Review: Mel Todd's Commander

Not too long ago, I reviewed No Choice, the first in Mel Todd’s excellent Kaylid Chronicles series. It’s one of those books that remind me why I go to conventions – I get to meet great people and their awesome novels. Seriously, these books have been out for years, and I had to find out about them, and Mel, through conventions.


Anyway, with book two, Commander, while book one could have been urban fantasy, book two is where we go into science fantasy.

Because at the end of book one, our heroine, McKenna Largo, is hearing voices. At the start of book two, the voice is having full conversations … with everyone else.

The ability to shift doesn’t come from anything mythological, but from nanotechnology.

And oh boy, does the start of the flap copy say it all.

It can always get worse, unfortunately.Discovering an Artificial Intelligence lives in your head, strike one. Having the Artificial Intelligence explain aliens are the origin of shifters on Earth, strike two. Having it announce you are the commanding officer of the earth shifters, strike three.

Deciding there is only so much one person can handle, McKenna Largo ignores the strange new voice in her head and focuses on her law enforcement career. She soon learns there are other aspects to being a shifter. Who knew cougars had such a great nose for drugs? Her career prospects increase with each drug bust, but so do her enemies. Still McKenna insists on living as normal a life as possible. After one too many successes, these enemies target not just on her, but also her family and friends. Finding herself in a situation she never imagined, McKenna must step up and be the leader they need, a true commander. Now if she could just devise a plan that won’t get them all killed

TLDR: just do what I did and buy the whole series already.

For this specific book, there is, surprisingly, not a lot of action. This is probably because the last 30% of the book is almost solid action. The majority of the novel is heavily character based. In some respects, it’s sort of like a John Ringo Vorpal Blade novel – the first half of the book is how things get done, and the second part is where the plot happens. And the flap copy describes the plot. Thankfully, it still doesn’t give you a lot.

The funny thing is that the action scattered throughout the novel is very cleverly executed. Because that action isn’t real – they’re simulations. As said above, the shifters are caused by alien nanites. The reason? The shifters are to be foot soldiers for an alien race—mostly mindless, obedient drones. Why terraform the planet when you can terraform the people – and wage a Von Neuman’s War without losing a single one of your own kind? It’s almost like John Ringo’s Darhel had come up with a better plan to screw over people. So, of course, the nanites come with their own AI, and the AI come with battle scenarios that read like set pieces from a Halo game. 

So now if the plot gets slow, we can throw in a full space commando raid. Which was a nice way of inserting action into a story that, in other cases, would be considered slow… though, to be honest, we didn’t need the blow by blow of the scenarios to keep the story going. The story carried itself along well enough on its own.

Once again, one of the most impressive bits about this series is just how much thought goes into the impact of shifters suddenly existing in the world. If covers politics, sociology, mythology, science, medicine, and culture on every single level. And if Mel Todd doesn’t cover something, wait a chapter, she’ll probably cover it eventually. I’m almost certain that she came up with a lot of different impacts on plenty of different cultures, and anything she couldn’t show you in-story, she made a paragraph long vignette for a news story that topped each and every chapter.

And that’s just the side content. Mel puts in a ton of thought in on the individual elements of how things work. Again, it’s very John Ringo. Just going into the details of “Yes, you now have the sniffing ability of a drug dog, but with the higher processing function of a human being. Welcome to the drug squad,” was wonderful. She even had the legalities of such a sniffer cop down pat. 

But yeah, I like the character building. I like the world building. I liked the progression of the story, as each book raises the stakes, and segues right into the next book. 

Hell, I’ll tell you just how much of an impression this book made on me. When reading a book for review, I always make notes – either in the Kindle copy, or on a note pad (write on books? What are you, a heretic?). I haven’t even needed to reference my notes once during this entire review. Doing so now only provides some details – such as dealing with the foster care system, or that Mel Todd has a great way of delivering exposition that carries the plot, and an effortless way of conveying character backgrounds. Or that the little asides at the start of each chapter could be the plot of a book by themselves. Who am I kidding – Mel Todd even manages to make a reporter appear to be somewhat human. We won’t even go into the reality show. 

Negatives: There are some editing issues here – and they’re issues that I recognize. A word left over from rephrasing a sentence, but it doesn’t fit in the new sentence. Or a left over “I” from a first person narrator … even though the current edition is very much third person personal. I can’t say they were more numerous than the errors in the first book (I remember none from No Choice, to be honest) but they were more jarring. They kicked me out of the story for a minute or two.

The second problem is that the ending of book two is similar to the ending of book one. While book one ends with McKenna and a bunch of shifters kidnapped and forced to work on behest of criminals, book two ends with …  with McKenna and a bunch of shifters kidnapped and forced to work on behest of criminals. Granted, the mission is different and the stakes (and threat level) are higher.

Anyway, all the negatives aside, the book is 5/5 material. Just read it. 

Oh, and by the way....

And, while you're here, be certain to check out the Dragon Awards nominations list. Everyone should be voting in this. Everyone. The bigger it is, the fewer jerks can say that it's "invalid." I lost track of how many people vote in the awards, but I stopped counting at 8,000.

Luna Anthology: The Hyland Resolution by Justin Tarquin

I mus admit to quite enjoying The Hyland resolution.

Here, the description.

It works better if you read it in the voice of Rod Serling. But then, so do most things.

Charles Hyland is a harmless mathematics professor on an academic junket. When his fellow faculty are caught in the crossfire of an interplanetary war, their only hope is that Charles can extricate himself from the labyrinth of his own mind.

Justin Tarquin on 

"The Hyland Resolution"

I got the germ of the idea that became the story “The Hyland Resolution” about four years ago next month. I remember because I know what sparked it: it was the episode “For The Girl Who Has Everything” of SUPERGIRL, in which our heroine was attacked by a Kryptonian critter called a Black Mercy (because the Kryptonians used it as a humane method of execution). The Black Mercy’s venom or whatever induces a coma filled with dreams that fulfill the victim’s deepest desires, before ultimately killing him—unless he somehow rejects the happy fantasy.

I only watched the first five or ten minutes, because by the end of its first season I had had my fill of this series and was only tuning in occasionally for long enough to see if the basic idea seemed interesting. Sometime if I only see the beginning of a story, I can abstract out the basic problem that drives the plot and think of a completely different way to present and handle it that might make a good original story. (Perry Mason seems to inspire me that way sometimes.)

I’m probably not the only one who does this: this particular episode’s idea has been around the block many times. I see in Wikipedia that the Supergirl writers cribbed it from a Superman comic (“For The Man Who Has Everything”: even thriftily reusing 83% of the title), and my brother tells me there was an episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER on the same idea. 

Declan Finn, our worthy LUNA editor, pointed me to an episode of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (a very good series I’d never watched till then) where Bruce Wayne is trapped in a dream in which he had never become Batman, because his parents had never been killed. How far back does this plot concept go, I wonder? Does it trace back to the scene where Odysseus loses some crewmen to the Lotus Eaters?

I don’t know how the SUPERGIRL writers handled it, though my guess would be that it involved a lot of emoting and sharing of feelings. But as I thought about it myself, I realized two things: first, that I did have an original idea how a person could be snapped out of such a fantasy; and second, that my protagonist would be a mathematician. To say more would be to give spoilers. I drafted a very short piece, set on Earth, about a math professor named Charles Hyland. But my first draft seemed to be lacking vitality; I shelved it without even giving it a title and went on with other things for awhile.

With Luna, I remembered my draft and returned to it.

It needed fleshing out, and the themes of the anthology provided direction for how I could proceed. Dreams, check. Madness, well, check. Loneliness and despair? What if my mathematician, Charles N. Hyland (the N is for Norbert, but that never comes up in the story), is a man of many troubles, who uses mathematics as an escape for thinking of things that upset him? The Moon … I moved my setting to a university on the Moon in the early days of its colonization, a university in a Lunar city, established by Christians from Central and South America, fleeing the religious persecution of the increasingly secularized governments on Earth, named El Redentor: Spanish for “The Redeemer”. (None of this comes up in the story, either.) The ubiquitous AI that Hyland consults sometimes, like an advanced web search application, I named Thoth, after the Egyptian god of wisdom, records, and the Moon; and I put in a couple other faint allusions (or Easter eggs) of moony lore.

As for the theme of despair, I pulled in an idea I have about the coming century of colonization of the Solar System, that I think SF writers have short-changed … namely, war. For some reason, as far as I know, everyone seems to imagine that the opening up of vast stretches of new real estate on the Moon and elsewhere will all be handled in as peaceful and orderly a fashion as a session of Congress devoted to voting themselves a raise. On the contrary, to me it seems natural that some spots on the Moon and elsewhere are going to be particularly desirable, and the colonizers will inevitably come into conflict over them and turn to their various governments on Earth to defend their interests. The Moon may be a pretty violent place for its first few decades … plenty of conflict for stories, and excuse for despair.

So how would my absent-minded Professor Hyland deal with wartime emergencies? He’d go through the motions while striving to keep his mind on his mathematics. That could give me a nice opening scene, developing his character in the midst of some intense action. At least for me, the opening scene is good for a chuckle.

By the way, for those who enjoy number puzzles (I can never understand why there aren’t more of us), the story contains one or two, understated and in no way essential to enjoying the story, but solvable. Nothing fancy—rather like figuring out why Spock said there were 1,771,561 tribbles in the grain bin that emptied out over Captain Kirk.


Declan and Jagi liked “The Hyland Resolution”, and then we had a long wait as the production of Superversive Press’s Planetary Anthology series slowed down to a halt, and ultimately the publishing enterprise that had produced a lot of good reading closed its doors. 

But Tuscany Bay Books picked up the project and has issued Pluto and Luna with a new look. “The Hyland Resolution” is one of 22 stories in this 600+ page volume. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read so far.

BUY LUNA HERE!!!!!

Justin M. Tarquin has lived about fifteen forty-thirds of his life (so far) in the Chicago area, and remembers going to John Paul II’s Mass in Grant Park just a few weeks after he moved there. From this you can work out his age to within a month if you feel so inclined. By day he tries to pay the mortgage by making spreadsheets and databases yield up their secrets, and in the evening he cooks dinner for his family. His enchiladas, though perhaps not worth dying for, would surely be worth a light maiming: say, two or three hit points. If he has a few minutes free when no one is looking, he is probably having entirely too much fun with some number puzzle; but if he gets a few hours, he will be found reading or writing science fiction and fantasy in the basement. His goal as a writer is to make readers feel the way he does when he watches How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966), at the part where the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes bigger.

Steve Johnson on "The Doom that Came to Necropolis", for Luna

This is one of those intros that just lent itself to Rod Serling.

Don't believe me?

Ahem

Necropolis is a small town, complete with small town values and small town myths. Unbeknownst to them, their doom is about to arrive, riding a motorcycle, clad in a leather jacket and armed with the weapons of science. His mission is simple, but about to trigger a war that can only be waged in … the Lunar zone.

See what I mean?

Steve Johnson on "The Doom that Came to Necropolis"

“Necropolis” came about when I was working on prose styles, which should more honestly be called slavishly copying E.E. “Doc” Smith. His Lensmen are super-competent, with more options and resources than your average superhero, so they don’t spend a lot of time tracking down purse snatchers. I needed an enemy, and who’s better than Cthulhu?

This led to “what would a story in which a Lensman went up against Cthulhu sound like?” Both Lovecraft and Smith used complex sentences with many dependent clauses, a wide vocabulary, and even similar simile-stacking compound-comparison stupendously starkly adjectivial exaggerations! So I was able to work out a pretty dead-on combination of their styles.

That was more important to me, actually, then who was in it or what happened! Bruce Glassco, a fellow Clarionite who created the game “Betrayal at the House on the Hill”, suggested a typically hapless Lovecraft protagonist to play up the contrast, and boy did that help. Most of the story is Monk-and-Ham, Remo-and-Chuin bickering and banter, until the plot literally kicks in the door and makes them stop.

I’m still in love with the idea, by the way. I recently debuted the first chapter of a novella pitting a Doc Savage imitation against a very close copy of Cthulhu, without quite giving copyright lawyers any reason to salivate in anticipation.  Now the clear-eyed hero has a coterie of friends to help him, and a significantly bigger threat to deal with. If it works, expect a whole series of Space Men vs. the Great Old Ones stories, each bigger, more over-the-top, and more fun than the last. It would be nice to have a pulp formula like Doc Savage did, to keep the series going forever, but the big question for me in any series concept is “can you top this?”

 BUY LUNA HERE

Steven G. Johnson has reported on crimes, butchered pineapple, reviewed comic books and now teaches high school. A book-a-day man from way back, he can quote passages of Starship Troopers and the Lensman series from memory, which would be terribly useful if they were given equal weight in the curriculum to Shakespeare. That would be the only advantage of giving them equal weight to Shakespeare: the increase of Steven G. Johnson's educational usefulness. He has told convention audiences that the important things remain important, no matter what century or fictive universe: love, death, fear, power, loyalty, friendship, war and family. The crunchy bits like zombie biker sorcery from Mars are wonderfully tasty, but they are not the meal. He thinks the scariest two-word phrase in the language is "Aztec dentist" and is not at all sure he would like hearing an even scarier one. Steve and his wife, historical author Virginia C. Johnson, reside in Fredericksburg, Virginia in an old house with a tower, with their son, Benedict von Graf, their loyal dog Max, and a stable of cats. The dog is also stable. 

Luna: The Anthology Trailer

As I said, the Luna anthology is finally out.

Brought to you by the awesome Tuscany Bay press.

LA Behm on Another Fine day in the Corps, in the Luna Anthology

As I've done for the past few days, I've been posting from the various and sundry people who contributed to the Luna anthology. 

Another Fine Day in the Corps was originally scheduled for the Dark half of the anthology.

And no, I didn't put it there for the swear words. 

Sigh. Another "shoulda woulda coulda" from Luna. 

Had I thought about it more, I would have gone back and put back some of the swearing. Oops.

The short version of the story is simple.

Some days, you get the bear.

Some days, the bear is packing mortar rounds.

Another Fine Day in the Corps,

or where did it come from?

L.A. Behm II

A question I get asked a lot (as do most of the other authors I talk with) is where do you get the ideas for your stories.  This one I'm blaming on a creative writing course, the video game X-Com 2 and really bad late night TV.

So, twenty mumble odd years ago, I took a creative writing class in college, more as a lark than anything else.  One of the things that the professor posited to the class as a whole was that you, as an author, could start a story in any manner you wanted.  Of course, there was someone who disagreed.  They specifically said 'Oh, but surely you can't start a story with profanity'.  The professor grinned and looked at me.  As a non-traditional student – twenty eight and working on my second degree – I was the go to guy when the professor wanted the opinion or a statement from someone who was old enough to drink.  I pointed out that I'd read stories that started with everything but the queen mother of swear words -as Ralphie in A Christmas Story puts it - and I had a few thoughts about starting a story with that one.  Needless to say, that got me a very huffy response.  

Fast forward a few years (twenty one or so), and I'm sitting in the living room playing X-Com2, while my father in law watches some inane war movie on TV.  And by inane, I mean really, really horribly bad.  They were doing the kind of things that'd get you killed in other war movies, let alone real life.  That, along with the mission name I'd just been given in X-Com (Babylonian Sword) struck a chord with me and I sat there and wrote a 1000 word flash fiction story, called Operation Babylonian Sword.  Which, honestly sat on my computer, looking forlorn for a long time, until Declan put out a call for submissions for Luna.  

When the submission call went out, I dusted off the micro story, tweaked it a bit, and sent it in.  The rest, as they say, is a lot of hard work.  Edits were made.  Emails were sent.  More edits were made. Word choices were reconsidered – my characters tend to speak in expletives, in part because I spent way to much time around the USMC, and expletives are used there like most normal folks use 'uh'.  I toned them down . . . well, a bit.  

Enjoy the story!

BUY LUNA HERE.

L.A. Behm I: Born and raised in Texas, he's done a bit of everything - civilian contractor in Iraq, volunteer fireman, warehouseman, mortician's assistant, newspaper opinion columnist, tech support, logistics coordination, poet, and even driven a bus for a while. A two time graduate of Southwest Texas State University, he spends his days writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy, painting miniatures, and watching his cats perform parkour. 

Luna Anthology: Samaritan, by Karl Gallagher

When I was put in charge of the Luna anthology, my first choice was to approach people I knew and could rely on. On authors who I knew would come through.

Karl was easily one of my first choices. His Torchship Trilogy was a finalist for the 2018 Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian Science Fiction Novel... and it was nowhere near as squicky as Stranger in a Strange Land.

When bioengineered germs are floating on the wind, the only way for the Amish to avoid high technology is to move to the Moon. But even in that splendid desolation you can't help seeing the neighbors sometimes.

Karl Gallagher, on his story "Samaritan" for the Luna anthology.

"Samaritan." Thomas' people settled on the Moon to avoid contamination from biotech and nanotech gadgets. But when a high-tech spacer crashes Thomas must risk exile from his home to save the stranger's life.

As our world experiments with new technology, it's hard to be in the control group. Peer pressure forces people to buy smartphones and join Facebook. GMO-phobes find their "pure" veggies are catching pollen from improved plants. When we have nanotech robots and artificial bacteria it'll be even harder to block unwanted tech.

So what's someone wanting the simple life to do? Move away. Far away.

To someplace where no breeze can carry the latest invention into your yard. Naturally there's no place on Earth like that--we only have the one atmosphere.

The true control group will have to live on the Moon, separated by vacuum from technology they don't trust. But who'd want to live without the latest and greatest toys? We already have them: the Amish, better known as "Old Order" communites, and Hutterite and other denominations who form isolated farming communities separate from modern society.

Would they be willing to move to the Moon? Certainly not all. But if that's the only way to prevent nanobots infiltrating their bloodstream, some would. They'd likely be subsidized by the kinds of billionaires who worry about AIs and other existential risks, and this wouldn't be an option until there are existing lunar settlements.

So in the year 2100 there may be a portion of the Moon "off limits" to current technology, inhabited by religious settlers using technology close to the Apollo era.

I originally conceived that idea for the GURPS Transhuman Space roleplaying setting. This is a game where where a dead person's mind copied into a robot is an almost boring character. I wanted to create a foil for the transhumanist weirdness flooding the setting, and a runaway Amish kid in space seemed just the ticket.

Some years later it came back to me as I was brainstorming a new story. Rather than make my viewpoint character a runaway I chose someone who wants to stay home and settle down. When he sees a "modern" injured after his spaceship crashes there's a dilemma--help the stranger or keep himself safe?

BUY LUNA HERE.

Karl K. Gallagher is a systems engineer, currently performing data analysis for a major aerospace company. In the past he calculated trajectories for a commercial launch rocket start-up, operated satellites as a US Air Force officer, and selected orbits for government and commercial satellites. Karl lives in Saginaw, TX with his family. His novels Torchship, Torchship Pilot, and Torchship Captain are available on Amazon and Audible.

Luna Anthology: Squeeze on the Moon, by Lou Antonelli

We got the Dragon Award finalist Lou Antonelli to talk about writing his short story Squeeze on the Moon

There’s history, and there’s alternate history, and then there’s secret history- when the tale told is fantastical but doesn’t conflict with the public record. Here’s a little tale of an exploration you’ll never hear about in the media. You wonder about these little government projects sometimes, don’t you?

It's Lou doing alternate history. How can you say no?

 Lou Antonelli, on writing "Squeeze on the Moon" for Luna

An expert in disaster recovery gets the opportunity of a lifetime – plus a little walk down memory lane. Sometimes you find nostalgia in the strangest of locales.

Over the years I’ve had songs become the prod, if not the basis, of a number of short stories. Song titles can be useful hooks to get the author off high center and putting words on paper – or pixels. Stories I have written that take off from song titles include “Hearts Made of Stone”, “Rome, If You Want To”, “Stuck in the Middle with You”, “Video Killed the Radio Star”, among others,

A song can be an excellent way of setting a story’s locale in time. Also, sometimes you can work it into the plot. For example, in my short story “The Return of Alfred Bester”, a crucial clue is given when one character mentions Fontella Bass as a way of giving someone a signal. The clue being Fontella Bass was a one-hit wonder from the 1960s, but that one hit was the song “Rescue Me”.

The music of my youth was the British New Wave, or Second Wave, whatever you want to call it – of the late 1970s and 1980s. When I heard the call for the Luna anthology, I recalled the song “Wrong Side of the Moon” by Squeeze from the album Argybargy. That was in 1980.

That got the gears turning, and so led to the story “Squeeze on the Moon” for the Luna anthology. It’s probably an unusual creative process, but it’s mine and I’m sticking to it.

One thing spec fic allows the author, and reader, to do is venture forth and explore without leaving his or her armchair. “Squeeze on the Moon” is that of story. This harkens back to the old days when a sense of wonder and “I wonder what’s out there?” drove so many stories. Literary science fiction has retreated and contracted into home-bound political correctness. Even when a story is set in the future or outer space, it’s just another left-wing fantasy.

I cut my teeth as a reader in the days before mainstream science fiction was politicized liberal bullshit, and so I like to think my stories still go back to those days when the future was bright and it was all still out there to be explored.

The millennial’s attitude towards spec fic seems to be “The world (or the future) sucks and so do we.” It’s projection from a generation of losers raised by the generation of traitors who collaborated with the Soviet Union so the U.S. would lose the Vietnam War.

Hopefully, we’ll see things slowly turn around. In the meanwhile, I think of Psalm 118:22: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

BUY LUNA HERE.

A life-long science fiction reader, Lou Antonelli turned his hand to writing fiction in middle age; his first story was published in 2003 when he was 46. Since then he has had 86 short stories published in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, in venues such as Asimov's Science Fiction, Jim Baen's Universe, Dark Recesses, Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, Greatest Uncommon Denominator (GUD), and Daily Science Fiction, among others.

Richard Paolinelli on writing Polar Shift for Luna

This part of the anthology, Polar Shift, was described as: One morning, Sam Peck’s biggest worry was serving as best man at his friend’s wedding once they returned to Earth from the base on the Moon. Before the day was over his biggest worry would be finding out whether or not he is the last living human being in the entire universe.

Some days are not worth getting up in the morning.

Richard Paolinelli on writing 

Polar Shift for Luna

What would you do if, in one terrible instant, you went from being one of seven billion to possibly the only remaining living human being anywhere in the universe? Would you fight on to live one more day, hoping to find another survivor? Or would you go mad? Or maybe both?

So here I am, minding my own business, trying to get my next sci-fi novel started and completed before Christmas 2017 when somebody comes up with the brilliant idea to do an 11-volume planetary anthology.

As God is my witness, I tried to ignore the siren call. Really, I did. I stuck fingers in my ears and yelled “lalalalalalalalalalala!!!!!” at the top of my voice. 

For all of 10 seconds. 

Because it was at that point that one brain cell bumped into another (Yes, Virginia, I have more than one of them rattling around up there) and I recalled that I had notes for an anthology I wanted to write and most of the stories were perfectly aligned with many of the themes in this Planetary Anthology series.

“Darn you!!!!” I yelled, in the same tones us old guys use when we yell at those durn kids to get off of our lawns, and then quickly set down and got to work. 

And as if I wasn’t getting my schedule disrupted enough, Declan Finn e-mails me an invite to write something for Luna.

“Darn you, Declan!!!” I yelled, in the same tones an Exorcist uses when telling a demon “The power of Christ compels you!”, and with just about as much affect.

So I rummaged through the notes and came up with “Polar Shift”, a story about a man who suddenly finds himself the last known survivor of a cataclysm that has apparently eradicated the human race, with one exception. How he deals with his sudden isolation, with little hope of it ever ending, while trying to avoid slipping into madness, is the point of this story.

This story along with all of the others I submitted to this series – with one exception – is part of what would have been “The Last Humans Anthology I was planning to release in 2019. The overall theme is one human being, alone, trying to overcome an obstacle or impossible situation.

I hope you enjoy this story, along with the others that will appear in this series. Meanwhile, I’ll be getting back to work on that delayed novel from last year with hopes of getting it done.

Unless of course I get another e-mail…

BUY LUNA HERE

Richard Paolinelli began his writing career as a freelance writer in 1984 and gained his first fiction credit serving as the lead writer for the first two issues of the Elite Comics sci-fi/fantasy series, Seadragon. His sports writing career spans stops in New Mexico, Arizona and California. In 2010, Richard retired as a sportswriter and returned to his fiction writing roots. Since then he has written several novels – including the Dragon Award Finalist (Best Sci-Fi Novel), Escaping Infinity – three Sherlock Holmes pastiches, two non-fiction sports books and three novelettes. He is serving as co-editor for one of the 11 volumes of Tuscany Bay's Planetary Anthologies (Pluto) and will have his own short stories in several of the other volumes. His third full-length science-fiction novel, When The Gods Fell, is scheduled to be released on September 1, 2018 by Tuscany Bay Books. He is also a partner in Tuscany Bay Books with Jim Christina and founded the Science Fiction & Fantasy Creators Guild (www.sffcguild.com) a not-for-profit organization aimed at promoting science-fiction and fantasy and its creators in many media platforms.


Escaping Infinity has been nominated for 2017 Dragon Awards Best Sci-Fi Novel; 2017 Readers' Favorite Awards - Honorable Mention; 2017 New Apple Summer E-Book Awards - Official Selection; 2017 ETWG Blue Ribbon Book Cover Contest – 2nd Place. Also won the 2001 California Newspaper Publishers Association award for Best Sports Story.

William Lehman on writing Vulcan III for Luna

Today we have another author who contributed to the Luna Anthology, William Lehman.

His story is Vulcan III: The first step to Mars was a refueling station on Luna.  Building it would take a special crew. Selected for compatibility, engineering savvy, and mental toughness.  This was their story.

Vulcan III

When Declan approached me about this project, I had only written one short story in my life, and it hadn't been published yet. (It can be found in "Secret Stairs: a tribute to urban legend") But I grew up reading Heinlein, Clark and Asimov so I thought I would take a crack at it. 

We were headed out to the coast for a long weekend (thanksgiving) and the whole way there this story was biting at the back of my neck.

I got so excited about this project that I wrote it over that weekend, in fact over just under two days of it, with space in there for walks on the beach.

My original intent had been to do a stand alone, but now I think this will turn out to be a distant prequel to the space opera series that I'll be writing when I get done with one or two more in my current series. Commander Bradford will be an ancestor of the hero of the piece, and an overnight at Frozen Base will be the final exercise before being sworn in as an officer of the United Space Service.

BUY LUNA HERE

William Lehman Joined the navy at 17, and spent the next 20 years as a Submarine Sonar technician during the end of the cold war, and through Gulf war one. He finished out his Navy career as the Work Programs Director at the Naval Brig Bangor WA and as a Reserve officer for the Bremerton Police department. Learning nothing, he went right back to work for the Navy as a civilian. He's the author of the John Fisher Novels Harvest of Evil, and Keeping the Faith, with Shadow War coming soon. He's also an avid elk hunter, a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and a Freemason. He currently lives in western Washington, with his wife, and various dogs and cats, the children being grown and on their own.

Tuscany Bay's Planetary Anthology: Luna

I am now happy to announce that Luna, the Planetary anthology I edited for Tuscany Bay, is live.

If you recall from when this project was first proposed, Luna was about madness, despair, dreams and illusions.

You know, all of the cheery subjects.

This will also debut the second short story by my wife, listed here as Margot St. Aubin.

Of course she's under an alias. Neither one of us want to be an easy target.

Luna has the following stories and authors.

These are the tales of the orb that lights our night sky and drives the tides of our oceans. The bright companion that orbits our planet, invades our dreams and drives us mad.

The Curse and the Covenant by Ann Margaret Lewis – Tal, in the land of Ur, is son to a Lord. When a demon offers his father a gift to make him and his people like gods, Tal knows it’s a bad idea.

The Doom that Came to Necropolis, by Steve Johnson – Necropolis is a small town, complete with small town values and small town myths. Unbeknownst to them, their doom is about to arrive, riding a motorcycle, and armed with the weapons of science.

How to Train your Werewolf, by Margot St. Aubin – Jason Branch recently escaped from a home for the insane. His only goal now is to rest and be left alone in the woods. But when strangers decide that the same stretch of land would be perfect for their needs, they will soon discover Jason's true madness.

Luna Sea, by Jody Lynn Nye – the moon can be a harsh mistress … or can she?

Regolith, by Penelope Laird – How far would you go to prevent your favorite band from being kidnapped and held for ransom on the Moon?

Crazy like an Elf, by Declan Finn – When astronomer Barbara Davis hired a private security firm, she didn’t expect a man who claimed to be from Middle Earth.

Samaritan, by Karl Gallagher – Thomas' people settled on the Moon to avoid contamination from biotech and nanotech gadgets. But when a high-tech spacer crashes Thomas must risk exile from his home to save the stranger's life.

Moonboy, by Karina L. Fabian – Cory Taylor is the first boy born on the moon and may just be the first to die on it. But his first attempt to leave the moon may move up that date to closer than even he expects.

Fly Me To the Moon, by Mark Wandrey – Annmarie Smith dreamed of going to space, and she finally succeeds in creating a company to mine water on the moon. Everything looks great, until alien first contact makes it all much, much more complicated.

The Hyland Resolution, by Justin Tarquin – Charles Hyland is caught in the crossfire of an interplanetary war, their only hope is that Charles can extricate himself from the labyrinth of his own mind.

Another Fine Day in the Corps, by L.A. Behm II – Some days you get the bear. Some days, the bear is packing mortar rounds.

The Mask of Dhuran Zur, by John C. Wright – Some manuscripts you just shouldn’t read.

Elwood, by Bokerah Brumley – Mysterious things happen to Emma Kelly when she meets the lunatic gypsy at the end of the lane and the gypsy's invisible púca.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense, by Lori Janeski-- A madman doesn't usually believe that he's insane. But the ones who are truly dangerous are the ones who not only believe it, but embrace it.

The Night my Father Shot the Werewolf, by Josh Griffing – The boys in Mrs. Carroll's third-grade class learned a lot last year, about things like cursive, and multiplying, and werewolves.

The Black Dogs of Luna, by Paul Go – The crew of the Sirocco find a nightmare of the ages on the Moon.

Despot Hold ’em, by Caroline Furlong – You have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them. But most importantly of all, know when to run.

Polar Shift, by Richard Paolinelli – After the pole's shift, Sam Peck may just be the last living human being in the entire universe.

The Price of Sanity, by A.M. Freeman – Never make deals with the unknown. Especially when it's paying for your freedom with your soul.

Vulcan III, by William Lehman – Unfortunately for the crew of "Scorpion" the Vulcan III, the moon is the harshest engineering environment we've ever built in, especially when something goes wrong.

Merry By Gaslight, by L. Jagi Lamplighter – What if that million-dollar mansion you hardly dare to long for were so much less than you deserved.

Squeeze on the Moon, by Lou Antonelli – An expert in disaster recovery gets the opportunity of a lifetime – plus a little walk down memory lane.

So, yeah. 

This party is just getting started.

Tuscany Bay is an awesome press, lead by a true mensch and an awesome professional in Richard Paolinelli who made certain that this anthology would still happen, and that the last two years worth of work wouldn't be in vain, on the part of either the authors or the editors.

Review: When the Gods Fell, Richard Paolinelli

Welcome to When the Gods Fell, the latest by the Dragon Award finalist Richard Paolinelli (Escaping Infinity)

Mars Is Hiding A Secret

When the first small group of humans arrive on Mars, they expect to retrieve some probes and learn more about Earth’s neighbor. Instead, they find Oracle Veritas, of House Delphi, who has waited 65 million years to brief these children of Olympus about their own origins, their very essence … and the danger that threatens them.

Seas and lakes, deserts and icecaps, forests and mountains once covered this planet then called Olympus. Veritas tells them that it was home to a race of immortals—Zeus, Odin, Yahweh, Lucifer, and others—who guided the fates of other worlds and fought among themselves for supremacy.

Zeus, Odin, Yahweh, and Lucifer, supported by characters from other realms, had battled for control. As civil war loomed, the most powerful of all the gods, Zeus, foresaw chaos and destruction. Left with a single, terrible solution to save all the worlds, Zeus turned to the only person he could trust to carry out his last order … and change all existence forever.

This was hands-down awesome. This is one part 2001: A Space Odyssey, one part Dan Simmons, and one part Babylon 5, with a hint of Mass Effect.

The short version? The concepts are brilliant The execution is spot on. There is about 10-15% of the book that needed a little bit of a trim, but aside from that? Wonderful.

This one is very much a novel. I don't mean to be masty about the description. But this is as much of a novel as The Martian. Only without as much smart ass. Okay, there's still plenty of smart ass -- with the Mars station Von Braun, and rovers named Aldren and The Glenn -- but this one is a bit more serious than The Martian. The execution of the science bit felt an a lot like the Martian -- sensible, straightforward, and sciencey. (I especially like how Russia, in 2040, is still trying to cover their inferiority complex with bravado.)

As the flap copy mentions, the martian crew is wandering around the planet, minding their own business .... until they stumble upon a woman just standing in the middle of the martian landscape. She's so happy that the humans seeded on Earth finally made it to Mars. Of course she managed to survive that long -- she had become a being of pure energy (damn Vorlons. They get everywhere). And it's a story 65 million years in the making (yes, I stole the Jurassic Park ad campaign).

The following story is an epic tale of ... well, we're going to take ALL the mythology, and make the gods aliens with style. There were so many mythological references in this one that I'm certain that I missed some. As this is mythology, there are enough betrayals and back stabbing to make the cast of Game of Thrones look like amateurs.

We have Caste Zion, led by Lord Yahweh, where everyone in the City of Eden is part of the national guard, which was helpful when Lucifer's House Satania challenged Chronos Saturnius' Caste Olympia a hundred years before hand, and Lord Marduk and Lord Tiamat of Houses Canaan and Dagon are plotting a followup coup....

Okay, this book is a little chocked FULL of smartass, if just requires a degree in classical studies (or a read-through of Bullfinch's Mythology) to really get the jokes.

As I said before, when Richard uses ALL of the mythologies, he uses ALL of the mythologies. If he missed one, I can't tell you what he may have left out. We have appearances by Thor, Loki, Shiva, Kali. Nippon, a literal Mount Fuji .... okay, Ganesh didn't make it into the book, but there's a sequel. And yes, Loki is still Loki. Then again, when everyone's pantheon gets together, everyone starts to look a little like Loki. (Honestly, straight up mythology has enough murder and incest porn to make Game of Thrones look like Kindergarten).

Now, in a book that mixes mythology and scifi -- especially when one turned mythology into Scifi -- you'd normally expect a ton of handwavium. Not really. I especially enjoyed describing Hades' House Orcus as underground, on the banks of a fire river Styx .... but that Styx had carved out tubes and caves from pole to pole, and the way the water is described as being laced with enough methane so that the water was always on fire. It was just such a nice touch. It's less scifi and more ... fi.

And the ending .... well, all I can say is that you should pay VERY close attention to the numbers they throw about.

There is only one problem with this book.

And no, I'm not kvetching about "Yahweh is a Vorlon." Even in the book, the Oracle telling the story said that yes, there was a Deity to whom these "gods" prayed. And I saw no mention of one of the kids becoming a carpenter. If you're that concerned, unbunch your panties and just relax. This is not Dan Brown. Paolinelli is not poking at your faith with malice aforethought.

The real problem: As the book nears the end, it's fairly obvious how this runaway freight train is going to end. In fact, we kinda know how the book is going to end from the beginning -- but the journey to how it gets there is so interesting and so readable, you don't care how it ends, you want to see how they got there. But after a certain point, runaway train is not only running off the rails, but is on fire. What comes next?

What comes next ... is a heck of an epilogue that sets up for an apocalyptic battle that I'm sure will be very interesting....

But damnit man, why did you have to end it THERE?

Anyway, at least pick up When the Gods Fell , and you'll see why I considered it for my Best SF novel for the Dragon Awards.

And please remember to vote in the Dragon Awards. If you think you know what you're going to vote for, you can click here and cast your vote right now, COMPLETELY FREE

If you think you might have some open slots in your ballot, then here's what I voted for -- and if you don't see something you like on my ballot, keep scrolling down the post, and you'll see all of the eligible books that I could find.

The Final Dragon Award Discussion, 2019

Dragon Con has one massive award, with thousands of people voting on it. In the second year, there were 8,000 people voting.

And now, the eligibility window has closed as of the end of June. Start marking the books that have come out since July 1st for next year.

However...

Voting doesn't close until July 19.

That's right. Anything that comes out before the deadline of June 30th is eligible, but voting cuts off on July 19th. So if you haven't voted yet, you might want to finish off the books you have coming.

This time, the format is going to be a little different. This time, I'm going to tell you who I'm voting for, based off of books I've read and enjoyed.

The NEXT section is going to have everything and everyone I could scrape together just on a level of pure eligibility.

This second section will include books I haven't read, from people I don't even know.

It is a huge freaking list, and I would clutter up the blog post if I dealt with them as I have previous posts.  The lists of the purely eligible are so long, I considered making them a separate post entirely. But I figure having one place for my conclusions and everyone else's suggestions would make it easier on everyone.  Okay, easier on me, but moving right along....

Here we go.

Best Science Fiction Novel

I have already reviewed Heroes Fall by Morgon Newquist. You might think. Still one Hell of a solid novel, and some of the best SF I've read in years.

What is it? Superheroes. If you liked Astro City, or JMS's Rising Stars, or, hell, the MCU, you're going to want to read this one, and I think you're going to agree with me that it's pretty kickass.

And I really, really wanted to nominate Richard Paolinelli. But I haven't gotten to When the Gods Fell yet. Sorry Richard. Don't worry, I'm going to get there much, much later. Probably next year. With my luck, it'll be after the sequel comes out.

Best Fantasy Novel 

(Including Paranormal)

Karl Gallagher's The Lost War.

Wait? What? What happened to Bokerah Brumley's "Keepers of New Haven: Woe for a Faerie?

Two things happened. And I'll explain in the next section...

Okay, three things happened. One of which was I actually read Karl's book.

Best YA / Middle Grade Novel

Bokerah Brumley's "Keepers of New Haven: Woe for a Faerie."

Yes, I know. After months of talking about The King's Regret by Ligon before it was published, I'm shifting one novel, and deleting the author. WTF?

Three things happened.

1) I read Karl's book.
2) Bokerah mentioned online that this was more YA than Fantasy
3) Amazon screwed the pooch on releasing Ligon's book that I don't think it's reached a wide enough audience to gather votes.

If you have read and liked Ligon's book, I still recommend it. But right now it's a matter of timing and a matter of math.

Lucky for everyone, Jagi hasn't come out with another Rachel Griffin novel. Otherwise I'd be pushing that one like a maniac, because she's earned one for the last four novels.

Best Military SFF Novel

Daniel Humphrey's A Place For War... Still.

For the record, no, I have not yet read David Weber's Uncompromising Honor. I suspect he will not need additional support.

Imagine this is like Ringo's Black Tide Rising, only ten years after the world fell apart, during the reemergence of human civilization.

And then the shit hits the fan again.

Best Alternate History Novel

Hans Schantz's Brave and the Bold (reviewed here).

So, my vote goes to Hans.

Best Media Tie-In Novel

Thrawn: Alliance
Timothy Zahn is doing a Thrawn novel. Your argument is so invalid, it's not even funny.

Best Horror Novel

This is funny, since by the time the Dragons comes out, I will have SIX horror novels eligible.

Hell Spawn
Death Cult
Infernal Affairs
City of Shadows
Crusader (
Deus Vult (Coming soon....ish)

..... But as I argued, it's best to nominate Hell Spawn and move on. And if you disagree and would like to nominate one of the other books in another category ... okay, but I'd like you not to split the vote too too much.

Please refer here for my thoughts on the matter.

Then again, Hell Spawn has already won an award, so yeah, it's worth it. It's endorsed by the CLFA for their book of the year, and Jim McCoy, Richard Paolinelli, and Karl Gallagher have all said they're voting for it. So... yeah, not bad.

Best Comic Book

Dark Maiden #2, by Jonathan Baird.

Joan of Arc fantasy comic book.

I dare you to find me something better.

Best Graphic Novel

I may leave this one blank.

Best SFF TV Series

God Friended Me ...

Best SFF Movie

Aquaman.

Because everyone else is going to vote Endgame.

Best SFF PC / Console Game

Spiderman, PS4, Insomniac games.

Yup. No hesitation. This was .... amazing.

As for ... Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game ....
AND
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game....

No idea.

However, 

Best SFF Miniatures / Collectible Card 

/ Role-Playing Game....

Nathan to the rescue on this one: Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team


And if you want to vote RIGHT THIS MINUTE, without looking at anyone else's thoughts.that would be here.

HOWEVER, if you want to look below the break, LET THE DISCUSSION BEGIN!!!  BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Writing "Death March of Cambreadth" for Mars

When Superversive announced the Planetary Anthology, you'd have to figure that Mars was right up my alley.

I've only broken, destroyed, trashed, and blown up any number of vehicles, places and people that I take one look at John Wick and see it as a challenge.

So Mars, god of War?

Blow crap up?

Count me in.

Strangely enough, I went small for this one. Don't ask me why I did. But there was still plenty of violence. Don't worry about that. Because if I have any message in any of my books, it's Orwell's "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

In my collection of various and sundry people I collect, I've known two women who were divorced, and under fairly odd and bizarre circumstances. How bizarre? Well, in one case, one had a husband who worked for a federal agency, and he thought he had leverage over her because he had made a sex tape of them without her knowledge...

Yes, because a federal employee has NOTHING to lose by releasing a sex tape online. Sigh. Yes. He was that stupid. He did exist. And he was one of those federal employees who carried a gun. (Which doesn't say much given that even the Department of Education has a SWAT team-- yes, really).

So I took this guy, made him psychotic as well as moronic, laying a trap for a fictional heroine who is actually modeled on a completely different woman.

Then I set it on Mars, in 2340, added cybernetic limbs, laser rifles, and a catchy tune to kill people to.

I added a main character designed to look at this situation and consider "How many different ways can I think of for this entire situation to go wrong?" His name is Paul Murphy, and he's had some experience with this type of situation. There's a reason one of his arms is cybernetic. It's been years since he's been in a good fight, and he misses it. So when his friend Carrie comes to him with her little problem, he comes up with a plan when everything goes to hell.

And then everything goes to hell.

But Paul has a plan in his mind and a song in his heart.

And the song is March of Cambreadth.

So, Planetary: Mars is out. Might want to look into it.

Writing "Love Boat to Venus" for Superversive's Latest

As far as anthologies go, Venus was easy. If I couldn't write some sort of a love story, I obviously wasn't doing my job.

Let's face it, when the original calls for the Planetary series came out, I had only just finished a quartet of urban fantasy / romance novels. If I couldn't handle a lousy short story, I should hang up my pen, pack up my word processor, and take up a job in plumbing. Though I should probably do that anyway. Let's face it, it would probably be more profitable...

Anyway....

I had put together three short stories for the Venus anthology.

The first story was Cupid's Sniper Rifle, a short set in the Codename: Winterborn universe, years before the bombs fell. It was a love story about the parents of Nevaeh Kraft, Lance and Jennifer. The Assassins Guild was based round Venus Victorious. Love of people mean that they kill the pathological before they can do more damage. Their motto is "No greater love than this, than a man would lay down cover fire for his friend."

... That one didn't make it.

A second one was called "Crazy Love," a Galadren short story -- a story around Middle Earth's Most Wanted Elvin Assassin, set in the Pius universe. You'll actually be seeing that one. Honest. One way or another.

The third one, and the one that was accepted, was another Sean Patrick Ryan, space ranger short. Unlike his first appearance in Astounding Frontiers #1, and even in Mercury, it's later in his career, where he has a team, he's married, and he's doling out relationship advice.

Yes, relationship advice. On a solar system cruise doing the Mercury to Pluto run, hence the title: "Love Boat to Venus."

Then someone tries to hijack the cruise, and we turn into Die Hard on the Love Boat. Which, if that doesn't catch your interest, I have nothing for you.

This one was probably helped by the fact that it was the one of the three stories that actually had the planet involved... sorry, but if you look up Venus, you'll note that not only is it the hottest planet in the solar system, but the atmosphere is dotted with clouds of sulfuric acid. Yikes. Even terraforming the dang thing seems like a wasted effort.

"Love Boat to Venus" is the only way I can see doing a story on Venus...  short of having a battle in EVA suits where the solution is to crack open the antagonist's suit and kick him into the sulfuric acid clouds to be eaten alive...

[Pauses to make a note to write that fight scene]

But yeah, but that isn't exactly a story to run past an anthology studying themes of love and romance. And let's face it, I put a lot of details into fights that probably last less than twenty seconds or so. They're 3D chess games that go out of control. Therefore, if I made that EVA fight into a short, it would be the entire short.

But "Love Boat to Venus" was relatively peaceful. At least for one of my stories. Get it in Venus now.