Today’s blog post topic is about the Ninth Pohang Legion: Heavy (Cataphracti)

The Grand Army of the Republic is a ground-based military force fielded by the Republic of Aquitaine. Until recently (The Siege and Conquest of Thuringwell), it was considered a defensive force, intended to protect worlds of the Republic against invasion by forces of the Fribourg Empire, raiders, or native revolutionaries.

This has now changed.

The Grand Army is made up of units called Legions, commanded by a Legate. This generally holds for infantry units, scouts, and armor. Each Legion is made up of five sub-units. For infantry or cavalry, these smaller groups are called Cohorts. For Armor, the unit is called an Ala. (plural: Alae)

At the basic level, the Ninth Pohang Legion is all about tanks. Specifically the Heavy Battle Tank known as Solenopsis, Fire Ants. Each tank has a four-man crew, with the commander either being a senior enlisted man (Decurion), or a junior officer (Lance Centurion), plus a Gunner, a Loader, and a Driver. Three tanks make up a single Lance, the smallest unit in the field.

Three Lances of tanks are organized as a Squadron. These nine vehicles are trained to operate as a three-fingered unit under the command of the most senior officer present.

Three Squadrons of tanks are known as a Patrol. The nominal Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) will show twenty-seven tanks, if all of them are in the field, plus the addition of a Command Lance.

COMMAND ELEMENT

The Command Element for a Patrol is composed of a modified Patrol Commander model Solenopsis tank, outfitted with better communications gear, plus a Support Lance. This Support Lance is a Recovery Tank, a Logistics Tank, and an Air Defense Tank.

The Recovery Tank is a built on the same hull as the Solenopsis. Instead of the rotating battle turret with the 66mm particle cannon, the vehicle has a small, fixed bridge for the Commander to spot from, and a crane attached to a winch powerful enough to pull another tank out of most awkward situations. Frequently, a Recovery Tank will have a dozer blade on the front to help clear a path to rescue, but actual Armored Assault is the province of a Breacher Tank (see below).

Because the 66mm particle cannon on most tanks uses an expendable ammunition round, the Logistics Tank is responsible for transporting reloads in the field. Like the Recovery Tank, the vehicle loses the turret for a small bridge/cockpit up front, and gains a vented, armored, cargo box on the rear (think pickup truck). It also drags a larger armored trailer behind it, also on powered tracks. The Logistics Tank also has a crane, but one designed to lift the heavy ammunition crates from either of the transport boxes and land them on the rear deck of a nearby tank.

The Air Defense Tank keeps the battle turret of the Solenopsis, but removes the main gun for a pair of autocannons, one on either side for parallax, loaded with a variety of ammunition types. Like the Logistics model, it also has a tracked, armored trailer, but one that is generally loaded with spare autocannon ammunition, to give the crew the ability to be profligate when acting.

Above the level of a Patrol is the Ala itself. This is made up of three Patrols, plus a Ala Command Tank, for a nominal TOE of ninety-four (94) vehicles, of which eighty-five (85) will be Heavy Battle Tanks and nine (9) will be the three Support Lances.

The Ala is commanded by a Cohort Centurion, roughly the equivalent rank to the navy’s Command Centurion. Depending on the unit, they might be quite senior.

HEADQUARTERS

Every Legion is comprised, as noted above, of five major formations. These will be four core Cohorts or Alae (numbered 1-4), plus a 5^th that is the Headquarters Section. HQ will include a Logistics/Transport Section, an Armoured Assault Support Section, an Artillery Section, and a Pioneer/Construction Section, the latter with dedicated construction vehicles, usually slightly-armored versions of civilian equipment.

The Armoured Assault Support Section usually contains one or moredozer-blade-equipped Breacher Tanks. This is built on the same Main Battle Tank hull, but instead of the 66mm cannon, it is equipped with a demolition gun, which is a form of short-barreled howitzer with an extremely large bore, fired horizontally. The size of the ammunition reduces the number of rounds that can be fired in battle, so the Breacher is used to open a gap for the rest of the unit to exploit, with either high explosive rounds or armor-piercing, depending on the nature of the obstacle that needs to be destroyed.

Another vehicle in the Armoured Assault Support Section is known as the Scorpion. This tank is built on the same hull as the Recovery Tank, but instead of a crane, it has a rear-mounted, articulated arm used to drop fascine bundles. The fascine bundle is made up of several dozen sections of pipe, wrapped up tightly. When a unit encounters a ditch too wide and deep to cross, the Scorpion will drop a fascine bundle into the ditch that other tanks can drive across.

In a similar manner, an Armoured Assault Support Section frequently includes a Mobile Bridge, which is a tank with a folding section of metal that can bridge major gaps or collapsed sections of bridge in a few minutes, to maintain the momentum of the attack.

The Assault Ramp Carrier is a variant of the Main Battle Tank where the turret is removed but not replaced. Instead, the hull is sealed tight, with available snorkels. Hydraulic ramps, several meters wider than the vehicle, are attached at the front and rear. In battle, the Ramp Carrier drives up to a slope too steep for another tank to climb, locks itself down, and deploys the ramps for following tanks to drive up and over a wall or embankment.

Finally, Headquarters Section will come equipped with what troops have traditionally called the Bakery Tractor. Bakery Tractors are used to establish a laager for tanks. This is a specially-built vehicle with a large backhoe that digs up soil and drops it into a hopper. The soil is then mixed with a chemical classified as a Reflectant, which is a plasticizing material that will stabilize the soil into soft bricks that are extremely resistant to both energy weapons and physical impact.

The Bakery outputs standard sized bricks that are scaled to Human (10cm x 20cm x 40cm), Vehicle (20cm x 40cm x 80cm), or Fortification (60cm x 80cm x 120cm), with a hollow bottom designed to lock into nobs that stick out the top. They retain a rubbery, squishy feel, and will stop or slow most small arms bullets, and spread the impact of an energy beam over a large surface, preventing melt-through or super-heating.

COMMAND

The Legion will be commanded by a Legate, who has roughly the equivalent rank of the navy’s Fleet Lord.

In the case of several Legions acting together for an extended campaign, overall command will be designated to a Governor, or possibly a Margrave, with rank equivalent to a First Fleet Lord. Such a commander may occasionally be the senior-most Legate present also being given overall command (see the archaic term Marshal).

While an Armoured Legion like the Ninth Pohang will have four full Alae on paper, and for training purposes, the usual disposition in the field is the three Alae only, with a fourth (any of them) being swapped out to support a different Legion. The new fourth unit will be a different Alae/Cohort that is attached for a campaign or extended mission. Examples include attaching a Rapid Assault Ala (Armored Rifles), or a Heavy Scout Ala (Wheeled or Tracked). Infantry and Cavalry Cohorts are also options, but much more rare, given the nature of the two forces. On occasion, an entire Artillery Cohort has been attached.

The most frequent arrangement is to attach an Ala of Mechanized Scouts (Wheeled or Tracked), depending on the terrain. This formation is a spearhead for an assault, normally used to break up formations where hostile forces have managed to dig themselves in tightly and the costs of an infantry assault may be prohibitive.

RANK STRUCTURE

• Legate (Commanding Officer)
• Primus Pilus (“First Spear.” Second in Command. Field Commander. )
• Cohort Centurion (Commander of an Ala)
• Patrol Centurion (Commander of a Patrol)
• Lance Centurion (Commander of a Lance or Squadron, depending on seniority)
• Decurion (Senior Enlisted rank)

This past weekend, Fabulous Publisher Babe™ and I went out to lunch with a woman who had been her best friend since Junior High School. (We’ll just quantify that as “a while ago.”) Babe and I got to talking beforehand about those sorts of things and I came to realize that the guy who had been my best friend in Junior High and High School is someone I have not talked to in more than eighteen years.

And I won’t even take the blame for that one.

His birthday falls about two weeks after mine, and we used to split the difference and celebrate on the fourth of July every summer. When we were fourteen, the plan had been to celebrate our 30^th together in Washington, D.C., and our 40^th in London.

Never did get the story, but about six months before that 30^th, he announced he wasn’t interested, wasn’t going, and kinda sorta walked away from even knowing me. This was the era before rampant social media and electronics, so it was still a long distance call to ring someone up on the phone, and email was about the only way to really stay in touch with someone who lived 1500 miles away.

It really was possible to lose touch with someone, especially if he stopped answering emails. And he did.

So she and I did a quick catalog. “Folks I have spoken with in the last few years.”

My best friend (J***) in 4^th-6^th grade, before he went to a different Jr. High. Found him through another long-time friend (and ex-girlfriend I’m still on good terms with.) Still communicate a bit via social media.

Said ex-girlfriend whom I’ve known for over thirty years. Saw her in the flesh four years ago when I went to visit in Colorado.

And then, nothing. Really big chronological gap.

Another girl. I knew her vaguely in High School, but we didn’t start to date until I was in college, and I never got that serious because she didn’t seem that interested. (Turns out she was that shy, but I’ve never claimed to be telepathic.) After 1987(?) talked her again next in about 2007. Still exchange messages, occasionally, but haven’t seen her in those thirty years.

In college, met Conan the Librarian and Pike. Went to school with neither. Met Conan when I was a volunteer with emergency rescue, like him. Met Pike through Conan. Lost both of them in the early and then mid-90’s and found them again in the last 3-4 years.

The first girl I ever really fell in love with. Again in college. That was thirty years ago. Haven’t seen her in twenty. Still exchange messages via social media on occasion.

Met Snake in college. He was my roommate for about five years. He died extremely young, about fifteen years ago.

Met J**2 through Snake. Haven’t seen him in 25 years. Still chat via social media on occasion.

Same goes for M**2. Met him through Snake. Found him on social media in the last year, through J***2.

Met Swamp Rat in LA when I was out there in the early 90’s. Haven’t seen him in about twenty years. We chat on occasion.

Met Coop in the LA days. Haven’t seen him since I passed through central Cali about five years ago driving back from a friend’s wedding in Vegas. Might go years between emailing him.

Met Dusty in the LA days. Lost him in ’94. Found him again in 2011. He’s up here in Seattle, but it’s probably been a year since I’ve seen him, and only email on occasion.

Met J9 through Charlie, and she (Charlie) died nearly twenty years ago now. Last saw J9 in about 2008.

Etc.

etc.

So I got to thinking. I moved to Seattle in ’97. Will celebrate 20 years here in about six weeks, as a matter of fact.

I’ve just listed all of the people I can think of, off the top of my head, that I knew before 1997 (family not included), that I could easily reach out and talk to, if I had a question.

It is not a particularly long list. And many of them are folks in the third or fourth circle of friendship these days. Modern technology allows that. In the old days, the kind of folks you would just hear gossip about from your mother, talking to their cousin, or something.

The baby in my Tuesday Gaming Group I’ve been playing with for probably twelve years now. The oldest of that group I met in about ’98, so he and I are coming up on twenty years soon. The other two fall in the middle. There are a couple of others that come and go depending on time and commitments, both of them new in the last ten years.

I grew up in a different age. And did different things.

It was possible to just completely fall off the face of the earth, without actively deleting old friends to get them off you social media page, or walking away from your account, or abandoning your phone number (although I did that twice, for personal reasons).

And imagine explaining to the next generation the prohibitive cost of calling someone in a different state, and why you had to wait until after 7pm or the weekend, when the rates went down.

But, in the long term, it was a good idea for me to leave everything behind.

I was extremely angry at the world.

I had my reasons, and I’ll defend them fiercely. Five of my closest friends from along that road are no longer around to share with me how much better things have gotten for my life over the last few years.

On the one hand, I don’t miss the person I was three years ago, or ten, to say nothing of twenty or thirty. (I’m pretty sure me just being alive at this point will cause a number of people to have to pay off bets against. Their loss, for assuming…)

How about you?

How many of your friends are you still in touch with, from when you were bright-eyed, obnoxious kids together, dreaming of taking over the world?

I always wonder, whatever happened to some of those people I used to know. Did their lives turn out mundane or crazy? Did they go all white-picket-fence, like M**2 did?

I keep getting more bohemian as I get older. And that’s okay. I’m having fun. True fun. The kind where you wake up in the morning excited about the possibilities, as opposed to dragging out of bed angry, and going and putting in your time at a job you despise as you work for a weekend of mind-numbingness and hoping that death comes and relieves you of you misery soon.

Do me a favor? Send a note to that best friend. Or your oldest friend. Check in. Say hi. See what’s going on in their life and what you’ve missed. Not for me, but for you.

Do that with several other people. Just ’cause.

For me, if you know anybody that might remember me from the olden days, send them this note and ask them to reach out to me. Seriously. Good Lord only knows what they’ve been up to. And my craziness is kinda off the scale, even today. Would be interesting to hear about their adventures.

I graduated high school when I was sixteen in ’86. Finished college in ’89. Left and did grad school in SoCal, and then stayed around until ’95. Was back in Wichita for eighteen months. Been in Seattle-ish since. Will base camp here one of these days, but will travel again.

I can tell you when something happened, based on what city I lived in at the time, since I moved 17 times between summer of ’90 and fall of ’01.

But I’m also in a very small group. Most people statistically are born, raised, live, and die in about a fifty-mile circle. Sad, but not everyone wants to have adventures. Or decide to move cross country and try someplace else for a while. I figure I’m about halfway on my journey, so I’ve got a lot of miles left in me, and a lot of adventures left to have.

But it is also nice to revisit the old days. For me, there is always a taste of “there, but for the Grace of God, go I…” but still. We live in a magical future, where you never have to truly lose touch again.

So, go talk to someone.

shade and sweet water,

bd

West of the Mountains, WA

This time last year, I sat down to organize my notes and figure out what was going on. FB reminds me of anniversaries of interesting events. I have my own in the calendar.

January 7, 2015.

My world kinda turned upside down. I had previously published Beyond the Mirror, Vol 1 and Vol 2. Two collections of fantasy shorts and epic poetry. Late in 2014 (early Dec, I think) I dropped Volume 3: Alternate Worlds, which was the first collection of SF. At the same time, I published the first Javier novella, The Science Officer.

So far, so good. People (who are not blood relatives, even) were actually buying my books and enjoying them.

January 7, 2015, Science Officer exploded.

It went from selling 2-3 copies on a good day to 70-90. Stayed that way for a while. I frantically finished the second in the series: The Mind Field, so I could sustain traction. Managed it.

I was already starting to transition to novel writing, so I kept it up. 2015 was a pretty good year.

2016, I decided to try some new things. Not all of them worked. I personally love White Crane, but not many other people do. And I understand that it is book one of a trilogy, and most people won’t touch it until I finish the other two. Your loss, by the way. 🙂

In 2017, I am going to publish a number of other stories in the same (Modern Gods) universe. People with super-powers, coming to grips with it. And Society coming to grips with them.

And you know me. Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) has correctly identified my underlying literary theme as “sticking it to the man.” So the new stories are not epic battles to stop evil being from destroying the universe (except when they are), but stories about the little people who are involved.

The first story is scheduled to come out in the third CampCon Anthology: “Steam. And Dragons.” It will be published in March, and be available for pre-order in February. More than a dozen folks this year, writing fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, horror, as well as post-apocalyptic stuff.

I wrote a silly story about a breakfast dragon.

In June (if not earlier), I will actually be editing a bigger superhero anthology tentatively entitled “Hiding Behind The Cowl.” I asked my writers to give me longer stories (10-20k instead of 3-6k) and have gotten some really great stuff. Hoping it sells enough that I can convince them to do it annually or bi-annually. TBD. But poke them and let them know you want MORE…

Just sent off a stand-alone (#3) story to my first readers to review. Again, minor character with barely any power, trying to find herself and her place in a world that she doesn’t understand, and doesn’t understand her. Probably come out in the fall.

And #4 will be a (superhero) short-story collection I just started of extremely short pieces  (2500-3500) wrapped around a common theme of food and cooking. Have the first done, and twelve plotted. They don’t take long, and they make me giggle.

But back to 2016 for a moment.

The Third Javier story came out: The Gilded Cage.

The Fourth Jessica: Goddess of War.

Plus more Alexandria Station Stories with Doyle/Piper (Demigod), and Vo Arlo (Siren).

White Crane, the first of Kai Di’s trilogy. Fairchild, the beginning of Dani’s series.

I even made more money in 2016 than I did in 2015, which is always a good sign. Not enough to walk away from the day job, or even schedule a date when to walk away, but getting closer. (If sales of the latter two novels had been better, we’d be in better shape. That’s what I get for having too many series not developed enough. Lesson learned. And I promise not to start writing what I hope will be my grandest SF epic yet (The XXXX XXXXXXX) until I get some of the others done. I might write them anyway, and just not publish them until much later. Or not.

Because I haven’t said it enough times: Thank you. I would still be writing without the support of the fans, but it would be in spare time, and not doing anything with it. (Like the last 30 years.) That I can possibly make enough money to live on is because you like my words enough. But it starts with you.

I crossed 1,000,000 sellable (modern) words in the middle of 2016. Took me 2.5 years. Hoping to do the next million in a shorter period, but I have a day job, so I consider the 415,000 words I wrote in 2016 to be pretty damned spiffy. Goal is more every year, Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.

So, back to 2017.

More fantasy short pieces coming. I’m trying to fill in some of those series from Mirror 1 and Mirror 2 and move them all along. (Brak: Feet of Clay) Adding new series and characters when I must.  Many that make me giggle, including Akahana.

In Feb and April, two new Beyond The Mirror volumes (4 & 5): Dramatic Worlds. Four plays about Cisco in Vol 4. Two plays, two monologues, and a comedy sketch dialogue in Vol 5. Maybe eventually publish them all individually. Maybe not.

Just sent the fifth Jessica Keller novel off to first readers yesterday. The Flight of the Blackbird. Scheduled for late spring or early summer.

Working now on the fourth Javier story. The Pleasure Dome. TBD.

Dunno what comes next. Not that worried. Won’t run out of ideas before the world collapses.

Anything you want to see?

And as a reward for actually reading this: want me to send you an ebook? I have several nobody has read yet. You can be first. I could not do this without you.

shade and sweet water,

bd

West of the Mountains, WA

Because I can… has kinda become my mantra this year. The only limits to my career are my imagination and patience, so I am having way too much fun.

I’m out at the farm today (Xmas Eve), with no interwebs and no interest in going into town, but then I realized I could hit the website from my phone. So I get to take five minutes to wish everyone a good holiday of their choice and denomination.

HAPPY EGGNOG, everyone. I hope you have as good a time as you can.

And I’m feeling festive. Anybody wanna read something, lemme know what you haven’t read yet and I’ll send a book. Or forward the note to a friend. I won’t deliver it until Monday, but it will still be fun.

b

Good news.

I have a new book up for pre-order. It’s been a year in the making, but I’m really jazzed about it, and I hope y’all will be, too.

Uniforms of the Fleet, Volume One contains thirteen color plates (including the cover) with characters from the Jessica Keller stories (including Command Centurion Jessica on the cover and Fleet Centurion Jessica inside). Others included on this pass are:

• Nadine Orly
• Furious
• Moirrey
• Iskra Vlahovic
• Navin the Black
• Dash
• Denis
• Arott Whughey
• Petia
• Nils
• Suvi

Additionally, there are two color plates for the starship badges: Auberon, and the Star Controller Athena. This is what everyone wears as a patch on their left shoulder when in uniform.

For the badges, assuming desire on YOUR PART (speak up over the next month or so), I am hoping, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, to do coffee mugs with the Auberon logo, and maybe t-shirts. Lunchboxes? You tell me what you’d like to see, so I have a chance to do it right.

One of these days, I’d even like to do action figures, but you’re going to have to recruit more of your friends to buy more of my books so I can finally transition to full-time writer and leave the joys and heartbreak of database programming behind me forever. That will be an expensive undertaking, unless one of you happens to be a 3D modeler who could create the files and maybe decant the figures. (If so, let’s talk. I’m all about licensing agreements, these days.)

More good news: I just finished the first draft pass of the next/fifth Jessica novel: Flight of the Blackbird. It will go to first readers in early January, with an expected publication date in May, 2017, Good Lord willing and creek don’t rise. More news as we get closer.

Right now, I’m deep in the editorial phase of a new anthology I put together with several of my friends, also due out Spring. It will be an anthology of superhero stories, but different than the normal ones. What I asked the writers to give me is not so much how they became costumed heroes/villains, but “Why?” What causes someone to dress up in tights to fight crime and right wrongs.

And because I wanted deeper stories, I asked for pieces in the 10,000-20,000 word range, to give people space to play. The results were astonishing, as we move forward, and big. They range from 13,000 all the way up to over 35,000. Hopefully, five powerful stories (contracts not finalized yet, so I don’t have everyone nailed down, but I will put out something, even if some of them decide to back out later. Not that I’m expecting it.) that explore a range of themes.

They are more than just another superhero story, because they are intended to be about the psychology that drives someone. They entertain me. Hopefully, you will find them awesome as well, so I can convince everyone and then some to come back for another volume next year, and maybe make this an ongoing thing.

As promised, I have been writing short stories every month, so you don’t have to go so long between hits. Finished the one for November and it’s being first readered. December is going a little long, but that’s okay. It’s at 6k currently. Probaby 8-9k when I get there. New character, new world, new series.

Am planning to go back and look at the older fantasy stuff and write additional stories in some of those worlds over the course of 2017. My original goal had always been to do heterogeneous collections on theme (fantasy, SciFi, etc.) and then pull together all the characters into their own collection when I had enough mass to justify it. Brak 4 coming out in November was an example of this. I figure it will take nine to get the first volume done. Then I can either write a novel, or tuck in more stories, or just keep going. Kaleph, Alicia, Suren, and Jesilyria are on my radar.

Starting in January, I hope to get into the fourth Science Officer story with Javier.  Might do a couple in 2017, depending on time and muse. Stay tuned. There are a bunch of those in my head and my notes, so its not like Javier will run out any time soon. (Jessica will go nine and done. Although JG is still on my ass to write her a prequel trilogy of Young Jessica stories. Maybe. One of these days. No promises.)

I hope that the season finds you all well and safe. I write these blogs because I can. And for the advertising. And because it helps me crystallize my thoughts and plans. Hopefully, you find them as interesting and useful. Or at least silly enough to read them clear down to the joke at the end.

Okay, maybe not joke, but offer.

I’m in a winter-gift mood. Is there a story in my catalog that you haven’t read yet, but wanted to? Lemme know and I’ll send you an ebook, either as an email or a sideload to your kindle. And if you have read them all (thank you!!!) and want first crack at something that I haven’t published yet, lemme know. The Adventuress came about because I sent it to Maggie to cheer her up, and her response was so great that I decided to put it out.

So please, lemme know.

shade and sweet water

bd

West of the Mountains, WA

Reminder: there will be a fundraiser that starts at noon on Wednesday and runs for a day.

I have the link here, but it’s not live at this second, so you’ll get a 404, but check back.

Your chance to get a signed copy of Auberon delivered, plus I’ll tuckerize you into a coming story (probably Science Officer, maybe Jessica Keller, or something you’d like.)

Help make the world a better place this holiday season.

So, Noon Eastern US Time, December 14, which is Wednesday, there will be an auction (see Jim’s website for others) to support a good cause in Michigan. For whoever wins the auction, a signed copy of Auberon will be sent to them via post.

Additionally, and more importantly, I’ll tuckerize you.

In layman’s terms, you’ll get the option to appear as a minor character in one of my upcoming books. You, by name. By description if you want to live forever. And you get to choose if I make you a sidekick to one of my heroes, or a villain who dies in some terribly tragic and painful way. And maybe, if you want, I’ll make you a recurring minor character.

Lord knows I have two major SF series in motion right now that have large casts. By the time you read this, I should have written at least one, if not all, of the epilogues for the fifth Jessica Keller novel, Flight of the Blackbird, due out middle of 2017. The next major project is the fourth Science Officer book, The Pleasure Dome.

I’m also churning out shorter pieces on a monthly basis, so I can keep the heartbeat going on Amazon. If you’re not into SF, I’m writing quite a bit of superhero fantasy these day. I just published the first Holly Breckenridge story, which is straight-up historic fiction with an action bent. I’m in the middle of a silly-weird fantasy story if you want to be a sorcerer or a guard at the tower. There will be crime fiction sometime in 2017. Etc.

Why am I doing this?

This for a good cause.

I make no bones about my political and social beliefs. I want to live in the future, not an idealized and largely imaginary past. This is one way I can give back to the world.

“If you are more fortunate than others, it is better to build a longer table than a taller fence.”

I’m all about the longer table.

But also, because it’s damned fun from my perspective. All of my characters started out as names on a page. Frequently, I’ll jump to a random name generator website and randomly roll electronic dice to pick two or three bizarre culture combinations and have the system spit me back a name. (Think Scottish and Japanese, for a character from the latest Jessica novel: Shiori Ness.) Repeat until something rings true. Use that to generate a look, and maybe a backstory, depending on how many times we’ll ever see them again.

When that fails, which it does when I’m out at the farm with zero interwebs, I’ll randomly select a bookcase, a shelf, a book, and a page before I walk into my office, pull that book, and find the first thing that looks like a name on the page.

It keeps things interesting. That’s one of the games writers play with themselves to keep things fun. We get paid to make shit up all day. But even that can get boring, so let’s make up really wild things.

So there we are. You’re going to bid on this auction because you think this is a cause worth supporting. And I rarely do cons where you might find me to sign something for you. And, more importantly: Secretly, you want to be a villain in some future story. (And I got LOTS of stories coming, bubba.)

So you’ll outbid everyone else and I’ll contact you. Do you want just be a name, and I’ll fill in all the physical details? Will you send me a description I can use? Perhaps a picture?

And do you want to keep appearing from time to time? I’m okay with that, because you’ve given me permission to put you into the story, and I’m not going to do anything bad to you on paper. (I don’t publish those stories under my name, anyway, so nobody would ever know. I mean, unless you want me to graphically murder your ex-husband on paper, or something. Then we’ll talk.)

Heroes need sidekicks. So do villains. Hell, I might start you out as a villain’s intern in one book, and let you keep getting promoted as the Level Monster Bosses keep dying off.

Just how silly can we get?

Okay, so maybe I’ve been indoors a little too much this weekend. It is Sunday night as I write this, having raced home from work Friday early and gotten in just as the really heavy snow started. We got about 10 inches at the farm Friday night, and I live on a steep hill. It’s only now starting to melt off. I’ve been out twice for supplies and internet access, but mostly I’ve been home writing, and editing, and being silly.

And I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

As the old Bugs Bunny quote goes: “I wonder what the poor rabbits are doing this winter?”

For me, writing. Having fun making up lies and stories.

When Jim called, he had a list of things people could offer. I went all in on the Tuckerization, because I’ll have an utter ball doing it, and one of you will, too.

So help me out here. Let’s make the world a better place and have a rollicking good time doing it.

shade and sweet water,

blaze

West of the Moutains, WA

As you know, following my new pattern, I’m trying to put up a new story or novel for pre-order such that it will go live on the 10th of every month until the heat-death of the universe. (Challenge accepted.)

For December, it was my chance to put out the first piece of what will eventually be a long and terribly fun to write novel/story series, one of these days.

I went to bed one night at the usual time. Laid there for a bit, until a voice told me get my ass out of bed, because she had something she wanted to say. I have learned not to argue, if I really want to sleep.That turned out to be the first chapter of the new (longer than short at 9,500 words) story: The Adventuress.

This one is set in Edwardian England, roughly 1909 CE. Purely historical action, without any magic or mad science, because she wanted it that way. Not urban fantasy, nor contemporary. Just action-adventure for a young woman suddenly thrust into the greater world by the need to betray her own husband before his dastardly plans could be unleashed.

However, early 20th Century Great Britain was not a time for a liberated woman. So she must die, and be reborn as someone entirely else. In this case, a family friend with interesting connections arranges for her to become Mrs. Hollis Breckenridge, supposed widow of Captain Hayden Breckenridge, VC, 2nd Dragoon Guards.

But she must leave England, possibly to never return. To do so, she must train herself, both physically and emotionally, becoming this other woman, this survivor. She must become an Adventuress, in an era that doesn’t even know the term.

Researching Holly has been and continues to be fun. There will be more stories. I have no idea how long they will be, or when I will have time to write them, but I have plotted out a set of events for her over her next several years, taking her to Paris, Istanbul, Irkutsk, and Tokyo, at a very minimum.

Because this is the era just before the beginning of the First World War, there is a plethora of history books I can mine for “what the world was before” (or: The Proud Tower, for those of you who know the reference). And buying all these books is suddenly a business expense! (This is important because I don’t spend a lot of time reading science fiction or fantasy any more. But history and biographies are always fun. Currently, I’m almost done with “Admirals: The Naval Commanders Who Made Britain Great” by Lambert, in my planning for more Jessica and Nils and Petia in the future.)

The other fun thing about Holly is understanding how women’s fashion and cultural upheaval go hand in hand. The Edwardian era was a time for loosening the bindings of the Victorian era, both physically and metaphorically. The corset begins to disappear. Women go from an exaggerated and overly-decorated hourglass to a long, skinny flapper girl over the next 20 years.

She is liberated, in all ways, and begins to take her place alongside men.

The rest of the 20th Century can be seen as swings of a generational pendulum, from the flapper to the 50’s Housewife. The 60’s. The 70’s. The 80’s. The 90’s. Each changed the way a woman looked. And I get to study that and understand the fashions and the looks (because I plan to start making clothes one of these days, on a very small scale).

Fashion is also an interesting thing to study, because, starting in 1900, what men wear becomes fixed. In those twelve decades, very little changes. Wide/Narrow lapels. Two/Three/Four buttons. Pinstripes/Solids/Corduroy.  Vest or not. Ties in a variety of flavors and shapes, or none. Slacks. About the only thing interesting these days, per Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm), is the sorts of fabrics designers are working with, but that is IT. Everything is the same silhouette, the same dreary.

Kind of insulting, speaking as a guy, that I have about one percent the options that my wife has, culturally speaking as a westerner. But Holly is about to transcend England, and not from the fine salons and cars of English culture. She’s going to be going into the souks, the khasbahs, the marketplaces that make up the rest of the world. And I have to study all of it so I can get the details right.

That’s the best part: Research.

So you’ll have the first part of Holly’s new life. And I promise that there will be more. She is too alive to wait around forever for me to get to her, but Jessica and Javier are still taking precedence.

So I think many of you will enjoy Holly. Pre-order available on all the usual sites. The story drops December 10. I’m looking forward to your thoughts. (I already know what Maggie thinks. She’s one of the reasons I decided to publish it now, and not at some later date.)

shade and sweet water

bd

West of the Mountains, WA

Those of you paying attention recently will remember that I promised to start hitting the publish button every 10th of the month. (How long it takes to actually go boom afterwards is subject to theoretical discussions, but bear with me here.) At least on Amazon, dropping something every 30 days or so triggers another bot to raise your author numbers and visibility. That hopefully turns into money, as more people discover me and love me. (Hey, I can wish.)

So, today, the latest story to drop is the fourth Brak story, Feet of Clay.

The rest of the series is as follows:

• Meat Shield
• The Popcorn Kitten
• Destiny

More adventures with everyone’s favorite half-wit, half-troll and his friends. Previously, the story was only available in the second CampCon collection, but I decided to put it up for everyone to read, rather than waiting until I had a handful more done (this is Sliepnir’s story. We still have Princess, Piper, and Bob to go before things get serious).

And it does remind me how much fun and story I have in that world.

Since my plan is to write a shorter story every month, going forward, i have been going back and looking at Brak, Suren, Alicia, Jesilyria, Thorn, and several others. SF is still my first love, and I’ll write some short pieces there as well, but those fantasy serials need to continue extending.

Eventually, all of them will roll up into character collections, but that requires somewhere around 50,000 words each, so most will take a while to reach that scale. Mostly, that’s just because I want new readers stumbling along to be able to pick up a whole campaign arc when they buy something at novel length. Partly, because I have that much story for these people and a day job writing database software that keeps me busy while putting food on the table.

So, getting back to Brak. I have four more stories in my head over the short term, before things get completely insane. (“Lord Admiral Brak, Warder of the Western Reaches,” m’kay?) I’ll probably bang away on his stories for a bit, before rushing off and working on one of the other characters, unless I get a major response from y’all about a character people want to hear more about.

(And yes, I’m going to do more Javier, after I get the current Jessica done.)

So y’all have fun. And let me know what you think.

You might not know this, but Amazon doesn’t read reviews. It just counts them. So if you leave something as simple as “Loved it.” that counts as much as a five page analysis of the “socio-political ramifications of trans-specism in a fantasy setting.”

Every review helps. Every one.

Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) has a plan for early next year to put together what they call a “Review Team.” For each of the people on the team, they’ll get an ebook arc (Advanced Reader Copy) before publication date, with an expectation that they’ll drop at least one review somewhere within so many days of publication. Doesn’t have to be on Amazon. Can be Goodreads, or other places. I’d be happy with a few on iTunes and B&N, just because that might drive traffic to one of the other sites and not leave me so reliant on Amazon. (I love you, Jeff, but I don’t want all my eggs in one basket, thankyouverymuch.)

Folks interested in hearing more, and maybe participating, let me know and I’ll forward your message on to her and she’ll work it all out. (She’s the brains in this outfit. I’m just the marketing troll.)

So, go buy Feet of Clay. It’s a fun next step on the way.

and thank you.

bd