash.

“Why you trumped up, arrogant little child,” said Beata in a low voice. “How dare you. I doubt if you would have done any better against Mrastaran. In fact, I know it.”

“Why, you…”

“Enough,” yelled Sean, looking from holographic face to face, taking in the smiling visage of Mgonda and the scowling expression of Sondra McCullom as well. “I don’t expect that all of my admirals will like each other. I do expect that they will get along and work with each other. So, there will be no personal insults in these conferences. Understood?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” said Beata, looking down. “And I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Len was silent, like he was refusing to admit to any wrong.

“Do you understand me, Grand Fleet Admiral Lenkowski? Answer me.”

“I understand, your Majesty. And I will work on my, arrogance.”

Sean could tell that Len was still steaming. Well, he would just have to get used to it. Beata, by her actions and through her leadership, had joined the ranks of his senior commanders. If they didn’t want to welcome her into their exclusive club that was their prerogative. But, as he said, they would have to work with her. Even if she was on the other side of their enemy’s empire.

In fact, Beata was now the most decorated of his admirals, having earned not only the Imperial Medal of Heroism, but the President’s Medal of Honor from New Earth. Add to that her patent of nobility, and the only thing she lacked over the other grand fleet admirals was time in service.

“And so, Admiral Bednarczyk, what can you tell us about this new Emperor, the male you have faced in battle twice?” asked Mgonda, himself seeming much more welcoming of another opinion than Len.

“Well, one thing I can say,” said Beata after releasing a calming breath. “Don’t expect the normal Caca behavior from him. He thinks before he acts, and his decisions seem to be sound. He won’t sacrifice his ships or his people without good cause, though he will if he thinks it will give him an advantage.”

“You beat him, twice,” said Len, his tone indicating that he was discounting the intelligence of that Caca admiral, one beat by a newly promoted six star.

“And I almost lost my ass to him, twice,” said Beata, puffing up in anger once again. “I had so many tech advantages over him both times that a standard Caca admiral would have lost, badly. I only beat the Caca fleet so badly because the male that took over on his recall did something really stupid. Given time, Mrastaran would have pounded me until I had nothing left.”

“I agree with Admiral Bednarczyk,” said Ekaterina Sergiov, attending in person, sitting a chair close to the Emperor. “Our intelligence sources in their Empire, such as they are, have indicated that he is an unusual male. Most likely an atheist, he still adheres to the principles of their old religion. Said to be a philosopher, a thinker, he has managed to maneuver every male who has challenged him into an unwinnable situation. He studies history, including ours. Remember, the Cacas took whole libraries of book files from New Moscow. I expect he is going to make some decisions that the rest of his people won’t like, but in the long run we won’t like them either.”

“Any chance he offends enough people that they take him down?” asked Sondra McCollum, leaning forward in her chair.

“I doubt it,” answered Sergiov. “This is an intelligent and thoughtful male. He will only push as far as he thinks he can get away with it, then back off. He will let the people become accustomed to the changes he has made before he makes more of them. And he will make damned sure he is never alone with Cacas he doesn’t trust, insuring that he has sufficient security to take care of any attempted coup.”

“The bottom line, ladies and gentlemen,” said Sean, looking over steepled fingers, “is to expect the unexpected. Be ready for anything. If that means moving more cautiously than is the norm for yourselves, then do so.”

“That will give them more time to prepare, your Majesty,” said Mgonda, one eyebrow raised to show his questioning of that suggestion.

“Then it takes more time to get to their capital,” said Sean, nodding. “And we get there with more of our people alive. And just because he adheres to their old religion, don’t discount the possibility of the Cacas setting off more novas, with or without Mrastaran’s permission.”

“Anything else, your Majesty?” asked Mgonda, clearly impatient to get back to organizing for the coming campaign.

“No. Get your organizations ready. We move in one week.” Sean turned toward his newest countess and grand fleet admiral. “You had something you wanted to ask me, Countess.”

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 16: The Shield is out. And the recovery continues.

Posted by dougdandridge on November 18, 2019
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Antimatter, Far Future, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Nanotechnology, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Wormholes, Writing. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Exodus16ver1

Last night I put Exodus: Empires at War: Book 16: The Shield, up on Amazon. Book 16 continues the story about Beata Bednarczyk on the Klavarta Front. The Klavarta are actually genetically engineered humans who used a cover name so the Ca’cadasans wouldn’t know what they really were. The name has kind of stuck, and they use it as often as the term Human. The front is in turmoil, the New Earth fleet having been beaten by one of the more intelligent and thoughtful Caca admirals. And he is on the move again. Bednarczyk is burdened by the political concerns of the front, a real problem with diplomacy not being her strong suit. Great Admiral Mrastaran Hlrata is burdened as well by the constant oversight of an immature male Emperor whose every command seems destined to weaken his empire. And enter some unproven new tech that could win the fight, or lead to total disaster if it fails.

These last two books have reenergized me and my writing, and I am looking forward to doing at least five more Exodus books. In fact, I have already started on book 17, and hope to have it out by the end of December. In other news, I am now sleeping well most nights, no longer in the brain fog I endured for five months with severe insomnia. The meds I was given work, and I sleep between six and eight hours every night, enough to keep me functioning. I took a financial hit during those five months, and have my work cut out for me to get out of the financial hole, but I’m thinking it will happen. After book 17 I will sidetrack for a bit and get the final books of Theocracy and Refuge out. Final, for Refuge? I’m just not sure. I love the series, and really want it to go on, so maybe.

Book 16 can be found on Amazon.US here, and on Amazon.UK here.

And now for the excerpt.

Captain (Brevet) Henri Francois-Ramirez held in the stomach contents that threatened to spill onto the deck as the destroyer Zulu entered normal space. The captain, whose permanent rank was still commander, had never been an easy translator. He normally took medication to calm his stomach before a translation, which also made him somewhat drowsy. That couldn’t happen when translating in so close to the enemy, so he had gone without.

Zulu was a brand new destroyer, given to him since it had a better com suite than any of the other ships in the squadron. Named after a proud warrior people, who had used superior tactics to carve out an Empire in Iron Age Africa, he really didn’t want to dishonor its name by puking.

“Sir,” called out the tactical officer, Lt. Senior Marsha McTaggart, looking over from her station and not showing the least sign of translation sickness. “Everything appears to be as expected.”

“Jarvis is transmitting their data dump to us, sir,” said Lt. JG Tangana Kenyata, looking up from his com board. “We’re forwarding it back to command.”

“What about our other ships?”

There were eleven other destroyers in the squadron, replacing a like number of ships that would set a course through hyper as if they were leaving the vicinity. Every ship had a Klassekian aboard, though in their cases as backup. Main com was through the deployed wormhole they all carried, unusual for a squadron of such small ships.

“All are reporting that they translated in without incident, sir. Nothing to report.”

Henri let out a breath of relief. He, of course, didn’t want to lose any of his ships, or the very important cargo that all carried. To him the ships and crews were more important than any cargo they might have carried. Command wouldn’t have thought that way.

And I wonder how Gloria is doing? He thought, the image of his new bride coming to mind. Gloria Francois-Ramirez was the captain of another destroyer. She had been serving on this front, but regulations called for any married couple to be deployed to separate commands. Not just because they might make decisions based on saving their spouse, but because hesitation might bring on a disaster during a battle. So Gloria had been transferred to the main front.

It was a good rule, one that also applied to non-married personnel who were involved in a sexual relation. Of course some high ranking officers kept their affairs hidden, but couples that were married had their records immediately forwarded to Bureau of Personnel on Jewel. There was no hiding it, so now they were separated except for the infrequent times they might be able to get leave together.

I’ll think about you later, my dear, thought the squadron commander, opening his eyes and taking in the system plot. It was all well and good that his people were reporting that all was well and good. He needed to see that for himself, since the responsibility for the squadron rested on his narrow shoulders.

All appeared to be well. Twelve destroyers spaced out in their intervals around the system. They were groups along one side of the system, close enough to move through normal space at a low acceleration and gather into their assigned groups. There were several score concentrations of enemy ships within the system. At first glance they appeared to be patrolling. Computer studies showed those apparent patrols to be too random and lackluster. Intelligence thought they were using the same devices they had deployed to fool the Klavarta before the rout of their main fleet. Something to make Admiral Bednarczyk think they were setting a trap.

Also on the plot were the dozen stealth/attack ships still in the system. The Cacas would know they were there, but not where they were located., since they were giving off no graviton emissions. They were transmitting their locations through their wormholes, and the captain was seeing them through that. When the time came those ships would be firing streams of wormhole launched missiles, still not giving themselves away. The Cacas would be able to draw a line back from the trajectory of those missiles, but would not know where upon that line their enemy sat.

His ships could also fire streams of missiles, but only when the command came down. Until then it was important that the enemy not realize they had wormholes aboard their ships.

“Orders, sir?” asked his exec, Lt. Commander Crystal Ngursky over the com from the combat information center.

“We sit and we monitor, Crys,” he told her, looking into her ice blue eyes. “I’ll take first watch, so you and Daphne,” he continued, naming Lt. Commander Daphne Suarez, the chief engineer of the ship and third in command, “go ahead and get some rest.”

We might as well get it while we can, thought the squadron commander. Because when the balloon went up, they were unlikely to be getting much rest until the fight ended. If they made it that far.

“Iroquois reports enemy contact, sir,” called out one of the com techs, near panic on her face.

“What?” blurted out Henri, shocked.

“They’re taking fire, sir. They’re…We’ve lost contact.”

They had always considered the possibility that an enemy might be lurking nearby, despite the constant surveillance the scouts had given this system. But no one really believed that such an unlikely occurrence, dropping out of hyper close enough to an enemy ship that they would be hit with energy fire, would occur. Yet it had happened.

Almost three hundred crew, and the precious cargo that would concern command more than the loss of some spacers. They didn’t even have a chance to fight back.

“Enemy vessel is grav pulsing, sir,” called out the sensor tech on duty.

Reporting back to their command. Well, he could talk to his ships too, without giving away positions by graviton emissions. Except they already know exactly where we are, he thought. Were more ships about to be hit?

The next hour was filled with tension, as the captain waited for more reports of short, sharp battles to come in. Or for something to come out of the darkness and hit his ship, blasting it to plasma. Ending his life and his plans for the future.

Exodus 15 is out, and in other news.

Posted by dougdandridge on September 24, 2019
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Far Future, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Kindle, Military, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Writing. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Exodus15

Sunday night I released the fifteenth volume of my Exodus: Empires at War series, titled All Quiet on the Second Front? It can be found in the US here, and in the UK here. This one deals with the other front in the war, the one in which the genetically modified humans known as the Klavarta are fighting the Ca’cadasan Empire. This front has not been front and center since its introduction in Book 9, and I thought it was time to go back with the next two volumes of the series. It also introduces many of the characters from the Machine War series into the big show. What, you thought I was going to forget them? Not a chance.

The book involves Beata Bednarczyk, newly promoted to grand fleet admiral, being dropped right into the middle of a quagmire of political intrigue, not her area of expertise. Along with dealing with a major Caca offensive, and an arrogant Klavarta commander, she finds herself pitched into an unequal battle against the enemy. Still, Beata has faced long odds before, and she has the resources of the Empire behind her.

Now, on to other things. I am sorry it took so long to complete this book and continue the series. I have been suffering from severe insomnia for the past five months. Anywhere from two to four hours a night, sometimes with an hour or two during the day. Naps also do not come easy, and I have been stumbling around in a fog the entire time. Fatigue, lethargy, depression, lack of motivation and confusion have all been constant companions. I will see my doctor on Thursday, and hopefully she will have something for me that will help. Unfortunately, it will take a little longer to pull myself out of the hole my lack of productivity has landed me in. I started on book 16 on Saturday, right after putting the finishing formatting touches on 15. I will try to get this one out in a timelier manner, as well as other books in series that have been lagging. If I can finally get some regular sleep it would help. If not, then I’ll just have to do as well as I can and hope I can avoid a complete financial meltdown in the meantime. There will still be some repercussions of my illness, and I can only hope that I can get some relief. If that doesn’t happen, I guess the only choice is to soldier on. Thank you to all of my loyal fans and readers for sticking with me. And now, the excerpt.

“We will be moving across the frontier in three battle groups,” said Great Admiral Mrastaran Hlrata, using a laser pointer to indicate the area in question.

The region in question was two thousand light years in width, over a thousand in height. The ends of the frontier actually extended past the linear dimensions of the Nation of New Earth. That star nation was not nearly the size of the New Terran Empire, fronting the other side of the Ca’cadasan Empire. Still, it was over eighteen hundred light years from the frontier to the capital world of that nation. A formidable distance that would take over a month at hyper VII to traverse.

Actually, twelve hundred of that eighteen hundred light years of depth had belonged to the Ca’cadasan Emperor prior to the series of offensives and counter-offensives that had rocked this border of the Empire. For several years the two powers had fought back and forth, but the general trend had been the loss of territory for the big sophonts.

Well, this time we take it back, thought the great admiral, growling low in his throat. He didn’t expect to take it all back in an instant. The great admiral would be satisfied if they could penetrate five hundred light years into that expanse and consolidate it. Another offensive would push further in, and then another. If they could keep up the momentum before the humans and their genenged servants pushed back.

“I will be with the center force,” said Mrastaran, the laser dot touching the system in the center of the frontier, just twelve light years back. He would have a full half of the ships in the offensive, though not that high a percentage of the ground troops. His mission would be to smash everything in his way. Some of the people on the planets ahead of him had been Ca’cadasan subjects, but were fully cooperating with the humans. Therefore, they would receive no mercy. Extermination was what they deserved.

The admiral gave a head motion of negation at that thought. He was an adherent of the old religion, something that brought him much discomfort from his more profane peers. The intelligent officer knew that most of the dogma of the religion was unscientific crap. Still, he had found comfort in it earlier in life, and was not about to abandon the church. He just ignored those portions of dogma which served no purpose. One part that did serve a purpose as far as he was concerned was the sanctity of living planets and the genetic lines they gave rise to. So no, the disloyal sophonts would be punished, but none would need fear for the species survival from units under his command. No matter what orders came from above.

“Great Admiral  Tonnasar will lead the left wing,” he continued, looking over at the holo image of the high ranking admiral in question.

Mrastaran had been mildly surprised that the other male hadn’t challenged him. He thought his own combat plan would have worked, but there was never a guarantee in one on one close fighting. The message he knew the other male had received from the Emperor might have had something to do with that. Mrastaran knew that the Emperor’s staff was tired of so many capable males dying in challenges that had nothing to do with victory in a modern space war. Too many intelligent males had died through the ages because some hulking warrior had challenged them to a fight to the death. Mrastaran had listened to one of their scientists theorize that the intelligence of the species had decreased over the ages because of all the deaths of the superior minds of males in challenges. He agreed with their reasoning.

Mrastaran wasn’t afraid of the challenge. He was the unusual male who had both intelligence and had trained himself in close weapon combat. His physical prowess was above average, and his skill with a blade was without peer. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t die to some lucky warrior. That would be a waste. The great admiral knew that he was among the more intelligent males in the Empire, and his loss would hurt the war effort, when his position would be taken by some idiot who couldn’t fight a single ship, much less a fleet.

The left wing would have a quarter of the fleet, enough ships to win a major combat against most other forces. Not enough to beat the enemy fleet by itself.

“Great Admiral Lokastar will lead the right wing,” said the fleet commander as he moved the pointer and looked over at the third ranking admiral, actually present in the chamber. Lokastar was not the most intimidating of males, standing just over two and a quarter meters. He was also one of the more intelligent ones, from a noble family that had left him a lot of money. That had allowed him to buy the protection he had needed, making sure anyone who challenged him met a quick end before the actual combat. Not exactly according to tradition, but the Empire wasn’t about to challenge him for that decision.

The right wing also had a quarter of the fleet, including almost a third of the ground troops, since his area had the greater number of target planets within it.

“We will move as a unit,” he told the other admirals, moving the pointer, his central force moving with it into enemy territory. He did the same with each of the other two forces. “We will stay within twenty light years of each other, with wormhole gates open as soon as we enter a system. That way we can reinforce each other.”

“Why not spread out more?” asked Tonnasar, a confused look on his face.

“Because the humans have shown a proclivity for defeating out forces in detail,” said Admiral Lokastar, making a head motion of agreement. “If we keep our forces together, we can meet them in a decisive battle. Or possibly defeat them in detail, using their own tactics against them.”

“Admiral Lokastar knows the way of it,” said Mrastaran, showing a predatory smile. “Even though our numbers are comparable, the humans have the superior weapons with their numbers of wormholes.”

At least they don’t have as many on this front as they have on the other, thought the fleet commander. That gave him a chance for victory.

“If we can rally our ships in one system to fight one small force, totally destroy them, then move on to the next, we should be able to take out the mass of their fleet. After that we can into Klavarta space and strike at their industrial heart. When we take out those systems, the war is won.”

He really wasn’t sure that would work. They would surely meet him in space with large forces, and not allow him to just roll up systems and small defense forces. He had planned for that, hoping that the Klavarta would try to defeat him in detail. Then he would use his own wormholes to consolidate and strike in a way the enemy had never seen from their foe.

“They have new allies,” said Tonnasar, his holo face grimacing. “The humans from the other Empire were able to work diplomatic miracles and bring more of them on board.”

Mrastaran grimaced himself. He hadn’t been told to expect any forces other than those of the Klavarta and the Imperials that had been lent to them. After all, the Xenophobia of the Klavarta had alienated them from most of the other species in the region.

“They’re really nothing,” said Lokastar, a hungry smile on his face. “Just prey, really. Hyper VI ships, and weapons no better than the humans had a century ago.”

“They might be somewhat better than that by now,” said Tonnasar, an intelligent comment that took Mrastaran by surprise. “The humans have a tendency to give their tech to people willing to fight on their side. They put future problems in the future, where they belong.”

“No matter,” growled the fleet commander, balling up his four fists. “My strategy will still work. We will crush the humans, both types. We will remove this star nation from the playing board, and the humans on the other side of the Empire will face the full might of our military. In the name of the Emperor.”

He still wasn’t sure that the humans on the other side of the Empire were able to be defeated. At least not under the current leadership, with their penchant for rash decisions that amounted to nothing but great losses for little return. Perhaps, if he were in charge, he could turn the situation on that front around. Or maybe not. The war might already be lost on that front, which meant overall defeat for the species. That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t do his all to win for the Empire, no matter how hopeless.

Stop it, he thought, closing his eyes and grimacing. You are going to convince yourself that the humans are supermen. They’re just other beings, with no other destiny beyond their fight for survival, just like us.

The other admirals gave the Ca’cadasan victory salute, lower arms crossing over their chests while their upper arms reached into the air.

“And remember,” he said in a low tone, looking from face to face. “Both of you are to contact me and let me know your intentions before you do anything. Understand?”

Lokastar gave a head motion of agreement, while Tonnasar glared at Mrastaran for a moment before giving the same sideways nod. Mrastaran looked over at the second admiral, wondering if he would have any problems with him. Ca’cadasans could be a headstrong people, and it wouldn’t surprise him if the other great admiral did something stupid in a quest for individual glory. Well, he would have people close to that male, ready to put a beam through his head if need be. No matter what, the glory would belong to one Mrastaran Hlrata. Victory to the Empire, he thought, no matter how undeserving the new Emperor was of such victory. Well, he wasn’t fighting for that little shit, now was he.

Kinship War: Contact. An Apology.

Posted by dougdandridge on July 16, 2019
Posted in: eBooks, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

As many of you know, my first traditionally published book, Kinship War: Contact, came out a couple of weeks ago. Now this was a very big deal for me. I was hoping it would be a best seller, and I would make a ton of money from it, while also enriching the publisher who took a chance on me. If not, at least it would get my name out there. I worked on the book with Bill Fawcett, one of the big-name editors in the business. Everything looked good. The publisher, Shahid Mahmud of Arc Manor, loved it. His in-house editor, Lezlie Robyn, loved it. Everything looked good, until the release.

The first I got wind that something was off was when I looked over the first two reviews. One was a five star, the other a four. The four-star review stated that while they loved the book, the formatting and editing was non-existent. How could that be? We had so many eyes look over the book that it had to be near perfect. I dismissed that review, which looked like so many others I have received on my work, as the opinion of someone who found a couple of very minor errors, and made Mt. Everest out of an anthill. In retrospect, I should have looked the manuscript as published over. Then, at the end of last week, a good friend of mine sent a personal message to me on Facebook, detailing some of the things he had found. Formatting, sections running together, all in all a very poor manuscript.

I contacted Shahid yesterday. Arc Manor is a small company, but they publish stories by people like Larry Niven and some newly found versions of Heinlein classics. Mike Resnik edits Galaxy’s Edge for them. And so many of the big names I know in the industry swear that Shahid is an honest publisher with integrity, something rare in the publishing landscape of today. He looked into the matter, wondering if some other copy of the manuscript had mistakenly been published. He emailed me today and said that he was pulling the manuscript from all outlets for forty-eight hours for an emergency edit. I didn’t get an explanation, and really it didn’t matter. I have to depend on Arc Manor to make it right.

Anyone who has bought the eBook will be able to get a new copy when it is republished. I will blog that event when it happens. For those who bought a paperback, Arc Manor will replace it. In the US they will ship a new copy free of charge. Out of the US they need to charge for shipping. Not my call. The original should be mailed to:

ATTN: Returns

Arc Manor LLC

P.O. Box 10339

Rockville, MD 20849-0339

Be sure to include your return address for the new copy.

To swap an eBook, email a copy of your receipt to admin@arcmanor.com

I think you will be able to swap it on Amazon by just downloading the new copy.

I’m not sure how this happened. It’s not up to me to assign blame, which does no good for anyone. I am not in charge of making this right, and have to allow the publisher to do so. I do apologize for not paying attention to that early review. The quality of the story is my business. I hope that anyone who received on of the bad copies will not be put off from the series. That’s all we can do.

Kinship War: Contact. An Apology.

Posted by dougdandridge on July 16, 2019
Posted in: eBooks, Intelligent Life, Kindle, science Fiction, self publishing, Typos, Writing. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

As many of you know, my first traditionally published book, Kinship War: Contact, came out a couple of weeks ago. Now this was a very big deal for me. I was hoping it would be a best seller, and I would make a ton of money from it, while also enriching the publisher who took a chance on me. If not, at least it would get my name out there. I worked on the book with Bill Fawcett, one of the big-name editors in the business. Everything looked good. The publisher, Shahid Mahmud of Arc Manor, loved it. His in-house editor, Lezlie Robyn, loved it. Everything looked good, until the release.

The first I got wind that something was off was when I looked over the first two reviews. One was a five star, the other a four. The four-star review stated that while they loved the book, the formatting and editing was non-existent. How could that be? We had so many eyes look over the book that it had to be near perfect. I dismissed that review, which looked like so many others I have received on my work, as the opinion of someone who found a couple of very minor errors, and made Mt. Everest out of an anthill. In retrospect, I should have looked the manuscript as published over. Then, at the end of last week, a good friend of mine sent a personal message to me on Facebook, detailing some of the things he had found. Formatting, sections running together, all in all a very poor manuscript.

I contacted Shahid yesterday. Arc Manor is a small company, but they publish stories by people like Larry Niven and some newly found versions of Heinlein classics. Mike Resnik edits Galaxy’s Edge for them. And so many of the big names I know in the industry swear that Shahid is an honest publisher with integrity, something rare in the publishing landscape of today. He looked into the matter, wondering if some other copy of the manuscript had mistakenly been published. He emailed me today and said that he was pulling the manuscript from all outlets for forty-eight hours for an emergency edit. I didn’t get an explanation, and really it didn’t matter. I have to depend on Arc Manor to make it right.

Anyone who has bought the eBook will be able to get a new copy when it is republished. I will blog that event when it happens. For those who bought a paperback, Arc Manor will replace it. In the US they will ship a new copy free of charge. Out of the US they need to charge for shipping. Not my call. The original should be mailed to:

ATTN: Returns

Arc Manor LLC

P.O. Box 10339

Rockville, MD 20849-0339

Be sure to include your return address for the new copy.

To swap an eBook, email a copy of your receipt to admin@arcmanor.com

I think you will be able to swap it on Amazon by just downloading the new copy.

I’m not sure how this happened. It’s not up to me to assign blame, which does no good for anyone. I am not in charge of making this right, and have to allow the publisher to do so. I do apologize for not paying attention to that early review. The quality of the story is my business. I hope that anyone who received on of the bad copies will not be put off from the series. That’s all we can do.

Lost Signals Anthology is Finally Here.

Posted by dougdandridge on May 16, 2019
Posted in: Alien Invasion, eBooks, Future Warfare, Intelligent Life, Kindle, Military, Space Navy, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Tales

As said in the title, the Lost Signals Anthology, set in the Terran Republic Universe of Dr. Charles Gannon, is finally here and available worldwide.

It can be found at Amazon US here.

Amazon UK here.

Amazon Australia here.

Amazon Canada here.

And finally, the English language copy at Amazon German here.

Twenty-one short stories by twenty-one authors, including many I have known for several years from cons and other projects. The complete list of stories and contributors below:

  • The Persistence of Visions – Charles E. Gannon
  • Botwright – Gray Rinehart
  • Blaming Caine – Barbara Krasnoff
  • Only Human – Kacey Ezell
  • Only Animals – Mike Massa
  • Extraction – Robert E Waters
  • The Information Assayer – Robert R. Chase
  • Survival Turnips – Joelle Presby
  • Among the Blind – Alex Shvartsman
  • Alone – Doug Dandridge
  • Unreclaimable Losses – Walter H. Hunt
  • From the Stars – Vonnie Winslow Crist
  • Common Ground – Alan Brown
  • Beauty in Monochrome – Lawrence M. Schoen
  • Sub Rosa – Alistair Kimble
  • Crate 88 – Griffin Barber
  • Deep Cold – Robert E. Hampson
  • Collaborator – Tom Doyle
  • The Banjo and the Shift Drive – Rick Boatright
  • A Fragment of Empire – Marc Miller
  • The Ellsberg Variations by Jean Marie Ward

We have award winners, best sellers, and just plain talented storytellers among this cast.

Okay, now that we got the links and contributors out of the way, let me tell you a little bit about this Universe. Chuck Gannon, the creator of the series, is a multiple nominee for both the Nebula and Dragon Awards, as well as the winner of the Compton Crook Award. I met Chuck at LibertyCon years ago, and was floored when he asked if I wanted to play in his Universe. When asked such a question by such a writer, there is only one answer. Not just yes, but Hell Yes. It took some time to get off the ground, but it’s finally here, in all its glory.

Chuck’s Universe is one of intrigue and action, technologically superior aliens, some with good intentions, some not so much. Intelligently conceived and told, it is hard military science fiction as it was meant to be. And while I don’t know all of the other contributors, I can say that I know and have read many of them. This is quite a collection, and I find myself honored to have been placed among them.

And now for the obligatory short snippet from my story Alone:

“To the Prometheus. Any idea what that carrier will be carrying? What will we be facing?”

It was just under a ten-minute wait, seemingly an hour to the waiting bridge crew, anxious to know what was coming their way.

“We don’t know, Ikazuchi,” said the other skipper. “We doubt it will be anything you can handle. But you have to try anyway. That ship must be slowed. It is highest priority that we get up the line and warn the fleet.”

Which means its higher priority than our survival, thought Genkei, switching his board to the control of one of his drones, a light minute closer to the shift carrier than they were. He moved the camera until the shift carrier appeared on his screen, where it had been eight minutes before.  A long craft with some modular compartments along its length. But missing the attached warships that were the vessel’s reason for existence.

The main viewer was in split screen. One side showed the shift carrier, already starting to accelerate so it could get up to the needed velocity for the next shift. That would take weeks, and it would meet up with the tanker that was on the other side of the split screen, ten light minutes into the system. That ship hadn’t even started its burn. In fact, it wouldn’t know anything but that a carrier had shifted into the system for some minutes yet. Then it would start its own burn, letting the carrier catch up to it, matching velocities near the rendezvous point and pumping a full load of hydrogen into the larger vessel.

The tanker would remain in the system, with them. It wouldn’t last long. Neither would they.

Why I Don’t Trust Movie Critics, And You Shouldn’t Either.

Posted by dougdandridge on April 2, 2019
Posted in: Comics, eBooks, Fantasy, Marvel, Military, Movie Critics, Movies, science Fiction, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

Dredd

In the past I have always made it a point to not listen to movie critics. Most often, when they pan something, I find it to be entertaining. And why is that? To quote Kurt Russel in John Carpenter’s The Thing, “because it’s not like us.” Therein lies the problem. They are not like us, the comic fan, the superhero fan, the science fiction and fantasy fan, who live for this stuff. They are always looking for the next Art Film, an adaptation of the last, boring, great American novel. They equate great acting to people sitting in a room angsting about their angst. Up until the scene where the angst breaks the character and they angst over that. Every once in a while they will give kudos to some groundbreaking scifi or fantasy film, or perhaps an action flick. You know, the kind of stuff the general public eats up. Rarely, unless there is something else at play.

Over the years I had seen many reviews of superhero films where it was obvious that the reviewer had never read a comic or seen an animated feature, much less a live action hero flick. One in particular that rattled me was the review of a Chicago critic for the movie Thor. He loved seeing Thor without his power, a fish out of water story he said. But as soon as Thor got his “silly superpowers” back, the movie went downhill for him. I think for most Marvel fans that was when the movie really kicked off. We wanted to see Thor throw that hammer and destroy something with it. But, then again, that reviewer wasn’t like us. After several years the critics have changed their tune, and now they give many superhero movies glowing reviews, sometimes too glowing (see Captain Marvel). They have jumped on the bandwagon, so to speak, trying to keep themselves relevant in a world where they are increasingly less so.

Audiences don’t tend to agree with the critics. Proof? Captain Marvel, 79% critic score, 59% audience score, and that after some sketchy maneuvering by Rotten Tomatoes. I won’t go into that here. There is plenty on the internet about it already. Star Trek Discovery, 83% with critics, 48% with viewers. How about the newest rendition of Dr. Who? Rotten Tomatoes took down one of their pages, which had a near perfect critic score, and I think a 37% audience score. They still have one page up for the Doctor Who: New Season Premiere, with no critic ratings (did they purge them?) and an audience score of 17%. I don’t trust Rotten Tomatoes either, since they have shown they will manipulate their figures to suit someone’s narrative (will post on narratives later). More proof? Alita: Battle Angel, probably my all-time favorite movie, had a 60% critics score, and a 94% audience rating. Recently, RT published a poll for the best movies of 2019 so far, and Alita was not on it, since only critic scores were tallied. The response, on Twitter, was overwhelmingly in favor of Alita. Well, how about that.

A lot of these rating sites that tally critics scores are tied in to someone in the business. Most are not independent platforms that can say what they want. Even some of the major critics, the ones whose opinions can seal the fate of major productions, are in someone’s pocket. As told by the Latin Times, one reviewer, working for a publication with sixty million readers, gave a favorite movie a horrible rating. Turns out he also works for ABC, which is owned by Disney, which had a competing film coming out soon after. Of course, this same ethically beyond reproach gentleman gave the Disney film a glowing review. It’s different on the internet among the Youtube community. Alita was loved by the majority of internet reviewers. Chris Stuckman, a great Youtube reviewer with over 1.4 million subs, really liked it. Many smaller, and by smaller I mean from several thousand to several hundred thousand subs, loved it. The problem is, most people still get their opinions on movies from papers and publications, and until that changes these sycophants, people not like us, still wield too much power over the fortunes of film.

Critics killed the movie Dredd. I thought Dredd was an okay film, but it collected a fanatic cult crowd who loved it. Just not in time to save the movie and ensure a sequel. Later enough critics got on board with the fans to raise the rating. Critics tried to do the same to Alita, attempting to destroy it, and which is now sitting at $400 million worldwide, with an extended run in China to the 21st of April. I think it’s going to kill DVD sales, which should raise the total enough to get that sequel, especially with James Cameron pushing for it. Dredd still didn’t recover in time. Fortunately, Alita grew bigger through the internet and word of mouth. The problem is, not enough people know or care enough to look on Youtube.

I will not go too much into the reasons I didn’t like Captain Marvel (and no, I didn’t see it, but heard enough from friends who did to think I didn’t miss anything). It had nothing to do with politics, feminism, whatever, though I don’t like being beaten over the head with anything political in my escapism movies. The same with literature. People want to escape into the books they read, not be reminded of all the real-world problems, real or imagined, going on today. Captain Marvel had a great opening because, frankly, it was a Marvel Film, and Marvel had built expectations in their properties into a huge fanbase over the last decade. And of course most of the critics got on board because, Disney. The problems I had with Captain Marvel was an OP character who wasn’t interesting enough to pull for, and retconning the MCU to shoehorn her in. Call me a sexist misogynist if you want. I don’t think I am, and at this point in my life my own opinion of myself is a thousand times more important than that of a thousand screeching SJWs (will go into more of Social Justice culture in a later post. They might not be what you think.) But simply put, this was a badly written screenplay, with a hero who had no weaknesses and couldn’t be harmed. Boring.

Captain Marvel was protected by Disney. They offered invitations for early screenings to popular critics. And if the critics panned it, they might not get invitations for the next big event. In fact, there was a video on Youtube about how some critics were really afraid to offer an honest opinion on the film. They were afraid of the screeching hate mob that would come for them. Read some of the reviews on RT, and while they might have given the movie a certified fresh label, their numerical rating and their writeups didn’t seem to mesh with that label. There were so many who said the cat stole the show, like they didn’t have anything else positive to say.

Alita, on the other hand, was being distributed by a studio that was about to fade away, into the welcoming arms of Disney. They did very little marketing, very little promotion, and they had nothing to offer critics. We’re not going to invite you to our next big release? When there would never be another big Fox release that wasn’t owned by Disney. Please.

Anyway, I don’t trust them, never will, and will make up my own mind about what movies I will see. If the trailer looks interesting, and there are people I know and trust saying good things about it, I’m in. I might even go see it just based on the trailer. If the Rolling Stone pans it, that might be enough for getting me to see it as well. Or I will count on the Youtube critics to point me in the right direction. After all, They are like us.

Youtube Reviewers I follow:

Chris Stuckman: Great independent reviewer who gets into the structure of the film, but is also a comic/scifi nerd.

Beyond the Trailer: 800K subscribers, with movie reviews and trailer reactions. I like her.

Tyrone Magnus: African American mega-reviewer with over 1.5 million subscribers.

Youngrippa59: African American perspective on films. And despite the difference in ethnicity, he is my brother in the things he loves.

Shadeversity: An expert on ancient weapons, he still does a movie once in a while, and does a great review.

$3 Theater: From Mundane Matt. Great reviews from someone who knows the movie industry.

Odin’s Movie Blog: Another medium sized channel from a guy who not only reviews, but also breaks down the numbers. Not always right, but when he’s wrong, he will admit it, unlike the hacks in the papers and magazines.

There are many others. They are easy to find on the internet. I recommend listening to these people, ignoring the professional critics, and allowing the hacks to die from obscurity. They don’t always agree, so watch several to get a good idea of the general consensus.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 5: The Code is Out.

Posted by dougdandridge on March 30, 2019
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Far Future, Future Warfare, Kindle, Nanotechnology, science Fiction, self publishing. Tagged: , . 4 Comments

MW5ver1

Last night, after finishing formatting Exodus: Machine War: Book 5: The Code, I went to bed, planning to put it up on Amazon in the morning. I woke at 5 AM, five hours before my normal waking time, and just had to put it up. Saving the doc as a htm, then running it through Kindlegen to make a mobi. After that I wrote the blurb, then posted it on Amazon. When I woke up at 10:30 AM (I took that extra half hour to make up for the lost sleep), it was up on Amazon. I went ahead and tweeted it to US and UK fans. That’s the good news. I’ll let people who don’t know find out for themselves what the bad news is. And then I started working on Exodus: Empires at War: Book 15 (so far untitled). Predicted release in Mid-May.

Okay, now back to this book. Unfortunately, Machine War 5 took too damn long. I started on it right after DragonCon, while I still had a lot of other projects to work on. What I really wanted to get going was Kinship War Book 2, which was already past the official deadline. Unfortunately, my editor had a series of illnesses and really couldn’t work on Kinship War. No one’s fault, and I understood why my publisher didn’t want to switch editors. As he said, a lot of editors want to completely rewrite the novel. So far this one has shown no indications of wanting to do that. Actually, the four chapters she did look at had very few changes, and what she did change was definitely an improvement. But I had a lot of trouble getting back into the Exodus Universe. I wrote sporadically, while getting numerous requests for a firm launch date. I fudged, and missed it each time. Now it is finally out, and I’m ready to write a couple of Empires at War books before adding any more projects to my to do list. Still have Kinship War, the first volume of a new post-apocalyptic series, and a military scifi novel set on Mars that I’m hoping to sell to Baen. Not all that much, lol, but I still think I can put out another EaW book by Mid-May, followed by yet another by July. We’ll see.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 5: The Code can be found on Amazon.US here. And on Amazon.UK here.

I will also be picking up my blogging, which has been very sporadic and infrequent the last year. I have a lot of topics I want to write on, including comics, movie critics, Manga, the lack of etiquette on the internet, and other topics of interest to the science fiction and nerd community.