Category Archives: Space Opera

I’VE GOT BOOKS COMING OUT! (or Shameless Self Promotion!)

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I’m very busily writing the next WILD INCORPORATED adventure. This will be my fourth book in that series and this one is called GO, JOHNNY GO,

It takes place all over the globe! Toronto, New York and a whiz bang climax in the Antarctic at a certain super crime fighter’s secret Fortress, where she goes to try to get some solitude, but that’s difficult when an old enemy from the past is hell-bent on destroying everything she’s built!

It’s being released by RAGE MACHINE BOOKS and it’s even got a cover (despite the fact that I’m still writing it, so I guess I can’t change my mound about the Antarctic). Here it is:

It’s coming along very well at the moment and if all goes according to plan it will be available in November.

However, right now I have released a new edition of the first WILD INCORPORATED book THE SHATTERED MEN. It came out quite a while ago and it had some typographical bugaboos that I have wanted to fix for a while. It also did not match with the editions that came after it. I have fixed it up and the book has a new cover and a new look. It’s the same story so if you have it there’s not much new in this second edition aside from some fixed typos and some cosmetic formatting.

But if you don’t have a copy, then this is the one you want to buy!

I also have a few other books planned. Later this month I will release a second collection of Sirtago and Poet stories. These are Sword & Sorcery tales for those of you who are fans of Robert E. Howard or Fritz Leiber. Sirtago and Poet are a couple of ne’er do-well mercenaries who always seem to run afoul of wizards and wizardry.

BLADES AND ABOMINATIONS gathers together two exciting novellas that contain lots of action, swordplay, foreplay, horseplay and, of course, magic and monsters. Look for it about the middle of July.

I have a third collection of Sirtago and Poet stories and this one will feature at least one story that will not have been previously available anywhere. Look for BLADES AND BEWITCHMENT sometime next year.

Also next year I will have at least one space opera book. Tentatively it’s called THE EMPRESS JADE and it is a prequel to my book THE MASK OF ETERNITY.

And look: There’s even some cover art!

(Which may or may not be the final art, but it looks really cool, right?) I definitely will write it once I’m finished GO, JOHNNY GO and the next Sirtago and Poet story.

Unless I die. Which I’m hoping will not happen.

Okay. Back to writing. No rest for the wicked.

Check out THE CRYO GAME!

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Just in time for my birthday! Do you want to help me celebrate? Buy a copy of my new collection of short fiction! Buy it for kindle or in paperback!

It’s the perfect way to help celebrate my birthday because I get a sale and you get a book! It’s a win-win!

And, just to pique your interest: Here is the introduction to the book!

FOREWORD

One of the problems with being a writer is one of the basic problems of being alive and that is the unreliability of memory.

I’ll get to that in a minute.

Rage Machine Books had published my short story collection of dark fantasy stories in a volume called HERALDED BY BLOOD. This was a collection of stories that I had sold to various markets through the years plus one or two that had never been published prior to that collection.

I had always imagined that they would welcome a companion volume for my science fiction stories that had found markets. I reckoned that I had just enough short stories to fill a slim volume.

But then I thought; what about a collection of the stories that hadn’t found a market?

I conceived of an anthology of short stories called Unloved Tales. The reason they were unloved was because, despite being shunted around to several markets and having made their way in front of the eyes of editors who could potentially purchase them, they were passed on in favor of other, and, perhaps, better stories.

I had what I thought was a rather robust table of contents for this collection… sadly. Stories that I thought were all well and fine, indeed, stories that other editors thought were good stories…

…just not good enough.

And I was tired. Tired of sending the stories out to markets, tired of waiting for a reply, tired of wondering how long I should wait for a reply before sending the story out again to another market, and then repeating the process.

So I thought I would gather up all of these stories… all of these good but not quite good enough stories… and give them a home. A final destination, if you will. It was somewhat akin to retirement. Or perhaps the literary equivalent of sending old Boxer out to pasture (or to the glue factory).

I even had cover art for it.

Then one of the stories sold. That had to be removed from the Table of Contents for obvious reasons.

Then, as I was going through the list I realized that I had run up against that most human of problems, one that tends to get exacerbated with the advancement of years… a failing memory.

Two of the stories in my potential table of contents had found markets that I had forgotten about. They had appeared in a magazine many years ago. Paying markets.

Perhaps it wasn’t big pay. It may only have been a nominal stipend. Nevertheless, those stories could not be considered to be unloved.

Well, after that the entire enterprise collapsed like a house of cards.

However, I did still have my potential list of stories for my companion science fiction anthology. Now I had an opportunity to bring that anthology up to snuff in terms of word count. By combining the two I now had almost 70,000 words of fiction that could make up the collection.

So I had my science fiction collection (though some of the stories are not, strictly speaking, science fiction. Some are clearly fantasy and some defy categorization).

That, plus the fact that not all of these stories ever found a market. Some of the tales in this collection were unloved.

But what of it?

Perhaps these stories will find the love that they were denied in the marketplace. Perhaps as part of this collection these tales will find some modicum of affection from you, reader. After all, if you are reading this either on a printed page or an illuminated screen, congratulations! You have found the stories that were previously unloved until you have showed them some regard.

You may not like them. You may say to yourself; “Well, that wasn’t worth the hard earned cash I plunked down to get this volume sent to my device!” Or you may say; “That story was great! What editor in his right mind would have passed that gem up?”

It’s an arbitrary judgment for a story to have to pass through some form of gatekeeper in order to be deemed worthy. I wrote it. I chose it for this collection. It has the same worth now as all of its brothers, sisters or cousins sharing these pages.

The worth of each story is now for you to decide. Read on. Enjoy. If you hate a story, give the next one a try. If you love a story, move on to the next. You might love that even more.

You, after all, dear reader, have the only judgment on these efforts that I care about.

Sound interesting? Then check it out here!

The Cryo Game and Other Stories

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Well we’re more than a week into January and I haven’t acknowledged that it is now 2025. Perhaps I was putting it off because, like many of us, I’m in a bit of denial about our circumstances. Nevertheless, we must endure.

My birthday is coming up, though and something that I’ve always promised myself is that I would release a collection of the various science fiction stories that I have written over the years. To that end I am just about to release a collection called THE CRYO GAME and Other Stories.

And, according to the blurb on the back of the book:

FROM THE DARKEST RECESSES OF THE MIND TO THE DARKEST CORNERS OF THE GALAXY

These are tales of the future twisted and turned by the trends of the present. Like a funhouse mirror that reflects imperfectly, these are tales seen through a glass darkly.

From a new consciousness birthed in a glitchy computer program, to a warning of the future unheeded by the first emperor of Rome.

From the events of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine told from the Morlocks’ point of view, to a look at the Beatles if they had never become famous. From a brain in a jar who solves galactic mysteries, to a space jockey accused of murdering a very rich passenger

These are tales from dark worlds, encounters with the fantastic and brushes with eternity.

Does that sound exciting? I hope that it does. The book is scheduled to release later on this week. Keep an eye out for it!

An Extra Day

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Out of nowhere comes… an extra day!

February 29th is a day that only comes around every five years or so… during the Leap Year specifically. It’s presence comes as a necessity for keeping time tidy after Julius Caesar messed up the calendar. (He was killed for it, too. Well, probably not for the calendar thing, but, you know… justice served)

So here it is the end of the second month of 2024 and I haven’t posted anything. Why? Because I’ve been writing.

I’ve got a book coming out soon (In March. No, really… I mean it this time!)

This one!

It’s a very exciting space opera with aliens, time travel, a mysterious derelict, attack ships, space battles and a dire threat to all of humanity in the far, far (far) future.

It’s almost ready.

I’ve also written two… yes, TWO… Sword & Sorcery novellas! One is for Rage Machine Books upcoming anthology SWORDS OF FIRE 3 and it features Sirtago and Poet in a tale called The Fall of the Golden City. I describe it as a mash-up of a classic Universal horror movie, The Mummy (the one with Boris Karloff, not the one with Brendan Frasier) and a Lovecraftian/Kaiju picture. There’s a lot of twists and turns, a lot of suspense, and a lot of fun along the way.

The second features a new character named Bradik. The story is called The Eye of Sirama and it is only the first of several Bradik adventures that are percolatin’ in the old noggin’ right now. Think of Bradik as Reacher with a sword.

Plus, I am currently writing a space opera/adventure for an upcoming Rage Machine anthology tentatively titled SHIPS OF STEEL. It’s kind of a Secret Agents in Space tale. I’m a huge fan of James H. Schmitz’s science fiction stories, especially his stories about the Zone Agents of Vega. This story has that kind of feel to it. It’s fast moving and will have a killer finish (I hope. I’m still writing it).

I have been having a blast writing so far and after a bit of a dry spell I have some ideas for stories that I am really excited about. I plan to tackle another Sirtago and Poet story, this time set in a mythical Far East. I’m very excited about that. That probably will find a home in SWORDS OF FIRE 4.

I am also plotting out not one, but two WILD INCORPORATED books. The next one is titled MADAME MURDER and I am blocking out the story now. The next one, I’m not sure what the final title will be, but I’m thinking this song, might get referenced:

That’s all I’m saying for now, but It will put the members of Wild Incorporated (and the reader, hopefully) through the wringer!

So here we are, on this extra day… a bonus day… in 2024. I’m looking forward to a very productive year and I hope that you will stick around and read some of it when it comes out.

Until then; you can still get the first two WILD INCORPORATED books plus the first two SWORDS OF FIRE anthologies at Rage Machine Books!

STRANGE NEW WORLDS

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Well, no one is going to like what I have to say.

STRANGE NEW WORLDS is an undeniable hit with Star Trek fans, a very had group to please. What this shows is, I believe, that Star Trek fans will accept diversity… people of color, LGBTQ… they will accept it all, as long as white people are depicted as being in charge and there is a white male in the Captain’s chair.

I am so tired of hearing the excuses for fans not liking the other iterations of Star Trek, particularly DISCOVERY. It’s been dismissed as “woke crap” and even when it isn’t fans will justify their prejudice against it by saying that the writing is no good, or that the characters are too emotional.

What they really mean is that the characters aren’t white enough and the main character isn’t male enough.

Anson Mount’s Pike is every bit as emotional as Michael Burnham, but that’s okay because he’s a man. A man being emotional is perceived as being brave. A woman being emotional is perceived as weak. This is exactly the kind of sexist reading of entertainment that shows like Star Trek are attempting to overthrow.

And, to be honest, the writing so far on STRANGE NEW WORLDS hasn’t been any better than the writing on DISCOVERY or PICARD. If anything, the stories have been playing it pretty safe. And maybe that’s why it’s so popular.

The original STAR TREK challenged viewer’s notions of right and wrong. This newest iteration of Star Trek, it seems to me, does little more than reinforce the status quo.

Tell me I’m wrong.

Obi Wan Kenobi at Disney+

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So, regarding the Obi-Wan series coming from Disney+ I’ve seen the sizzle reel that was released to youtube but I can’t help thinking that it just looks all the same. I have no idea what it’s going to be about and I don’t care, because I have the series written in my head as I would like to see it. I think it would be awesome

I imagine it as a comedic action adventure series. It takes place the year before A New Hope. I was thinking about American Graffiti, the film Lucas made just before Star Wars and one thing led to another.

Three days before Biggs and Tank take a transport from Tatooine to the Academy, they and their young friend, young Luke Skywalker take a last trip to Anchorhead for a drinking binge. When they overhear an old Star Pilot tell of a hidden treasure, the trio decides they have time for one last adventure. What begins as a lark turns deadly serious as they run afoul of sand people, the Hutts and a pair of ruthless Imperial hunters.

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have an ill tempered droid that keeps the moisture vaporators in line and speaks Bocce ( badly as it turns out) so that Aunt Beru can buy from the Bocce traders at the local market. Luke ends up dragging the droid along on the adventure and he complains insults Luke the entire time. Given Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru situation at the beginning of A New Hope you can guess what happens to the droid.

At Anchorhead, in a bar, Luke notices an old man staring at him intently. He gets freaked out and says to Biggs: “Don’t look, but there’s a weird old guy who keeps staring at me!” Biggs looks over. “I said don’t look!”

Biggs shakes his head. “That’s just what’s his name Kenobi. What’s his name?” “Ben?” Tank says. “Right Ben Kenobi. That wizard’s just a crazy old man!”

They run afoul of the sandpeople who chase them. Trying to get away they run afoul of the Hutts, who chase them. Along the way they attract the attention of the local Imperials who chase them. Soon everybody is chasing them as they race against time to find this ancient Jedi treasure

Naturally along the way Luke demonstrates his uncanny piloting skills and his odd connection to something that seems to be bigger than himself, a strange power that remains just out of focus

Kenobi would be following, trying to talk to Luke but every time he gets close enough to him something comes along and whisks Luke up into another trajectory.

Luke and Ben never actually have any scenes together other than the opening in Anchorhead.

There’s two Imperial hunters that get brought in to track them down. They have a reputation for being the best hunters the Imperial Storm Troopers have produced. They’re excellent marksmen, super accurate shots and one of them wears this weird brown leather shoulder harness. By the end of the movie they have lost their prey and crashed their Tie fighter in the desert. As they walk to Mos Eisley one of them says. “They’ll bust us down to traffic patrol for this… If we’re lucky!”

The characters from the deleted Toschi Station scene from the original Star Wars all make appearances. It also explains how Luke gets the nickname “Wormie”

I got a lot more and if Lucasfilm is interested they can hear my pitch

So What’s Your Point?

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Here’s a question directed at my fellow writers:

Have you ever written a book to prove a point?

Because I have. I didn’t really know that was what I was doing. Like most writing a lot of the work is done in the subconscious. Patterns are not evident until a draft is completed. Sometimes they aren’t clear until after the book is published.

Many years ago when I was in my twenties I would go to a lot of Science Fiction conventions in the Lower Mainland of BC and the Pacific Northwest of the US. At one of these conventions a panel discussion was taking place and someone brought up the topic of paradigms.

While I was listening I was struck by an idea about paradigms and how society moves from one paradigm to another. How a paradigm shift can leave some people behind because they don’t recognize the new paradigm supplanting the old one. I remember trying to make my point from the audience and not being very successful at getting my thoughts across. The panel members did not follow what I was trying to say and at the time I did not have the ability to make my ideas any clearer.

I did not make my point because I didn’t really fully understand it and even if I did I did not know how.

Flash forward to a few years later. I had the opportunity to write for a fanzine that published Star Trek fan fiction. I wrote a Next Generation story about a planetary transporter and fractal geometry. The whole thing didn’t gel. None of my ideas seemed to come together. I told an interesting enough story but it didn’t have that extra dimension that I was hoping it would.

Eventually I took the story and transformed it into something else for a unique new market which was looking for shorter, exciting, fast-paced stories. I got rid of all the Star Trek elements and the story began to evolve. Unfortunately the market folded before I could submit.

Undaunted I pressed on. I began to write a novel. I was doing a lot of world building and, without realizing it, I was coming up with a very good point about paradigms and how some societies can embrace the new paradigm and others get left behind because they don’t recognize that the paradigm shift is happening.

It wasn’t until I was into my second draft that I realized what I was doing, after so many years, was making the point that I had unsuccessfully tried to make before.

I called the book THE PARADIGM TRAP and I was pretty pleased with it right up until 1991 when Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released into theaters. That film had made exactly the same points and had several of the same plot points.

I was pretty crushed. Everybody had seen it and nobody who would ever read my book (if anybody) would not believe that I had simply ripped off the last Star Trek movie.

So… what’s my point?

My point is that I wrote an entire novel just to prove a point. Even if it was just to myself. I wrote THE PARADIGM TRAP to solidify my idea that when paradigms change, as they are wont to do, those who do not see that change will still keep fighting trying to make headway using the old ways that worked under the old paradigm. But it doesn’t matter how proficient you were at making things happen under the old paradigm, once it has been supplanted by a new one, your best efforts are impotent.

Of course, none of this is relevant to any situation that is going on at this moment… is it?

THE PARADIGM TRAP can be purchased in e-book or paperback here.

The Mandalorian S2 Finale: What Went Wrong?

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SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the second season finale of THE MANDALORIAN stop reading right now!

Okay, I know I am risking the wrath of the fanboys who are all grinning from ear-to-ear right now, but I gotta say this because it’s been bugging me ever since I saw it.

I know everybody is going apeshit over what happened in the episode, but for me it was a complete Deus Ex Machina, which, as you know, is a cardinal sin for a writer.

Look: you had Boba Fett out there. He made it look convincing enough that the Imperial ship was under attack which got the Mandalorian and Bo Katan onto Moff Gideon’s ship. Fair enough. Mando jettisons the Dark Troopers, rescues Grogu and he and Bo-Katan, Koska, Cara Dune and Fennec Shand take the bridge.

Now, I was keeping track of the moving pieces. I knew that Boba Fett was poised to come back at the right moment. But after he took off into hyperspace he didn’t come back. In fact we didn’t see him again until after the credits, and he had Shand with him so you know that at some point he came back to get her. We didn’t see that bit because it happened after the Deus Ex Machina.

See, to me, that would have been part of the story’s payoff, Fett coming back at exactly the right moment. That payoff didn’t happen.

Also, what happened to Doctor Pershing? He gave them all the info they needed to get onto Gideon’s ship. He should have been dragged along when they boarded the ship. Maybe he would have had some insight that would have helped them defeat the Dark Troopers when they came back onto the ship. So where was he? Did they space him? It was a story thread that was completely dropped.

Instead, God shows up.

For those of you who don’t know a Deus Ex Machina is an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel. It literally means “god from the machine” which is a reference to the stagecraft employed in order to bring “god” onto the stage.

So who’s God in the Star Wars universe if not… well… you-know-who.

So, God shows up, literally out of his machine, an X-Wing fighter, (and figuratively out of a machine — the CGI used to de-age him back to his glory days) and destroys the Dark Troopers one by one, effectively getting our heroes out of the jam that they were in.

I know everyone is losing their minds about this right now. Fanboys are ready to hoist Jon Favreau onto their shoulders for a victory lap. This move is being hailed as the triumphant return of the “real” Star Wars.

But for me, it just seemed like too much fan service and not enough story service.

The series had laid out a lot of plot points. You could have had Fett come back. You could have had Ahsoka Tano suddenly show up and it would have made more sense. Christ, you could have had Bill Burr’s Mayfield unexpectedly show up with a squadron of old criminal friends and that would have been a satisfying resolution.

Then you could have had the Jedi show up to take Grogu.

I guess for efficiency’s sake it had to be God who stepped in to save the day, but for me, who crafts stories, who takes great care to try to make sure plot points are believable and satisfying to the reader, this just seemed like a cop-out.

I know, if you get the chance to do it and can pull it off, then you do it and make all the fanboys go squee!

But I’ve always been a firm believer that the story needs to be serviced first and this, as spectacular as it was, was a disservice.

There. I said it.