Most of you have been paying attention enough to know that I occasionally get invited to participate in story bundle collections. Starting today, we’re live with a new one called Visions of the Future.
A little fun background: A couple of previous times, I got contacted at the last minute because someone had dropped out unexpectedly. Like three weeks before the bundle went live. You can’t delay a new bundle without serious repercussions.
Folks know I write fast and generally SF. The first time, I got contacted with “Hey. You got anything on this theme?” and the response was “No, but I could write you something in 2 weeks. That work?” That became Fairchild. A similar “oh shit” moment became Can’t Shoot Straight Gang Returns only that time with a one week turnaround.
So this time, there was far less emergency when I got the call with the hopeful “Ya got any SF that’s never been in a story bundle?”
I had a shit-eating grin on my face as I sent back a list of SIX never-before-published Book Ones and asked “Which one would you like?”
Truly an awesome feeling. Especially as none of them were yet published.
So I got invited to include the one I had marked as “Alien First Contact Space Opera.” (The list also included: Earth-based SF detective after the aliens land, Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia with a steampunk feel, Fall of Rome-style Spy Thriller on a distant space station, Alternate History Dieselpunk set in Egypt in 1937, and another Handsome Rob Gig spy thriller.)
Yeah, I been busy, because I have Books Two done on a couple of those above: Lazarus and Air Pirates of Cyrenaica.
He picked Lazarus for Visions of the Future. If you’ve been keeping score at home, you know I’m 2/3 done with book three right now. It is an exclusive on the bundle, meaning not available anywhere else, so you should get it there, along with a bunch of other cool stuff I’ll talk about in a future blog.
Lazarus.
So I’m soaking in the tub one night. I do that in the evening frequently as a way to wash off the day. Lets the brain shift into a relaxed mode.
Brain ignites. No other way to describe it. It does that occasionally, when writer-brain has been chewing on something long enough and chucks it over the fence to front-brain.
I get out, get dry, get dressed, and walk to the computer. Open a new doc file (mind you, I’m in the middle of a writing Phoenix at the time but this WILL NOT WAIT.)
New doc file. Start typing.
Not much has changed since I banged that first chapter out. He has no name, because I didn’t even stop to world-build until later. Just typed. Figured out the names, the tech, and the politics after I put chapter one away and went back to Phoenix. At that moment I had to get out all the words as fast as I could.
Towards the end of what would become Chapter One, the details start making sense. He’s Robinson Crusoe, sort of. Lost and shipwrecked. Or maybe Yasuke, except not black.
Fish out of water, and all that implies, minus the romantic comedy elements.
This was the novel where I sat down and started exploring all the different ways an alien could move. Walk, slither, glide, leap, roll. Seriously, I had fun, trying to come up with as many different alien species as I could. Got more that have not made it into the series yet, but will, hopefully.
Aliens should be more than human actors with a nasal prosthetic. I realize that on television, the budgets preclude craziness, unless you’re 100% anime, but there are no limits to my words.
And I would love to see this story animated at some point.
And book three is close to done. There will be five. Escape, Return, Rebellion, Revolution, Alliance. Or something like that. They’ll come out after Star Tribes completes its run, I think.
This is your chance to read Book One: Escape now. It is going away in three weeks and won’t be published anywhere until probably the fall.