Alien Invasion

When Eagles Dare (Four Horsemen Tales Book 5) is Out.

Posted by dougdandridge on October 5, 2018
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Far Future, Future Warfare, Kindle, Military, science Fiction, self publishing, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

WhenEaglesDare

Today was the release day of When Eagles Dare (Four Horsemen Tales Book 5), by Seventh Seal Press, Chris Kennedy’s company, written by Doug Dandridge. That would be me. You can find it at Amazon.US and Amazon.UK, as well as all of the other Amazons worldwide. This is my first novel in the Four Horsemen Universe created by Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey, which now includes a bunch of other very good authors. It has been a most successful series, and part of its success is the marketing genius of Chris. Releasing a book at least once a month, often every three weeks, is part of that genius. And that requires more than one author. Actually more than two. I have written six books in a year, so it is possible with two, but is very difficult, as books don’t always come out of our minds and onto the keyboards as fast as we would like. Of course, if the stories aren’t good, nothing else really matters. Anyway, it works for them, and the sales and award nominations appear to back up the method.

I first got involved in the 4HU with the anthology, For A Few Credits More, released at last year’s Liberty Con. The story I wrote for that anthology, With The Eagles, followed mercenary leader Jonah White Eagle and his company on a couple of missions to rescue hostages, and piss off the criminal syndicate who was making a fortune on the people they were taking captive. In the process Jonah and his people earn the enmity of the aliens who run the criminal enterprise. They want revenge. Now, most of the books in the series, as well as most of the stories in the anthology, involve mercenaries in CASPers, the multimillion credit mecha/battle armor suits that even the playing field for humans against much more physically capable aliens. Great idea, and not one I wanted to pursue. I thought about what humans could do without the suits, in situations that required sneaking. Stealth, the art of getting into position, gathering intelligence, and making a kill.

That story was fun, and I considered writing a novel for the 4HU. I talked with Chris a DragonCon 2017, and we agreed I could write a novel, possibly in the main series. From there I went on to my other projects and didn’t touch base with Chris again until around February of this year, the same time I turned in the first book of the Kinship War series to Arc Manor. Unfortunately, even though it finally freed up some time, I had taken too much, and the slot in the main timeline of the series was no longer available. No problem. I told Chris I would come up with something else. I thought of the Fierce Eagle Company and exploring their specialty in a novel. An opportunity to sell a story to another anthology, Tales From the Lyon’s Den, came up, and I signed on for that one about the same time I signed the contract for When Eagles Dare. I came up with the name, among several others, and Chris loved it. It had a resonance with the movie and book that so many people were familiar with, something that would ring a bell. But not exactly the same. I came up with the story, outlined it, and started writing, planning to have it to Chris in a month. Like most plans, things didn’t work out, and I didn’t get it done until three months after signing the contract.

When Eagles Dare follows the Fierce Eagle Company as they perform a mission on a very unusual planet where a criminal enterprise, along with their own unusual mercenaries, are running an operation to harvest the planet. There are intelligent creatures on the world, slaves for the syndicate. Someone has hired the Fierce Eagles to scout out the compound so a force of CASPer equipped mercenaries can come in and take it. Things go bad from the start, and the mercenaries must traverse a number of deadly environments to get to the target and perform the mission. Bad news follows bad news, but Jonah White Eagle and his team have never given up on a mission, and this is not about the be the first time.

There were a lot of novels ahead of it in the queue, and it was first come first serve for publication. Fair, and I can’t fault the method. It works to put out books regularly, but not to release a flood of them all at once. Anyway, here it is, polished, proofed and ready to go. If you like any of my past work, I think you will love this one. I’m asking my readers to go on over to Amazon and pick this one up. It’s available on Kindle Unlimited as well if you have that subscription service.

Will I do another book in the 4HU? I can see it happening, but so much depends on how well this book does. That’s why I’m depending on my readers to give me a boost. While depending on the 4HU hardcore fans to look up some of my other work. One time or part of a greater future effort, I think this is a very good military science fiction tale, one that fans of the genre will enjoy. Now, I’m not going to include an excerpt with this one, but here’s the blurb from Amazon.

The mission Jonah White Eagle and his Fierce Eagle Company had taken was nearly impossible. Land on the middle of a 7.5-mile-high plateau, walk six miles to the edge of the cliff, and scale down the 39,000-foot-high cliffs to the foothills of the canyon below. Nothing to it, right? But then there was the swamp they had to cross, full of large indigenous life forms that thought Humans made good snacks. And the rivers, full of other killers, they would have to negotiate.

And then there were the Xlatan, a race of six-legged killers guarding the target. A relatively new mercenary race, although one more established than the Humans, the Xlatan were supposed to be tough. Maybe not—quite—as tough as the Besquith, but close enough to give a number of other merc races the chills when they went up against them.

The Fierce Eagle Company only needed to traverse the planet, stay alive, and then surveil the operation the Xlatan were guarding to gather intelligence for the CASPer-equipped merc company that was enroute to destroy the operation.

The mission would have been nearly impossible, all on its own. There’s just one more thing, though, that they don’t know. They’ve been set up, and the heavy forces aren’t coming.

Still, anything is possible…When Eagles Dare.

Exodus 14 is out, and other news.

Posted by dougdandridge on August 21, 2018
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Antimatter, eBooks, Far Future, Future Warfare, Kindle, Military, Nanotechnology, science Fiction, self publishing, Wormholes, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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Exodus: Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion. In the UK an be bought here.

Over nine months after the last book, Exodus: Empires at War: Book 13: Retaliation, was released, I am proud to announce that Exodus: Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion is out. A lot of obstacles got in the way of this book being released earlier. I had other projects that needed to be completed, some new opportunities, and some finishing up on series that had still not reached a stopping point. More on that last later on. First off, I needed to come up with an idea for the book, and when I finally got around to putting it first in the queue, the idea still eluded me. Finally, in mid-July, my imagination came alive and voila, there was the idea, and the book was ready to be written. I put in many five thousand word days, fourteen in a row at one point, but here it is.

Now, the good news for Exodus Fans. Some of the opportunities I took advantage of, which will definitely be paying off in the future, played havoc with my normal production schedule. I usually put out between five and six books a year, four or more in one of the two Exodus series, Empires at War and Machine War. This year I was not able to keep to that schedule, and I took a financial beating that wasn’t helped by taking a long trip to Nevada to tour that area. That will also help in the future when I start on a new series, probably next year. Frankly, I need to get some books out in my most popular series in order to repair the financial damage. So, I will be working hard to attempt to bring four more books in the series out before the end of the year. I might not make it, but it won’t be for lack of effort. So, two more Empires at War and two more Machine War. I may be closing out the Machine War series by book 6, but don’t worry, fans of that series. The main characters will be joining the war on the Ca’cadasan front. I had planned to end Empires at War after another couple of books, but now it’s looking like at least four more in the series, possibly six. I also plan to do two more Tales of the Empire short collections, and will start, by the end of next year, on a line called In The Beginning (tentative title), a series of six to eight books detailing the history of the wacky nation known as the New Terran Empire. So, there is still a lot of Exodus to come.

I have been accused by some people of only being in it for the money. Not quite true. Even if I wasn’t making a living at this I would still be writing. But to make a living I have to write works that people want to buy. That I’m not only in it for the money, I point to the Theocracy and Refuge series. Neither sell great, but I enjoy writing them, and there are enough fans of both series that I don’t want to just drop them in the middle of the story arc. I will try to get in the third Theocracy book next year, and book 6 of Refuge probably soon after. I had been planning to finish off Refuge at that time, but I think that by stretching it out in time I might be able to see myself doing two more. For people who are fans of the series, talk it up with friends, people at conventions, online. The more it sells, the more I will be willing to write in that series.

Now, to the opportunities. I have finished book 1 of a new series for a traditional house, Arc Manor, the publisher of Galaxy’s Edge magazine. It took a lot of time, and I had a harsh task master as an editor, but I learned a lot about writing. I doubt I would have gotten such an opportunity from anyone else. I have a second book due, and the publisher is amenable to putting a third on the contract after seeing the first. I will also be working on book two of Kinship War, as the series is called, during the fall. We are hoping that it will be a hit, and will open up a shared universe for other authors to write in. The second opportunity came from Chris Kennedy, whose publishing company is behind the very successful Four Horsemen Universe that he, Mark Wandrey, and now so many others write in. If any of my fans haven’t read any of their books, you need to go and get some and start reading. My novel, When Eagles Dare, will be coming out shortly. I also have a short story in another anthology set in the Universe. The other anthologies did really well, and I recommend them as well. Also, my short story, Alone, will be coming out soon in Chuck Gannon’s Lost Signals of the Terran Republic anthology.

I will also be releasing two other books in the next couple of weeks. One is a military fantasy, set in a gunpowder technology era. I wrote it years ago, well before Exodus was even a glimmer of an idea. An editor at a major house was interested in it, but frankly, I’ve got my traditional novel coming out, and I don’t want to wait a year or two for it to be accepted (or rejected) and finally make its way to production. The other is a science fiction/horror novel called Soulless, not for the timid or the young. Also written years before I even conceived of Exodus, it was praised by several of the instructors at a workshop where I presented the first two chapters. After that my harddrive will be cleared of unpublished finished works, with one exception that will have to wait.

So, for those who are mostly fans of Exodus, there will be more coming along, and soon. For those who are fans of Refuge, there will be more, but I can only afford to release one a year. And I have ideas for other series, which will be making their way to print over the next couple of years. I’m hoping to have a very productive couple of years ahead. If I can keep the body together I will be writing for years to come. I have no plans to retire from this job. I am still looking into getting more of the Exodus books produced as audiobooks, something I am constantly asked. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get the producer of the first five interested in doing any others. I had one narrator lined up, but he dropped out from the project soon after agreeing to do it. I can’t afford to produce them other than as a royalty share, and to do that I have to get a narrator to sign on. I have thought of doing it myself, but I really don’t have the time. It would cut into my writing time, and besides, I have lots of allergies, and getting through fifteen minutes without throat clearing is a challenge. I will be posting the job for Exodus 6 once again, but there are no guarantees. For those who have been following this blog for the travelogue of my last trip out West, I will be putting out the last chapter this Friday. And now for the excerpt:

“I think we’ll take this one first,” said the admiral, pointing to one of the projector ships. “Sinbad can go after this one, while Stuart takes this one.”

“Very good ma’am,” said the tactical officer, imputing the information into his board, setting up the attack profile for the squadron. He looked over at the com officer, who nodded back before sending the orders out through whisker laser.

“We should start configuring for attack in twenty-five minutes,” said the tac officer, frowning. “It means we won’t be sucking out heat for the fifteen minutes before the attack, but I don’t think it a good idea to delay any longer.”

“Very well. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“And how do you want to attack the rest of them?”

“Let’s see how we do with the initial attack before we start planning the others.”

The tac nodded in agreement. Not only would they not know how much of a force they had to attack the remaining enemy until after the first strike, but they wouldn’t know what the enemy was going to do before then. She hoped she still had three battle capable capital ships after that strike, but there was no guarantee. There was never a guarantee in combat.

The bridge crew waited. They had nothing to do but relay information to the squadron commander, and transmit her orders to the command bridges of the three ships. The real fighting would be handled by the command teams of the warships, maneuvering and firing at the orders of their captains and the skill of helm and tactical officers.

Mei reached up and wiped the sweat from her brow. She checked the temperature, and found that the environment of the bridge was still as cool as ever. Nerves was her thought. She had thought that by now she would be used to the tension before entering combat, but it never became any easier.

“Ships are configuring their wormholes for combat,” called out the com officer, his voice cracking slightly from the tension.

And now we find out how alert they are, thought Mei. They wouldn’t start producing heat immediately, but it would come, and they would no longer be as stealthy as before.

“Wormholes are set,” said the tac officer.

“Donut is reporting that the accelerators are spun up,” said the com officer. “Reactors at full power.”

Maybe I should have gone with missiles, thought the admiral. Wormhole launched missiles would have been instant kills when they hit, but she had a never heard of anyone firing them this close to a star. She wasn’t sure why that bothered her, but her instincts told her that the particle beams would be a better option in this situation.

She took one last look at the plot, trying to time it perfectly. The sensor officer turned toward her and said the words that took that option away from her.

“We’re being painted with lidar, ma’am.”

“Now,” shouted the admiral, her excitement at finally going into action taking control of her voice.

The well drilled ships all accomplished their actions within a second of each other. Electromagnetic fields came up at full strength, cold plasma injected as soon as they were formed. Laser rings took a couple of seconds to come up to full power, but counter missiles and offensive weapons were ready in an instant. And grabbers boosted up to full power, pulling their ships onto different vectors at five hundred and thirty gravities, then a couple of more, sinking the crew back into their acceleration couches as six gravities came over them in an instant.

Eight million ton warships now moved into the attack like they were fighters. Helms took control of the particle beams, slaved to their joysticks as the holos over their stations showed the aim point. Tactical officers continued to control the lasers and missiles, concentrating on defending their vessels.

The Jean de Arc vectored around the star, using its gravitational field to swing into the same orbital path as their target. They closed at thousands of kilometers a second, twisting, turning and rolling to avoid the lasers that the enemy was now firing their way. The ship shook from a hit, the damage to the hull causing the outgassing that provided unintentional thrust. Some missiles erupted from the enemy. Mei sucked in a breath

“They’re counters, ma’am,” called out the tac officer. “Not offensive weapons.”

“Firing,” called out the helmsman from the control bridge. The ship shook again as the counter thrust of the particle beam worked against the pull of the grabbers.

The forward viewer on the flag bridge showed the enemy superbattleship, highlighted against the brilliant globe of the star, sitting a couple of million kilometers below. The particle beam struck out, hitting dead center on the enemy vessel, going off for a moment, then connecting again as the helmsman adjusted the ship and his aim.

Particle beams were red in air due to the friction cause by protons flying at relativistic speeds through the gas particles. In space they were normally invisible. But this close to the star, in space that had greater particle density than further out, the destruction of antiprotons on the outer edge of the beam, contacting star plasma, had much the same effect. The angry red of the beam made aiming easy for the helmsmen.

Where the beam hit intense fire lived. Antiprotons exploded into particles as they touched matter, while making the atoms of matter blast into similar particles. The force of the strike, antiprotons moving at just under the speed of light, sent the fire deep into the hull after blasting through the armor.

Still, the ship was tough, and the beam would not kill them quickly. What they did was erode away all the electronics and installations for a hundred meters on each side of the strike, degrading defenses.

“Firing missiles,” came another voice over the intercom, the ship’s tactical officer releasing six missiles from the forward tubes. The missiles arced out, then in, avoiding the particle beam, then striking the hull of the enemy ship. One was knocked off course on the way in, one was detonated by a second laser. Four hit, each releasing a gigaton of force into the hull of the ship.

 

 

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 13 is Out. And Come Check Out My Chat Day at the Lost Signals Anthology Facebook Page.

Posted by dougdandridge on December 4, 2017
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, Antimatter, eBooks, Far Future, Future Warfare, Intelligent Life, Kindle, Military, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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After a lot of work, and taking longer than I wanted, Exodus: Empires at War: Book 13: Retaliation is out and available on Amazon.US and Amazon.UK among others. The war is really heating up, with the New Terran Empire and its allies beating back the latest Ca’cadasan offensive and going on the counter attack.  And Sean, the Emperor, has ordered an audacious plan to take off the head of the Ca’cadasan Empire. Currently I am working on Refuge: Book 5, and expect to have it out around Christmas, possible before, more probably right after. Next will probably be the next book in the second Deep Dark Well Trilogy, Theocracy 2.

The first book of the Kinship War series, on contract from Arc Manor, is on track to be turned in prior to the required date.  After that, except for the second book of the Kinship War series, my plans aren’t set for 2018. I will most probably continue the Exodus series, both Empires and War and Machine War, hopefully to completion. When I have wrapped those up, I will write some novels set in the beginning of the Empire and work through the history.

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And, I am involved in the Lost Signals Anthology of three times Nebula Award Nominee Charles (Chuck) Gannon, whose Terran Republic series is the impetus for the anthology. There is a Kickstarter for the project, which has passed the initial and first stretch goals. I will be contributing an action filled short story to the anthology. And tomorrow, Tuesday, December 5, 2017, I will be the chat guest on the Facebook page, and there may be some giveaways. The Kickstarter page is here.

And now, an excerpt from Exodus: Empires at War: Book 13: Retaliation:

“We’ve got the first formation coming through the center,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski, his holographic image looking around the table. The wrinkles on his face were even deeper than usual, indicating his heightened concern. “Twelve thousand ships, by our best estimate. Designated Alpha.”

The huge holo of the front floated over the conference table, the force in question highlighted in red, a vector arrow showing its projected path, straight into one of the major base systems of that region, Saures.

“We have contact with two other forces, designated Bravo and Charlie. Both are approximately the same size as Alpha, and from the projections they appear to be looping around, on a course to come in around Saures and cut it off. My staff think they are trying to force a major engagement in that system. I would like to bring them to battle in normal space before they reach their target. Unfortunately, they don’t have to drop down into any of the systems along the way.”

“Do you think you can take them in hyper?” asked Grand Fleet Admiral the Duke Taelis Mgonda, his own image frowning as he studied the holo.

Sean kicked back in his chair, one of the few corporeal beings actually in the conference room, along with Vice Admiral Mary Innocent, his staff intelligence officer, and Admiral Ekaterina Sergiov, the director of Combined Intelligence. Several of the grand fleet admirals’ staff were also in attendance by holo, along with Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom, the Chief of Naval Operations, Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, the Imperial Army Chief of Staff, and Field Marshal Betty Parker, the Commandant of the Imperial Marine Corps.

It still amazed him that they were having a real-time conference when some of the attendees were thousands of light years away from each other. Prior to the deployment of so many wormholes, the only way they would have been able to keep in touch would have been through couriers, at least to those places that weren’t connected by hyper-link, which still took over a week to reach from the capital of the Empire to the frontier. The old way worked, after a fashion, in that orders and assessments could be passed. Always far behind the real-time events. Assessments would come in too late for anything to be done about them, orders would go out to commanders no longer facing the situation those orders were meant to deal with. No, they could almost control the action at the front, though Imperial doctrine still called for the man or woman on the spot to make the determination and give the orders.

“Oh, we can take them, alright,” said Len with a tight smile. “Especially if we move our ships around through our mobile gates. It’s just that we have a much better power ratio against them in normal space.”

The Emperor had to agree with that assessment. Many of his ships were still hyper VI, able to move at a pseudospeed of just above ten thousand lights. Unfortunately, all of the Caca vessels were the more advanced hyper VII, able to get up to over forty thousand lights, four times that of VI. The Empire was no longer building hyper VI craft. Everything being laid down or coming out of the building slips was hyper VII standard now, but there had been a lot of hyper VI vessels in the fleet at the beginning of the war. In fact, over ninety-five percent of the warships in the Imperial order of battle had been VI, the VIIs restricted to some battle cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers used for scouting. Many of those older ships had been destroyed, but many had also survived, and were no longer able to keep up with the predominantly VII forces. Those ships were best used for system defense, or taking systems, though the wormholes and multi-purpose missiles still allowed them to strike at ships in the higher dimensions. Also, inertialess and warp fighters couldn’t operate in hyper, and so were more or less useless between systems.

But the hyper VII ships that had wormholes were more than a match for their Caca opponents. The two problems they had were that the Cacas now had wormholes of their own. Not in the numbers the Empire deployed, thank God, but enough to become a worry. And the gates that allowed the Imperial ships to move from place to place as fast as their ships could get through the portals didn’t allow other wormholes through. So, though they could send thousands of ships to reinforce threatened areas, the wormholes that made them so effective couldn’t go with them.

“They obviously aren’t going to give us that advantage until they hit Saures,” said Mgonda, shaking his head, then reaching off the holo for something, his hand disappearing for a moment before returning with a mug of some liquid.

The other grand fleet admiral was in his dress uniform, unlike Len, who liked to wear casual shipboard clothing even when in high level meetings, if he wasn’t really there. The duke had a broad face and nose, dark eyes looking out from under bushy eyebrows. Mgonda liked to say his family was descended from the Zulu tribe of South Africa on Earth. From what Sean had seen in the records, his face did resemble those of the fierce warriors. Which proved nothing, with all the genetic mixing that had gone on in the Empire.

Sean reached for his own cup, only to discover that it was empty. He nodded for his steward to bring him a fresh cup, then looked back at his admirals.

“I think we need to hit them with everything we have on the way in,” said Sean, looking from grand fleet admiral to grand fleet admiral to grand high admiral. “Hit and run, with our fastest wormhole equipped ships. And everything we have that can’t catch them or run from them will be waiting for them in Saures.”

“Sounds good, your Majesty,” said McCullom, looking at the deployments as they appeared on the holo. “But what if that’s not all they have?”

Sean scratched his nose for a moment, thinking. What if they had something else coming forward, and hit him someplace they weren’t ready. Lenkowski had a fleet of over forty thousand ships, Imperial, Crakista and Elysium. Eight thousand capital ships, while the Cacas probably had a similar number in their fleet. Mgonda had thirty thousand ships in his fleet, still in the process of taking back the Fenri systems and ejecting the last of the Caca vessels in that region. He also had Elysium ships in his force, but the majority of his vessels were Imperial. There was a fleet of twenty thousand ships in the Republic, mostly the vessels of that nation, along with Crakista allies.

And far back behind the lines, in five base systems three hundred light years back, were the ships he was hiding from the enemy. Another fifty thousand vessels. They could be committed to action if necessary, but they were there to provide the nucleus of the promised offensive he was going to spring on the Cacas. The offensive he had promised his people and Parliament for over a year. If they were committed to action, the offensive might be delayed by a year or more while ships were repaired and missiles were replenished.

“Might I suggest, your Majesty,” said Mgonda, setting down his mug and reaching for a cigar. “I think we can wrap up this business in Fenri in a week or less. Then I can move my fleet in on a vector that cuts the Cacas off from their logistics.”

“They’ll still have their wormholes,” cautioned McCullom. “We won’t be able to completely cut them off from their support.”

“But the duke has a point,” said Sean, looking into the dark eyes of the admiral as he puffed on his cigar. Sean hated the habit of smoking, but as long as the duke was blowing his smoke two thousand lights years from his nose it didn’t bother him. “They don’t have that many wormholes, and any they have to use as gates are wormholes they won’t be able to use for other things. I think that’s an excellent idea, Duke Taelis. Now, if we could get President Graham to commit the Republic to come in on the other flank.”

“I doubt that she would be willing, your Majesty,” said the CNO, shaking her head. “She’s still terrified that the Cacas will be coming back.”

Lost Signals of the Terran Republic.

Posted by dougdandridge on November 15, 2017
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Intelligent Life, science Fiction, self publishing, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

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Yesterday, November 14, 2017, a date which will live in infamy. Oh wait, wrong script. Yesterday the Kickstarter for Chuck Gannon’s Lost Signals of the Terran Republic Anthology went live, and had reached over half of its funding level in less than 24 hours. No reason to stop at the stated goal though. More money means a thicker anthology with more stories by more great authors. And the possibility of even more anthologies in the future.

For those not familiar with Chuck, which I would think would be a vanishingly small species, his first book of the Terran Republic and its irrepressible protagonist, Caine Riordan, won the Compton Crook award for best first novel. It went on to capture a Nebula nomination. Not only that, but in an almost unheard of coup, the next two books were also nominated for the Nebula, and the Dragon award as well. None of them won, unfortunately, since I think all three were above the competition in the years they were on the ballot. But I only had one vote. Chuck has one of the books on Amazon for free for another couple of days, the first, Fire with Fire. So, if you haven’t read Chuck, go out and snag the freebie while it’s still available.

Now, on to the anthology. I met Chuck at my first LibertyCon back in 2014. In 2015 he asked me if I would like to play in his Universe. When asked that by a NYT bestseller author there is only one answer, and it isn’t yes. It’s Hell Yes. We talked about it a couple of times through the years, and then the idea just seemed to fade away. I know how these things go. You have plans, but something else comes up and you don’t get to it. It happens to me all the time. I had about given up, when out of the blue comes an email that it’s on. The Kickstarter would be coming up in the near future, and he needed some copy from all of those interested. Now this was bad timing for me, I was trying to get two self-pubbed books out and was still working on the first book of the Kinship War series for Arc Manor Publishing. But I really wanted to be in this thing. It was a terrific chance to get more readers, for everyone involved. And I want more readers. Not that I don’t appreciate the thousands I have across the world (Ten thousand or so?), but everyone wants more. Part of the appeal of this project was that numerous writers could cross pollinate their fan bases. Someone who had never heard of one might buy it to read the work of their favorite, then read that unknown, to them, writer, and become a fan. And Chuck has arranged it so during the Kickstarter, we all get to highlight one of our own works to readers. It looked like a win for everyone involved.

I don’t know all of the authors involved, nor have I read most of them. Chuck asked me to be in it. He asked them to be in it. That’s enough of a recommendation for me, and I will be looking them up and reading their work. Those so far in the project include myself, Chuck of course, and Tom Doyle, Walter Hunt, Joelle Presby, Lawrence M. Schoen, Alex Shvartsman, Alan Brown, Robert Waters, Gray Rinehart, Rick Boatright, Robert Chase, Vonnie Crist, Alistair Kimball, and Marc Miller. I think there may be more, but I’m sure the full line up of the first volume isn’t set in stone. Chuck will be contributing stories and editing, and the anthology will be published through Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire Press. The tentative publication date is May of 2018. And there are rewards for the Kickstarter, including of course copies of the book in eBook and paperback format. You can also get your name into a future Caine Riordan book as a red shirt, and die a glorious death. Or as a recurring character who will move from novel to novel (a couple of my local friends did this and have been in the last two or three books with major roles). You can name a ship, a station or a city. At higher levels you can name a planet or a class of ship. All kinds of perks to play with. So get out there and contribute to what promises to be a great collection of stories set in an award winning and best selling universe.

For all who have asked, I have contracted to have the audiobook of Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6 produced. It should be out by the end of January, 2018. Hopefully we can move on to book 7 as soon as that one is completed. I will also have book 13 of the Exodus series out by the end of this month, and book 5 of the Refuge series out by mid December. And I will be revamping the blog site, to include a new book selling page that will allow readers to go to Amazon through my Amazon Associates account. And my new website is up at the same old address,  http://www.dougdandridge.net .  A lot of good stuff coming up.

30 Days of Giveaways: Part 6: Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2.

Posted by dougdandridge on October 26, 2017
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Far Future, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Intelligent Life, Military, Nanotechnology, science Fiction, self publishing, Writing. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Exodus2c1

Part five of the Giveaway is done, so now we move on to part six. As stated earlier, because of KDP scheduling, I had to put Exodus: Book 3 out there first. But for those who devoured Book 1 and were eagerly awaiting Book 2, here it is, Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2.  It can be found in the UK here. I was away at a conference through most of part 5 of the giveaway. I really didn’t get to follow it along its way. I did my blog and mass sending out across pages. One site nuked me for the effrontery of posting spam, even though I had never seen any kind of posting against it on that site. I was reinstated, but wondered why I was even bothering with them, and quit.

In other news, the Florida Writer’s Conference went well. I had interested audiences at both of my presentations, Self-Publishing and Writing Science Fiction. Also sat on the Dredging Up You Darkside Panel with some mystery and thriller writers. One audience member said we seemed like such happy and well adjusted people. If only she knew. Met a lot of people at the daily meals. Our Tallahassee Writers won three first place awards. I didn’t win anything, but then I didn’t enter anything. It’s not really my thing. And I was telling people the whole weekend that I had almost four thousand ratings on Goodreads with a 4.1 star average. Checked it out the other day, and it was actually 5,156 ratings with a 4.12 star average. Woohoo.

And now for the blurb.

They are our worst Nightmare. Unfortunately, they do not go away when we open our eyes.

The Battle continues as two immense Empires fo Toe to Toe, the fate of both species on the line.

The Saga Continues as the Ca’cadasan menace prepares to assault the New Terran Empire. A menace humankind fled across the Galaxy two thousand years before.

Humankind has grown complacent, confident in the victories their fleet has won for them through the last thousand years over numerous alien races. But the Ca’cadasan Empire has continued to grow, and now the massive Imperialistic power has found the hated humans. The Emperor knew this was going to happen, but most of Parliament ignored his strident call. And the Prince Sean Lee Ogden Romanov, third in line for the throne, finds himself placed into a position he had never thought would come his way. The fate of the Empire may rest on the abilities of one young man, and his skills at navigating the maze of Imperial politics amidst a war of extermination. Book two of the popular Exodus Series.

Next up: The Florida Writer’s Conference, or My Time Among the Normies.

30 Days of Giveaways: Part 5: Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3.

Posted by dougdandridge on October 21, 2017
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Far Future, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Interdimensional Travel, Military, Nanotechnology, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Space Navy, Writing. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Exodus3RSc

 

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3:  The Rising Storm, is available for free for the next five days. I can be found at Amazon UK here. The book is over 200K words long. I decided to do it that way after a fan stated that it was going to take me fifty books to tell the story at 120K a book. After writing it I decided 120K was just fine, but it still stands out as the only Exodus book over 200,000 words.

Part four of the Giveaway is done, so now we move on to part five. When I had originally envisioned this series of giveaways, I had planned to do the first three Exodus: Empires at War books before the first two Refuge books. Unfortunately, all of my books had been entered into KDP Select at different times. KDP select, exclusivity with Amazon, is what allows you to promote a book five days out of a ninety day period. It renews every 90 days, but the giveaways can only be scheduled for the current period. I couldn’t schedule Exodus 1 earlier because the renewal date was right in the middle of those five days. So I shifted it, and then found that I could only do four days of Exodus 3, because it renewed right on the 30th. The only solution was to move it up to the fifth slot. Exodus 2 will still be given away, but not until the 6th slot. I apologize to anyone this might confuse. So, just go ahead and get book 3 if you’ve already gotten book 1, and book 2 will be along shortly.

And now for the blurb:

They’re Back, and They want to End us.
The Ca’cadasan Empire is at the gates, and they mean to destroy the human race. But we will not go quietly into the night.
The saga continues, as Sean Ogden Lee Romanov finds himself the uncrowned leader of the New Terran Empire. After two thousand years the old enemy has found them, but the humans are no longer the technologically inferior species they once were. A thousand years of Empire has forged a mighty military that has never lost a war. The Ca’cadasans are still slightly ahead in tech, are much larger, and have never failed in a conquest. There is dissension within as Parliament wants to put their own man in charge, and Sean is woefully unprepared for the task that awaits him. Time is running out, and if the Empire and the species are to survive the new man must be installed and humanity must rally behind him. New technologies are on the horizon, technologies on which the course of the war could turn, for better or worse. War rages across the stars on a Galactic scale. The third book of a series that will span over a century of time and tens of thousands of light years of space.

Grand Science Fiction in the legacy of Weber and Ringo.
Action packed science fiction on a grand scale.

30 Days of Giveways: Fourth: Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1

Posted by dougdandridge on October 16, 2017
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, Armor, eBooks, Far Future, Fusion, Future Warfare, Intelligent Life, Kindle, Military, Nanotechnology, Space Industry, Space Navy, Writing. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

exodus1

The giveaway of Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2 is over, and today starts the five days of the book that made it possible for me to quit my day job. Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1 started the whole thing off. It can be obtained in the UK here. As mentioned earlier, the next book will be Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3, since the way the KDP days worked out didn’t give me five days for promotion at the end of the month (the current period for that book ends on October 29th).

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1 was, obviously, the first book in the Exodus series, which now stands at eighteen books, twelve in the main series, four in the Machine War series, and two in the Tales of the Empire short story collections. The series had been bestseller on Amazon lists in the US and UK in Space Opera and Military Science Fiction. The series has sold about one hundred and eighty thousand copies, and was the driving force in my being able to become a full-time author. Book 13 of the main series will be coming out by mid-November, the fifth book of Machine War in about January in 2018. Empires at War will probably reach fifteen books, while Machine War is planned for six. I will also do at least one more short story collection, and in 2019 I will start on a new Exodus series, telling the stories of humankind’s journey to the stars and the establishment of the Empire. I will be moving on to other series, including the Kinship War series I will be doing for Arc Manor, but Exodus will always be in mind, and I will try to revisit it when I can. And now for the blurb.

Humanity’s worst nightmare has again come out of the Dark. Can a human race in turmoil survive?

It’s a Fight to the Finish as Two Interstellar Empires go Toe to Toe.

When the human race faces extermination at the hands of an expanding species, the last survivors travel a thousand years to reestablish the race ten thousand light years away. It is now a thousand years after the birth of the New Terran Empire. The race has aggressively expanded during that time, with a fleet that has never lost a war against an alien species. But the signs are there, the old enemy is back, and the Fleet will face its greatest challenge in a foe fifty times their size.

Science fiction in the tradition of Anderson and Weber, where the physics of normal and hyperspace dictate the strategy and tactics. Enormous fleets battle across the immensity of space with advanced technologies. Can the proud human Fleet hold off the tide of an advancing enemy, rallying allies and deploying new tech? Or will the conquerors achieve what they could not two thousand years before, and end the existence of the upstarts?