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Galaxy’s Edge Issue 34. I’m There, Baby.

Posted by dougdandridge on September 21, 2018
Posted in: Alien Life, Charles Sheffield, eBooks, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

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I walked out to my mailbox this afternoon, expecting to pick up the usual suspects. Bills, loan offers (everyone wants to give me money), maybe some appeals to charity (and the ones I’m already giving to need to stop selling my information, it’s just draining their potential donations). And there, in my box, were two copies of Galaxy’s Edge Issue 34, edited by Mike Resnick. I have met Mike on several occasions, at DragonCon, LibertyCon and during the two Sail to Success cruises I attended. But I’ve never been published in anything that Mike edited, until now. I’ve known a lot of people who have been published in this magazine, and now I’m among them. Cool.

Also included with my short blurb is the advertisement, Phoenix Pick Introduces Kinship Wars, a new shared universe, www.KinshipWars.com . This is the reason for being for this story, an introduction into the Kinship War universe, which I have developed. Book 1 is in the hands of the publisher, and should be out in ARC copies by next month, published for real in March of 2019. I am currently working on Book 2, and hopefully there will be a Book 3. Journey’s End introduces the reader to the sublight colony ships that opened up the colonization of space, before warp drive became practical. Things don’t go as planned, and the awake crew has to come up with a way to change course without having the fuel to do so. Sort of like the old Golden Age scifi stories where some little known fact of science was used to solve the problem.

If you would like to learn more, this issue can be bought at http://www.galaxysedge.com/ . I would love for all of my fans to go over there and pick up this issue. If you are not familiar with the magazine, they publish a bunch of great stories each month from newcomers and old pros, and a digital copy is only $4.99. I would love for everyone who reads my work to pick up one, and help get the excitement going for the upcoming Kinship War series. As for myself, I’m ecstatic to be on the cover with such people as Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert Silverberg, Robert Sawyer, Gregory Benford, Bill Fawcett, Jody Lynn Nye, and Charles Sheffield. And I think Larry Niven is mentioned in there somewhere.

The Trouble With Multiple Platforms:

Posted by dougdandridge on January 3, 2018
Posted in: eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Kindle, Movies, Near Future, science Fiction, self publishing, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

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A couple of months ago I bought a website on Wix, mostly because they had an easy way to set up the site so it would look good on all display platforms, PC browsers, tablets and phones. In fact, it had dual editing features, so your display for computer still looks good and takes advantage of the whole screen while the one for phone is set up for the smaller screen. It works really well, for the small percentage of people I assumed actually looked up websites on phones. I set up a sales page, hoping that people who buy my books, or at least some of them, would buy from the website, where I have code on each link that would make the sale through my Amazon Associate account. Eventually I was going to add some of my favorite books from other authors. It’s a great deal, since the author or publisher still gets their full payment.

Then I decided to put a sales page on my WordPress site, the one my blog runs out of. I had gotten the domain names for both, dougdandridge.net for the website, and dougdandridge.com for the blog site. Actually, I could get dougdandridge with just about every dot whatever that I want, since there are no other authors or internet public figures with my name. I already had all the links on a Notepad document for the Wix site, though I had to do some resizing of the images for book covers. I made the book covers all the same size, and all the sales links the same width as the books, so everything would line up perfectly, A couple of days work, a few hours a day, and the Exodus and Deep Dark Well page were done. One more day and I had the sales page for every other book I had ever written. I posted it online, since it had a blog link on every page. It looked beautiful, four covers side to side, sales links beneath each for Amazon.US, Amazon.UK, and Audible where appropriate. Then a fan commented on one of my Facebook posts, and stated that it looked screwed up on his phone. I looked it up, and sure enough, on a phone it had every cover that had been lined up next to each other in a column from top to bottom, followed by a column of five sales links for Amazon.us, then five sales links for Amazon.uk, then the five sales links to Audible. Very confusing to someone browsing on their phone. They might think they are clicking on one sales link, only to go to another book page, and finally be driven to give up. So it was totally screwed up. Then I read online that sixty percent of web browsing and sales take place on mobile devices like tablets and phones. Whoops. It seems like I am behind the times. I prefer the computer and the TV to get my content and entertainment. Yeah, IP providers advertise how you can watch movies on your smart phone, but  I want to watch mine on wide screen UHD TVs with sound systems. I want to play my games on my thirty two inch curved monitor. I want to shop on my office computer. Well, it seems like I’m not like the majority, and if I want to get the contacts, I need to set it up so people can easily browse on their smart phones while they ignore their friends at the bar or restaurant.

Now I am working on trying to get a page up that will not only look good on a PC browser, but also be useful on a phone. Which is not easy. And the WordPress editor is not the easiest thing to use to manipulate images and text together. A lot of cussing going on in my office, the cats avoiding me. I asked for help on Facebook, which, yes, I also look at on one of the three large screen monitors of my computer, dinosaur that I am. And I got several answers. Now I am going to try out Divi, which is supposed to allow you to fill up the screens of both computers and phones, and even tablets in between. You have to keep up with the world if you want to make it. I started out by learning everything I could about marketing books online, and it paid off in becoming a full time writer, and in selling over two hundred thousand books. Then I got lazy, since everything seemed to be going so well on its own. Still putting out the books, but cutting back on the marketing. I found to my horror that I had sites, my Amazon author’s page, my Goodread’s page, even the about page on my blog, that hadn’t been touched in four years. So here I go, rolling up the sleeves and digging in with the marketing once again.

Trip Out West the Second, Day 7 and 8.

Posted by dougdandridge on August 9, 2017
Posted in: Fantasy, Kindle, science Fiction, self publishing, Uncategorized, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Day 7: Saturday

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Needles, California.  Wet heat in the desert.

Going to do this one a little different.  At Motel 6 in Needles, California, where it’s 116 degrees and almost 7 at night.  Checked the forecast for the Mojave National Preserve tomorrow, and it’s only supposed to get up to 99, so no big deal there, but Needles must be the lesser hell, if Death Valley is the greater.  Nice drive from Flagstaff, and it was kind of funny when we got hit with a shower.  Almost everyone on the road acted like they were in the middle of a hurricane.  To me it was like a light shower in Florida, and I had to laugh at the signs that warned of water on the road.

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The Mexican Hat at Mexican Hat.

The most disturbing thing was entering California.  I entered it twice before, once on I-15 from Nevada in February, the second time just this week when going into Death Valley.  This time, on I-40, I saw signs for vehicle inspection ahead, and for all vehicles to stop, on the flippen interstate.  A guy wearing a vest asked me if I was from Texas (I had Texas plates on the rental).  Then he asked where I was coming from before waving me through.  So, if he hadn’t been satisfied with my answers would they have searched my car?  It was like entering a foreign country, and not a state of this country.  I heard it was an agricultural inspection, but I have to think they could use it for anything.  Suspicious vehicle traveling on the US Interstate system, let’s go ahead and tear apart everything you have in the car to make sure.  I’m wondering how long it will be until this region is truly an independent country.  But I’m safe in my hotel room with the air conditioner going.  There are some seedy looking characters hanging around outside, so I’m wasn’t sure how secure I really was.  Wished I was back in Florida, where I would have access to a gun.

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Endless road through the desert.

Another thing for those interested.  The railroads are alive and well out here.  I saw a bunch of very long trains outside of Winslow, one sitting there on the double track while another passed on the single track section.  I later passed that train while I was on I-40 and it was over two miles long.  I saw several more while on the interstate and while in the Petrified Forest National Park.  And all the way to Needles, many with flatcars stacked with two truck trailers each.  Not sure what they were about, but obviously a lot of stuff is moving both ways across Arizona.

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Petrified logs in the Petrified Forest National Park.

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Petrified log.

After getting up in Winslow and heading to Denny’s, I let my GPS lead me to the Park.  It recommended I get off in Holbrook and take the back-route, US Highway 180, to the park.  If you want to see the petrified forest first, that’s the way to go.  If the Painted Desert is the target, there is another entrance off I-40 further east.  I took the backroad, and was soon in the park, snapping pictures of all the petrified logs.  There were a lot of businesses in the area selling petrified wood, indicating that the forest covers more land than that protected by the park.  If the park wasn’t there I’m sure the logs would all be gone in a couple of more generations.  I stopped in the road at one point to take pictures since there were no pullovers, and really no traffic at that point.  A Ranger came over the hill and put on his lights, pulling up to me and asking that I don’t stop in the road.  I told him there were no pullovers, and he said there would be some ahead, and recommended that I pull over on the side if I want to shoot.  He looked at the low shoulder and stated that maybe here wasn’t the best place, but any place with grass would be good.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find any of this fabled grass shoulder the entire way, so I shot pictures on the move.  There were some pullovers later, including some spectacular parking areas by groups of logs.

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The beauty of the Painted Desert.

And then I started to get into the painted desert, what I had been looking for the day before.  I found that the places I had seen on the reservation were indeed part of the desert, and almost the entire park was part of it.  But the really fantastic views were ahead.  I took as many pictures as I could of the colorful formations that give the desert its name.  And pictures of the vegetation around the desert, since I would be writing about this area.   The temperature when I first got to the park at 11 AM was 78 degrees.  By 1 PM when I left it was up to 90.

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Lava field at Sunset Crater National Monument.

Next was Sunset Crater outside of Flagstaff.  I had put the name into my GPS earlier and nothing came back.  But when I entered it right outside of Flagstaff, I got a hit.  I drove to the entrance to the National Monument and used my annual park pass to get in.  That was a great investment.  $80, and I had gotten into seven National Parks and a Monument for no other charge, saving at least $120 overall.  And I can use it to get into other parks until it expires in July of 2018.  I thought I would be able to look into the craters of the volcanoes that had erupted here in about 1000 AD.  That’s what I saw on Google Maps.  Unfortunately, the craters were on the tops of compact mountains that you weren’t allowed to hike on, like I really could.  Still, there were lava flows to see and some of the mountains were definitely made of cinders.  And I was able to get some good looks at the vegetation around Flagstaff, the starting point of the series.  It was mostly pines, I think the same Ponderosa variety that I saw in Utah.  Forests of this continued for forty miles to the west of Flagstaff, after which point desert began to take over.  And then there are the forests of juniper trees running up and down hills, very bizarre and places that will have to appear in the books.  The desert grew more like the Mojave as I approached and passed through Kingman, and the temperature started to rise, until it was 107 degrees at Kingman.  And it kept going up, until it hit 116 degrees just before the California border.  As I stated earlier about the inspection that stopped all traffic, it appears that California has passed into the realm of hell, so why not hellish temps.

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Forest around Flagstaff.

As soon as I got into my room, I searched the net and found that the Mojave, my last target, would be a mere 99 degrees the next day.  One last thing.  When I was out getting something to eat, I saw a young woman with a service dog.  A Husky.  I know these dogs don’t do well in North Florida.  I asked her and her boyfriend about it, and they said, yes, the dog spent almost all of his time in air-conditioning, only going out to bathroom in the yard or when transferring from the car to house or other place.  I wish him well, and hope nothing happens where that animal is forced to endure the desert heat for any appreciable amount of time.

Day 8: Sunday

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Terrible’s Store, Gas Station and Casino in Searchlight.

I survived my night in Needles, and in fact slept through my alarm, waking a half an hour later than expected.  The town, like a lot in this region, is a vegetational oases in the desert, with stands of palms and juniper.  Hotter than hell, though.  I had breakfast at one of the two high class establishments in Needles, McDonalds, the other choice being Jack In The Box.  Then it was down I-40 until I could turn off onto US 95.  Now here is where the stopping of cars on the interstate into California showed how useless a tactic that was.  I drove into Nevada on this back highway and there were no car checks at all.  The first town I got to was Cal-Nev-Ari, a tiny hamlet, the one I had proposed to stay at when first planning the trip before finding Bonnie Springs Ranch.  Another oasis of palms and Junipers.  Then up the road to Searchlight, another small town, and one in the game Fallout New Vegas.  From there I turned onto Nipton Road and was soon in California again, and again with no check.

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Trading Post in Nipton, California, in at the edge of the Mojave National Preserve.

Last trip I had stopped in Nipton to take pictures and didn’t go in the store.  This time I did, bought some memorabilia, and talked with the store owner and an older gentleman about science fiction (after I had passed them some cards).  The owner was partial to Michael Moorcock and Edgar Rice Burroughs, while the visitor had read Asimov, Poul Anderson and many others, including the entire Perry Rodan series.  Then it was onto I-15 heading into California, and again, no traffic stops (really California, you need to stop leaving the backdoor open).  I drove to the Cima Rd exit into the Mojave National Preserve.  I stopped at the Shell station there and bought a few things, then was astounded when I was asked for ten cents for the bag I asked for.

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Infamous Chollo, or Jumping Cactus, an escapee from hell.  Only saw this one in the Mojave, and I’m hoping it doesn’t do well in that area.

Down Cima road, which I had travelled part of the way the last time, again stopping at the World War I memorial cross.  Saw a Chollo Cactus, also known as the Jumping Cactus, since their barbed parts seem to jump on people.  Evil stuff, and I’m glad I didn’t touch one on the last trip when I first saw them.  A good principle to live with is to not touch anything until you know what it is and what it will do.  Took pictures of the Joshua Tree forest, which was just as spectacular in summer as in winter.  And into the Preserve the temps were between 95-98, with the low humidity it was actually comfortable.  Got to the end of Cima Road without ever seeing Cima, a small village of 21 people that’s supposed to be out here somewhere.  Then got on the road back to Nipton Road, then onto I-15 back into Nevada.

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Joshua Trees and rocks in the Mojave.

I had booked a room at Buffalo Bill’s Hotel and Casino, a place I had wanted to stay at for at least a night, as it had been in Fallout and I had cleared it out several times in the game.  I got off at the interchange, then got confused at the light, thinking straight ahead would take me to the hotel.  Instead, I was on the onramp to 15, with nowhere to go but forward.  And I could see that the traffic on the other side, going back into California, was bumper to bumper and moving slowly.  It was that way the entire twelve miles to the next exit, and since I didn’t want to sit in it, I kept on going into Las Vegas and got a room at the Hilton Garden Inn on Las Vegas Blvd.  I had stayed there before, and though it was a bit pricey, it was very comfortable.   Unfortunately, I never sleep well before a flight.  Not from any anxiety over flying, since I love that part of the trip.  No, it’s the hassle of the airport, of getting from place to place on time, and going through the indignity of TSA.  And I had received a call at 6:30, waking me early, to remind me that I had a doctor’s appointment the next morning.

Up next, final thoughts and what I learned.

Enter the Dragon Awards, R.I.P. Hugos?

Posted by dougdandridge on August 23, 2016
Posted in: Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Military, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Websites. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

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I’m not going to go into my reasons for disliking the Hugos, which, to anyone who has read about the recent controversies, will be readily apparent.  Suffice it to say that the beloved award, which has been given to so many great in the past, has lost its luster.  I really hadn’t paid attention to the Hugo Award for over a decade, and now the award is synonymous with a notation that I probably will not like this book or story.  Not to say that I won’t eventually read the so awarded story, if I see some other source indicating it might be worth my while, but the Hugo in and of itself is not enough.   Also not to say that everything awarded a Hugo is crap, they just don’t seem to fit my tastes,  Then came the recent blowups, the five no awards last year, two this year.  The harassing campaigns to get people to vacate their nominations so more deserving entries would have a chance.  And people I knew and respected were hurt, harassed and dismissed.  I wouldn’t want one of these things.  Not that I would turn down a nomination, because it would piss off some people I wouldn’t mind seeing outraged to the point where they fell over from an anger induced stroke.

Then to me there has always been the problem with the categories.  Fantasy has its own award, the World Fantasy Award.  Yet fantasy is lumped in with science fiction for the award that originally went to the best in science fiction.   I have nothing against fantasy.  I love to read it, love to write it.   But some years some really good science fiction was supplanted by fantasy in the award that was supposed to go to the very best of science fiction.  Last year there was a call for another award from both sides of the argument.  I think the call from the opposition was more a case of ‘get your own damned petty ass award and leave ours alone.’  This was stated in some posts with an assumption that the convention that gave the award would probably be some fly by night con with a couple of thousand attendees, not the mighty five thousand attendee or more World Con.  You know, the Con that no one dared to go up against, because it represented the best of the genre.  The Con that required a paid membership, even by those who didn’t attend, in order to actually vote in the thing.

Enter Dragon Con, which was actually the con I wanted to host the award in the first place, since Atlanta is close to me and I go every year.  Dragon Con is not some petty ass fly by night con.  While not as large as San Diego Comic Con, or even the growing Megacon, Dragon officially attracts about seventy thousand people a year.  I have heard that it actually draws many more.  It is a unique four day con over Labor Day weekend, hosted in five large hotels, three of which are connected by sky bridge.  And, wonder of wonders, the award they are going to host, starting this year, is open to public vote, from anyone, anywhere, whether they attend or not.  And it doesn’t cost fifty bucks to register to vote.  It doesn’t cost anything at all.  All you need is an internet connection, and lots of people around the world get on the net without owning a computer or having a home based hub.

Dragon Con’s Dragon Award has also divided the awards into logical categories.  So fantasy and science fiction have their own fields, as well as many subfields,  including young adult/middle grade, military scifi/fantasy, alternate history, apocalyptic and horror.  There are also categories for comic books and graphic novels, TV series, movie, and several for gaming.  No short story categories yet, but I would bet they are coming.  After this year there will be an eight month nominating period, followed by an August vote.  It’s too late to nominate for this year, but the ballots are still open for votes.  Register here.

I know several of the people nominated this year, and as far as I’m concerned, all are worthy of consideration.  I personally voted for Chuck Gannon’s Raising Caine for best science fiction novel.  Chuck’s third book in the series, Raising Caine, like its two predecessors, was nominated for the Nebula award, but was not even under consideration for the Hugo.  Chuck writes a tight and well thought out novel, and I encourage everyone who reads my work to read his as well.  But whoever you vote for, get online and vote.  This is the first year, and don’t give up your chance to help decide the winners of what I hope will one day grow to be one of the more prestigious speculative fiction awards around.  And if you want to nominate me next year?  Well, I won’t stand in your way.

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Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole is here.

Posted by dougdandridge on October 23, 2015
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, Conferences, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Intelligent Life, Kindle, Magic, Military, Plotting, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

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I released Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole on Wednesday night to Amazon, which meant it was up for sale by early Thursday morning.  The second book in the spinoff series, this volume deals more with the death machines built by the humans three centuries before that had gone beyond their programming, to kill the enemies of the Empire, to the much broader mandate of kill all life.  I loved being able to put out this series, but from the comments and reviews of both the first book, and soon after the release of this book, not everyone agrees.  I think Bolthole is one of the best novels I have ever written, filled with action, chock full of life or death situations.  The machines are not as advanced as the current Empire, but have several advantages, such as not having to worry about the effects of inertia on frail organic passengers.  They can brute force a lot of weapons that Imperial ships simply don’t have the space for.

Supernova was really a book intended to introduce another species I felt was vital to the war effort without just saying that they were found under a rock.  The machine aspect introduced itself to my imagination about halfway through the first draft, and I ran with it from there.  I had wanted to explore the old scifi trope of the civilization threatened with extinction by a supernova, an idea that seemed out of date now that we know that blue giant stars are very short lived, and don’t possess a half dozen habitable planets in their life zones as once thought.  The idea of having a blue giant near enough to threaten a more standard solar system was one I couldn’t resist.

One comment on the first book was that most authors finish a series before they start a new one.   I love reading David Weber, for all the faults of his writing he tells entertaining stories.  David has Honor Harrington as well as several Honorverse side series, Safehold, and some stand alones.  I’m prolific, and I have no idea how he puts out so much.  But it made sense to get the second series going while the first was still doing well.  There were ideas I wanted to explore in the Exodus Universe that would run concurrently with the main storyline, and I couldn’t see any other way of doing those stories in the future.  Storylines could give away aspects of other storylines.  For example, if I finished out the Empires at War storyline, then all of my readers would know that whoever survived that narrative would be in no danger in the Machine War tract.  The other factor has to do with coming up with new ideas.  I have received reviews that pointed out how the Empires at War series keeps getting better, with fresh ideas in each volume.  One of the common tropes of writing is that ideas are easy to come by.  This is partially true.  I have enough ideas to write a hundred books if given the time to complete them.  But not in the Exodus series.  New ideas in a series that is now over a million words do not come all that easy, and two or three books a year are about all I can do now and keep up the quality.  Machine War gives me another outlet to write in that Universe, and also helps to generate ideas that might not go into that series, but instead into Empires at War.  If all I wanted to do was put out five Exodus books a year my income would double, but I would eventually run the series into the ground, which is something I don’t want to do.

I have other plans for the Exodus Universe.  I will put out several more Tales of the Empire books.  I have theme ideas for two or three more collections of novellas, and for a couple of stand alone novels.  Two ideas are Constance, about the Admiral who revolted against a mad emperor and became empress, and The Chase of a Thousand Years, detailing the contact with the Cacas that led to the destruction of Earth and the thousand year run to a new start.   I talked with an artist friend of mine at my class reunion, and I hope to have the Cacas I envisioned gracing the cover of a future Empires at War book.  I also have some other books, including another Deep Dark Well novel that is a start to a second trilogy, that I wrote before I embarked on an independent career.  And I am currently working on a submission for Baen books, and maybe some other publisher if they don’t like it.  The plan is to become a hybrid, using the tradition avenue to grow readership for my independent works.  As I told one fan recently, I intend to keep putting out the independent books in the same price range, but a traditionally published book can’t help but gain exposure.  And then there are the Refuge books.  I owe it to those readers to at least come to a closing point on that series, though I am also hoping that the new covers I have commissioned might breath some new life into a fantasy world that is close to my heart.

So Bolthole is out, and I hope my fans will enjoy it.  Supernova didn’t sell as many copies as my recent Empires at War offerings, but still enough to make it worthwhile.  And I plan to continue that series to a conclusion as well.  If you are a fan, and Machine War isn’t one of your favorites, I hope you will stick with me through Empires at War.  Thanks.

Meet the Character.

Posted by dougdandridge on September 15, 2014
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Alien Life, eBooks, Far Future, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Kindle, Military, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Websites, Wormholes, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 5 Comments

I would like to thank the lovely Sarah Hoyt, the Beautiful but Evil Space Princess, for tagging me for the “Meet the Character” Blog Tour.  Her own blog can be found here.

 

An Interview with the Baron Cornelius Walborski, Significant Character in Exodus: Empires at War and main character in Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger.

 

I kind of wondered what I was doing here myself, when there are so many more important aspects of this war to cover.  A war that was costing humanity dearly, one which we were in no way assured of winning.  Instead, here I was, sitting in a small room in the Imperial Palace, waiting to interview a young noble.  I had looked up all I could on the young man, and was sure that most of what the records had to say were propaganda intended to boost the morale of the public.  I mean, no one could have survived what he had, could they?

The door opened, and the man I was waiting for walked in.  He was easy to recognize.  Not that he was such an unusual subject, with his short brown hair and sun darkened skin, just a bit taller than average.   The uniform, Imperial Army dress blues, looked much the same as so many others I had seen in the palace.  Golden bars on the shoulder boards, the mark of a junior officer.  Ranger tab on his left sleeve, the mark of his sacrifice of life for ability.  The ribbons on his left breast, more than would be expected in a young lieutenant, including one that made me suck in my breath.  It’s one thing to hear of someone winning two Imperial Medals of Heroism, but to actually see the evidence.  And the last indication of something special was the shining metallic plate hanging from the chain round his neck, the mark of an Imperial Knight.

The young man looked into my eyes, and suddenly all doubts about his record were gone.  The eyes were a deep blue, with a stare that looked across light years of space.  The eyes of a man who has already seen too much, but was determined to look on all he needed to survey to see the war completed to the satisfaction of his species.

“My Lord,” I said, getting to my feet and reaching out a hand as I bowed at the waist slightly.

“Call me Cornelius,” said the young man in a strong New Detroit accent, bowing his head a bit as he stepped forward.  His gait was pure grace, his grip strong without being crushing, and he moved like a man who was well aware of his physical superiority, and was careful around those of us not so endowed.

But the price he paid, I thought, keeping a smile on my face, even while I thought of the decades he must have sacrificed to become augmented.  Most of the augmented, the retroactively genetic engineered, did not live past their one hundred eightieth birthday, forty years less than the average.  Not that there were many in the military that expected to make it that far into their normal life span.

“I’m still not used to all of this bowing and scraping,” said Walbroski with a smile.  “I never much liked being on the other side of the scraping.  Not sure I like this view any better.”

The young man sat in the facing chair, and I returned to mine.  A servant entered with two drinks, what looked like ale or beer, in sweating glasses.  The Baron was offered first, as befitted his social rank, then myself.

“So, what does Galactic News Network want from me?” asked the young man.

“You’re big news, my Lord.”  Cornelius’ eyes flashed with aggravation, and I stammered a correction.  “I mean, Cornelius.”

“At least in the regiment I don’t have to put up with all of this deference,” growled the Ranger.  “There, we’re all just men, no one better or worse than the other.  The whole reason I left New Detroit, so I didn’t have to put up with that nonsense.”

“Strange words coming from someone who is considered a friend of the Emperor.”

“Sean’s great,” said Walborski, his eyes softening.   “He plays the game, because it’s expected of him, but anyone who tries to play sycophant with him is going to regret it.”

“And the reason he’s your friend?  That he was the best man at your wedding, while you were his?”

“I tell him the truth,” said the Ranger, after taking a sip from his beer.  “He respects that, just like I respect him looking for it.  No surprise there.”

I looked him in the eyes, seeing no deception, something, if I say so myself, I am good at spotting.  “Where did you get the nickname, Hunter?”

The smile left his face, and I wondered if I had crossed the line.  “I use to help my dad run hunts for nobles back on New Detroit.  That’s how he made his living, before some idiot got him killed.”

“And Sestius?  From what I read, the colonists also hung that label on you.”

“I went just a little bit, crazy, on Sestius,” said The Hunter, his eyes flashing fire.  “The damned bastard Cacas killed my wife.  I thought they might need to pay a blood price for that, so I went out into the jungle and hunted them down.”

“Twenty of them?  And you weren’t even augmented yet?”

“You ever seen a Ca’cadasan?”asked the young man, referring to the aliens who had made it their mission in life to destroy humanity.

I nodded.  Everyone had seen them, at least on the tri dee.  Three meters of bipedal mammal, with four mighty arms and faces like demons.  Topped by twin horns a half meter tall.  “Terrifying creatures,” I agreed.

“But not all that much in the jungle,” said the Hunter, the smile on his face transforming into something that would make even those powerful creatures quail.  “They didn’t evolve for that environment.  From what I understand, they lived in tribal groups in scrub forest, which doesn’t tend to produce the best jungle fighters.  They’re big and clumsy, and you can hear them coming a kilometer away.”

“But to face one, by yourself?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not so hard to face them when you come up from behind. .  And a mono-molecular blade does them just fine.”

“So, Sestius made you want to become a Ranger?”

“Preacher made me want to become a Ranger,” said Walborski, shaking his head.  “I’d never seen anyone move like he could.  And I wanted to be the same, so I could kill Cacas.”

“But the cost?” I asked, waiting for the reply that would tell me so much about this man.

Cornelius looked like he wanted to say something, but his mouth remained shut and he shook his head.  I knew there was another story there, but one I was not going to get this day.

“Tell me a little bit about Azure?”

The light year stare returned to the eyes, and I could tell that his memories were not pleasant.  The young man took another sip from his beer and set it down, and I could detect a slight shake  his hand.

“A lot of good men went into the brush of Azure,” he said in a quiet voice.  “It was the most hellish jungle you could imagine.  Full of things that wanted to kill and eat you, plant, animal and the damned hybrids.”  His shoulders shook for a moment.  “I’m just happy to be out of that place.  It was hell for the Cacas too, but we made it even more so.”

“And you destroyed a Ca’cadasan HQ after they wiped out the rest of the company?  That took some courage.”

“It took some insanity,” said the Hunter with a chuckle.  “But it needed to be done, I was in place to do it, so I did.  That’s all there is to it.”

“And you received another Imperial Medal of Heroism for it.”

“This thing?” said the Ranger, his finger touching the ribbon.  “I would give this away just to bring back half of those men I went in there with.  Unfortunately, the Universe doesn’t work that way.”

“And then the Donut?  And saving the Empress on her wedding day?  Any future plans for saving the Empire?”

The eyes flashed again in anger, and I realized I was in the presence of one of the most dangerous men in the Empire.  And, good thing for me, one of the most disciplined men as well.

“I’m not a hero, Mr. Reporter,” he said in a voice that approached a low growl.  “I wanted nothing more than to live my life, work my farm, and be left alone.  I was the most horrible soldier in the Sestius militia.  My officers and sergeants thought I was the biggest waste of skin in the regiment.”

“And now you are one of the most decorated soldiers in the Imperial Army.  Comments?”

“Something took away my wife, and my life.  Killed my neighbors, destroyed my farm.  And I couldn’t allow them to get away with that.  So I stepped in and did what needed doing.”

The Hunter took one more sip of beer and put the glass on the side table, then turned those terrifying eyes back on me.  It was my turn to feel a shiver run up my spine.

“I don’t have a death wish.  Oh, I did, when my wife was killed.  I wanted to kill the bastards, and didn’t really care if I made it out or not.”

“And now?”

“I have a wife and children now,” he said, looking up at the ceiling for a moment, then back into my eyes.  His eyes had changed again, once more those of a caring young man.  “I miss my late wife, and love Devera, my current partner, and our children.  She treats them just like they are her own, and I love her to death for that.  I want to come out of the other side of this thing alive and well.  But I know that if I don’t do my best, if we all don’t fight to the best of our abilities, it doesn’t matter what I want.  What I want out of life.  Because we’re all going to be dead.  You, me, my family, the billions of people on this world that I don’t know.  So it’s up to me to do my part.”

The young man’s eyes changed once again, and I was once more looking at The Hunter.  “I think this interview is over, Mr. Reporter.”  He stood up from his seat, and I rose with him.  He turned his back on this mere newsman, nothing special in the scheme of things, and walked with that graceful stride to the door and out.

I had my story, one that was sure to raise the moral of the people, realizing what kind of people we had fighting for us.  And I felt sorry for the Cacas.  They had no idea what they had created when they had killed yet one more human female on a frontier world.  And now they had another human stalking them, hitting them from the shadows, putting the fear of humanity in their hearts.  Poor bastards.

 

Next Monday (9/22//2104) I have a real treat.  Author Chuck Gannon will be interviewing one of his characters.  As Chuck does not have his own blog, we will be posting it on both Sarah Hoyt’s and my blog.  Biography below.  And for those who don’t know Chuck, go check out his books.

Dr. Charles E. Gannon’s Nebula-nominated best-seller, Fire With Fire, won the 2014 Compton Crook Award. It’s August 2014 sequel, Trial By Fire, launched (with a starred review in PW) as an immediate best-seller, as was Gannon’s June 2014 collaboration with Eric Flint, 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies. Their 1635: The Papal Stakes, was a Wall Street Journal Best Seller. Gannon also collaborates in the NYT best-selling Starfire series and has been published (mostly novellas) in various shared universes and anthologies (Honorverse, Man-Kzin, War-World, Going Interstellar) and magazines such as Analog.

Although no longer in the classroom, Gannon remains a Distinguished Professor of English (SBU), was a Fulbright Senior Specialist (2004-2009), is a member of the sf think-tank SIGMA (advises DoD, NASA, NRO, others), has been featured on The Discovery Channel and NPR, and won the 2006 ALA Choice Award for Rumors of War and Infernal Machines.

 

Hitting the 100,000 Milestone

Posted by dougdandridge on September 14, 2014
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Movies, Near Future, Past, Plotting, science Fiction, self publishing, Titles, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

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On Saturday, September 13, 2104, one day after my 57th birthday, I woke up, tallied  my sales for the month on the XL spreadsheet I use for that purpose, and cheered as I saw that I had passed the one hundred thousand sales mark since I had been keeping track.  I had been keeping this spreadsheet since August of 2012, which discounts the forty to sixty books I had sold from January through September 2012 across multiple outlets.  And in August of 2012 I had only sold twenty-two books.  The Deep Dark Well was my big seller that month with eight books.  Things changed in September when I gave away 4,035 copies of The Deep Dark Well in a KDP Select promotion, and I later sold over 200 of TDDW that month on the way to selling 237 books.  October was even better, with 507 sales, 307 of them TDDW, but also 112 copies of Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1.  In November Exodus 1 took off, with 872 sales, then ,1,721 in December, along with 1,297 copies of Exodus 2.  January 2013 was the real eye opener, the one that really let me think I could do this for a living, as I sold 8,560 ebooks, including 3,088 of Exodus 1, 2,758 of Exodus 2, and 750 of TDDW.  Heady days, and I made the decision to quit the State of Florida and go full time in the Fall of that year.  5,677 sales in February changed those plans, and I never looked back as I left Department of Children and Families in March of 2013.  Since then, my worst month has been 1,917 in July of 2014.  My best, after that eye opening January, was 7,002 in May of 2014.  Book 7 of the Exodus series came out August 20th, and has already sold over 4,300 copies, while September is turning out to be another great month.

What it comes to is 100,000 total sales in just a little more than twenty-four and a half months (August 2012 can be thrown out of that calculation, since I was over 100K by more than I had sold in that entire month).  I was hoping when I got into this self-publishing thing that I would be successful.  Success defined as enough money, along with my day job, to get by and possibly get ahead.  By that definition I have been successful beyond my wildest dreams.  I work for myself.  I travel where I want to go when I want to.  I’m buying a house, by damn.  Not a big house, a nice little three bedroom two bath that I can fix the way I want.  Enough for me, without being a big job keeping up.  And I’ve met some really great people, at Dragon Con, Liberty Con, and the Superstars Writing Seminars.  Big time authors, and people in the early part of their careers.  My kind of people.  And the many fans I have met, a few in person, most over the net.  Again, my kind of people, even if we don’t agree on everything, we have a passion for one thing, sci-fi and fantasy.

On the same day I sold my hundred thousandth book among ebooks, paperbacks and audiobooks, I signed a contract with Kevin J Anderson to appear in the third volume of his Five by Five military science fiction series, coming soon.  Kevin, Michael Stackpole, Sarah Hoyt, and Dani and Eytan Kollin round out the authors of the five stories, and I couldn’t be more proud or excited to be in their company.  Looking forward to the coming year, and some more books to put out there, more people to meet.  And hopefully come some steps closer to become a hybrid author, publishing in both the traditional and self-pub realms.  I am working on a fantasy submission for Baen books right now, along with book four of the Refuge series.  If Baen doesn’t like the fantasy I eventually will publish it myself, while working on a sci-fi idea for them.

I’m not on the New York Times Bestseller list yet, I’m not on any Hugo or Nebula lists, not well known outside my small circle of fans and friends.  But I’m doing what I love, every day.  I’m my own boss, and the future is looking really good.

Tomorrow will be a blog interview with Cornelius Walborski, the Hunter from the Exodus: Empires of War series.  And the day after I will be blogging about my very soon to be released book (probably that day) How I Sold 100,000 Books On Amazon.  More than I’m use to doing with the blog in such a short time, but such is life right now.

Ken Ham and Those Damned Aliens

Posted by dougdandridge on July 22, 2014
Posted in: Alien Life, Far Future, History, Intelligent Life, Near Future, Space Program, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

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Normally I wouldn’t bother posting on something like this.  I truly believe that everyone has the right to their own beliefs.  If you want to believe in Thor, Gozer, Cthulu, that alien spirits arrived among us millennium ago, or one of the more established religions, that’s your choice, just as it is my choice to ignore those choices if I wish.  Normally I just ignore what I consider the more foolish of the people who want to push their agenda on the rest of us.  I believe in live and let live for the most part, with the exception of terrorists and people who are willing to use force to make others bow down to their religious tenants, like at least one well known religion here on Earth.  I have friends on the far left, the far right, who don’t believe anything or are very strong in their particular faith.  I get along with all of them, which is sometimes quite the balancing act.  I consider myself a moderate who believes in science above all, the knowledge we have accumulated through time that has led to our understanding of the Universe, and our development of the technologies that allow us to live as we do.  I am open to learning, to changing my views if someone can give me the information to base that change on.  But there are others out there who believe what they believe, and no amount of evidence will change their minds.  Ken Ham is one such individual.  The self proclaimed champion of Creationism.  You might remember him as the guy who debated Bill Nye the Science Guy about Creationism.  Well, Ken dropped yet another bombshell onto the internet, like a turd from a seagull flying over the beach.

The first article I saw was posted on Facebook, from the internet journal, Raw Story.   I clicked on the article and read the humorous proposition that good old Ken put forth.  That if there was any other intelligent life in the Universe, it was doomed to hell because they had never received salvation.  Now first off, this seemed like a terrible proposition from a loving God.  I mean, who would make an intelligent species, only to doom them to suffer an eternity in an afterlife after they died.  Generation after generation, for thousands of years (of course, Ken only believes the Universe and Earth are 6,000 years old, despite the ton of evidence to the contrary).   From the Raw Story page I went in search for Ken’s own site and the original article, from the Answers in Genesis Blog.  Now, to be fair, Ken did not really say that all of the millions of alien races that probably populate the almost infinite Universe are going to hell.  He argues that there are no aliens, that the God he believes in (which was not the same one I grew up with by any means, though they have the same name) would not create any other life forms, because Earth was specially created, out of the trillions of trillions of planets orbiting the hundreds of billions of stars in the hundreds of billions of Galaxies in the observable Universe.  And in his wisdom he placed this special place around a mediocre star in a small subarm of one of the major galactic arms, of a mediocre Galaxy.  One would think the planet would be placed around a blue supergiant in the center of the largest galaxy of them all, a truly special place and a glory to its creator.  I know, a Supergiant only lasts for mere millions of years before going into supernova, but if the Universe is only 6,000 years old, that shouldn’t be much of a problem.

So, he didn’t really say all aliens were going to hell.  What he said was there couldn’t possibly be any aliens, because we are so special and stuff.  And, most outrageous of all, he called for an end to the space program and the search for extraterrestrial life because his dogma didn’t believe in such.  Now, as I stated earlier, I really don’t care about the religious beliefs of others.  Well, in this case I do.  Why?  Because if science were based on his creationist views, we would not have any vaccines, satellites, air travel, computers, and all the other things we depend on today.  Sure, engineers and medical specialist constructed most of these modern miracles, but they were based on the solid science that a man such as Ham denies, even while he makes use of it to spread his message of there’s nothing new to learn in the Universe.  People like him would love to see us back in the Bronze Age, sacrificing sheep on fires so his God could get a whiff of the smoke.

I don’t know that there is alien life.  I also don’t think our world is special enough to be the only home to life in this enormous Universe.  I may be wrong, but once we search the last large rock in the Universe and find none (if I’m still alive, not even a starter) I will admit my belief is wrong.  I also believe that among what I think will turn out to be trillions and trillions of planets with life on them, there will be other intelligent life forms.  Someday we may meet them.  Hopefully we will be of equal or greater technology, because history has shown us what happens the the technologically inferior cultures in such meetings.  If they are superior we on’t have much choice as to the meeting ground.  And if we meet other intelligent life, then people like Ken Ham can tell us that they are demons or damned, because they are not special creations like we are.  Of course people like Ken Ham and his views of religion would probably not live more than a couple of generations past such a meeting, as the stronger culture also normally converts the weaker to its own belief system.

The Economics of Publishing

Posted by dougdandridge on June 12, 2014
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Armor, Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Movies, Near Future, Plotting, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Shape Shifting, Titles, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

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I recently received the first review of my near scifi/technothriller novel, The Scorpion.  Set in a future United States in the year 2050, it was a very enjoyable book to research and write back in 2005.  It was put out there, like so many books in my catalogue, because I really had no idea what was going to catch on, and everything I had read said I should have as big a catalogue of work as possible.  So The Scorpion was put out on Amazon, and has sold a little over a hundred copies to date.  The review, from Amazon.UK, was a four star, and stated that they enjoyed the book and all the other praise I regularly receive for my more popular work.  And then went on to say that the only problem was that it ended with the promise of a sequel, which was not delivered.  Now, when I was writing novels for submission to publishers, I always tried to make them as standalone as possible, while also leaving an opening for a sequel.   I would really have loved to have written a sequel of this book, just as I would have for many others.  But economically, it just isn’t feasible.

Aura, my fantasy novel that tells the tale of the lives of triplets growing up on a world where the magical energy generated by the body controls the destiny of the possessor, is another such book.  I was told by several people that it was one of the best fantasy novels they have ever read, and was asked when the sequel was coming out.  At just over three hundred total sales in two years, the sequel is a long time coming.  Same with my vampire novel, The Hunger, called by one online reviewer the best book of that genre they have ever read.  A lady where I worked read it and bothered me constantly about the sequel.  Alas, three hundred sales in two and a half years doesn’t cut it.  And Afterlife, etc.

It takes some time and effort to write a book, and making five or six hundred dollars on it really isn’t much of a payoff.  Well below minimum wage.  Conversely, the books in the Exodus series all sell about five thousand copies in the first month and a half that they are out, and then continue to sell fifty to a hundred (or much more) per month for the entire time I have them out there.  Well worth the investment of time and effort.  In fact, if I wanted to pull in as much money as possible, I would only write books in that series.  Which brings up the next category, those which sell fairly well, and have a couple of thousand fans reading them.

In traditional publishing those books might spark a sequel or two, then the series would die on the vine. I have started several series like that from big name authors, only to be disappointed down the road when they just stopped.  Without any kind of resolution.  Just an end.  Refuge has a couple of thousand loyal fans, based on the sale of the third book, which was about two thousand.  The same with The Deep Dark Well.  I really don’t make all that much off of those books, especially as compared to Exodus.  But I feel obligated to continue the storyline for those who are reading.  The third book of TDDW trilogy will be out in July, and then I will have a decision to make.  The first book of a second trilogy is already finished in first draft stage.  It was written in 2011, when I got what I thought was a cool idea that fit into that Universe.  But, if I publish it, I am committing myself to the other two books in that trilogy.  I will be releasing book 4 of Refuge in September, and still need one more book to finish off the beginning of that series, which I had hoped would go on for twenty books.  That will only happen if they catch on to a greater extent than they have so far.   Can always hope, but I can’t plan around that hope.

When I was writing part time then publishing books in a series that really wasn’t selling all that well might have made some sense, trying to strengthen my catalogue, and hoping that enough people might eventually buy into it to really keep it going.  I had another paycheck coming in from my day job.  Now that this is my day job I have to make economic decisions, and some books that could have been series will remain stand alone.  Which doesn’t mean that there won’t eventually be a series, just that it isn’t in the plans for right now.

The Alabama Phoenix Festival 2014.

Posted by dougdandridge on June 1, 2014
Posted in: Comics, Conferences, Fantasy, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Marvel, Military, Movies, science Fiction, self publishing, steampunk, Superheroes, Sword and Sorcery, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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This weekend I was at the Alabama Phoenix Festival in Birmingham, Alabama.  I have only been to two other cons, Altcon in Tallahassee, on the tiny edge of the spectrum, and DragonCon in Atlanta, one of the largest cons in the United States.  Alabama Phoenix Festival was on the smallish side, but is held in a facility that has plenty of room to grow.  The hotel is the Sheraton in Birmingham. next to the Birmingham Jefferson County Civic Center.  The Weston is also attached to the complex, allowing the opportunity to add another venue to the con.  The Sheraton itself seemed to large for the crowd that gathered there.  I was told that it had been larger in past years, and that this was an off year for this con.

I learned the story behind the con on the first day.  Birmingham had been host to another con in the past, but the promoter was a true con, as in con man, and took all of the funds one year.  Phoenix Festival is the rebirth of the con from the ashes of the old.   There were about ten venues, from the main stage to the meeting rooms where panels were held.  The rooms were small, but there were up to eight rooms hosting panels at a time.  The panelists, while not big names on the whole, were knowledgeable, and I definitely learned some things on the panels.  The con was well organized, and for the most part panels went off when they were supposed to.  The display area was well attended and spacious, though I thought it could probably hold quite a bit more in the way of venders.  While nowhere near DragonCon as far as costumes went, there were some interesting costumes.  Iron Man, War Machine, The Joker, and others.  Steampunk was represented there, with the showpiece being a steam Darlek.  The Alabama Ghostbusters were there, Nick Fury was providing security, and I saw the Phantom and Wonder Woman on the premises.   Panels covered Star Trek, Self Publishing, and Comic Books among other topics.

The most important thing for me is that I met a lot of people, some that I only knew from Facebook.  Bobby Nash for one, James Palmer for another.   I also saw Van Allen Plexico, who I had met at DragonCon last year, and will see again there this year.  Networking was important, and I can see where some of these contacts might help me in the future, while I can possibly do the same for some of them.  I think I will attend the festival again next year, unless something else comes up.  I would like to see Phoenix grow through the years and become a mid-range con with ten thousand people attending.    I was hoping to be able to sit on a panel at DragonCon this year, without claiming guest status.    I may have to start a little smaller, applying for guest status at a con like the Alabama Phoenix Festival.  I hope to see some more of you there.