Barbarians

My Bibliography of Online Books.

Posted by dougdandridge on December 29, 2016
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, Antimatter, Armor, Barbarians, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Warfare, History, Intelligent Life, Interdimensional Travel, Kindle, Magic, Military, Multiverse, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Quantum Physics, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Space Program, steampunk, String Theory, Undead, Vampires, Wormholes. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

People have told me in the past that they have not been able to find all of my books.  If you read my space opera, then all of the books of that type will eventually appear on the ‘People who bought this also bought’ list.  However, you won’t find my fantasy or near future scifi there.  So here it all is, at least what I have so far, with links to their individual Amazon sales pages.  All are also available on Kindle Unlimited with the exception of Machine War 3.  It will appear on KU in a couple of months.  Hope everyone finds this helpful.  And to those with new Kindles, try one of my books.  I don’t think you will be disappointed.

The dates alongside each book is the year it was written, not the publication date.  The earliest any book was published was December 13, 2011. when both The Deep Dark Well and The Hunger were published.  Right now I am sitting at just over 4,000 reviews on Amazon, with a 4.6 * average.  On Goodreads, a little harder Audience, I have 4,166 ratings with a 4.12 * average.

Books by Doug Dandridge

Science Fiction

The Deep Dark Well Series

c1yxrh5nzvs-_ac_us250_

The Deep Dark Well:  (2004)  An Adventure 40,000 years in the making.  Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama.  She’s used to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole, halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future.  Pandora must discover the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars.  Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down the roads of Barbarism.

To Well and Back:  (2013)  Pandora Latham is back, working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization.  But first she has to deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own.  Pandora is angry at the hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.

Deeper and Darker:  (2014) Pandora Latham is on the warpath.  Watcher, her lover, and the only man who can once again unite the Galaxy, is a prisoner of the Totalitarian government of the New Galactic Empire.  The Empire thinks they have the upper hand, but they have never faced someone like Pandi, and the peoples of the Galaxy that she has rallied to her cause.

Theocracy:   (2011)  A young gunpowder era monk becomes the only hope for his doomed world as he is caught up in the game of empire between two more advanced cultures.

The Exodus Series

c1w8f8ejus-_sl250_fmpng_

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1:  (2010)  The introduction to the Exodus Universe.  Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years to a new home.  Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to be going well for the New Terran Empire.  Until the enemy appears once again at the gates.  And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2:  (2010)  The saga continues.  The Ca’cadasans attack at the moment when the government of the Empire is at its most chaotic.  There are other enemies as well, waiting for their chance to fall on the overwhelmed humans.  And a young man with no ambition for power finds himself in the position he most dreads.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3:  (2013) Sean is rescued, but he is not about to go back to the safety of the capital without striking back at the Ca’cadasans who have invaded his Empire.  But will his decision put the lives of thousands at risk, as well as risking the safety of his own Empire, by depriving it of its leader.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4:  (2013)  Sean is crowned Emperor, and attempts to organize the Empire for war against the Ca’cadasans.  But he finds that planning battles and winning battles are two different things. Defeat follows defeat.  Can anyone snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?  Or will the new Emperor fail before his reign even really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger:  (2014)  Cornelius Walbroski enters the rigors of Ranger training, becoming one of the augmented warriors of the Empire.  But his first assignment, Azure, is one of the most deadly planets in the Galaxy, even prior to the coming of the Cacas.  Can Cornelius survive his first mission?  Or will a promising career end before it really begins?

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle:  (2014)  Sean and the Empire need a victory before human morale goes completely into the black hole.  He develops a plan to bring the Ca’cadasans into battle in space of his choosing.  But the Cacas are not an easy opponent, and they have plans of their own, for the Donut.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:  (2014)  The Empire has weathered the Ca’cadasan onslaught, and now it’s the time to strike back with an offensive of their own.  A victory could win the war.  But will it?

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers:  (2015)  The Cacas have been ejected from Imperial space, for the moment.  But millions of citizens of New Moscow are still held captive in death camps in their former empire, processed for rations for the large aliens.  Sean is determined to save as many as he can, and the Fleet and Army are prepared to carry out his directive; free the prisoners at all costs.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front:  (2015)  The exploration mission sent around the edge of the Ca’cadasan Empire has found the other Empire at war with the large aliens.  They are not as expected, and Sean must order his military to perform actions that could vilify him in the eyes of his new allies.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy:   (2016)  The Fenri, all but beaten, have not given up, and their new plan promises random death and destruction in the Empire.  The Cacas have launched a new offensive against the Klavarta, and their new commander is much more intelligent than the last.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: (2016)  Day of Infamy:  The Ca’cadasans come up with a bold new plan to destroy the heart of the Empire, and the gigantic station that is the source of the New Terran Empire’s technological edge.  Using their own newly created wormhole, they will deep strike into the Supersystem.  The result could doom the Empire.

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command:  (2015)  Three novelettes concerning Exploration Command, the arm of the Fleet tasked with pushing back the boundaries of the Empire, and discovering the technology needed to win the war.

51hhpmlnmal-_sy346_

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Beasts of the Frontier:  (2016)  Three novelettes and three short stories about the dangers of the frontiers of the Empire.  The Cacas are not the only threat.  Sometime the danger is the wild, at other times, other humans.

 

Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova:  (2015)  When a civilization is discovered that has a special ability that would be of tremendous benefit to the Empire, great excitement is generated.  When it is found that a nearby blue giant star is due to supernova in less than a year, destroying that world, excitement turns to a frantic race to save as much of that species as possible.  And enemies from the past, lurking in space, bring forth a new war to the embattled Empire.

 

51Z2Gzn-RcL.jpg

Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole:  (2016)  The Machine Intelligences are back, with a vengeance.  While the Empire is busy fighting a war of survival against the Cacas, the murderous killing machines they had created hundreds of years prior are now ready to strike back.  And the Imperial stronghold of Bolthole is in their sights.

Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above:  (2016)  The Machines are on the move, their planet killers headed for Bolthole.  The human fleet is outnumbered and outgunned.  But the humans have some technological tricks up their sleeves, and the genius of an unconventional commander.  Will it be enough?

Other Scifi

Diamonds in the Sand:  (1998)  When a perfectly healthy scientist falls dead of an apparent heart attack, it is up to Sarasota Police Detective Lieutenant Gary Lariviere to find out what really happened.  The scientist was working on Nanotechnology, a secret desired by everyone from the Government to the Mob.  There are too many suspects, including the woman that Gary comes to love.  The Army had made Gary better than human, but had they prepared him for the terrors that had been unleashed by the new technology?

The Scorpion:  (2006)  The Scorpion had been the world’s deadliest living terrorist.  Kestral McMann had been in on the kill.  Now The Scorpion is back as a mind upload, using clones to penetrate the tight security of an isolationist United States.  McMann is the only man who can stop him.  But can McMann survive the threat of his own side, and the insane President who leads the Nation, in time to stop The Scorpion from plunging the Great Satan back into the Stone Age?

The Shadows of the Multiverse:  (2005)  Something has been periodically wiping intelligence from our Universe through the ages.  It’s back, and it’s up to three unlikely heroes, the Captain of a Battle Cruiser, a Physicist turned Archeologist, and a Child, to save the intelligence of the Universe from Monsters from another Dimension.  Can they learn to use the powers of their unusual Quantum Minds to defeat creatures that have been playing the game for billions of years?

 

51uNXwB5mGL._SY346_.jpg

 

Afterlife:  (2010)  What if you didn’t believe in the afterlife of the World’s Religions?  And what if science offered you the alternative, survival within the Virtual World of a computer, where your mental abilities are magnified and you can do anything you want?  And what if the World decided that your way was wrong, and declared war on you, meaning to destroy your reality?  What would you do?  Afterlife, a tale of survival at all costs.

We Are Death, Come For You:  (2011)  When aliens strike the Tau Ceti colony, humankind knows that something bad is on the way.  They prepare as best they can, but will it be enough against superior technology?  The aliens are death worshippers, and only the extinction of the human race will satisfy their evil intent.  There are wonders of tech on the horizon, but can they be deployed in time?  Or will humankind have to depend on the smallest of their techs to save them?

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

c1nazla1ohs-_sl250_fmpng_

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1:  (2010)  A nuclear war in Central Europe opens the gates between dimensions, sending millions of Earth Humans into a land of myth, archetypes and fantasy.  The Evil Emperor of the Ellala Elves sees the humans as energy to fuel his transformation to immortality.  But the humans have brought their own weapons with them, as well as a race of Demigods who will battle the fantastic armies of Refuge.  The war is on, and only one side will ultimately survive.

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2:  (2010)  The Ellala have a plan to destroy the human military and capture the civilians.  And the humans find that their weapons will soon cease to function.  So it’s use it or lose it for the Earth Humans, and they use it with a vengeance.  Tanks against Mages, Attack Helicopters against Dragons, and Nuclear Weapons against Death Gods.  And the other peoples of the planet come forth as allies to the humans that they see as the fulfillment an Ancient Prophecy.  But will it be enough?

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions:  (2012)  The human invaders are now without their technologies, at least those using explosives and internal combustion engines.  But they still have knowledge of many other techs, especially the arts of warfare as practiced by the greatest infantry of the ancient world.  Will it be enough to stand up to the half lich Emperor and his magical forces.

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:   (2014)  When the evil half lich Emperor sends his minions on a mission to find the Crown of the Lost Gods, an artifact which can control the minds of millions, it is up to Kurt von Mannerheim to stop them.  Along with his fellow immortal, Jackie Smith, the human Physicist/Mage James Drake, the Ellala Ranger Fenris and the Grimakan Priest Garios, they must head to the frozen north to foil the plan, and ensure that the evil artifact never sees the light of day.

Refuge: Doppelganger: (2006)  Set thousands of years after the arrival, Kurt von Mannerheim, the Immortal Emperor of the Imperium of Free Nations, must give up everything to save his Empress, the Elfin Princess Gwenara Elysius von Mannerheim.  The world is at a crisis point as the Evil Tarakesh Empire, under its Immortal Emperor Heinrich Stuppleheim, prepares to overrun the world with its Nazi Ideology.  And Kurt must face a creature of legend that may prove too much for even his physical and mental abilities.

Other Fantasy

The Hunger:  Abused wife, drug addict, prostitute; Lucinda Taylor had been victimized by men all her adult life.  Left for dead by her pimp, Lucinda was turned by a passing vampire.  When he is destroyed she becomes a free agent, slaking her hunger for blood on the bottom dwellers of society, the type of men who once victimized her.  The crime boss of Tampa is her next target, and the City by the Bay is about to become a bloodbath.  But can Lucinda avoid those who are hunting for her; the Priest, the FBI man, and a pair of Vampires who would like nothing better than to send one Avenging Vampire forever into the dark?

Daemon:  A Steampunk Fantasy.  The world is dying, the victim of the magic used by society for the last three hundred years.  Daemon Corporation thinks they have the answer, stealing the life from other worlds, bringing from other dimensions the intelligences that inhabit them for sacrifice on Earth.  But something has come with them, a force that is killing the employees of Daemon Corp.  It is up to Forensic Mage Detective Jude Parkinson to find a way to stop the unstoppable, while keeping the head of Daemon Corp from silencing him to keep the dark secrets of the company out of the public eye.

518bRzHrfNL.jpg

 

Aura:  Triplets are born on a world where the magical Aura decides the fate of its owner.  Ariel is a girl with more than double the normal Aura, destined to become a mighty Priest or Mage.  Aiden has a less than normal Aura, and is destined to be a soldier or laborer.  While Arlen has no Aura at all, and is seen as an abomination in the eyes of the Church of Baalra the Dragon God, which has no power over those with Negative Auras.  Fate will rip the siblings apart, then bring them back together as they battle to defeat the Dragon God and leave the Evil Empire, before Ariel is taken as the Avatar of Baalra, his mortal vessel on Earth.

Books with other Authors:

Five By Five 3: Target Zone:  Novellas by New York Times Bestsellers Kevin J. Anderson and Michael A. Stackpole, along with Prometheus Award Winner Dani and Eytan Kollin, Baen Author Sarah A. Hoyt, and Exodus Empires at War Author Doug Dandridge, make this a must have book for the military science fiction aficionado.

51c9xfcsrbl

Bellator:  An anthology of military science fiction and fantasy, with my Exodus: Empires at War story Slacker.

Fight the Monster: Find the Cure for MS:  An anthology of horror and dark fiction, featuring my short story, Midnight Sun.

Refuge: The Journey, Part 3. And Exodus 6 is coming.

Posted by dougdandridge on April 13, 2014
Posted in: Acceleration, Agents, Antimatter, Armor, Barbarians, Conferences, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Movies, Multiverse, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Past, Plotting, Proofreading, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Industry, Space Navy, Space Program, steampunk, Sword and Sorcery, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Wormholes, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

As stated in the last post, I wrote Refuge: Doppleganger trying to stick to the follow a few characters format, unlike the original Refuge novels.  And again it was rejected, with comments about how I was just rehashing the same old stuff that had been done before.  Look, I had steam trains, steam pistols, and airborne infantry, as well as squadrons of dragons.  I think I could almost pass it off as a steampunk, novel, maybe.  It was anything but rehashing the same old stuff.  But I came out of that experience knowing that the only way I was going to get this idea across was to go back to the beginning.  So I came up with the idea of telling the story of how humans came from our world to this one.  And since Kurt was an immortal character, there from the beginning, he would be the main character of the novel.  Of course, I ended up putting in a lot of characters, again churning out a Harry Turtledove kind of book.  In 2009 I started on the worldbuilding for Exodus, and in 2010, while working for the State of Florida full time, I completed a two hundred thousand word novel each in the Exodus and Refuge Universes.  I also wrote Daemon, Afterlife, and We Are Death Come For You that year.  The last three novels were to be for submission to agents and publishers, but Exodus and Refuge were written to either be self published, or sold after I had been traditionally published.  I knew at two hundred thousand words both were too long for first novels.  When I went the self publishing route in 2012 I decided that both books would be published independently, but still felt they were both too long.  The solution?  Split them into two novels each, which required putting in a section at the end the first installments of both novels to make up a climatic end.  This caused some people to think that the first installments, especially Exodus, were merely extended introductions, and there might be some truth to that assertion.

I put out both Exodus and Refuge out in 2012.  Late summer for Refuge, fall for Exodus.  I thought Exodus was a good story, one that reminded me of the old time space opera I loved, but with the technical detail I wished they had.  I hoped it might do well, but didn’t really expect much of it.  Refuge though.  Refuge was the book I had been developing for over a decade.  It was, in my opinion, the more imaginative of the two.  I thought it was more of a risk, since it crossed genres, with elements of fantasy and military techno thriller.  I was sure it was going to be the series that would allow me to become a full time writer.  It sold well enough, and people snapped the first book up when I offered it was a freebee.   And then Exodus took off, much to my surprise, before I could even do a promotion.  Since those first two books of each series I have put out three more Exodus books, and only one new Refuge.   I thought maybe people who liked one would like the other, since I love all the fantastic genres, science fiction, fantasy, even horror.   Turns out that some people love scifi and can’t stand fantasy.  I have one fan who loves Refuge, thinks its one of the greatest series ever, but hates Exodus, which she calls techno geek.

I still have hopes for Refuge, that eventually enough people will read it and love it.  Right now Exodus is still my bread and butter.  Exodus has sold 55,000+ copies over five volumes, while Reufge had sold just over 10,000+ in four volumes.   This year I will try and put out three more Exodus books, and one from Refuge.  I feel that I have an obligation to at least conclude the first part of that series for the people who read it.  I really hate it when authors give up on a series that I love, just because not enough other people do.  I know in the economics of the business that is the proper thing to do.  It is not what I will do.  Refuge will get at least five books before I put it to rest, not including Doppleganger.  Then I will put the series to rest for a  time, always hoping to revisit it.

In other news, Exodus 6 is written and through the first revision.  I am planning on releasing the novel on April 27th, two days after I put book 1, with a new cover, on promotion for five free days.  Anyone who has not read Exodus, this is your chance to get the first book for free.  And two days later the series will grow to six, which means a lot of reading ahead.

 

Exodus1newcoverExodus6cover

 

Refuge: The Journey. Part II.

Posted by dougdandridge on April 5, 2014
Posted in: Armor, Barbarians, Comics, Dragons, eBooks, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Golden Age, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Past, Plotting, science Fiction, self publishing, steampunk, Titles, Tropes, Undead, Vampires, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

The next several years I tried my hand at writing short stories and sending them to what magazines were then in operation.  I also wrote Diamonds in the Sand, the first novel of mine that had any merit.  I have self-published it, and have received some good reviews, if not great sales.  I toyed with some other projects, a couple of nonfictions, a murder mystery, a horror novel, basically many projects that came to nothing.  The only one I completed was a novel called The Chronicles of Conner McMennamin: The Eirish Flight, planned as the first of a trilogy.  I may come back to it someday, when I have time.   The first chapter was read by some professionals and pronounced worthy.  In 2003 I got divorced and was really devastated.  I thought life was over, and retreated to Tallahassee, where I had spent a decade before moving to Alabama for graduate school.  I thought I could spend all of that angst and depression in my writing.  I was able to finish one novel using the Hemmingway method of writing, meaning daily work while heavily sedated on alcohol.  That novel was The Deep Dark Well.  But mostly I didn’t do much for that first year as a divorced male.  Until I straightened my life out and quit drinking, something my doctor had been recommending for the year, due to its effect on my diabetes.

After The Deep Dark Well I wrote The Shadows of the Multiverse, and then decided I needed to do another fantasy novel.  I really didn’t care which genre broke me into publishing.   I wanted to get published, thinking that after I had become a success I could switch to whatever genre I wished.  So I decided to revisit Refuge, only this time I would take a different approach.  Instead of an epic on the scale of Robert Jordan, I would concentrate on fewer characters and a single storyline, more of a traditional novel.  The Immortal Emperor Kurt von Mannerheim, introduced in the earlier Refuge novel, would be the protagonist.  My spiritual path had diverged from Christianity, and I had developed the mindset that all religious traditions had worth.  So in this version of Refuge, all followers of any of Earths religions would get the same benefits and adverse effects as Christians.  I did more world building, keeping the original maps with some changes, and added another couple hundred thousand words of background and description.  More drawings, this time of the capital city of Ataponia, of the major rooms of the palace, the armor of the soldiers, as many details as I could think of.  I changed some of the technology, adding steam engines to airships and naval vessels, kept the pantheon of Gods intact, and wrote the novel.  This was more of a Howard, in the tradition of Howard and Burroughs.  I was very happy with it, and sent it off to the three publishers that took unsolicited manuscripts, Baen, Tor and Daw.

I received two form rejections and one personal one.  Now, I had received two detailed personal rejections on The Deep Dark Well, and one on The Shadows of the Multiverse, so I thought I was making progress.  All of those personal rejections had talked about how good the stories and characters were, ending in that dreaded phrase, ‘not for our market’.  This rejection only talked about how it was obvious that this book was just like so many other fantasies they saw that used Elves, Orcs, Trolls and such.  And my thought was, they just don’t get it.  I had even talked about how the humans had used those terms for the natives of the planet because it fit their archetypes.  I would hold onto that thought when I came back to Refuge in later years.  So I put Refuge back on hold and started work on something else, determine to one day give the idea another try. I didn’t know at the time what changes I would make, only that there would be some.

Next Segment: Refuge: The Arrival.

Refuge: The Journey. Part I.

Posted by dougdandridge on March 22, 2014
Posted in: Agents, Armor, Barbarians, Comics, Dragons, eBooks, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fantasy, Far Future, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Multiverse, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Tropes, Typos, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Recently I was asked on this blog why Refuge: Doppleganger is so disconnected in time from the rest of the Refuge series.  I have been asked this question before, and thought this was a good time to answer it, and at the same time tell the story of my early writing career, and how it did not go as planned.

In 1996 I was discharged from the University of Alabama Clinical Psychology Program, just short of going on internship and getting my PhD.  I only needed that internship and to complete my dissertation, and I would be able to add the honorific Dr to the front of my name.  Unfortunately, that didn’t work out.  At the time I put all the blame on them, and have since come to realize that I definitely had a part in it.  Newly married and looking for work, I was able to get a job at the Tuscaloosa Drug Treatment Center, a methadone clinic, as a counselor.  One day the clinical director, who was also the only other therapist at the center, told me I was spending too much time with clients, and should just show them videos while catching up on my paperwork.  I told her that she might have a better handle on things if she did, in fact, do therapy.  I was fired that day.  Ouch.

So I went home, really pissed at the University of Alabama, the Tuscaloosa Drug Treatment Center and the field of mental health in general.  I sat down at my home computer, opened up a word doc, and proceeded to write an expose’ about the whole ‘damned crooked enterprise’ as I thought of it at the time.  In two weeks I wrote eighty thousand words, and had my first book.  Another two weeks to polish it up and I sent it to agents in the Writer’s Marketplace.  I didn’t get much interest, which I now see as a good thing, as that book, even with names changed, might have hurt a lot of people.  But the seed was sown.  I had proven that I could write a book.  In fact, it had proven much easier than I had thought.  I had always wanted to write a book, and here I had done it.  So I immediately started on my first work of fiction, an alternate history titled The Convoy.  Now The Convoy was very well researched, tightly plotted, and totally awful.  The dialogue was the worst part.  Years later I looked over the manuscript, hoping to self-publish it, and decided it would take more work than writing two new books.  I finished the novel and sent it off to a major publisher, expecting to get a fat check in the mail within a month.  A year later I got my rejection letter on this turkey.

For my second work of fiction, I decided to write an epic fantasy.  But not just any fantasy.  After getting married, I was exposed to church again, and the concept of witnessing and saving souls.  So I wanted to write a fantasy that promoted Christianity. I came up with the idea of Earth humans whose ancestors had been transported to another dimension, a world of magic.  The idea was that all of the myths, legends and archetypes of our world would exist in this world, Refuge.  And that people who still followed the old Earth religion of Christianity would be immune to the truly awful effects of magic, though they would also be deprived of the benefits.  I could go into all the authors who influenced the development of this world, but suffice it to say that the major influences were Tolkien, Turtledove, Howard and Robert Adams and his Horseclans novels.  I decided that the different races would not be good or evil in and of themselves, but could go to either extreme through their own decisions.

The hero of the novel was an Orc named Morgathius, who, though a Christian, and so supposedly unable to use magic, was also the Orc of the Millennia, the most powerful natural magician of his people.  I had planned for him to become the new Messiah of this world.  The novel was titled The Cross, The Quest and The Sword.  The plot revolved around Morgathius going on a quest to the Valley of the Gods, a location on the Kraslas continent guarded by thousands of undead, mummies, ghouls and zombies.  Instead of a small party like most such stories, an entire brigade of IFN (Imperium of Free Nations) cavalry would ride through the wilderness, supported by airships, and explore the valley, looking for the sword, a God artifact of Arathonia.  The novel was in the form of an epic with many characters, switching scenes from the quest to the many battles going on in the escalating war between good and evil, between the IFN and the Nazi Empire of Tarakesh.

That novel topped out at 269,000 words.  At the time I didn’t understand that most publishers really didn’t want anything over 120K words.  I decided to send this one to an agent, and searched the classified section of Writer’s Digest to find one interested in taking on new clients.  Now, I can’t way that all agents advertising in Writer’s Digest are crooked, but the one I contacted sure was.  He first suggested that I use a book doctor he recommended, at the cost of over a thousand dollars.   I balked at this, and he said he couldn’t represent me, but suggested another agent in California, Royal Gillette.  Remember that name.  If this man ever contacts you, run, as fast as you can.  But at the time I thought I had hit the big time.  That this book would hit the bestseller lists.  I had already done quite a bit of world building.  Pantheons of Gods, maps, histories, magic systems, you name it.  If you look on my website, http://dougdandridge.net , you will see many of the original maps I drew for the novel, including continents and hemispheres.  I wrote a million words of background and descriptions in Treepad.  And I started to work on the second novel of the series, The Ravening Blade.  This was the book where my Orc hero was to make the ultimate sacrifice and become the Messiah.

My agent sent me letters, talked to me on the phone, and basically stroked my ego.  I was told a good tale, about how they were dissecting my novel page by page, sending samples to large publishers, and preparing the product for a major push.  Then came the scam, though I couldn’t see it at the time for what it was.  I was told it would take it three thousand dollars to make the presentation, but the agency could only come up with a little over $2,500.  I volunteered the rest, sure that it would be a good investment.  Two weeks later I received a letter from the parent agency of Mr. Gillette, informing me that they were moving operations from California to New York, and would be communicating to clients with their contact information shortly.  That was the last thing I ever heard of them, and a search for the agency yielded no results.  I was soured to the whole idea of submitting to agents, and would not do so again for over a decade.  And the idea of Refuge died, at least for the moment.

Next Segment:  The Return to Refuge.

The End of Civilized Civilization

Posted by dougdandridge on March 10, 2014
Posted in: Barbarians, Conferences, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Kindle, Military, Near Future, science Fiction, Tropes, Typos, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . 10 Comments

I have been noticing a lot of invective on the internet recently.  Well, maybe not all that recently, it has been going on for some time.  Some people do not engage in polite conversation on the internet.  Or at least both parties do not.  Sometime during the discussion, when one party decides they are not getting their point across, they resort to cussing, put downs and threats.  I have experienced this myself, though I usually just back out of the conversation and block all notices of it.  Recently, in a discussion of concealed carry, a young man from Russia, who couldn’t keep from crowing about his mastery of ‘self defense techniques’, threatened to push my gun up my ass.  Of course, my gun was no threat to him at the range of thousands of miles, as his ‘self defense techniques’ were no threat to me at the same range.  In another post by a friend, again about firearms, the anti-gun supporter voiced his wish that the government would kill the pro-gun poster and all his ilk, in no uncertain terms or language.  I seem to remember things being a little more civil when I was growing up, a time before the internet and personal computers.  That may just be my faulty memory, but I think not.  There were societal controls on public comments at that time that no longer exist.  If you wanted to post a review or a comment that people would see you had to go through the newspaper or some other publication.  They would not print some of the words that make up the majority of internet replies these days.  And your name was attached to the comment, so everyone knew who you were.

Robert E Howard said, in his famous Conan series, “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”  Anonymity makes people brave enough to say things online that they wouldn’t say to the local drug dealer or street fighter down at the local bar.  People post their names, or at least what they want us to think are their names.   They’re still protected by the fact that most of us don’t want to spend to time and effort to find out who they really are.  Or they are separated from us by enough distance that, like the young man in Russia, they have no fear that we are going to track them down and do violence to them.  Of course most of us wouldn’t really do violence to them even if they lived across the street from us, though there are people in the world who would travel those thousands of miles to do just that.  But mostly they post with impunity.

The biggest problem with these trolls is that they seem to have unlimited time to post, unlike those of us actually doing something productive.  I have found the best strategy to deal with them is to make one final post telling them what you think of them, without resorting to their level of invective, ending the message with a statement that you are getting off that thread or blocking them, and ending with a goodbye.  After that I simply leave the thread, after making sure that I no longer receive notification of their comments, or blocking them.  Then, they are welcome to post as much as they want.  It makes no difference to me what they have to say after that, and I am sure it pisses them off that I am no longer reading their posts.

How I Learned to Write About Land Combat

Posted by dougdandridge on October 28, 2013
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Antimatter, Armor, Barbarians, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Golden Age, Kindle, Marvel, Military, Movies, Multiverse, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Proofreading, Quantum Physics, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

This morning I received a tweet asking how I handle ground combat.  I really didn’t think I could give an answer in a 142 character tweet, or even in a series of tweets.  Now I have never been in ground combat.  I have heard rounds cracking overhead in training, and because of an error in basic my partner put ten rounds from a M16 within inches of where I was lying on a bunker prepping a practice hand grenade to throw into the aperture of the position.   Some of what I learned about ground combat was in training in Marine JROTC, in the Army, in the Florida National Guard, and even in Explorer Scouts.  In the Guard we spent two weeks learning how to conduct air mobile operations, in and out of helicopters.   In Explorer Scouts we played search and evasion (advanced hide and seek) on the Myakka River, against other kids who were as good at woodcraft as I was, even against a former member who was a Marine.  I also grew up with firearms, and have fired everything from .22 revolvers to the German Panzerfaust, including auto-rifles, belt fed machine guns and sub-machine guns.  I still shoot quite often, pistols, M1 Carbines, AR-15s.

Then there were the discussions with people who had been there.  Almost all of my NCOs in Germany were Vietnam Veterans.  All of our squad leaders in the Guard were also vets.  I can still remember a mission Sgt Gluckman, who looked like a clerk, led on us to find and destroy a Recondo HQ (they were regulars stationed in Panama).  The little wimpy looking guy who was a combat veteran in Nam found and destroyed the HQ of these supposedly elite soldiers, which goes to show that real experience goes a long way.  I talked with my brother, who had been in almost nine months of combat in Nam before he was wounded.  He taught me that even a good shot (which he was) could miss everything in front of him due to the adrenaline rush of fear.  I have talked with Marines who were in WW2, Korea and Vietnam, Rangers, Green Berets and Seals.  Listened to their experiences.  Heard their stories, both funny and tragic.

I have read a lot of books on history, from the Greeks to the Persian Gulf.  Both the grand picture books and the personal stories.  The memoirs of Eric von Mannstein and a book by a little know German LT on the Russian front (and if you really want a great description of hard core no holds barred combat, you can’t get anymore real than this.)  First person accounts of the SAS in Iraq.  Books on strategy and tactics, and how superweapons aren’t always the way to go, since your opponent will go all out to defeat them.  Books on the organization of the German Army, probably the best military force of the Twentieth Century (and sure they lost, mostly because they were outnumbered and had a complete idiot at the top of the power pyramid).  Books on the Panzer tactics of that army.  Books about how the Roman Army was trained and organized.  Books about the Napoleonic Wars, the Revolution, the Civil War.  Hundreds of books of history.  War is terrible, as Robert E Lee said.  It’s also flipping interesting, no fascinating.  Reading fiction also helps give one an idea of what its like.  Bernard Cornwell does a great job in the Medieval to gunpowder era.  Robert Heinlein’s Starship Trooper is still the classic book about powered armor.  John Ringo continues that tradition.  Michael Z Williamson gives great accounts of future warfare sans the armor, as does Jerry Pournell.  For fantasy R A Salvatore does a very good job of describing fights with ancient weapons.

Games.  Yes, games, both board and computer, can give you an idea about what combat is like, and what small changes might have ended battles with different results.  Be careful here though, because sometimes the minds of games designers can come up with some ridiculous concepts.  Still, I have played some of the good ones and gotten some really good ideas, like how to defeat a more powerful infantry force with cavalry in Rome Total War.    Or how some wars were literally unwinnable because of disparity in industrial capacity (like World War 2).

And I watched war movies.  Some can give you ideas because they are so good.  And some can give you an idea of what not to do, or how to do it better, because they are so bad.  Cross of Iron (Russian Front), Saving Private Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, Stalingrad, Enemy at the Gates, Waterloo, Glory.  Watching the Roman legions deploy in Spartacus, an awe inspiring sight, and maybe too much for most opponents.  Assaulting from boats into machine guns (Private Ryan),  Airborne assaults (Band of Brothers).  Seeing lines of men in lines shooting into each other at fifty yards using weapons designed to kill at five hundred.  Everything is grist for the mill.

Finally some knowledge of near future weapons development, and the realization that what seems so fantastic today will be ancient in the future.  The limitations of today, in battery power, in armor protection, in stealth tech, will not be the limitations of tomorrow.  I studied the effects of lasers and particle beams, including their strengths and weaknesses.  There are actual programs on the internet that will tell you how much power it takes to burn through different materials.  The negative effects of weapons, like using something that vaporizes a target but fills the air with superhot steam, which could be a real bitch.  I was asked particularly about smart ammo in the tweet.  To us it looks like a great idea.  In the far future, when you need ammo that can penetrate really tough armor, maybe a round that has to slow down so it can turn a corner might not be so hot.  Then again, with explosive rounds capable of penetrating armor they might be just the thing.

What kind of weapons do I use in future combat.  Tough armor that allows unprecedented mobility, stealth and protection.  And the weapons that can defeat that armor.  That goes hand in hand in weapons development through the ages.  Maybe the armor can’t withstand a direct hit, or many of them, but if it can render a near miss by a particle beam something that doesn’t fry the soldier, then it has a purpose.  The soldiers themselves will be highly trained, valuable, and something to be protected.  Particle beams, lasers, and high velocity rounds that might have penetration aids built in.  And of course nukes and kinetic weapons and lots of battlefield radiation, also necessitating some kind of armor or field protection.  Cover and concealment will still be important.  I wouldn’t want to be wearing a suit of powered armor that could take a dozen hits by the enemy’s best weapons, then stand out in the open where I could be easily hit thirteen or more times.

Finally, the human factor.  Will future land warriors be just like us?  Or will their emotions be controlled, making them heartless automatons?  I personally think the second route is a dead end, as fear and anger have a place in combat.    I might be wrong, and it is an area to explore.   What will motivate them, what will they fight for?  King and Country?  Medals?  Sometimes, but I don’t think that often.  Sometimes soldiers do fight for a leader.  I remember playing a war game years ago set in the Roman period, and one of the basic rules was that units panicked from losses and then took a beating as they ran.  A caveat to this rule was that units that fought under Julius Caeser never panicked.  Sometime people fought for flags or standards.  I wouldn’t have been one of those people who grabbed the standard before it hit the ground, and then became a magnet for enemy fire that had already dropped the first ten people who had carried that piece of cloth on a stick.  I would rather keep my weapon and shoot back.  What people most often fight for is their comrades and the people at home.  Study Vietnam and the Russian Front, and you will find that American and German soldiers fought heroically for their friends, the people around them.  German soldiers didn’t fight for Hitler and the Nazi Party, unless they were fanatical.  Russians didn’t fight for Stalin.  And both sides fought fanatically to save their own people from what they saw as a menace.  The Russians to keep the Germans from exterminating them.  The Germans to keep the Russians from doing the same thing to their country that they had done to the Russians.  And another lesson you learn from reading about past conflicts, which should translate into stories about future war, is that at times good people fight for bad causes, and bad people fight for good ones.  Many of the soldiers who died for the South in the Civil War were not bad men trying to hold down their fellow man.  Many Germans were not Nazis, but fought hard nonetheless.  And there have been some truly horrible people who have helped the side we most would want to see win with their barbaric actions.  I don’t think any of this is going to change in the future.  There will be Saints and Demons in every Army, though they may be seen as universally one or the other depending on which side is looking at them.

Any way, that;s my take on how to learn how to write land combat, both future and fantasy.  Learn about the real thing, talk to people who have been there, read the works of people who write it well, and get as many ideas as possible, so you can generate your own.  I think next I will talk about naval and space naval combat.

Refuge Three is Coming.

Posted by dougdandridge on August 7, 2013
Posted in: Armor, Barbarians, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Past, Plotting, science Fiction, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

Refuge, my genre bending Fantasy/Military Fiction series is one of my favorite projects, right after the Exodus books. Unfortunately, though it is close to my heart, it is not doing near as well as the science fiction series. That said, it does have its share of fans, many of them different from the fans of Exodus. I do plan to keep working on the Refuge series, though from practicality I will be devoting more of my time to Exodus, and of course still have the third book of the Deep Dark Well Trilogy to put out, as it wouldn’t be much of a trilogy without that third book. Refuge Books 1 and 2 were centered around the arrival of Earth humans during a nuclear war in Central Europe. The atomic blasts opened thousands of temporary gates to a dimension of magic and archetypes, of mythology and terror. The inhabitants of this world use magic and what we would consider mythological creatures, dragons, trolls and such, to conquer and control vast territories. They see the groups of Europeans that come across as slaves for their own use, or, even more horrible, a source of life energy for their dark magic. But the humans bring their own weapons and equipment across, of great power and limited lifespan. And they bring across a race of Immortals who, while powerful on Earth, become Demigods on Refuge. The German and American Armies use their technological advantage to capture a large section of the Empire that wants to see them destroyed. But now the technology is gone, and the Earth humans must develop and deploy an army of antiquity to fight back.
The title of this third book is The Legions, based on the concept that the humans would develop a fighting force based on the greatest pre-gunpowder infantry the world has ever known. The powered machine technology is gone, but that does not mean all tech. The humans have thousands of years of muscled powered technology to call upon, and use the scientific method in an approach to magic. Originally this book was going to be much longer than the 120K words it has finished at. I was going to split it into two sections, moving back and forth from the campaigns of the legions and a quest by the Immortal Kurt von Mannerheim to keep an awful artifact out of the hands of the evil Ellala Emperor. I finally decided to finish the book about the legions, then visit the quest in a future book, which would allow me to get another Exodus book out in early Fall. I still have big plans for Refuge, though I realize as a cross genre work it has much going against it. I just ask that my fans give it a try. If you like lots of action this may be the book for you. If you prefer people sitting around and talking, then maybe not. And now for the excerpt.

Paul cut himself loose a little higher up than the other passengers, at the twenty meter point, depending on his great strength to absorb the impact. Part of that impact was absorbed by an Ellala who looked up in time to see the one hundred and sixty kilos of human and equipment coming down on him. There was time for one quick scream before the Elf was crushed into the ground. Paul took up the rest of the force in a squat, then rose and fired both of the triple crossbows he held, taking out two more Ellala. Troopers were coming down around him, and Paul ran toward the closest concentration of Ellala enemy, sending the final four bolts in his crossbows their way and taking down three of them. He flung the two empty crossbows, themselves stout pieces of wood and steel, toward the Ellala, then pulled his bastard sword from its sheath, making it burst into flame, then grasping the haft of his ax in his left hand.
The huge immortal hit the disorganized mass of Ellala, swinging both blades inward, then reversing them into backhand strikes. He went into overdrive, his weapons striking faster than the eye could follow, taking heads, lopping off arms, crashing through the mail of the enemy soldiers. They tried to surround him, but a flurry of strikes cleared the space around him. Then the other friendly troopers struck the mass and fought their way to the immortal.
A trooper next to Paul went down with an arrow through the shoulder, then another with one through the chest. An arrow splintered on Paul’s armor, and he took another out of the air with his sword. Looking up at the wall he saw that more Ellala had gotten up there and were raining arrows on the invaders. A large gold dragon, he thought it the one he had ridden here, flew by and took out the Ellala on the wall, while other beasts cleared the other walls.
The doors of the keep towers opened and out charged the rest of the garrison, those who had been asleep or otherwise occupied when the attack went in. Most were only partially armored, rushed from bed to meet the attack. Those attackers sent a flurry of crossbow bolts and javelins into the garrison, dropping almost a hundred of them to the ground. The rest of the garrison charged on, closing the distance and slamming into the assault force, the mass of soldiers behind them pushing them forward and the attackers back.
Paul did not budge, his great strength holding him in place. He swung his weapons and cut down every enemy Ellala within reach, while the rest swung around him to continue to press his comrades back.
Balls of fire started to strike in the mass of enemy, setting many ablaze. Paul looked back to see the big gold dragon hovering, spitting out balls of fire in a rapid pace. Two more dragons joined in, and suddenly the mass that had been pushing was gone as hundreds of Ellala burned to death. The dragons flew away, each to attack one of the tower tops where Ellala were serving heavy weapons.
Paul continued to swing his weapons, cutting down man after man in a flurry of destruction. Arrows and bolts started to fall on the enemy ranks not in contact with the legion forces, and Paul looked over to see the wall was now swarming with the Rangers who had climbed the outer rampart.
We have this thing, he thought, pressing ahead. The flames were dying down, and the entrance to the tower ahead was open. There can’t be many more of them. We have to have killed most of the garrison. Paul cut down the final two men before the entrance and ran the short distance toward the tower. An Ogre ran out, a massive creature that must have been slow in getting ready, waving a huge mace. It struck at Paul, the spiked mace seeming to come in slow motion toward the immortal. He dodged out of the way, then thrust with his sword into the monster’s gut while his ax came down on its shoulder. And the creature, for all its size and strength, was just more dying meat on the ground.
Paul was through the entrance, dodging as a pair of Elves sent arrows his way. One missed, and he knocked the other arrow out of the air with his sword. The Elves drew their next arrows back with the speed of their kind, but they weren’t used to the speed of an immortal. Paul threw his ax at one on the run and split the skull of the bowman, then took the head of the other with his sword.
More of his men came in behind him, and Paul pointed toward the stairs and ran toward them, taking them three at a time as he proceeded up. He passed one landing, then another, not meeting any resistance, and was beginning to think that he would get to the commander’s office without any trouble. He was still thinking that when the stone stairs beneath his feet started to tremble. He had no idea what was causing the vibrations, which came like the slow steps of something massive coming down the stairs. Dust fell from the ceiling, a crack appeared in the wall, and Paul knew that trouble was just around the corner.
“Back down,” he yelled at the warriors that were beginning to crowd behind him. “Now,” he yelled even louder. “Get the fuck down the bloody steps.”
The troopers, Ellala and Mo’oricans, with a pair of humans, started to back away. One of the Ellala said something about elementals, his eyes wide. Paul turned back to look up the stairs, where the heavy footfalls were getting louder. He didn’t know what was coming, but figured he was the best one here to face it.
What came around the corner was not what he was expecting. It looked something like the Thing, the one from the comics, not the movie. It was all lumpy gray rock, its head scraping the ceiling. Paul scanned it quickly for a weakness and really didn’t see one. Nothing to it but to attack, he thought, thrusting forward with his sword. The blade hit the creature in the body and barely penetrated, proving that what looked like rock actually was that substance. He pulled his sword back just before the creature swung at it, then swung it in at the monster’s arm. Again the blade rebounded after giving the creature a small nick. And the arm came around in a backhand that struck Paul in the shoulder and threw him against the wall.
Goddamn but it’s strong, he thought as he grunted in pain. The armor of his shoulder guard was actually dented, something he didn’t think possible with the heavily enchanted plate. He tried to take a step back and get his sword back around, but the creature punched him in the chest with surprising speed and sent Paul flying down the steps, his sword falling from his hand. The immortal hit the stairs and continued down in a roll. He could feel some bones break, including a vertebrae in his neck. The pain lanced through his neck, and he felt tears come to his eyes. He continued to roll until he came to the landing above the ground floor. The sound of heavy ponderous steps came from above, and Paul knew he didn’t have much time, and this was not the battleground he wanted.