Great Review of A Prince of Mars!

I just got a great review of A Prince of Mars from the Traveler's Steampunk Blog. Ten out of ten zeppelins! He was very careful to touch on some of the critical features of the story without letting any spoilers slip, which I really appreciate. Those of you who have read it know there are some pretty sharp twists and turns and a place where, if I've done my job right, the readers will smack their foreheads and say, "Oh! Of course!" So I'm glad he didn't let any cats out of the properly-ventilated pet carrier.

Here's a link to the review.

I'd have held off on this announcement until tomorrow, but I promised you big news then and I didn't want to step on that story with this one -- not that this one isn't way-cool.

Dark Side of Luna -- Coming This Week

Book six, and the finale to the first season of Space 1889 and Beyond stories, will be out from Untreed Reads by the end of this week. The finished cover is above and it has a suitably menacing look to it. I co-authored this piece and I think you'll really like it. Dark Side of Luna has lots of action, including a sort of "small war" military campaign (if you can conduct an extended campaign with one section of Royal Marine Light Infantry -- and it seems you can if you are a sufficiently determined and resourceful chap).

So those of you who have purchased A Prince of Mars but not yet read it might want to, so as to be primed for this new epic adventure. Those of you who have not purchased it . . . well, I hardly know what to offer you other than a revolver and some privacy.

Andy Frankham-Allen , the series editor, and I are co-authoring the lead book in the second series, Conspiracy of Silence, which picks up where Dark Side of Luna leaves off. In fact, I've got to finish up the last chapter, so back to it.

Prince of Mars is Live!

A Prince of Mars is live at last! Those of you who have pre-purchased the series should already have your downloads. The rest of you can pick it up from any of these online sites:

The Untreed Reads Store (http://bit.ly/xOVH8R)
Amazon
Scribd
OmniLit.com
Barnes and Noble
Lightning Source


Here is the publisher's description:

Barely making it to Mars in their crippled aether cutter, Nathanial and Annabelle crash in the desolate Martian wastes. A disfigured Martian with a mysterious past helps them survive in the desert, but when they are rescued by a passing caravan their troubles may only have started.

Raids by steppe nomads and flying skrill riders are the most obvious dangers, but simmering resentment against Earth humans, and intricate plots to overthrow the British colony, lurk everywhere just beneath the surface.

Apparent friends become enemies, unexpected allies appear from unlikely sources, and the shadowy past of their Martian guardian collides with the sinister plans of the murderous head of the dreaded Martian Cult of the Worm...

And here is an excerpt to tease your interest:

Nathanial thirsted, but he did not trust his trembling hands to pick up the water cup without splashing half its contents on the sand. They were not short of water, of course. He simply was loathe to show weakness in front of Kak’hamish.

“You have pen and paper,” Kak’hamish said. “I will write out an explanation of your situation in Koline. All caravan masters speak Koline—it is a trade language, a pidgin of several tongues. If you are fortunate, the first caravan we see will be heading northwest, to Abak’hn. That is where you need to start. Then you must take a caravan or cloudship southwest to Siruahn, then another southwest to Thoth. Thoth is on the Grand Canal. From there you can obtain passage on a boat south to Shastapsh, where I hear there is a British garrison.”

“You will not accompany us any farther?”

“I have…other plans.”

Rubbish! The fellow had no plans other than to wander back into the desert to die. If Nathanial had been by himself it might have been different. He could take care of himself, steal food if he had to, barter for passage using the instruments and valuables he had brought off the cutter. But with Annabelle in the state she was in, he wasn’t sure how he would manage. Much as he hated to admit it, this scoundrel could help.

“You might at least tell me something of these cities we’re to pass through. Are they dangerous?”

Kak’hamish moved his jaw from side to side in thought. Clack-clack. “Dangerous? All cities are dangerous to one degree or another, aren’t they? People live in cities so…well, there you are.

“Abak’hn I suppose is particularly dangerous in that manner, although I have not been there for many years and it may have improved. Or deteriorated. It is cursed with a weak prince, Akhanoon III. He is absorbed by his own pleasures and content to let the city govern itself.”

“Some would say the hand of government lying lightly is a blessing,” Nathanial said.

“Yes, I have heard this as well but never from one who has actually experienced it first-hand, unless they were very rich. Without a patron or protector, you will be in considerable peril in Abak’hn. The strong take what they want and the town watch looks the other way, unless disorder threatens commerce or offends the sensibilities of the gentry—so there is sometimes danger in resisting the predators as well.”

“Sounds like a rum place,” Nathanial observed, and he admitted to a pang of anxiety. He was armed, it was true, but he had no confidence in his own abilities in a violent confrontation. True, he’d shot Le Boeuf, a cold and considered act for what Le Boeuf had done to Annabelle. But still, thinking back, it almost seemed as if another man had pulled the trigger, not him at all. He had hardly had cause to even raise his voice to someone before embarking on this disastrous tour of the worlds. Since then, often as not it had been Annabelle who had taken the lead, charted a plan of action. Poor Annabelle! Still half out of her head with fever. He wished she would recover quickly. He desperately needed her clear head, courage, and decisive nature.

The truth was he simply didn’t feel up to facing this by himself. If it came to that, could he kill a man? Well, yes. He had done it once and felt no regrets on that score. He could do it again, if necessary. But that was a devil he knew. What of the devils he knew not? Too many ill-understood dangers, and too many ambiguous situations requiring decisions on little or no reliable information, blocked the way forward. One had to trust one’s instincts, he supposed, and just forge ahead. But what if one had little faith in those instincts?

Kak’hamish was talking again and Nathanial shook those maudlin thoughts from his head.

“Siruahn is very different, of course. It once had a young prince like Akhanoon—stupid, vain, and convinced of his own indispensability. This was a conviction the people of Siruahn did not share. Twenty-some years ago they drove him out and turned the government over to a council elected from the different castes—merchants, tradesmen, farmers—even labourers, as I recall, although the wealthy are better represented than their numbers might warrant.”

“Really? It sounds a bit like a parliament,” Nathanial said. “How are they chosen, by election?”

Clack-clack. “I do not know exactly. Someone once told me, but it was very complicated and I have forgotten most of it. I understand they argue about the selection a great deal and make frequent changes, so it would be different now in any case. They argue about everything, I have heard. The poor argue with the rich, and are not even beaten for their insolence! It has become a very argumentative city.” Kak’hamish shook his head as if in disapproval, but Nathanial noticed he smiled as he did so. It was hard to tell a smile from a grimace on Kak’hamish unless you looked at his eyes. “This was a distressful business with Miss Annabelle’s wound,” Kak’hamish said. “It grows late and distress can bring fatigue. We should sleep, but also take turns watching. You still have your pistol?”

“Yes, it’s in my kit over there. Do you think we need it? I thought there were no large predators out here.”

“Not in the deadlands, but we no longer sleep in their sandy embrace. There is much to sustain a predator in the gardenways—now including us. Some of the larger animals have developed a taste for stragglers from caravans. They may like the taste of Earth people less than my own folk, but by the time they discover that it will do you no good.”

Nathanial tried not to look as if he was hurrying as he walked to the travois to get his derringer. That box of extra cartridges wouldn’t hurt either, come to think of it. Sometimes animals ran in packs, after all.

Book Cover For "A Prince of Mars"

Here is the final book cover for A Prince of Mars. I think it may be the best of the covers so far in the Space 1889 And Beyond series. The book should be live very shortly -- hopefully in a day or so. I have a nearly overpowerful urge to write more about the book right now, but I am resisting that urge. The book needs to speak for itself, and soon enough it will.

Putting Your Characters Through Hell

I am a big fan of suspense in writing and I’ve noticed something about both films and writing – if you know there are boundaries across which the author (or director) will not cross, the work loses an important element of suspense. I like it when those invisible boundaries get crossed.

This struck me when I watched, of all things, the 1988 version of The Blob – a monster movie I liked more than (apparently) most folks did. I liked it because there were a number of characters who you just knew weren’t going to get eaten – the little kid, the sheriff, the waitress – who got eaten! Some had story lines which you knew had to play out – but didn’t. Some were just off-limits. (Good little kids don’t get eaten, right?) So by half-way through the film, I had no idea who was and who was not going to make it. Usually in these things you not only know who lives and who dies, you know pretty much the order in which they’re going to go down. What did this have that those others lacked?

Suspense.

I’m not a fan of gratuitous violence, or crossing lines just to do it. But if, as a story teller, you find yourself in a situation where logic dictates a result which is off-limits, and you’re struggling with how to jiggle reality so that a “safer” outcome results, you need to stop for a moment and consider crossing that line into dangerous territory.

If there are things your readers know – just know – you will never let happen to a character, you may need to remind yourself who the story teller is. Your characters confront enormously dangerous situations – whether physically dangerous or emotionally dangerous depends on your subject -- but if the character does not have a lot at stake, maybe everything, then you probably are not telling the right story. You want your characters to be frightened by the possibility of disaster, and to communicate that fear to your readers. But if your readers know nothing really bad will happen, they cannot share the fear of your characters, and you end up isolating the one from the other.

The only way your readers can share the fear of your characters is if your readers believe you might really pull that trigger. And the only way they will believe that is if you are yourself actually willing to pull it, because it’s pretty hard to fool readers about stuff like that. Sometimes that means putting your characters through hell, through their worst nightmares, through the realization of their absolute worst fears. Sometimes you have to put them right in the belly of the whale to see what they’re really made of.

Doing so is scary, because there is always the fear your readers will hate you for what you are doing to the characters they have (we hope) come to love. But as General George S. Patton says numerous times in his memoir War As I Knew It, “I had to remind myself not to take counsel of my fears.”

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In somewhat related news, Andy tells me the cover is almost done for A Prince of Mars. The text is all ready to go, so as soon as the cover corrections are finished my first novella will go live, probably early next week. Very exciting! Did I have the strength of my convictions about testing my characters in the belly of the whale? Well, only one way to find out.