On Writing "Deceptive Appearances" for Mercury

Mercury is known for many things. Superversive wanted to focus on a theme of journeys and messages. As the Greek deity Hermes, he is known as a healer.

I wanted to focus on something a little different: Mercury as a trickster.

Enter my hero, Sean Patrick Ryan.  No, not Sean AP Ryan, Sean Patrick Ryan, who you saw in Astounding Frontiers #1, the first Ryan I ever wrote. The original. I wrote this SPR, space ranger, years before SAPR came on the scene. He's two meters tall, one wide, and he never suffers fools.

Sean Patrick Ryan, in this case, has a name as a mercenary, a fixer, and has the unfortunate sobriquet as "the most dangerous man in the galaxy." Why unfortunate? Because that means that every idiot and lowlife wants to test him, and bring him down, just to earn the "honor" of the name.

So with Sean and his friend Peter Sierra walk into a bar, and everyone else is being charged admission fees.... but not them... they know that they're about to become the floor show.

When the first alien comes in and Sean lays him out, the threat seems to be over....

And then the Touri, a seven-foot bipedal velociraptor, named Fe'eshar Straczyn strolls into the bar.

Then the fun really starts.

Purchase Mercury right here.