Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge

I also went to the Workshop on the Coast in Lincoln City, Oregon, run by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryne Rusch. The workshop was interesting but intense. I only sold one of the six stories I brought, and some of the feedback was baffling. The one story eventually came out in Visions of the Apocalypse in Fiction River. The story was titled Three Degrees Above Zero, and was the only hard science fiction story in the mag. That was my second experience in working with an editor, and he made very little in the way of changes. Another story, Midnight Sun, was praised at the workshop as being the most original fantasy story the editors had seen in a decade, and still had not sold, due to some confusion at the beginning. I was told it would surely sell somewhere, it was that good, but I came out of that workshop with no desire to try the short market in the future. I would do some other anthologies, but only at invitation.

Liberty Con that year included panels, which were mostly about marketing and self-publishing. I got my feet wet there, and better panels in the future. It started me on the path of getting panels at other venues. Panels are the goal for most authors. They get you exposed to people interested in science fiction and fantasy, and everyone wants to connect with readers. I was connecting with some at cons even when I didn’t have panels, but this would make it easier.

Another Dragon Con, this time staying at the Marriott Marque, one of the main hotels. Another great time, and this time I knew a bunch of the authors, and got to meet many more. I was actually at one panel, Starship Smackdown (since renamed) and was asked by my friend Van Allen Plexico to come up and sit on the panel. I was introduced as Amazon Best Seller Doug Dandridge, which was also really cool. My first panel at a major con. I was up to 148,000 sales, and everyone I talked to was impressed. It always amazed me that the traditionally published authors thought my record was a big deal. It didn’t seem all that special to me, but as I later learned, that would be a great track record even for most traditionally published.

That December I took the Sail to Success cruise, recommended by Kevin. Eric Flint, Nancy Kress and Mike Resnick were the big names on that cruise, and I also had my first meeting with Arc Manor publisher Shahid Mahmud. I was invited to submit a story to Galaxy’s Edge, along with all the rest of the class, but Shahid invited me to submit to another anthology his company was publishing. I didn’t make it into either publication, not unusual even when invited. I was asked to do a one-man presentation on self-publishing, since no one there knew much about it. I had lunch with Mike Resnick, which turned into a one hour conversation where I learned a lot about the history of the field. I had coffee with Nancy Kress. Her late husband, Charles Sheffield, had read some of my early work, and had been instrumental in helping me to move forward despite rejections. I was happy to tell her how much the man meant to me. Both Mike and Nancy had the same question for me. Why did I want to become traditionally published, since I seemed to be doing so well on my own, and actually might make less money with a traditional imprint? The answer, of course, was exposure. The money is great, but all authors want as many people reading their books as possible.

In 2015 I joined the Science Fiction Writers’ Association. Now, a lot of people I know don’t like them, even some big name traditional authors. But it had been a dream of mine to join them, and they opened membership to self-published authors. You only had to prove that one of your books had earned as much as a standard advance, $6,000. Hell, I had twelve books at the time that had done better than that, many of them much better. So joining was a snap. Prior to joining, after talking with Jaym Gates, who was then working with SFWA, at a Dragon Con, I was able to sell two blog posts on self-publishing and marketing to the association at professional rates. So anyway, I joined, just to be part of the organization that so many of my heroes had belonged to. The first one to welcome me was Jerry Pournell, another legend and hero. Haven’t done too much with the organization so far, but one of their members helped me to get my first panel on the Lit Track at Dragon con.

2016 I did panels at Liberty, three big ones, moderating one with seven other authors including Chuck Gannon. This year I have one scheduled with John Ringo. Liberty is a small con, and I really don’t expect to get many fans there, but it’s still very cool, with lots and lots of authors. And then on to Dragon. The Lit Track director had promised me panels after a member of SFWA had told her about me. Got there, and they had nothing for me, and I couldn’t find the director. Finally found her, and she gave me one panel, with six female writers late in the evening when attendance would be low. Still, it was a panel, and I was asked to submit to a Dragon Con anthology. Got sidetracked and that never came to be. Van got me on the Starship Showdown (as it was now called) panel, which is always a great time. I would be willing to do those for every Dragon Con. Total sales by this time, about 194,000.

Back in February of 2016 Shahid had asked if I wanted to attend another Sail To Success, for a sixty percent discount. All I had to do was give two talks, self-publishing and marketing. I jumped at the chance. Interesting surroundings, interesting people, the Bahamas, hell yes. So I headed down to Miami in December to once again board the Norwegian Sky. Same faculty members, mostly the same presentations, but I was there to network. Really important to this business is getting to know other people in it. Opportunities come along at such events, just like they had at conventions. I talked with the agent, who expressed interest. I talked to the editor, who expressed interest. I talked with Eric Flint, who’s just an interesting guy. And I talked with Shahid on the last day, who had a business proposition. I would write some books for a space opera series, in a universe I developed, and he would get other authors to write later books in a shared universe. But the Universe would be mine. We finalized the deal later, and I flew out to Tucson to talk about the project and deliver the signed contracts. Dave Farland looked over my contract as a courtesy (remember the thing about making friends in the business). He thought I should get paid more, but I think the rewards down the line will be worth it.

So here I am, where the rubber meets the road. We have gone over the outlines, made changes, settled on the third outline, picked a series name, and now I’ve been asked to start writing. This is such an unusual deal, and I was very lucky to get it. Most books are published after the authors sends the manuscript in to an agent, who presents it to publishers, who then buy the idea if they like it. The author has already written the book, with no idea of whether or not it will sell. Prior to self-publishing, that manuscript might just go into a drawer somewhere and never again see the light of day. I ended up getting a contract and advance before the idea had even coalesced. And the publisher is really committed to this idea. We were talking promotion, a website, getting tables at a half dozen cons, all on him. And then he hired an editor. And not just any editor, but a famous one who had a part in the making of many authors. Remember the Bill Fawcett I talked about earlier in the first part of this blog. Yeah, that guy. I couldn’t believe it. But now I have to produce. Everything has brought me to this point, and I can’t let these people down. Talk about pressure.

Liberty Con is next week, and I’m finally on a panel with one of those New York Times Bestselling Authors. And we will be having a release party for an anthology, A Fist Full of Credits, by Chris Kennedy’s company, with stories by Chris Nuttall, Nick Cole, Jason Cordova, Mark Wandrey, Mr. Kennedy and others. I was happy to accept the invitation to this one, since it features so many great indie scifi authors, and I think the project can’t help but promote all of us to each others’ fan bases. Will write about that when I get back.

Since I first wrote this entry I have done four chapters of the first book of Kinship War. It helps to use the outline, and I am doing the research as I go. And man, the research I’m having to do. In Exodus the action was set ten thousand light years from Earth, allowing me to put whatever I wanted wherever I wanted. Now I have to track the real stars, and we have a lot of information on them. I have to look at a dozen systems before I found one that would work for the colony that was at the center of the story. Another four systems until I found the one I could use for my first contact. A completely different process. I was having a lot of trouble finding a program that would let me visualize the stars out to one hundred light years, until my friend and fan Roberto Ravoni from Italy reminded me of a program called Astrosynthesis. So the work is going on, and I am still working on some books for self publication. Just put out a collection of all the science fiction short stories I wrote while trying to get published. I am currently working on the next book of the Exodus: Machine War series, book 5 of Refuge, and a collection of short fantasy stories. The job never ends, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Well over two hundred thousand sales and counting. Maybe some day I’ll hit a million.

I will be continuing my last blog, the one about my career and the opportunities opening up ahead. But first I have a new book out. Not another Exodus, not even a Refuge, and definitely not Theocracy. No, I decided to take all of my unpublished short stories, go over them making corrections and seeing if they were good enough to put out there. Most of these were stories I haven’t seen for years, in some cases over a decade. It was like reading stories from the pen of someone else. They passed muster, and so I have decided to release them under the title Imagination Unlimited, the same name I use for my soon to be revamped webpage. The stories include those I first wrote while trying to sell to the few publications still out there, all the way up to something I wrote last year. Twenty seven stories, 135,000+ words. Space Opera, Time Travel, Military Scifi, Tales of Lost Colonies, Teleportation gone wrong, Genetic Engineering, Scifi Horror. Probably a little bit of everything, including stuff you might have seen somewhere else, but that I came up with on my own, sometimes years ahead of it being released to the public elsewhere. And it is available on Kindle Unlimited from the start. So you an either buy it, or get it for free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.

I will bring out Imagination Unlimited 2 next month, over 90K words of fantasy, many, but not all set in the Refuge Universe. And Exodus: Machine War: Book 4 will also be out next month. And remember, Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12: Time Strike, is available on Amazon, or in the UK here. It has 26 reviews and a 4.6* average in the United States, and 10 reviews with a 4.7* average in the UK. Check it out if you haven’t already. And next blog, in a couple of days, will continue the tale of how I got to where I am today, and where I want to go tomorrow.

Imagination Unlimited: The Short Science Fiction of Doug Dandridge is available on Amazon, and in the UK here.

First off, sorry for the hiatus. I have been really busy with a bunch of projects. Liberty Con is coming up, so I will continue to be busy. And in mid-July I will be going back out to Nevada, traveling through Death Valley, then over into Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, visiting a bunch of National and State Parks. I’ll have a bunch of blogs out after that. But first, this short history of my career in self-publishing, and the opportunity in traditional publishing it has opened up.

Last week I received an email from my editor, who has been working with me on the outline of my traditionally published series, which now also has a name, The Kinship War. Not to talk too much about the series, or the significance of the name, which took many weeks of brainstorming to come up with. I have permission from the publisher, Shahid Mahmud of Arc Manor, to talk up the series, but I still don’t want to give away too much at this time. But back to the editor, who wants me to start writing the series, so we can go over it chapter by chapter as I finish each. Hooray. And let’s bring on the anxiety. This is it. I have to produce, I have to live up to the expectations of so many people that are placing their faith in my being able to produce a possible best selling novel, followed by another. I have a contract for two books, and hopefully the series will go from there, with many other writers contributing to a shared universe. But it all starts with me. I develop the background, build the world, and establish the ground rules. What an opportunity, and a responsibility. Not that I haven’t built very detailed worlds before. Exodus: Empires at War, Refuge and others were very detailed, with hundreds of thousands of words and hundreds of drawings that have never made their way into the novels. But this is different. It has to pass muster. And if this opportunity isn’t enough, I have also had a manuscript requested by the senior agent at a top agency, which is in the process of being proof read before I send it off. The manuscript was also requested by a senior editor at a major science fiction publisher, but it will go to the agent first. And both agent and editor have asked what else I am working on, which hopefully means that they will be interested in something else if they don’t like this fantasy.

How did I get here? Good question, and I’m glad you asked (though you didn’t, but it makes me feel better to play that game.) I have been writing since 1996, when I wrote first a non-fiction book, then an alternate history, The Convoy, which was extremely well researched and very poorly written. I sent The Convoy to St. Martin’s Press, expecting to hear back from them with a $100,000 check. A year later I got a rejection slip. I had a lot to learn. More novels followed, and a lot of short stories, followed by a string of rejection letters, or in most cases, small form slips that they could easily place in the self-addressed stamped envelopes I sent along with the submissions. The rejection letters started getting better for the most part. It showed that I was improving, but they were still rejections.

On December 31^st of 2011 I placed two novels that had been rejected by publishers and agents years before. The Deep Dark Well, far future space opera, and The Hunger, a vampire horror/urban fantasy novel. I released more books, since I had a backlog. Daemon, Aura, Diamonds in the Sand. And then I had months of seeing a couple of books sell, and getting royalty payments of $10 to $20 a month. Not exactly living the dream. In September of 2012 I tried something and things began to change. I did a giveaway of The Deep Dark Well, and followed the instructions I had read online about how to do one properly. I contacted about twenty sites that promoted giveaways and requested that they do my book, which included putting the book on their websites, and in some cases tweeting them. I also blogged and tweeted, and sent out tweets with about forty twitter addresses of sites that would retweet. I gave away over 4,100 books in five days, and cracked the top 20 free books on Amazon. In October I published Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1, with Book 2 already written and ready to go. I wish I had done some different things with those first two books, but I was still learning. The great thing about self-publishing is you have control of everything. The worst thing about self-publishing is you have control of everything. When I first started self-publishing I was really broke, barely making it each month, so I had no money for cover design, editing, all the things the in the know people tell you are must haves. So I made my own covers, and some were awful (see my first effort for The Hunger, which was one of the worst thirty ever on Amazon according to one blog). There were a lot of typos, and I did my own thing without any feedback. I also released the first two books of the Refuge series, written in 2010, the same year I wrote the two Exodus books and three others, while working full time. Like I said, I really wanted out of that job.

Still, when Exodus, one of the first books I had ever written right from the start for self-publishing, came out, it sold almost a thousand books in October. September had seen about four hundred and fifty books, ten times what I had sold in the previous eight months. October saw almost a thousand, November two thousand, December five thousand, and January of 2013 saw almost nine thousand books leave the Amazon and other booksellers’ harddrives. In January I was selling up to two hundred books a day between Exodus: Empires at War: Books 1 and 2. In February I sold over five thousand books, and was thinking about quitting my day job at the State of Florida. I hated that job, and wanted out. At first I figured that I could quit by the Fall, then I moved it up to the end of March. Then, after the first day of March, I decided to turn in my two week notice. They were surprised. A lot of people had talked about moving on to something better, and some had while I was there, but it was rare. It was an anxiety provoking decision. The job guaranteed me a steady paycheck, able to pay rent, pay for my car and buy food. It also came with benefits, health insurance and a pension. But, because of laws passed by the State on the pension, I was actually making less than I had five years before, and there was no sign of a raise in sight. They were also talking about raising the employee contribution to health care, which meant still less money.

So I walked out and never looked back. I had a lot of friends there, some of whom had written reviews for my first couple of books. I returned for one retirement party, and that was it. So now I was a full-time author, and started to work on Exodus 3. The mistake I made with that book was listening to a fan who said I needed to make my books longer, or it would take forever to finish the series. I wrote two hundred and twenty thousand words, and covered about two weeks of time. But it was a learning experience. You can’t write twice the book and charge twice the price. Maybe when I get some traditional series where writing very long books pays off I’ll try again. The book hit number one in space opera on Amazon UK and number two in the US, and eventually sold fifteen thousand copies.

I also started thinking about going to cons. I had never been to one, though I had been an avid reader and watcher of everything scifi and fantasy, and even a lot of horror. First, I went to Altcon, a small convention in Tallahassee that offered little above vendors. I went to one panel on self-publishing, raised my hand, and probably talked more than the poor woman who was running it. A friend at work had talked about Dragon Con, so I went online, bought a membership and booked a hotel, and was ready for my first con. I even got a costume, Indiana Jones, and registered for Jody Lynn Nye’s workshop. Dragon Con was amazing. The first day was the workshop, and Bill Fawcett, Jody’s husband, who I had never heard of before, said at the beginning of the workshop that one manuscript had really caught his attention. Cool. I hoped it was mine, but didn’t think about it again until the next day, when they gave our manuscripts back to us. Mine was the first chapter of Theocracy, written in 2012 and published in 2015. Bill handed me my manuscript and told me he was talking about mine the first day. I was invited to meet with him, and did the next day (and that is a story in itself). He brought me up to the VIP suite, where I met some big name writers, and went over what he thought were my strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the meeting he said he thought I had a bright future.

I also met Kevin J Anderson and his wife, Rebecca Moesta, at the workshop. They were impressed by my sales (I had sold 48,000 books in the year since September of 2012). I asked him later at the con if he would consider me for his next military scifi anthology. I also went to a panel where five big time authors all got off topic and started talking about how they made it big in the business. All mentioned Bill Fawcett as being one of the major influences of pushing them to the next level. I talked with Todd McCaffrey, who I also met at the workshop, and asked him if it was a big deal being asked by Bill to talk. He thought so. And I got to talk with Robert Sawyer before a panel.

The next year, 2013, went well. I sold almost another 50,000 books, Exodus: Empires at War: Books 4 through 6 were released that year, and all hit number one in one or more subgenres of science fiction in the UK, top five in the US. I released some other books, some did fairly well, some not. My space opera was doing much better than my fantasy, and if I was only about the money I would have totally concentrated on the space opera. But I wasn’t. I figured I needed to put out three money makers a year, and the rest could be things I just wanted to write. One of my fans, Larry Southard, talked me into going to Liberty Con in Chattanooga. I did a panel at Altcon that year, and met author Ian Malone, who used to live in Tallahassee. I went to Liberty Con as an attendee, and enjoyed the con, meeting Les Johnson, Chuck Gannon and Mark Wandrey, and Peter and Dorothy Grant, all of whom became friends. I tried to talk my way onto panels at Dragon Con with no luck. I wrote a story for Kevin J Anderson and was published in Five By Five 3. It didn’t sell as well as hoped, but it was still a good experience. That was my first experience with an editor, though Kevin had already bought the story and told me I didn’t have to do anything the editor asked. So it was an easy process. My second Dragon Con was a lot of fun. In the fall I went to Honor Con in Raleigh, North Carolina, and met David Weber and Chris Kennedy. That’s another story.

I had gone to two Superstars Writing Seminars, 2013 and 2014. Met a lot of interesting people there, including my friends James Artimus Owen and Dave Wolverton (also known as David Farland). I attended a workshop put on by Dave in Atlanta later that year. Superstars was an interesting experience. I met Kevin Ikenberry, Sarah Hoyt, Ramon Terrell, Raphyel Jordan, Travis Heermann, Quincy Allen, Scott Boone and many others. I did a panel at the first Superstars and got an ovation when I announced who I was and my claim to fame (75,000 sales at that point). I also met with Eric Flint at the VIP dinner. In 2014 I was again on a panel, and ate with Toni Weisskopf. I loved Superstars, and there are many people who go every year. But I thought I had gotten what I could out of it in two years and decided to try other things. Hopefully someday I will go back, maybe as a speaker. Who knows.

Continued in part 2.

My Trip Out West, the Last Chapter.

Posted by dougdandridge on April 27, 2017

Posted in: eBooks, Far Future, Kindle, Plotting, self publishing, Titles, Tropes, Writing. Tagged: Arc Manor, Geology, Las Vegas, Mojave Desert, Post Apocalyptic. 4 Comments

Luxor.

Fake New York skyline, New York New York.

I woke up on Sunday morning and packed, then went down for breakfast in the little restaurant at the Hilton. Got into a conversation with the waitress who had a friend who wanted to become a writer, and was supposed to be there for breakfast. I waited a little while, but he didn’t show, so I started on my day. First, I wanted to get a look at the strip in the daylight. I was thinking it would be dead on a Sunday morning, but I should have known that Gomora never sleeps. Still got some very good pictures of the tackiest place on Earth. Luxor, New York New York, Paris, Planet Hollywood, Caesar’s Palace. Circus Circus. All the famous names, including Trump and the tallest building in town, the Stratosphere Tower. There were people everywhere, and I guess gamblers got to gamble as long as they have any money. I was able to stop at a couple of places to get pictures, but I took most of them from my car. There were some angry horns behind me when I took my time at a light to get a good shot. I didn’t really care. I was in a rental car, they didn’t know who I was, and I was gone before anyone could get out of their cars. Got some great pictures. Next time I will go into some of the casinos, possibly see some shows, but I’m not one to throw away money on games of chance that favor the house.

Stratosphere Tower.

I had decided to go to the Valley of Fire State Park after driving through the center of Sin City. I didn’t know anything about the place, except the name sounded cool. I thought it might be the site of ancient volcanoes, and that was something I would have really liked to see, since I had missed the ones back in Arizona. It was about a half hour’s drive to the offramp, and I stopped at the Piute Indian truck stop when I got there to get some gas and get a snack. I played my only slot machine while there, spending all of seventy cents for two plays. Now I was expecting the one armed bandits when I got to Vegas, the ones like in the Twilight Zone episode, or every movie I have ever seen about the area. The ones where you put a coin in and pull the arm down. If you’re lucky a bunch of coins comes rattling into the hopper at the bottom of the machine. Nope. Now they’re digital instead of mechanical. You put in bills or credit/debit cards, get a readout, and push a button. Not at all as exciting as actually putting a coin in and pulling the arm. And you get a ticket printout of your winnings. How boring. And for some reason I would trust the mechanical version more than the on the fly electronic one. Anyway, I had fed my very tiny gambling addiction (really nonexistent) and it was time to see the sights.

Just before the Valley of Fire.

The Valley of Fire.

It was a fifteen mile drive to the park, and after about eight miles of almost flat desert the mountains along the way were spectacular. I don’t think I saw any boring rock formations on this trip, and again, every one was as individual as a fingerprint. And then the Valley of Fire was in front of me, large groups of red rocks sticking out of the earth. Again, spectacular rock formations, almost every one of them red. A good percentage of these rocks were iron ore, and had rusted over the ages, then were thrust up through plate tectonics. At the entrance of the park were some spectacular formations, and I spent some time walking around to get a view of the petrified logs. Further in were even more spectacular formations. In one direction was a valley that reminded me of someplace in the alps, rolling valley going up to highlands. At the guest center, near the center of the park, was a road that went up into the mountains, with some white rocks intermingled with the red. There were signs pointing to the Beehives, and I had seen a sign about African Killer Bees in the park, so wasn’t sure I wanted to go there. Turns out they were rock formations that reminded one of beehives.

The Beehives.

I drove back to Las Vegas, wondering what I was going to see next to kill some time. There was Red Rock Canyon, which I had seen on my GPS the other day. I punched it into the GPS and I was off. On the way back I noticed lots of places in the desert glittering in the sun. It was pieces of glass from shattered beer bottles, and I realized that people in this place partied in the desert and trashed their party spots just like many people back east. Sad. I got back into Las Vegas and found that the direct path to the canyon was closed down, the highway under construction, which forced me back into the center of the city, back to the strip. I got to the park at 4 PM, wondering if it would be closing soon.

One of the few formations of red rocks in Red Rock Canyon.

There were a bunch of cars waiting at the payment booths. I paid and started into the canyon, intending to stop at the visitor center and use the bathroom. I missed the turn and was on a one way road into the canyon, my bladder about to burst. Another thing about the desert. There are no convenient trees to go behind, and in this place all of the rocks were mountains, and people could see you from miles away. So I held on until I reached one of the bathrooms, which were really just permanent versions of portolets. The canyon, which was really more of a valley, looked about a mile wide from the entrance. It was hilly, with the road winding up and down the rolling landscape, large rocky mountains around the sides. I swore I had seen some of those formations before, in texts or pictures. It took about an hour to drive around the valley that had appeared only a mile across. I looked it up on Google Maps later, and found that it was large enough to drop Tallahassee in.

Spectacular formation in Red Rock Canyon.

Afterwards, I had time to kill. I washed the car so it would be clean when I turned it in, then went to get something to eat in a place where I could sit for a couple of hours. Then to the airport to catch my flight, three and a half hours early. When I turned in the car I asked if they wanted my half case of bottled water. They said yes, and I pulled the water from the trunk, then noticed all the bottled water sitting there on the side of the return lane. I guess a lot of people have read the caution about carrying water in the desert, and most don’t finish all that they bought. I rode the bus from the car return to the airport, and most everyone was talking about all the money they lost at the casinos. I felt good about only wasting seventy cents. Through TSA, always fun, then a three hour wait for the flight to leave. There were slot machines behind the waiting area, and I thought they must be trying to make sure people didn’t get away with any money in their pockets.

The flight was crowded, capacity, and uneventful. We came into Atlanta at sunup, and it was another more than two hour wait for the flight to Tally. I met the FSU Softball team and their coaches while waiting. While I was flying in from Nevada on the redeye, they were taking the overnight from California where they had played in a tournament.

So, what did I learn? That you really have to see things with your own eyes to get perspective. That the clear air of the desert and altitude made everything look much closer than it was, and there were few places to hide there. That you could get dehydrated at thirty degrees. I could just imagine what it is like in the heat. And I found the setting I would use in my future post-apocalyptic series. It was a great trip, an eye opener, and a treat for the soul. I have vowed to return, this time going into North Nevada, over into Utah, and down to see the Grand Canyon from the north face. Not sure if I would want to live there (though the thought has crossed my mind), but I could become a frequent visitor.

Remember, Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12: Time Strike is available on Amazon.US and Amazon.UK. If you hate time travel stories, you might like this different take on them. And Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above is now on Kindle Unlimited.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12 is Finally Here.

Posted by dougdandridge on April 21, 2017

Posted in: Agents, Conferences, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Future Warfare, Kindle, Military, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Writing. Tagged: Arc Manor, Exodus: Empires at War, Exodus: Machine War, Refuge, Theocracy. 2 Comments

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12 is finally here for the US, and here for the UK. I know I have been promising, over and over. I have been asked over and over. I kept meaning to finish. I started this book while on the Sail to Success cruise, along with book four of Machine War. I thought I would start on both, then decide on which one to do first when I got home. I decided on book 12 of the Empires at War series, and had planned to have it done by the end of January or beginning of February. And here it is, almost through with April, and I finally finished. So, what happened?

Well, I have the book contract with Arc Manor, and the publisher hired one of the best editors in science fiction to work with me. Seriously, one of the best, which goes to show how important the publisher thinks that project is. Also, I went on a trip out west to meet about the project, traveled to see possible settings for a post-apocalyptic series. Then there was the alternate history series I want to do. And Exodus is getting hard to keep fresh. One of the problems with a long series that I didn’t realize when I started it. I had planned on twenty books when I first started. Now it’s looking like fifteen, with five or six in the Machine War spinoff. And then maybe another series in the future, either going back in time to look at the beginning of the Empire through a series of stand alones, or into the future and a new threat. Or maybe both. Twelve is a complicated book, involving a lot of story lines, and it was difficult to keep everything together, especially when other ideas were crowding into my mind. Anyway, enough of the excuses. The book is here, I hope everyone enjoys it, and now it’s time to get to work on the next one.

So here’s the plan, for now. I will start in on Machine War 4, estimated time of release in mid-June. Then I want to tackle the next book in Refuge, which has at least two books to go to reach a logical finish. Then on to books 13 and 5 of Empires at War and Machine Wars respectively, followed by book two of Theocacy, which will finish the year for releases. I have one or two short stories to put out for anthology invites, and of course I will need to work on the new traditionally published military science fiction/space opera series. I got a very nice deal on this series, which the publisher is hoping will turn into something big, with other authors contributing on an invitation basis. Oh, and I need to finish up the fantasy that caught the interest of another editor and a big time agent. So I guess my work is cut out for me, and I need to work a lot harder than I have been. But first, let’s enjoy the new book. Here’s an excerpt:

Samantha Ogden Lee was a cousin in the Imperial line, not in a direct path of succession. Several dozen people would have to die for her to ascend the throne, and that was not her wish or desire. Everyone knew that all of the close line had the gift to various degrees. Sean was said to have it to an extent unseen in generations. She had it as well, not to his level, but powerful enough, though she was careful to keep her ability hidden. She knew that many people thought the prophetic dreams were the visitation of demons, the more superstitious of them, and those would treat her as someone possessed.

There was nothing supernatural about the gift, at least not according to the scientists who had studied it through the ages. They still didn’t really understand it, only that the source came from the still spooky environs of quantum physics. All she knew about it was that she wished she didn’t have even a smidgeon of it.

She felt the dread within her sleep as her dream changed, taking on the familiar aspect. The unreal of the dream state took on a clarity that seemed all too real. A scene of people standing on the roof of a building. Around it stretched a city that showed the destruction of the strike the Cacas had visited upon it. She could tell it was Capitulum. And from the damage she could tell it was either in the recent past or the near future. From the scaffolding surrounding some of the buildings, and the work robots restoring the surfaces of damaged buildings that hadn’t fallen in the attack, she guessed the near future. Very near, in fact, since there was still so much work to be done.

Then her attention was captured by the people on the rooftop, which she recognized as the landing platform of the office building the Fleet was using as their headquarters for the time being, until the massive damage to the Hexagon could be repaired. Most of the people were in uniform, though there were civilians intermixed with the spacers, and everyone had their attention turned to the sky.

Samantha’s dream self looked up with them, to the bright disk of the G class primary that Jewel orbited. At first, she couldn’t tell what was going on. It took almost a minute to determine what was causing their attention to focus on the star. The disk of the star had visibly shrunk as she watched. It was a slow process, until she remembered how large it actually was, and how distant. Then the magnitude of the problem became apparent.

“It’s getting brighter,” yelled out one of the bystanders. It did seem to be, and that could only mean one thing. The star was compressing inward, and that was increasing the rate of fusion in the center. If it kept up?

The heavens flared, blindingly bright, and everyone cried out as they tried to cover their eyes, too late. All were permanently blinded, except for Samantha, who was not really there. Their burned-out eyes could eventually be restored, but they would not be given that time. Clothing and skin smoked, then flared into vapor. The entire city followed suit, buildings made of materials that should not have been flammable burning away in seconds.

Samantha’s view shifted out, to see the seas boiling, the exposed rocks left behind by the ashed forests glowing, then flowing.

Her view shifted further out, until she was looking down on the world, and the far disks of New Terra and Ariel, both glowing from the brilliant reflected light of the exploding star. Moments later the shock wave hit, and all three worlds flared even brighter, then turned into exploding fragments of rocks, some the size of continents. Those huge structures came apart in seconds, until the three worlds were gone, their glowing particles propelled outward from the explosion.

What the hell happened? thought Samantha. She knew what had happened. The star, a G class that couldn’t possibly supernova, had just done so. She just didn’t know why it had happened. An instant later she was sitting up in bed, sweat falling off her face, soaking her bedclothes, her breath coming in gasps.

The enormity of the dream struck her, some of the images fading away, others etched within her mind. The star had gone supernova, against all the laws of physics. A moment later the legends were assaulting her mind. How the ancients had messed with the time stream, and had brought disaster to living systems.

Sean needs to know about this, she thought. Someone was going to do something in the Empire that would lead to a disaster that would dwarf anything the Cacas had done. And Sean needed to know. At that moment she wished again that she was the regent, a position no longer needed now that Jennifer was functioning fully as the empress. But with the loss of the position, she had also lost her access to top levels of Imperial secrets. She had been happy to be relieved of those duties, and had hoped that she might take up a position in Fleet intelligence. Now she wished she still had her access so she could see what might be going on.

“Get me the Emperor,” she said to the apartment com system. “Utmost urgency.”

She waited impatiently as the com system queried the Imperial government net for a minute. It normally didn’t take that long, and she wondered if Sean was engaged in private business, maybe with the empress. He would be pissed, because if he was in range of the com net, her code words would get her through to him. Well, he could go ahead and be pissed. This was too damned important. Whatever was going to happen might not occur for weeks to months, or it might happen this day. She had a feeling it was going to be a lot sooner than a week.

“The Emperor is not available at this time,” said the voice of the com system.

“Shit.”

“I did not understand that reference,” replied the literal system.

“Get the Empress. Utmost urgency.”

“What is it, Sam?” answered the voice of Jennifer, her voice heavy with sleep, almost sounding drugged.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Jennifer. But I had a dream. One of the kind that haunts our family.”

“I didn’t know you got those, too.”

“Unfortunately, yes. Or maybe fortunately in this case. Something really bad is going to happen, and soon. I need to talk to Sean.”

“Sean is out at the Donut, Sam. Something to do with hitting the Cacas before they hit us.”

“You mean before their next attack comes at us,” said the confused Samantha. The Cacas were already in the middle of an offensive against the Empire, one that was not going all their own way.

“No. The attack they pulled on us several months ago. The one that almost killed my child.”

By the Gods, no, screamed the thoughts in Samantha’s head. “He must not do that. Don’t you see. That’s what triggers the supernovas.”

“What supernovas?”

“We need to get through to Sean. Right now. If we wait it will be too late.”

You Had To Have Been There, Part 3: A Nuka Cola with that Brahma Burger, Please.

Posted by dougdandridge on April 16, 2017

Posted in: eBooks, Military, Titles, Writing. Tagged: Fallout, Fallout New Vegas, Goodsprings, Las Vegas, Mojave Desert, Travel. Leave a comment

View outside my hotel in Kingman.

On Saturday I woke up in Kingman, Arizona and packed up. Outside was a minor mountain that still had some amazing rock layers in it. What we see as rock today, for the most part, was laid down as sediment in some ancient sea, possibly for over a billion years. The layers are differentiated depending on what was the dominant variety of sediment. They compressed into rock over time, then were thrust up when the continental plates pushed together, and are often at angles. And there it was, right in front of me. I went searching for a breakfast spot and found another local restaurant that served a fantastic morning feast. Then it was on the road to the Hoover Dam and Nevada. The view from the road was again spectacular, and I kept wishing for more pullovers. Finally, I pulled over on the shoulder a couple of places and took pictures. I went over one hill and lost my breath. There, in front of me, were formations that looked just like the Grand Canyon. I realized later that it was, since the canyon continues past the dam that is built within it. There was a great pullover before getting to the dam, and I got a great view of not only the local mountains, but off in the distance the snow covered peaks of the Sierra Nevadas in California.

View on road from Kingman to Hoover Dam.

Back view of Hoover Dam.

The drive to the dam was a winding road, passing a huge transformer station, and then I was at the dam. It didn’t seem to be as big as it is portrayed in the movies. Later it was explained to me that because of the scale of the canyon it is built in, it seems to shrink a bit. Drove over the dam, stopped and got some shots, then drove back over it so I could go over the high bridge that was highway 93, on the way to Vegas.

Prison at Jean.

I love playing Fallout, and got the idea for a post-apocalyptic series set in the desert from playing New Vegas. And here ahead of me was the homeland of that game, Las Vegas and the Mojave Desert. Coming into Vegas I could see the large tower that dominated the game. Of course Vegas was much larger than in the video game, but that tower made me feel like I was in it. Soon I was on Interstate 15 heading for California, and most of the iconic locations of the game. First, I stopped at Jean, which has its own large casino resort in real life. I took pictures of the prison, in the game, hoping they wouldn’t think I was taking too much interest in it.

Pioneer Salon in Goodsprings.

Iconic Nuka Cola.

The road to Goodsprings runs from Jean and under the interstate. Mojave Desert to both sides, mostly scrub with some scattered Joshua Trees. The town itself was similar to the game, though you couldn’t see the Las Vegas tower from there. The Pioneer Saloon and connected restaurant were just about empty, and it was a little early for lunch, so I headed out to Sandy Valley. Like most of the valleys in the deserts I had seen so far it was a flat plate surrounded by mountains. I drove up the road that I was sure was the same one the giant wasps had attacked me on. Sandy Valley was nothing to write home about, some houses, some trailers, some industrial parks, and a lot of flat sand valley, from which I am sure the name comes. I headed back to Goodsprings for lunch, and now the place was hopping. Motorcycles, antique cars, lots of people. I came into the restaurant after the lunch rush, and there was a shotgun wedding going on in the courtyard in the back. I met Johnny Utah, a transplant who had come to check the town out because of the game and stayed. They had a bottle of Nuka Cola on display, but none for sale, and they were out of Brahma burgers. Something about the radiation levels being too low to support the big bovines. They did have Sunset Sarsaparilla though, and I had a couple of mugs with my lunch. Johnny gave me some tips on places to visit, and off I went.

I stopped at Primm, which indeed had the roller coaster around the much bigger Buffalo Bill’s Casino. Primm was much larger than in the game, and actually had a monorail that ran through the town to move people from casinos to outlet stores and back. Primm was right across the border from California, so off I went into another state, adding it to my list of visited places in America. To both sides stretched the Mojave, stark and desolate, though definitely not lifeless. In places there were large groups of Joshua trees, and backdropping everything were the mountains.

Joshua Tree in the Mojave Desert.

World War 1 Memorial in the Mojave Natural Preserve.

I got off the interstate at the Nipton off-ramp, and I could see the tiny village ten miles ahead across the desert. As always, I was amazed at how far I could see. Clear air and the lack of trees made it impossible to hide. I drove down to Nipton, which has a bed and breakfast and a small general store. I was tempted to get a room and spend the night. It would have been cool to sit outside my room and look into the desert at night. It was still early, only 2 PM local time, so I passed on that idea. I continued down the interstate into Cali, pulling off at a gas station that was at the edge of the Mojave National Preserve. Note to travelers. Don’t always believe what the locals tell you. The woman at the station told me there was nothing down that road. I went down it anyway, and into one of the largest Joshua tree forests in the desert. I walked a bit through the Mojave, not far, just enough to get an impression of the place. I heard some bird calls (I guess) at times, but saw nothing moving. It was cold, so I think most of the reptilians were dormant, while the mammals were waiting for night. I noted this was desert you could hide in, since the Joshua trees were, if not growing as thickly together as trees in a temperate forest, still in thick enough clumps that thirty or forty yards in would provide considerable cover.

It was still only 4:30, but I was getting tired, and thought a nap might be a good idea, so I head up to Vegas. I had to drive around a bit, since my GPS wasn’t cooperating with finding a hotel. Finally stopped at a Hilton Garden Inn, and paid three times what I had for my room in Kingman. But, then again, I didn’t have to worry about vermin coming out of the walls in this hotel. After a nap I found a place to eat, then headed down to the strip. I had no intention of doing anything there, I just wanted to see the place. It was the tackiness of Disney World magnified a thousand times. Everything was lit with flashing neon, even McDonalds and CVS. There were people everywhere, walking the streets or taking the tram (another monorail type thing. Not sure how far it ran, but I saw it in several places). There was a fake pyramid with a very bad fake Sphinx in front. A building that looked like a fake New York City skyline. A fake Eifel Tower. I’m sure everyone had seen the pictures, many have probably been there. But being there to see it beat the hell out of pictures. I went the length of the strip, then doubled back to see it again, before heading back to my hotel to sleep the sleep of the dead. I had seen the Hoover Dam and the lower Grand Canyon, visited a lot of the iconic places in the game, had experienced another desert, and had thoroughly enjoyed the day. Tomorrow was my last day in the West. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I was sure me and my GPS could find something.

You Had To Have Been There, Part 2: A Geological Wonderland.

Posted by dougdandridge on April 11, 2017

Posted in: Blog Tour, eBooks, History, Plotting, Writing. Tagged: Flagstaff, Geology, Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Mt. Humphreys, West. 1 Comment

I woke up the next morning about 7:30, checked the weather on my phone (I was learning) and decided that I needed a real jacket. Looking up Walmart, I first went across the street to have an old fashioned country breakfast. But first I stopped in the parking lot to take a look at Mt. Humphreys, the tallest peak in Arizona. And it was tall, at 12,633 feet, over five thousand feet above the high plain that Flagstaff sits on. The top was covered in snow. It looked so strange, out here by itself on the high desert. After breakfast I went to Walmart, sure that they would have a winter jacket. After all, we were just down from a ski resort. But no, all they had were work jackets, so in desperation I bought what looked like the warmest one. Then it was on the road toward Winslow, and Meteor Crater.

Mt. Humphreys through telephoto lens from Meteor Crater.

All the way there Mt. Humphreys was in my rearview mirror. I wished they had more pullovers on the highways, something I would continue to wish throughout the trip. When I got to Meteor Crater I could still see the mountain, which looked to be a couple of miles away. It was actually over twenty-seven miles distant, another example of the clear air. I also noted several river gorges along the way. Checking them out on Google Maps I saw that several of these things stretched twenty or thirty miles across the desert. So imagine that you are walking across this desert in the hot months, heading for the large mountain clearly visible, thinking it only a few miles away. You walk five miles, starting to get thirsty, and then you run into one of these gorges. If you’re lucky there is water in the river, which I’m not sure is guaranteed. And if there is water? You might have to climb down hundred foot or more cliffs to get to that water, or to get across the gorge. Something else to think about.

Meteor Crater is out in the middle of nowhere. There is a good road leading to it, but it is the only thing out there. The crater itself is hidden from the road, all you can see is the ridge that was formed by the impact. Looking down on the crater was impressive. They had a graphic showing how downtown San Francisco would fit inside the crater, and another graphic showing how four hundred mile an hour winds would have hit where the interstate sat, over ten miles away. It was hundreds of feet deep, and the meteor was said to have generated twenty megatons of energy. Those who read Exodus: Empires at War know that I hit things with much more powerful kinetics, but this gave me an idea of what the crater would look like. Only mine would be much larger. I could also see what looked like mesas off in the distance to the north, where the Painted Desert lay.

I had been planning to go through the Painted Desert on the way to the Grand Canyon. The cold changed my mind, even though it was hitting the forties by the time I was through with the crater tour. I kept thinking of getting stranded on some back road with the temperature dropping. That settled it. I headed back to Flagstaff and got on the road to the Grand Canyon. Everywhere around me were mountains. Not like the one we are used to in the east, where you mostly see trees with maybe a few rock formations here and there. These were rock, and you could see every sedimentary layer, and how they were folded and upthrust. And again, every range was unique. And in the distance you could see the cliffs of the upthrust that held the Grand Canyon, looking like some artist’s representation of the barriers to the lost world. They were over ten miles away, and clear as if they were a mile.

Little Colorado River Gorge, cut by a stream that feeds into the main river that cut Grand Canyon.

I headed through to the canyon’s east entrance. On the way I stopped at an overlook of the Little Colorado River, which feeds into the big canyon. Maybe a hundred yards wide, almost that deep, it was still very impressive, and a perfect example of geological processes that turn what was buried into what is above the ground. The National Park lay ahead, and I entered some forest before getting to it. There were a few cars in line, but it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to get to the payment window. There was no one behind me, so I talked with the ranger operating the booth for a few minutes. Then, with great anticipation, it was off into the park. A couple of miles in was the Desert Overlook and the Watchtower, which had a large parking lot, bathrooms, and a restaurant. I got out of the car and, after hitting the restroom, walking down to the overlook. It was getting very cold out, and a wind was blowing from the canyon.

The Watcvhtower at the Desert View Overlook.

I walked onto the viewing area and got my first good look of the canyon. I was dumbfounded, thunderstruck, blown away. Like probably everyone in the world I had seen lots of pictures, even wide screen high def movies, of this canyon. Actually standing there, looking at it, realizing it was right there in front of me, was completely different than seeing pictures or film. To one side was a view over the desert that stretched to either side of the canyon. The opposite wall of the canyon looked like it was a mile away, when it was actually eight miles. The Colorado River looked small, until you realized that it was a mile down to the bottom of the canyon. And all around were rock walls of different shades of red, layers that had been laid down over a billion years in some ancient sea, then pushed up by plate tectonics, and eroded away over another billion years or so. Here were my geology studies brought to life. It was awe inspiring in the truest sense of the word. And I was here at the perfect time. Oh, it was cold, but it was also uncrowded. Talking with a woman in the restaurant, I learned that during the tourist season its bumper to bumper traffic. Still, everyone should see this thing. It makes you realize how small you really are, and how insignificant are lifespans are compared to geological time.

I was tempted to detour to the volcanic craters that populate the area behind Mt. Humphreys, but it was getting late, and I wanted to be at Hoover Dam the next morning. I drove along I-40, mountains everywhere, each range unique. It was still mostly desert, though there were some stretches of sparse woods. I pulled off at one place so I could get look at historic Route 66, a name I remember from the TV series from the black and white days of television. It’s mostly a dead highway in this day of superhighways, much as highway 90 and US 1 are in Florida. Then it was into Kingman, and a bit to eat before crashing for the night. More adventure awaited the next day, as soon I was out, images of the wonderland I had driven through that day dancing through my dreams.

Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Site

The Kinship War: My Big Chance, or Where the Rubber Meets to Road: Part 2.

Imagination Unlimited: The Short Science Fiction of Doug Dandridge is Out.

The Kinship War: My Big Chance, or Where the Rubber Meets to Road: Part 1.

My Trip Out West, the Last Chapter.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 12 is Finally Here.

You Had To Have Been There, Part 3: A Nuka Cola with that Brahma Burger, Please.

You Had To Have Been There, Part 2: A Geological Wonderland.

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