Atrocious Adventure Publishing

Still Alive! THE CAKE IS A LIE!!

2010-05-22T08:49:00.002-04:00

Howdy, folks. It's been a long time.

I'm still unemployed.

Being unemployed gives you a lot of time to stare at the walls. I think it may have unhinged me somewhat because I started doing something I always said I'd never do -- I got involved in World of Warcraft. (For the WoWHeads, I play on the Darrowmere server. 2 Characters, my primary is named OwlDance, currently a 25th lvl Night Elf Rogue, my alt is a 17th lvl Gnome Mage named Ancasta.)

While I've been in the game, we've been undergoing a series of Horde terrorist attacks. A single high-level Horde character (usually a Death Knight) will suddenly appear in some populous place and kill everything in sight in about a minute and a half. Player characters, NPCs, vendors, trainers, guards, everything. Then they'll go to the next place up the line and do it again, and keep going until a bunch manages to kill it. I've gotten caught in these attacks a few times, and gotten killed in one shot. These high-levels can deliver over a thousand points of damage in one shot. And here my Night Elf is, with a measly 400 or so hit points. One guy against sometimes a couple dozen other characters, he still wins. These attacks are so crazy that it completely lags the server at that location, which also screws over the people trying to defend against it. For all intents and purposes, these are terrorist attacks.

So after I made up my alt Ancasta, I started getting ideas for a story. I wouldn't say it's my best work, but it's what I'm doing now. It seems I've come around full circle. I'm back to fanfic.

If you're interested, it's on Fanfiction.net. Go here to check it out.

Other than playing the game, checking job listings and staring at the walls, this is all I'm doing right now.

I hope you're all doing well, or at least not so bad you're getting gray hair. I miss doing the show, I miss writing and sharing what I create with all of you. It's a mad, bad, crazy world right now. It's hard to believe in that future worth living for anymore. I hope you all have something to believe in to get you through it.

Carol

Zulu-5 -- Snippet the Second!

2010-01-31T14:13:00.002-05:00

Another? Why yes. Yes I can.

Here's Trouble, Rage and Jason. They're trapped in a crashed rover somewhere on Mars with a sandstorm howling around them while one of General Bayles's ace in the holes is out there somewhere trying to hunt them down and kill them. They got away for the moment, but Jason's oxygen line on his suit got torn ... A little Trouble and Rage love. And if you don't remember, Trouble's human name was Alan Masefield, and Rage's was Van McDonald.

Again, after "The Family You Choose".

----------

"Stupid," I muttered over the radio as Rage shoved the length of tube into my hands. I ran it through my hands, saw the length reported at the corner of my vision and nodded. Better too long than too short. I extended the blades between my thumb and index finger and snipped it. "That was really stupid."

"Coming..to get you.. or crashing?" my son gasped to me over the hiss of his punctured oxygen line venting.

"I was there for a very good reason," I said back. I glanced up at the faceplate of his helmet and saw he was having to really haul on the air now. "Van, where's that silicone?"

"Here," he answered as he knelt at my son's side and flipped the rover's toolbox open. "Not much here, T. This jalopy's a tourist rover, not a construction hauler."

"This'll do," I said. I turned back to my son. "Jace, look at me."

"Yeah?" he answered, wheezing a little. His eyes were the same color mine had been, a bright Earth-sky blue that almost glowed even behind the light tinting of his helmet's faceplate.

"I want you to take five really deep breaths, as deep as you can. Hyperventilate a little. On number six, I want you to take a big breath and hold it. Van, get his hand. Jace, when you hold your breath you squeeze Uncle Van's hand, okay? Then just hold still and I'll change the tube out. Got it?" I got out the silicone sealant and snipped off the tip of the applicator tube with my finger blades. "Okay, you ready?"

"Captain --"

"Jace," I answered back. "Cut the crap. I'm only Captain Masefield to the Marines. You know who I am. Just Trouble."

My son laughed a little at that. The wheezing was getting bad.

"Argue with me later. Breathe, son. Go."

"Is he okay?" I asked half an hour later. I didn't bother to turn. I didn't have to. Rage's hand squeezed my shoulder, the metal clacking softly against the metal of my hull.

"Blood-oxy levels are back up to normal," Rage answered as he sat down beside me in the second driver's seat. The view out the rover's windscreen was a world of rushing yellow-gray dust, with the looming form of a tower of wind-sculpted rock hard up against our left side. "The oxygen made him doze off. He's exhausted, Alan."

I shook my head a little. "I wish this had gone a little better. This isn't how I wanted my first meeting with my kid to go. Not getting broken out of a quarantine cell by my own personal two-man army."

"So you planned for the psychopath chasing us halfway to Ophir?" Rage asked.

"This is turning out like that crazy soap opera of yours," I answered. I caught his hand as he reached up to tap for a status read on the rover's systems. "I missed you, Van."

Coppery optics swung to look at me, the familiar gunmetal gray face with the black rubberized radio antennae like ears on either side. He turned his hand in mine and I felt the pressure of his fingers. "They wouldn't let me in to see you."

I nodded. "The holomorph was going nuts. They had to transfer me out of my body for a while. It took the Institute two or three days to get another Explorer model prepped for me. Doc Dekrueger promised me he'd get me the exact same model, and it took Ares all that time to dig one out of their storage facility and get it prepped for the transfer. There was nothing for you to see but my biopod and a lot of wires."

The rover rocked a little as a particularly strong gust of wind slammed into the side. Rage and I both heard the grinding as the crumpled side of the cab scraped against the rock wall.

"So what happened with the holomorph?" Rage asked after the wind died down a little.

"Well for one thing they found it had sent tentacles up my leg and into my torso," I said, trying to make light of it. "Dozens of them. Possibly hundreds. Like cobwebs. Doc Dekrueger looked a little white around the mouth when he told me what they were seeing. Considering he used to cut people's heads open and take out their brains, I'd say that means it was pretty bad. They couldn't let you in, Van. God only knows what that thing would have done to you."

I didn't tell him the thing was blocking me out toward the end, filling all my sensory input with the static hydrogen hum of the universe.. I'd heard the techs yelling and getting frantic and then suddenly everything switched off and went black. With no way to mark time I'd spent two endless hours thinking I was dead before they hooked me up to the VR and Doc Dekrueger told me they'd had to pull an emergency transfer. The holomorph knew they were tinkering with my old body. It had tried to kill me by shutting off the glucose feed and causing a back-up in my waste system. Van didn't need to know all that. We had more than enough reason to be freaked as it was.

"So you found the kid," I said after a long moment of silence. I glanced back into the passenger compartment at the figure in the gray pressure suit curled on the floor.

"It wasn't easy. He's living under a staircase in the old section of Mariner." Rage looked back at my son and shook his head.

"The section with the junk dealers and the prostitutes?" I asked. My kid living in a place like that?

"Uh-huh. Half way up a wall under a staircase. Sleeping in a hammock made out of an old cargo net. And he got somebody to splice him into the the power and data grid," Rage confirmed. "It's not a bad little bolthole. It's not like he's paying for it with money. Looks like no one else wanted the space, no one was using it for anything. String up a couple curtains over the open side. Monkey-climb up the wall a couple feet, in the door. Cozy little nook."

"Kids," I said, but inside I wondered where the hell is my sister in all of this. Marina would never drop the ball on a kid like this, much less her own nephew. Was my kid a homeless bum? A runaway? Had he gotten kicked out of his dorm room or something? He hadn't acted like he was starving, and he didn't look like he needed a bath. Then again what would I know? I'd actually been a father for the last 5 hours of his 22 years of living. Weren't kids his age supposed to be grubby and stinky? Or was that just crater rats like me and Rage?

"He's a good kid," Rage said quietly, still looking back at my son. He squeezed my hand again. "Lot more polite than his old man."

"You love me rude," I responded.

"I love you period, Alan."

I squeezed his fingers back and sat up straighter. "We get out of this, we'll go sneak off somewhere and talk like this some more and embarass my kid."

Rage laughed at that and we started trying to figure out where we were, what we had to work with, and how we were going to find the psychopathic 'borg somewhere out there in the storm.

I love my homeworld but I never forget how quickly it can kill you.

I wonder sometimes how our ancestors managed to survive on Earth as long as they did. Mars is a stone cold merciless bitch but for all that there are a lot fewer ways to die here than there were on Earth. Think about it. No open water means no drowning, no tidal waves, no tsunamis, no floods, no death by drinking or bathing in contaminated water, no tornados or hurricanes, no blizzards.

Zulu-5 -- Snippets! I Bring You Snippets!

2010-01-31T14:09:00.002-05:00

For the Zulu-5 fans... Here's Trouble talking to a shrink.

Takes place after T and the gang get to Mars, possibly a week or so after the last scene of "The Family You Choose".

----------

"Captain Masefield, let's change topics. I'd like to hear about this plan of yours for an expedition to Saturn."

Oh this should be good. The geeks here at Meridiani HQ have been all over this since they heard Rage mention it. "Just vaporware. Bigger and better stunts, proving we're better than the fleshies, the usual."

The military shrink they've got interrogating me looks up from my file and gives me a raised eyebrow. "Do I detect a note of chauvinism, Captain?"

I twitched my head a little -- this one's a cyberpsychologist, she thinks she knows the ins and outs of a borg's brain but she can't read our body language to save her life. I tend to exaggerate my little twitches and quirks around people like that, since they usually can't tell if I'm serious or not. "It's a simple fact. I could go down to the airlock right now and take a stroll out to the MER Monument and back without stopping to haul on a suit. This time last year I was bouncing around on the bottom of Gaea Crater, digging trinium by the light of the Great Red Spot. Twenty-two years ago I walked across Hellas in a body with failing batteries and shredded joints. My current body was designed specifically to handle everything Mars could dish out, from climbing up the walls of Eus to rolling around in the dust of Meridiani. Yes, I'm better than a fleshie. I was designed that way."

"And this makes you suited for an expedition to Saturn?" the shrink asked.

I twitched my head again. Somehow I always forget how much the fleshies can communicate with a shrug. "Four to five year trip, Doc. Send a fleshie out in freefall that long, they'd turn into a boneless blob. Literally. That won't happen with me and my buddies."

"And you're willing to make such a trip, knowing that you may be gone for decades and that any serious injuries or repairs would require at least five years for a return trip? The Dekrueger Institute would likely veto such a trip altogether, citing the possibility of excessive suffering," the shrink said.

"Guess we're not allowed to bring along our own borg mechanics, huh?" I answered. "Give me a break, Doc. This isn't a spur of the moment thing. Just 'cause we don't feel pain doesn't mean we're gonna go without a mechanic. Or three. Just that they'll be borgs too." I got up from the heavy titanium chair where I'd been sitting and went to the thick window. The rusty dusty crater floor stretched away into the whirl of a dust devil and far beyond it the aircraft warning blinkers that marked out the edge of the Headquarters airfield. "Cut to the chase, Doc. The brass has told you to question me about what we're planning to do once we're out at Saturn, not how we're getting there. And the solicitude is a little false. General Bayles has been putting fusion devices on the backs of the Axis class borgs all these years and there hasn't been a word out of the brass about excessive suffering or any worry about their mental health. You want strategic or tactical? Go ask the kids down in Strategic Planning. I worked Intel. If the Marines want an outpost in Saturn space they can damned well do the work themselves."

The shrink sat back in her chair and I could feel her eyes on the back of my head. "Are all civilian cyborgs so cynical, Captain?"

"Not all of us. You should meet my boyfriend. He still believes in true love." God, I'm such a sap. I miss Van so much I somehow keep finding myself talking about him all the time.

The shrink didn't say anything for a minute. "I realize it's difficult to be separated from your contract team, Captain."

I laughed shortly. " 'Separated' is such a small word for it, Doc." Like missing a limb. Or three.

"I'm sure you understand why we can't allow you to see them," the shrink continued.

"Yeah, I'm standing on it, Doc." The Institute is taking it's own sweet time and the Marine borg mechanics and the brass are getting impatient. They want the holomorph out of my leg almost as much as I do, but the Marines simply don't have the expertise with the civilian borg models they need for the job. "What's the progress on that? I've got a life I want to get back to." And a boyfriend I promised to take to the Labyrinth of Night, I added to myself.

"Ares Cybernetics and the Institute have sent several engineers, they're consulting with our own engineers as we speak," the shrink said. She gestured at the big titanium chair. "Come sit down, Captain. We still have a lot to discuss."

I turned and went back to sit down again. "You want to know about Bayles and what happened on Tantalus and Amalthea."

The shrink shrugged a little and opened the file in front of her. A paper file. They can't allow any technology anywhere near me. This shrink apparently got the job of interrogating me because she had no cyber implants and knew how to read and write with plastipad and pen. It's an all but dead art on Mars, five generations removed from the moment my great-great-grandfather strapped himself into his Soyuz and blasted off from Baikonur bound for Mars.

The shrink turned to the right page in her file, read a few lines, then sat back and looked at me. "I'm given to understand that you initiated contact with General Bayles due to a criminal kidnapping of one of your contract team. Until you came forward asking for his help, General Bayles did not know you were in Jupiter space. Why did you seek General Bayles out specifically? The proper procedure was to take such a case to Colonel MacPhearson, who was in charge of internal Security issues for Europa. General Bayles never needed to know you were there."

"There was a time constraint," I answered. "Jupiter space isn't Mars. Travel times between the moons can be anywhere from hours to two weeks. We had clear video evidence that Rage had been forcibly abducted, his attackers had a crude form of electroshock stave that they were using to short out a borg's electrical systems. We had no idea how that would affect Rage's systems if he was hit with it repeatedly, and even less idea what it might do to his organic systems. From the way Doc Curry nearly had a stroke when she saw the video I got the impression that getting Rage out sooner rather than later was the thing to do. No offense toward Colonel MacPhearson but I didn't have the time to argue or wait in line. I knew I could force Bayles's hand and get access to a ship and weapons in short order. It turned out I was right to do so. When A-12 and I got to Tantalus, we found 97 badly abused and injured borgs. Including Rage. If we'd been even a day later Rage might have been dead."

"And this had nothing to do with your past history with General Bayles?" the shrink asked next.

I thought about that for a moment. "Of course it did. I walked into his office wanting to kill the bastard."

"Do you think you intimidated him?" the shrink asked.

I laughed at that. "Whatever else he is, Elijah Bayles is a Marine blood and bone. He was about as intimidated by me as he'd been when I was human, which amounts to about a hair over 'not at all'. If anything he was furious with me and tried to order me onto the next ferry back to Phobos."

"You are still technically a member of the Special Forces, Captain. He was well within his rights to do so," the shrink said.

"My twenty years ran out almost eight years ago. I wasn't there to sign up for another ten," I countered. "Colonel McCall claims that Bayles had me classified as inactive due to medical reasons. I was still on the books, so I'm out free and clear now. I can put 'UMMC, Retired' after my name now. Or I would, if I was still Alan Masefield. Far as I'm concerned, Masefield died twenty-two years ago."

"Yet despite all that, you still went to General Bayles for help," the shrink said. I could hear the unspoken questons in it.

I didn't answer for a minute. I looked over at the window, at the red land of my homeworld, a planet I'd never expected to stand on again. My mind's eye filled with furiously spinning walls of blinding dust, the roar of the wind, my own certainty that I was going to die. The sight of the monstrous, crude, three-fingered manipulators that were all I had for hands, already dented and spars inside broken from punching my way through a wall of solid rock with my bare mechanical hands.

"I still had a score to settle," I answered finally. "A lot of scores to settle."

"Captain, I fail to see how putting yourself back under General Bayles's control is settling any kind of score," the shrink said.

I shook my head. "Ever hear of Stockholm Syndrome, doc?"

The shrink raised an eyebrow at that. "You believe you developed Stockholm Syndrome toward General Bayles?"

"Maybe."

The shrink just looked at me for a long moment. "How old were you when you first met General Bayles, Captain?"

"Seventeen. At the Lucus Planum Basic Training facility."

"You were in Basic at the age of seventeen, Captain? How did that happen?" the shrink asked. She began flipping back through her file, and I guessed it would have some sort of summary of my military career. Such as there was of it.

"Early induction on the reccommendation of the vocational counselor of my school back home. Bored gifted kid. You know the type," I said. "I think my parents were afraid I was going to turn out bad if they didn't find something that could keep up with me and keep me challenged."

"So you entered Basic Training three years earlier than normal?" The shrink peered at me consideringly. "And you met General Bayles during your training."

"Yeah. I was trying to score some brownie points by ratting out a guy in my dorm for taking amphetamines. Bayles was there doing his once-yearly tour for candidates for the Special Forces."

"And he singled you out for that?" the shrink finished for me.

"Yeah. I just didn't know it at the time. He just told me I had potential and arranged for me to go straight into Intel School after Basic. Which sucked because I wanted to go to Ground Forces School and play with the powered armor."

The shrink read a little more in my file. Whatever she read must have struck a chord because she stopped suddenly and sat back, giving me a long silent look. "Captain, these aptitude scores and intake evaluation -- you were routed into Infiltration. Why? You would have been much more useful in Human Intel Analysis."

"No pictures in that file, huh?" I asked dryly.

She blinked at me incredulously. "They -- Bayles routed you into Infiltration because of your looks?"

I shook my head again. "That and the fact that after the training they gave me all I had to do was smile at somebody and they'd practically wrap themselves around my finger. Gay or straight. Come to think of it, there were more than a few who swore they were straight even after they'd gone to bed with me. You think they were going to waste that kind of talent on HIA? Hell no."

"Captain, you're implying that General Bayles required you to -- what, whore yourself in the course of your duties?" the shrink asked. She looked like she'd bit into a lemon, that's how obviously distasteful she found it.

"I wasn't the only one. I'm sure McCall's given you the files about how my son Jason came about. Though that was a case of Bayles setting one whore on another. Or rather, three whores on another. I'd say I came out on top but that wouldn't be entirely true." Heh. I wish Van was here, he'd be giggling like a maniac, the little perv.

The joke went right over the shrink's head since she just flipped another couple of pages in my file, clearly still only half-believing me. Geez, I hope my kid turns out to be a better shrink than this. This one's got no sense of humor at all.

"Doc, can I make a suggestion?"

"Of course, Captain."

I looked away, then back at her, trying to figure out how to phrase this best. "You might want to look a little further than just my case when you're investigating Bayles. McCall said Bayles had exobytes of files. They weren't all about me. You might want to see if there's any similarities. Like in the ages of the people he recruited. Psych profiles. Things like that. And remember that ... well. In the Marines, sometimes it isn't fear or intimidation that gets the most done. It's... well, hero worship."

The shrink looked at me for a long moment. "As in the hero worship of a seventeen year old boy who's just caught the eye of a man who could be identified as the ideal Marine?"

I twitched my head. "Yeah."

Loss of Signal in 5..4..3..

2010-01-08T10:31:00.002-05:00

Hello everybody, it's been a while. I bring news of unhappy import.

I know I said that I was going to send out a last goodbye on the podcast before I signed off for good, but circumstances have decreed otherwise. The podcast will go offline forever on February 8th, 2010. Likewise, the CafePress store is now also offline.

I've been forced to take this step because I lost my job at the Postal Service. I've been out of work since November 20th. A lot of things happened in connection with losing my job which I don't feel at liberty to divulge to you all, and anyway you all know I'd rather cut off a foot than talk about anything unfortunate to all of you. You're not tuning in to listen to me bitch, you're here for the 'borgs and the magic. I'm also paranoid that anything I may say in a public forum may be used against me. Yeah. It's that kind of crazy.

I've also had some considerable trouble and delay in getting my unemployment compensation started. The wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly here in the State of Georgia. The upshot is that at this moment I have less than $100 in the bank and I still don't know if I'm going to be getting unemployment. The decision was supposed to be yesterday, but they've delayed it another four days til Monday. If they decide for me, I'll be getting the money starting Tuesday. But it's by no means a done deal I'll be getting unemployment. This is why I've had to cancel the Libsyn account and shut down the CafePress store. The simple fact is I can no longer afford to keep it going. Even if I get the unemployment, I'll be getting roughly half of what I made at the Post Office.

So all non-essentials have to be cut away. And as much as the podcast and the publishing is essential to my mental health and well-being, they are not strictly essential for survival.

So that's the score.

This isn't how I meant for things to be. But that's life. You watch it fall apart, you find yourself thinking about the dissolution of all things, and you start over. This is the way of things, the way of the Force.

As Blogspot is still free this site will stay up. I'm still not writing anything, but if I do it will appear here and here only. You can contact me via the comments system here on the site or direct on e-mail at auntyproton@gmail.com.

Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By!

2009-07-19T18:09:00.002-04:00

Today's schluffing off of the show is not intentional.

It appears my Windows XP machine, Copernicus, has decided it no longer wants to run Audacity or take input from my headset. I got all plugged in this afternoon with the text of Chapter 3 in front of me, I even recorded the entire vocal track. I go back to the beginning to start the editing and it refuses to budge. Will not play back. And worse, will not save the project file.

This may be due to several factors, most notably the facts that (A), I've been using this headset for over 2 years ever since episode 2 or 3 of the show, and (B) Copernicus desperately needs a new hard drive. Desperately as in there are 5 gig left on a 60gig HD, and there is not enough space left to do a defrag on the drive. This is the original HD and I have never re-installed to clean off the crud. This is because my iTunes directory is on there and despite following every set of directions I have ever found for transferring the iTunes library to an external HD, I have never been able to make it work. Thus I cannot reformat and reinstall without loosing something like 15 gig of music and audiobooks. A new HD, drive imaging and install will cost approximately $250. I have the means. But it may take a few days depending on how quickly the so-called Geek Squad at Best Buy can work.

(I am loathe to hand any of my machines over to anyone else to care for, but I do not have the means or knowledge to do the required work. Once, many moons ago, I could build my own computers. No longer, alas. Technology like time has marched on.)

I have tried to record on my Ubuntu machine, Galileo, but the intricacies of getting a USB headset to work with Linux are legendary and also beyond my capabilities. I love Ubuntu, but I ain't got no mad skillz in it.

So my apologies for the silence. I will get back to you as soon as mechanically possible.

Carol

Not a One Off! Telaon Chapter 2!

2009-07-12T19:48:00.002-04:00

Okay so here's your second chapter of Telaon. Click right here.

In other thoughts, what if someday a vast swarm of robots descends upon us from space and releases a cloud of disassembler nanos, but it doesn't destroy anything but sucks all the carbon and extra methane and CFCs out of the air and so, maybe, like, twenty years after the aliens land and say, "Oh we're realtors, you're planet's been sold but the buyers wanted it cleaned up first. And they're talking about calling in the exterminators. You might want to leave."

Then what do we do?!?

Long Period Comet? No, Just Me.

2009-07-08T20:25:00.002-04:00

Greetings, sports fans. Your Humble Author has returned.

So now that things have substantially settled down from my relocation to Gainesville, I grow weary of my idle hands. Thus with the arrival of July, I have returned to the virtual airwaves with two episodes of the Atrocious Adventure Podcast.

First off is an essay entitled Transhumanism Isn't What We'll Gain, But What We'll Give Up from my new occasional venture Project 2230. Afterward, some news and update. Doawnload the podcast episode here.

Second, after months of delay, I bring you the first chapter of Telaon, my young adult sci-fi novel I first spoke of way back last year. Chapter 1 introduces Jevan Nowell, a super-genius escaping from the private island where he's been held a virtual prisoner all his life. During his escape, he finds something in the forest... and then something else finds him. Download the first chapter here.

As per my usual tradition, new episodes will come out on Sunday nights barring unforeseen circumstances.

So off we go again, folks.

Last Journal

2009-04-17T20:45:00.002-04:00

"Everything's ready. The catacombs are complete. I finished the short-cut just today. The first cavern, full of potatoes. The second, turkeys. The third, thirty cases of canned beets. I have the freezer here, the electrical box, the table and chair. Now, all that's left is to wait. Someone will fall into my trap soon. Man can not live by white meat alone. Every once in a while, a guy just wants a steak."

Inspred by "Underground" by Alexey Andeleev.

The Previous Surreality Brought To You By...

2009-04-17T17:05:00.002-04:00

If you are perhaps following me on Twitter, look for the hashtag #AndreevStory for nuggets like the last post.

In the meantime, if you are so inclined give Andreev's art a look and see what kind of oddness it inspires in you. Write, if so inclined. And give me a holler at auntyproton@gmail.com with a link if you don't mind sharing it with the world. I'll post it here. Maybe I'll do a website for the collection, if there's enough response.

What You Walkin' On?

2009-04-17T16:55:00.002-04:00

I found an old man in a wooden lifeboat, rowing his way through space toward a ring of burning white light. A spiral path of stones seemed to mark the path he followed.

I walked up beside the boat and kept pace as he rowed. "So. Where ya headed?" I asked.

"Kansas City," he answered in a gruff tone.

"How ya gettin' there?" I asked next.

"Gonna walk," he answered as he pulled once more on the oars.

I sped up to keep pace as the lifeboat pulled away. "That's a boat but I don't see any water. What're your oars pullin' on?"

He looked up briefly and pulled again while the lifeboat creaked. "Yeah well... what you walkin' on?"

Inspired by "Gate" in the artwork of Alexey Andreev

The Future: Moving On In!

2009-04-07T19:42:00.002-04:00

Check out the fluidity of the movement on this thing. This is the kind of movement Trouble and the gang would be capable of. Not clunky big giant robot moves -- grace like this.

Influences

2009-03-25T12:07:00.002-04:00

My fellow sci-fi writer Mathew Wayne Selznick commented on Twitter that he'd found the show that really influenced him on Hulu -- Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". I too love "Cosmos", though I am more influenced by it in book form.

But when I asked myself what influenced me in my writing, the first thing that came to mind is a TV movie from the early 1990's called "Plymouth". It most especially influenced my Zulu-5 stories and my short novella "The Shepherds of M15" (the third story in The Curve of Shadow and the 3rd and 4th shows of the podcast). "Plymouth" was actually a TV pilot that didn't sell, though it was written by the guy who wrote "MacGyver". Maybe it was the cost of it that killed it, since it was one of the most expensive pilots ever made. But it had an actual astronaut in it, one of the Apollo astronauts who actually walked on the Moon -- Pete Conrad.

But what got me is that it portrayed a realistic view of what a lunar colony would actually be like to live in. Not ray guns or aliens or FTL drives. More like water tanks, mining equipment, growing your own food and re-processing all your wastes. It showed the inhabitants dealing with solar flares, radiation poisoning, bone degradation from a 1/6th gravity, and whether or not a child conceived in that gravity would develop normally. It dealt with the fact that once you have a child on the Moon, that child will be adapted for that gravity and can never go back to Earth. Once you have a child in space, you have passed the point of no return. That is the point at which humankind will irrevocably be a spacefaring, multi-planet species. Did the characters influence my borgs and the others? You'd have to tell me.

"Plymouth" is on YouTube. Go to this page for a listing of the links to the vid parts. I actually have it on VHS from where I recorded it when it aired on ABC, but I'm so glad to know it's on the net now. And y'know, I'd be pleased as punch if somebody put it out on DVD.

Hello Twitterverse!

2009-03-01T21:22:00.002-05:00

Hello. For those of you who have just found my humble abode from following me on Twitter, my name is Carol E. Meacham. By day I am a postal worker currently undergoing a precarious job transfer. The rest of the time I am a self-published science-fiction writer and podcaster. This blog site is the information catch-all for my work. Such as it is. I've been rather in a slump lately.

To the right of this page you will find a short list of links for various of my works. Of primary importance is my podcast, the Atrocious Adventure Podcast. In the archives there you will find a total of five different large works and a veritable myriad of aimless meandering drivel. In order, the stories are:

In "The Curve of Shadow" anthology:

"Public Assistance"
"Khamaira's Journey"
"The Shepherds of M15"

My first novel, "Machina Obscura"

Its sequel, "Aquaria"

My 2005 NaNoWriMo Arthurian fantasy novel, "The Fall of Avalon", which was simulcast in text form at the Fall of Avalon wiki site.

And a series of sci-fi novellas about a bunch of working-class cyborgs called "Zulu-5", which consists of:

"Zulu-5"
"Zulu-5: Tantalus and Sweet Charity"
"Zulu-5: Seeds of Invasion"
"Zulu-5: The Family You Choose"

I think I've made it fairly obvious in the podcast episode titles as to what's part of a book and what's not. If it says something like "Aquaria, Chapter [X]" or "The Fall of Avalon, part [x]" it's a chapter of a story. If it's something like "Iron Man and Z5" it's generally meaningless drivel about whatever was on my mind at the time interspersed with excuses why I haven't been writing. I try to file all those under the "Extras" tag and the story parts under "podcasts". Don't ask. My logic sometimes escapes even myself.

Some of my stuff I have actually gotten into print form, and even so far as to being listed on Amazon. You can find links to these in the link section to the right, and at my store on CafePress. At some point when things settle down with the day job there may be a collected version of Zulu-5 in the offing.

I also have a brand-new completed Young Adult sci-fi novel called "Telaon". It's finished, and the cover art appears a few posts below this post. The plan at the moment is to release it on Podiobooks.com, but at the moment I have no time to record and edit it. The ongoing sordid saga of the job transfer has completely screwed up my life at the moment. I hope things will be settled down in 2 or 3 months to allow me to return to this project.

In the meantime, you can listen to my strangely accented voice on the podcasts or take a gander at the text of Avalon. You can reach me on Twitter under the name "auntyproton". Or you can e-mail me and tell me what you think in exhaustive detail.

Thanks for your interest!

Back in the Saddle ... Briefly!

2009-01-09T18:37:00.002-05:00

A couple of days ago Your Humble Author recorded what MAY turn out to be the first episode of Telaon for Podiobooks.com. With new music and everything. At the moment it is at the mercy of the good folk of the Podiobooks mentoring community as to its merits or lack thereof.

It felt good to get back under the headset and lay down some bits. (Yes, still using the headset mic, alas. Even with Service Pack 3 on XP I couldn't get the $100 microphone to work.) I don't think I quite have the characters down yet, but that will happen as I go along. Check the previous post for the cover art!

So Your Humble Author is getting there, albeit in a slow and plodding manner.

Still no word on the job transfer.

I've been chewing on a couple idle thoughts for stories as well. I'll get back to you about that.

It Beats Chewing My Fingernails Off!

2009-01-06T21:51:00.002-05:00

So life has been kind of stressful lately what with the continuing lack of info regarding the job transfer. Important details like where I'll be transfered, when I'm leaving, and all the stuff that hinges on it like selling my house, finding somewhere to live, packing up, moving, that kind of thing, none of which are at hand at the moment but could happen any fragging minute. Some people clean house when they get like this. Me? I do stuff like this.

Oh, and by the way, I recorded the first chapter of Telaon for Podiobooks today.

Well heck, it's been raining all day and it was either that or eat.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Great Changes Are A-Foot!

2008-11-24T13:23:00.001-05:00

Watch your feeds for a podcast update in the near future. Great changes are a-foot for Your Humble Author!

Join Me in My Crazy Wild-Hair Idea Place!

2008-09-02T19:34:00.003-04:00

If you're a fan of the podcast you have heard a little about this already, but I thought I'd throw it on here with some update action.

Some several weeks ago now, I was on the forum community for Mur Lafferty's "I Should Be Writing" and posted about a crazy wild-hair idea I'd been kicking around in my head. I wrote that I wanted to publish a quarterly sci-fi magazine that was all novella-length stories, since the humble novella has few avenues for publication these days. The big-name magazines want stuff under 7k words for the most part, and the great lands between 7k and 80 to 100k words are largely unpublished. Asimov's and Analog to publish at least one novella in each issue, but you'll notice there are usually 3 or 4 or more shorter pieces. But being a novella writer and apparently constitutionally incapable of writing a true short-story, I wander those unpublished lands myself. And I know people will read them -- the novella length encompasses a great deal of fanfic. So there's a need there, and a lot of untapped potential.

At first I thought to do this in print, but after thinking about it for a few days I realized that I would pretty much have to do this in electronic text format, PDF by preference. This would realistically allow me to offer yearly subscriptions for $20, or an individual issue cover price of $5 each. And I would like to do 10 to 12 stories per issue. The word count range would be 15 to 35 thousand words. This means each issue would be between 150 thousand and 350 thousand words... a possibly staggering amount of verbiage. This would be the equivalent of 1 or 2 large novels per issue... untenable if I were to do this in print. Hence the electronic text, bandwidth for downloads being much cheaper and easier to deal with than all the myriad costs of printing, binding, shipping and handling.

But the work of editing, layout, artwork, slush pile reading and all the rest of the publishing biz would be the same, albeit considerably lightened by the use of computers. Ditto the neccessary work of promotion and the buisiness of the business such as the bookkeeping. There would be a lot to learn -- I'm fairly confident I could be a good line editor and could handle the guidance of the magazine as a whole. With a good accounting program I could probably keep track of the books enough that an overworked clerk at H&R Block wouldn't tear their hair out when I brought in the data. But promotion and artwork is beyond me. And as for the slush pile, that can be reduced from a monster the size of a small moon to something of merely Cthuluic proportions by asking authors to submit only the first 5 thousand words for the initial query, and then contacting them individually if the story impresses me. But still, I'd need a couple of slush pile readers. There are also at least a million other considerations regarding details, but ... it could be done.

It's feasible. Advisable? Probably not. It would mean I would have to give up my own writing for at least the first year, if not permanently. This would take all my time outside of my day job. It would become my life.

So it's a lot to think about, and I have been thinking about it a lot.

I have also floated a trial balloon out to the Force, so to speak, and now I write it here. If this project is meant to be, I have asked that the Force send me the means to accomplish it. And the Force, I believe, has already begun to send such my way. I met two editors at DragonCon who are willing to teach me how to line edit. One, I hope, may be interested in helping with the magazine when I have the time to send her a detailed e-mail on the subject.

You might point and giggle at me for the whole "asking the Force" thing, but more than ten years ago I asked the Force to give me something to devote my life to. Only lately have I come to realize it did just what I asked... it gave me science-fiction. So yeah, the Force is with me. Be careful what you wish for, kids. It's listening. And keeping notes.

So a science-fiction novella magazine may be in the future for Atrocious Adventure Publishing. I'll keep you posted.

Zulu-5 The Family You Choose

2008-08-14T17:59:00.003-04:00

Here's the direct download link for the latest (and 4th!) Zulu-5 story, The Family You Choose.

Zulu-5: The Family You Choose

Seeds of Invasion ~podcast links

2008-08-05T13:01:00.002-04:00

Here's the links for direct download for all three parts of Seeds of Invasion, the 3rd Zulu-5 story, courtesy of Libsyn of course...

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

If you have any trouble with these links, please do let me know at hb88@bellsouth.net and I'll fix it.

Now there's an odd feeling....

2008-07-21T22:12:00.002-04:00

Given the differences in year length and planetary revolution, our boy Trouble is actually 88.5 Earth years old.

When he told Bayles in Tantalus and Sweet Charity that he is 47 years old, he meant Martian years. Which are 1.88 times as long as Earth's, 512 Earth days. So by a standard Earth 365 day year, he's 88.5 years old.

Weird, huh?

NEWSFLASH! Jaw Dropping News Ahead!

2008-07-14T15:37:00.002-04:00

You might say I've been given express permission to continue to call myself Your Humble Award-Winning Author. Or at least Your Humble Award-Nominated Author...

Last night I came home to find an e-mail notifying me that the Atrocious Adventure Podcast has been nominated for the Parsec Awards. This is an award that in the last few years has become sort of the Hugos for speculative fiction podcasting. And someone out there nominated me by anonymous ballot. Whoever did so, I am touched and deeply honored.

Last night I went through an amazing progression of shock, elation and disbelief. But now I have to get down to business and turn in my submission of an excerpt of the podcast for this last year. I was thinking either that scene with Morgaine and the Grail from the next to last episode of Avalon, or maybe Trouble's desk-bashing scene from Tantalus and Sweet Charity, either of them prime examples of my finest hours. If I do say so myself...

In any case, it looks like now I'll be going to DragonCon. So look for me there!

Nya-nya! I've got something you don't got!

2008-06-20T07:10:00.002-04:00

Part 2 of Seeds of Invasion is recorded and ready to go. But you'll have to wait for Sunday night to get it in the feed.

And it's a long one. Over an hour. Bwahahahaha!

Zulu-5: Seeds of Invasion

2008-06-15T22:59:00.003-04:00

The new Zulu-5 story Seeds of Invasion begins tonight on the podcast! Go now, download, listen, and enjoy! Click the podcast link to the right (try the one in the link list, I'm not so sure about the subscribe button and may take it out soon) and marvel that I finally got this thing done! I know I am!

Next Z5 in Second Draft, Still No Title!

2008-06-08T20:38:00.003-04:00

The 3rd Zulu-5 Story is now in the second draft, and Your Humble Award-Winning Author already has the ideas for the next one based on the underlying theme of this 3rd one and an idea for a story for Rumble I've had for some time. It will involve an Earth (or Mars) Shattering Revelation for Trouble. Watch the podcast feed for a preview!

It's a Writer Thing

2008-05-28T07:03:00.002-04:00

You know how you can have everything planned out -- well, more or less -- and then everything looks like it's ticking along fairly well? And you think, "I'm doing fairly well" and feel all pleased and looking forward to getting finished with it?

"Fairly well" is a challenge to your subconscious. It's an invitation for your characters to go postal on your butt. So to speak.

I thought I was almost done with the 3rd Zulu-5 story. But circumstances and characters have conspired to go COMPLETELY OFF THE RAILS and now I dunno when this will be done. But in my defense, even I didn't see this one coming. This kind of thing makes good stories. So bear with me, all right?

And for the record, this time IT WASN'T TROUBLE'S FAULT.

Maybe I'll do a preview on the podcast soon.

*sigh*

A Theory .. or a Crackpot Idea, whichever

2008-04-15T08:14:00.002-04:00

Greetings, K-Mart Shoppers, your Humble Award-Winning Author is once again hard at work on the next Zulu-5 story. After, it must be said, a lengthy and aimless detour. Kind of like a 3 Stooges plot. But I'm okay now. Listen to the latest podcast ("Iron Man and Z5") for details.

That said, I wish to put forth a theory that I have developed. Maybe you have seen this too.

It seems to me that with the Internet these days, everybody wants to be a creator -- everybody writes blogs, puts up photos on Flickr, crafts things to sell, puts videos on YouTube, writes fanfic, you name it -- but it seems to me that far fewer people are interested in consuming all that content. I would be interested to know some statistics on how much content is posted daily verses how much is consumed. For instance, how many blog posts are posted on Blogger verses how many page views, in total. How many vids posted on YouTube verses how many views. Get those statistics for every major form of content distribution, and add them all together.

The point is, everybody wants to create. "Look at me, look at me!" But how many people are actually interested in reading, viewing, etc?

On the one hand it seems like the culture has turned into a spoiled three year old constantly going "Loom mommy! Look mommy!" On the other it seems like a monumental case of narcissism. The entire online culture going "Ain't I a stinker?" like Bugs Bunny. On the third hand, I guess it means we've got some kind of culture. Just that it's all about funny cat videos and angst.

Note I say all this as a creator of online content myself. So take as you will.

What do you think?

The Tantalus Outline

2008-03-22T20:26:00.002-04:00

During the Tantalus Metacast podcast of a couple weeks ago, I mentioned I had actually done an outline. In point of fact, this is not exactly true. In true bass-ackwards style, I did what can more properly be called a synopsis. It ended up being my outline for Tantalus, which I followed fairly closely.

Let me show you it.

Note, however, that my own print-out of this included some penciled-in notes as to which one of the guys was speaking at the time, Rage or Trouble. Alas, be grateful I don't have a scanner since my handwriting is barely legible after more than a quarter century of typing.

Ta!

Yr. Humble Award-Winning Author

==========

Zulu-5: Tantalus and Sweet Charity
~notes~

Plot synopsis (tentative)

After the events of “Zulu-5”, the team arrives at the Europa Resources company colony nicknamed “Sweet Charity” by its denizens. Charity is quite possibly the richest colony in the Jovian system outside of military colonies, rich from harvesting Europan ice and producing various kinds of fuels for the ship traffic between Earth, Mars, and the Jovian system. There is also a considerable military presence at Charity, providing security in the “wild west” atmosphere. All of this makes Charity the hub of the Jovian system, a waystation and transfer point for all the mining and other colonies in the outer system. As such, it gets a lot of riff-raff.
Rage, Trouble, Rumble and Danger arrive with all the other refugees from Chronos, nervous about what they're going to do now or where they're going to be assigned or if they've been transferred to some other company or if they're going back to Mars. For the moment they're stuck as Rumble and Danger desperately need repairs. As Chronos's top brass disappear into meetings and debriefings for days on end, the 'borg teams are left pretty much to themselves with the run of most of the colony.

One day as T and Rage are hanging out on Charity's main concourse, a group of the top brass of Charity's military contingent pass them going the other way. T literally stops talking in mid sentence and turns to watch the leader, a gray-haired general, go past him and continue on down the concourse. Rage asks him what's wrong and T avoids the question and says nothing.
Later on, while Rumble is getting repaired and T is staying with Danger, Rage goes out walking alone in one of the colony's gigantic hangar bays. A bunch of disreputable freighter bum types start following him. As he walks on, a rather obese and questionable woman working on a barely-spaceworthy ship calls out to Rage asking him to toss up her toolbox. Rage, being the nice guy that he is, starts looking around among the crates under the ship for the tool box – and the guys who had been following him jump him. Rage yelps and starts to fight them off, but before he can do anything one of them hits him with some sort of weapon that overwhelms his power system and shuts him down. The bums drag him up into the ship and a few minutes later wheel a large crate out of the ship toward another ship several berths down the line. Minutes later, both ships request launch clearance and leave Europa.

T, meanwhile, starts to realize there's something wrong when Rage doesn't come back. Rumble's repairs are done and he's up and around, but the engineers say that Danger may need a new body altogether, an expensive prospect that none of them have the credit for even if they all went in together on it. One of Europa Resources's reps tells Rumble and T that it may be possible to get Danger into a new body specially adapted for underwater exploration work on Europa itself, but that would leave the problem of what to do with the rest of the team. T and Rumble decide to go out looking for Rage, but when he doesn't answer their calls on the radio they head for the colony's security office instead. They get the security office to put out an APB on Rage, only to come up with nothing. That clenches it. Rage is officially missing.

T badgers the security guys to go through the security camera tapes and soon find vid of Rage talking to the woman at the ship and the assault. T then demands to know where General Bayles's office is, surprising everyone in the room that he even knew the General's name. T tells them to get him a track on both ships that left soon after the assault and practically marches to the General's office, telling Rumble he'll handle it.

The General, of course, says he has no time for 'borgs unless T is there to volunteer for hazardous combat duty. T says there's no need, he did that once and got shafted for it and ended up a 'borg since the firing squad would have really messed up his day. He reintroduces himself as Captain Alan Masefield, Martian Special Forces, Meridiani division, and says the General might do well to remember a kid he himself had trained. T had been a rising star in the Martian Special Forces, protege of a General, maybe just a bit too smart for his own good and well aware of it. One of the guys who had been passed over for promotion when T made Captain ended up being under his command – and pissed about it. During a recon mission to check one of the smaller dirtgrubber colonies in Acidalia, this goomba rigged a grenade on the colony's water storage tanks and set a tripwire. T didn't know the goomba had done it, it wasn't authorized, and when one of the colony's inhabitants trips the grenade it kills a dozen people and destroys their water supplies and their water-recovery equipment. T was framed for the deaths and the destruction and the goomba got promoted. T was given the choice of either the cyborg corps or the firing squad. He chose to become a 'borg. Just before he was to be shipped out on his first assignment in Mars's polar regions, he went AWOL and left Mars, and he hadn't been back since.

T explains the situation with Rage's kidnapping and tells the General he wants to “borrow” some weapons. These people must be pretty damned confident if they're kidnapping a cyborg in broad daylight in the most populous colony this side of Mars, so these people probably won't have any qualms about shooting back and T wants the bigger guns. The General counters by threatening to haul T in on desertion charges. T asks if the goomba who framed him is still in the service, maybe up to General himself by now, and how many other people he'd murdered or framed to get there, and who might have helped him, and gee isn't it amazing how good he's gotten at infiltrating computer systems since that was a hobby of his on Chronos. The General starts to call for his bodyguard detail and T smashes his hand down on the General's handheld radio, instantly destroying it, and tells the General that if he'd wanted an argument he'd have sent an e-mail. The General reluctantly agrees to T's demands, gives T the weapons he asks for and a military ship – and another military cyborg as “escort”. T just knows that whole can of worms is going to be a bitch to deal with for a very long time to come, but for the moment he's got more important fish to fry.

More than a day later, Rage wakes up chained to a table in some dark, cold, dirty place with this mouthbreather with bad teeth sneering down at him. His chest plastron is open and the guy is poking around inside Rage's chest with a screwdriver. With absolutely no warning, the guy begins stabbing things inside Rage's chest. In only seconds he's lost his radio and his vocal chip – he can't call out and he can't talk! Then the mouthbreather shoves some other module into an empty dataport, slaps Rage's plastron closed, and reaches down to dig out his data wire from its port. He rips the datawire completely out of Rage's body. In pain, low on power and unable even to scream, Rage lands in a heap on the floor when the mouthbreather unchains him and dumps him off the table. There's practically no gravity at all, less even than Chronos, and the mouthbreather kicks Rage until he gets up.

It quickly becomes apparent that this is some kind of illegal mining operation, about two dozen fleshies and more than a hundred stolen cyborgs. The cyborgs are kept on very restricted power rations, which are increased or decreased according to behavior and productivity. They are not given any kind of maintenance. Once a cyborg becomes too damaged to work, their biopods are ripped out of their heads and thrown into the smelting furnace. The 'borgs soon learn its survival of the fittest. No trick is too dirty, and you learn real quick to scavenge whatever you can from the discarded 'borg bodies. Rage attracts the unwelcome attentions of the leader of the cyborgs, gets called “Martian pretty boy”. Scared, hurting, and wondering what the hell is going to happen to him and where the hell he is, Rage tries to get with the program before someone decides they want to rearrange his face.

Meanwhile, back with Trouble and his military cyborg escort, the track from Europa on the two escaping ships diverges – one of the ships is headed for Lysithea, a tiny irregular moon of Jupiter similar to Amalthea with a free colony of its own. The other ship seems to be heading off into a long elliptical orbit of Jupiter, apparently going nowhere. Guessing that the ship going off into Jovian orbit may be waiting on the other ship to conduct business at Lysithea, and afraid that may mean bad news for Rage, T decides to hit up Lysithea first and try to recover Rage before anything happens.

They land on Lysithea and start hunting up the guys who just landed – turns out it's the freighter bums who jumped Rage in the security vid. T learned a long time ago that trying to sneak anywhere when you're 7 feet tall and 350 kg is kind of pointless – it's a lot more effective to play up the angry giant cyborg angle when you want to scare the bejesus out of somebody. Bayles's watchdog doesn't try to stop T from scaring the willies out of the bums, but it turns out the bums aren't scared of him. Aren't scared of either of them, in fact, which is kind of odd considering Bayles's watchdog is bigger and way scarier than T. The bums make some kind of snide remarks about the "Martian pretty boy" and that the last one was "an airheaded SOB" and T just loses it. He slams the bums up against the wall and threatens to tear their ****ing heads off if he doesn't find Rage when he tears their ship apart. The bums just laugh and make even more snide remarks about T not having the balls. T snips right back that having titanium in your shorts makes life a hell of a lot simpler and proves it by kicking them both in the groin. Then he leaves them groveling on the floor and goes to search their ship. As Lysithea really doesn't have any law or security to speak of, no one objects. But there's no sign of Rage.

T and Bayles's watchdog get back to their ship and despite his fear that Rage is in deep doodoo T forces himself to wait for the freighter bums to leave Lysithea, hoping they'll hook up with the other suspect ship. Considering the ship seemed to be going off into nowhere, headed for no known colonies, there's nowhere they could have gone. But the freighter bums are obviously working with whoever took Rage. T tries not to think of how much money can be made selling a valuable piece of high technology like a cyborg.

Back at Tantalus, Rage tries to escape and steal a ship, but is caught, borg-taserd and beaten up by the big ugly kit-bashed construction borg who works for the fleshies and the sadistic fleshy who destroyed Rage's radio, voice chip and data line. Comes out of it with a damaged right arm and left knee joint. And even more scared, since the whole survival of the fittest depends on how fit you are.

Meanwhile, Trouble discovers there's a moon there after all, a tiny nickel-iron and rock chunk only 4km in diameter that isn't listed in the Jupiter system. Picking up the radio transmissions from the moon, he learns the inhabitants call it Tantalus. T and his military cyborg "escort" invade the place and find about a dozen fleshies and over a hundred kidnapped cyborgs, plus the remains of many more who have had their biopods ripped out. During the confusion Rage tries to escape again, thinking that the miners' enemies must be making an attempt to take the place. He finds the sadistic fleshy guy tasering one of the other borgs nearly to death and lays into the guy with a shovel. The kit-bashed borg pulls him off the guy and starts whaling on Rage and during the fight the fleshy manages to taser him so the kit-bashed borg can get the upper hand. The kit-bashed borg is about to shove Rage into the smelter when T shows up like the calvary. He shoots the borg and backhands the fleshy, killing him in the process.

T gets him out and back to the ship, along with a few other borgs who want out.
On the way back to Europa, Trouble realizes how close he came to losing Rage and gets very quietly homicidally furious, and realizes that the measure of that anger is how far he'd go to protect his team … but especially Rage. Rage, on the other hand, tries to come to grips with how close he came to getting killed, and is very clingy to T for the whole ride home to Europa.
Days later when they arrive at Europa, Rumble is waiting for them but the situation with Danger is still unresolved. Now, with the damage that Rage has sustained the team is really in a hole -- Rage needs extensive repair work and Danger needs very delicate surgery to repair his biopod and maybe even a new body. The team doesn't have that kind of cred saved up, and the grapevine says that Chronos's leadership is planning on terminating its contracts with the teams so they'll be out of a job too. Danger sort of wistfully says he wishes that all the borgs from Chronos could stay together, strike out on their own somehow.

General Bayles comes looking for T at that moment and says if T wants to get out from under the AWOL and desertion charges and doesn't want his friends to find out he was a deserter he'll have to take on some unofficial jobs for the military. T basically tells him to **** off, he's been with his team four times longer than he was in the military and if they haven't kicked him into orbit after all those years then they're not going to. T considers them even now, all debts paid. Bayles doesn't, and points out that T's biopod has a military identification number. Bayles can prove T is Alan Masefield, and can still slap his metal ass in shackles. T gives the General a long look, then says he can try but he'd better plan on hauling ass afterward since Rage will probably tear him apart, and Rumble and D will be right behind him.

T walks away, back into D and Rage's room, and asks D if he's serious about wanting to strike out on their own, 'cause it gave T an idea. What about if they could get one of the water mining companies to sponsor an all-cyborg expedition to Saturn, to scope out the possibilities of sending ice chunks from Saturn's rings back to Mars…

How to Cheat at Writing, #1

2008-03-18T20:46:00.002-04:00

If you get stuck, either bring in a new character or kill somebody off.

That is all.

Recording Has Begun!

2008-02-22T07:07:00.002-05:00

Just to inform you all, last night I did the music intro and the vocal text for the first part of Tantalus and Sweet Charity. It looks like it's going to be two long sections, the first came out to nearly an hour, and will be at least an hour with the intro and exit. And afterward an analysis of the story as an Extra.

So by Sunday night, I hope, I can upload!

"Tantalus" News

2008-02-10T18:27:00.000-05:00

The first draft of "Tantalus and Sweet Charity" is done!

Came out to 24,000 words. It was finished February 9th, and I even stayed up past my bedtime to do so. Your Humble Award-Winning Author is dedicated to her craft. And her cyborgs.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Sometimds I Crack Myself Up!

2008-02-05T18:49:00.000-05:00

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

LOL! RoFlMaO!!!

HeeHEEheeHAhaHAha!!!

Trouble ROOLZ! He ROOLZ!

He is made of WIN!

I'll Try to Stay Humble...

2008-01-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

Your Humble Author is now Your Prize-Winning Humble Author!

I was at ChattaCon 33 this past weekend and among the usual convention activities and merriment, my story "Public Assistance" won the adult short story category for the writing contest sponsored by the Chattanooga Speculative Fiction Fans. Many of you may recall that I did PA as the very first story I ever did on the podcast, and that it's also the first story in my anthology The Curve of Shadow. Well, PA has now won a $100 prize, and may at some point appear in print when the newly-created CSFF gets things organized for such activities. I'll let you know when I have the details.

In other news, work proceeds on "Tantalus and Sweet Charity". Trouble, being true to his name and nature, is not making the writing easy for Your Humble Prize-Winning Author. It's a case of "write three hundred words of history, then delete two-thirds of it because it slows down the action." Do any of you really need to know how much he freaked out in the middle of a sandstorm on Mars after he became a 'borg, or how he was pretty much given no choice in the matter? No, not really. E-mail me if you want to know, but until then it slows down the action. He's got to Save Rage! Here's a question for you hair-splitters: when a cyborg is taken, is he kidnapped or stolen? And do you file a missing persons or a theft report?

An Extra podcast is forthcoming, just to say hi.

The Fall of Avalon Finished!

2008-01-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

The Fall of Avalon is now complete on the podcast and on the wiki site!

Stats: 80,230 words (approximately); Divided into 16 sections for the podcast; about 160 pages single-spaced.

Look to the link list on the right for the Avalon wiki site for the text copy, released under the Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license. Go, peruse, read, opine, and if'n you feel like it leave a comment on the discussion pages! Or leave one here, via the comments button at the end of this post. I'm easy. No. Really. I am.

In other news: The next Zulu-5 story will be called "Tantalus and Sweet Charity" and now that I'm done with Avalon it's back to the moons of Jupiter for Your Humble Author! Trouble and Rage will be in it up to their optics again, so stick around for the scoop.

Podcast Programming Note: I'll be on hiatus while I'm writing "Tantalus" so stay subscribed, I'll be back soon.

Bug-Eyed Book Swap

2007-11-20T11:18:00.000-05:00

I've started a blog site for trading sci-fi books, so if you have any you'd like to trade go have a gander. I've got anonymous commenting turned on (with word verification), so even if you don't have a Blogger account you can leave messages by hitting the "comments" link at the bottom of any post.

Enjoy!

Update: If anyone's interested in seeing my notes and research for the Simulated Reality story (spoken of in the last couple of podcasts), here's my new online wiki for it.

E-mail List for the Simulated Reality Story

2007-11-18T22:34:00.000-05:00

If you would like to get chunks of the Simulated Reality story as I write it directly from my computer to yours, simply e-mail me and tell me so. I can't promise I'll be as punctual as I am with the podcast, but you'll get a fair chunk whenever I have enough to send. And no, I don't have a title for it yet. Sorry.

In the meantime, if you'd like to check out a couple of the videos in the research material for this new story, go to Google Video and type in:

What We Still Don't Know -- Are We Real?

(with the United Kingdom's Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees)

and

God On The Brain

(about the new and controversial field of Neurotheology)

More info as events progress.

Zulu-5 on AAP

2007-10-04T19:38:00.000-04:00

Hot off the Libsyn! Go here and download the podcast version of Zulu-5!

Zulu-5 ... Cover Art?

2007-09-27T21:10:00.000-04:00

Some possible cover art for my new story "Zulu-5"

Cover art for what, you may ask. Well, that's the beauty of publishing-on-demand through sites like CafePress and Lulu. They have comic book size, saddlestitched binding. Which, aside from being good for comic books, is excellent for publishing novellas and short stories.

And what's even better, with bulk order pricing they're about $3.50 each. Cheap enough to get 50 and hand them out free at ChattaCon.

So watch this space for further bulletins as events warrant. :-)

New Story News!

2007-09-22T21:28:00.000-04:00

Greetings, spoobles and sporks! I bring fresh news and frothy drinks! Or possibly frothy news and fresh drinks, whatever works for you...

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was playing around with an idea I've had for some time for generating new story ideas. Being fresh out of ideas and being painfully aware that Avalon won't last forever and I'll have to come up with something else for you rabid podzombies, I modified an idea from one of my writing advice books and came up with what I call the Story Tarot.

What you do is this: you make up a list of things found in stories and novels of your prefered genre. Here's a partial list of mine as example:

Robots
Human/Animal hybrid
Cyborgs
Alien
Artificial Intelligence
Alien/Human hybrid
Starship
Space Station
Aircraft
Asteroid
Meteor(ite)
Intergalactic Internet
Alien Probe
Moon Colony
Planet Colony

You also put in stuff like War, Persecution, Startling Archaeological Find, Anomaly, Unintended Consequences, Plague, whatever youd like. Do as many as you can. 50 is a good number, but whatever you can manage is fine.

Next, get a pack of blank cards -- index cards, flash cards, blank playing cards, whatever. Write each thing from your list onto the cards, one to a card. Once done, shuffle a bunch. Then start drawing out random cards from the deck. I usually need 6 to 8 cards, but however many you need is fine. Use these elements to create your story. With me, some of them naturally fall into either the setting or the conflict. Move the cards around, see what kind of connections you can make with the various combinations of elements. See what rises up out of the murk of your mind.

I did this a week or two ago and came up with 3 story ideas immediately. One of those ideas has now become a new story, a longish short story called Zulu-5. I just finished the first draft tonight. This is the first story I've finished for over 3 years, the first story I've stuck with all the way to the end for 3 years. And you know what? I think it'll work.

More news as events warrant!

Myspace, Your space, Cyberspace...

2007-09-02T21:48:00.000-04:00

I seem to have misquoted the address for my Myspace page on the podcast. Here's the actual, funtioning address.

http://www.myspace.com/auntyproton

Mea culpa.

Avalon is LIVE!

2007-08-26T22:39:00.000-04:00

Show #41 of the podcast is live and the text is on the wiki! Y'all come! Click the wiki link --->> or dowload the 'cast.

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!

2007-08-20T18:07:00.000-04:00

Attention Happy Campers and Savvy Shoppers! The Atrocious Adventure Podcast returns this Sunday night with the first installment of The Fall of Avalon. The wiki is now up and ready to be graced by the text (it'll be Sunday night when I post it, same as when I post the podcast). I'll also be posting the track list for the "soundtrack" on the wiki and (hopefully) as an iMix playlist on iTunes should you wish to purchase it. If you're a fan of Loreena McKinnett you may already have the soundtrack since the entire thing is drawn from her music!

And look to the right in the Links section for the link to the Avalon wiki!

Here Wiki, Wiki, Wiki!

2007-08-13T15:35:00.000-04:00

In an effort to get some kind of work done while on the last two days of my vacation (nine days, baby, YEAH!), I have gotten the wiki for Avalon started. There's not much there right now except my short bio and a sort of place holder on the home page, but there is a logo. Here's the link so you can go ahead and bookmark it now.

The Fall of Avalon Wiki

(Actually I have gotten some work done on it... all of two or three scenes. But I know where I'm going now, so just chill, okay?)

Son of Creative Commons

2007-07-30T11:29:00.000-04:00

For an explanation of Creative Commons.

Creative Commons

2007-07-25T21:01:00.001-04:00

Here's the Creative Commons deed for Attribution/Non-Commercial/Share Alike, if'n you're feeling a little peckish for words. This is the license under which The Fall of Avalon will be posted to the wiki.

Long Past Due Update!

2007-07-19T20:35:00.001-04:00

Okay, so your Humble Writer/Publisher gets into ruts or possibly gets sucked into a black hole from time to time. So get out your garbage bag raincoats and umbrellas and prepare to be splattered by the Update-o-Matic.

Podcast News: This past weekend was Show #39, Chapter 24 of Aquaria. For those of you who have been asleep, that's the next to last chapter. Meaning that this coming Sunday will be THE LAST CHAPTER OF AQUARIA! There are parts of me that are still somewhere back in, oh, say, Chapter 6. I can't believe I'm about to finish it. But there it is. So if you haven't been keeping up, please go and do so now.

Also in Podcast News: I shall be doing an Extra podcast with a preview of my next podcast project, my unfinished NaNoWriMo story "The Fall of Avalon" (see previous posts in this very blog for some info on that from when I was writing it). I have 50,000 words written on this thing and therefore I'll be finishing it while I'm podcasting it. I will also be doing something new for Avalon: I'll be posting the text to a wiki on Wikispaces and all of you will be able to comment upon it. Also ( - takes deep breath - ), I'll be posting it under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution Share Alike license. Which means you'll be able to edit, change, share, write fanfic, etc. Go here to read the Creative Commons license details.

Son of Also in Podcast News: I'll also be posting here and on the wiki a musical playlist of the songs that inspired Avalon. I can't remember if they still allow you to submit playlists on ITunes, but if they do and if all the songs are on ITunes, you'll be able to get that playlist and buy the Avalon soundtrack, composed entirely of songs by Loreena McKennitt.

Further news and the link for the wiki will be posted as events warrant!

Update, 4-9-2007

2007-04-09T11:25:00.000-04:00

Just posted Show #25 on the podcast.

In case you don't read the podcast page, it has come to my attention that it isn't just me and my wonky iPod that has problems with the show. If you have tried to pause the show and unpaused it at a completely different place, or watched it return to the menu when you tried to return to where you left off in the show, you're not alone. I have contacted the technical support folks for my MP3 encoder and I've implemented their suggestions concerning how I encode the show. Hopefully the problem is solved on #25. You might want to make sure your iPod's firmware is up to date as well, or comparable software for any other brand of MP3 player.

Work proceeds on Telaon. As I said on the podcast, Creative Commons looks better the more I read about it. When the time comes to release the book I will also be releasing the PDF version for free under the CC license. This, however, will be some months away (possibly by the end of the year, but don't count on it). First I have to finish the book, workshop the poodoo out of it, edit and proofread, and all the rest of it.

I have many reasons for this decision which I shall probably elucidate in an extra podcast sometime soon.

D'Oh!

2007-04-03T21:00:00.000-04:00

Yes, I said the wrong show number on the podcast.

It's SHOW #24, now Show #23. The filename, however, is correct.

Your Humble Writer/Publisher is contemplating attending Balticon, as it seems to be the place to be for podcasters and other folk of the New Media Sci-Fi Crowd.

Tortoise Tales

2007-03-27T17:35:00.000-04:00

Work proceeds on Telaon. I'm now about to start Chapter Seven and it's up to almost 40,000 words.

You may think that I'm taking things rather slow now, and you're right. It's a sad fact that the hardest part of writing a book is the middle -- at the start you've got the oomph of beginning a new thing, toward the end you're compelled by everything coming together and resolving itself to the end. In the middle, you're just slogging along through the swamp. Yes, all kinds of things happen and it can have its moments of fun and you're having fun watching your characters get themselves into and out of trouble. But really, it's still a swamp and you're still slogging along.

In other news, due to wonky chapter lengths I'm now up to the end of Chapter Seven on the podcast of Aquaria. As ever, should you wish to subscribe to the podcast, look us up on ITunes or at www.aapodcast.libsyn.com. It's all free no matter how you get it.

I have been pondering Creative Commons licensing and the advisability of giving away PDF versions of Telaon when the time comes I need consider such things seriously. If you have any opinions regarding CC, good or bad, I would be happy to hear them. Of course I would also release a print version of Telaon, but also under CC license.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions for conventions I could attend in the next year (in the Southeast US, naturally), I'd be happy to consider them. Just hit the link to the right for my e-mail.

Rollin' rollin' rollin', keep them words a rollin'...

2007-03-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

Update on Telaon:

Now up to a manuscript total of 28,036 words.

Did 1,223 tonight.

Currently doing Chapter 5.

Telaon Update

2007-03-01T22:04:00.000-05:00

Tonight's total wordcount: 23,396.

The Best Laid Plans, aka Murphy Shrugged

2007-02-25T21:52:00.000-05:00

Or, Why Bacteria Rool De Earth.

These two weeks were to be my Intense Writing Time. Dagnabbit! I WAS GOING TO GET THIS BOOK STARTED!

Well, I got the book started.

And then, the Streptococcus bacteria got me. And they laughed. And laughed. And laughed. In their myriads and googleplexes they laughed.

And I ... am not laughing. I am also not swallowing much. And I dread going to bed tonight because I got all of about 2 hrs. of very painful sleep last night and I really don't look forward to a repeat.

But fortunately, I already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for Monday, so by 11:30 AM I should be getting some nice batch of Amoxycilin or some other wonder of modern antibacteriology to eliminate the myriads and googleplexes of laughing Streptococci. Who will promptly all sign on to the bacteriological version of a chat room, compare notes, take a vote, and promptly mutate into something harder to kill.

All of this could have been avoided, my friends, if folks realize that when they're coughing their heads off they need to STAY HOME. If you are coughing your head off, I don't care if I haven't seen you in a while. Please don't sit next to me at work for 2 hours coughing and filling the airspace that I must breathe with Streptococci. They love me. They have loved me all my life and have been competing all my life with the mosquitoes to see who loves me more. It's safe to say that I would be a hell of a lot happier if I saw a lot LESS Streptococci in my life. Kind of like "friends" who share their bacteria along with the family gossip.

*sigh*

I cannot concentrate or create ANYTHING when I am like this. I can't go to work, I can't go anywhere, and I CAN'T WRITE when my throat hurts so much I can't bear to swallow.

Now I'm all pissed off again.

And tired. I've been up for the better part of 36 hrs. now and in pain for all of it so you can see I'm just a little on the torqued off side right now.

I mean, I'm so pissed I just considered doing my own Wikipedia entry for myself. Just to cheer myself up.

Remember, boys and girls. We don't live in the containment labs at the CDC. We have to breathe the air everyone else breathes out. Be respectful of others. DON'T come to work if you're hacking and coughing. Virii and Bacteria are the original gifts that keep on giving, and no one wants them in the first place.

Place your bets! Tonight's numbers...

2007-02-18T19:48:00.000-05:00

Today's word counts:

Today: 3925
Manuscript in total: 16,846
Pages completed: 52

Had a terrifying moment this morning right after I started work when my writing computer Copernicus suddenly stopped dead and the screen went totally black. It was not responding to keyboard or trakball input. Thinking to use the trick I used to use on Newton here when it froze up on demanding video games, I unplugged it and turned it over to take the battery out but there must be a trick to Compaq battery doors that I don't know because I can't get the battery out. And yes, I did the slide button. I came back in here and looked up what to do and after reading a tech support article wherein they said hold the "on" button down for up to a minute, I did that and it went pop and turned off. I also found several articles pertaining to Compaq laptops being prone to overheating. This is what killed my last computer,WorldWatch One. So I ran down to my local neighborhood Office Despot and obtained a Very Good Thing: a Targus laptop cooling pad.

I can now highly reccommend said cooling pad. It totally rocks and is worth the $30.

Also -- when backing up your writing, it's perfectly okay to back it up twice on two separate flash drives. You are allowed to be paranoid. I grant you dispensation to be paranoid in advance.

Stats, 2/16/2007

2007-02-16T21:38:00.000-05:00

Tonight's numbers:

12,767 words
39 pages.

Telaon Writing Update

2007-02-15T21:38:00.000-05:00

Tonight's word count: 10,900.

Plagued by the age-old debate of information versus action.

New Novel Progress Report

2007-02-14T21:58:00.000-05:00

I have completed 28 pages, around about 9200 words, and am now working on Chapter 2.

I'm now doing a long explanation scene where the entire problem of the story is laid out, and desperately hoping I've made it interesting enough that people don't fall asleep.

Hi-ho, hi-ho...

2007-02-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

Determined to get off her squishy posterior and put it to something more productive, Your Humble Publisher is taking off the Publisher hat and exchanging it for the wizard's pointy chapeau of the Writer.

For the next two weeks I shall be going slow-mail -- you can still e-mail me and I will still answer but it may take a few days. I am cutting out the great majority of my Internet usage (as in FANFIC READING and BLOG READING/WRITING) in order to begin work on a NEW book. There are only so many hours in the day, after all, and I have few enough that I have been forced to this expedient of choosing between writing and schlumpfing in front of the fanfic when I get home every night. The books don't write themselves.

This will be rather intense for the next 2 weeks, but the general idea will hold until I am done with the first draft. Projected end date -- June 15th, with a fallback of July 16th depending on how the writing goes.

In other news, I have finished the podcasting of Machina Obscura. I'm taking next week off (see above) and then doing an Extra of miscellaneous things, then will begin the podcasting of Aquaria. Aquaria should take at least a year, give or take.

Reporting to you from ChattaCon 32!

2007-01-26T12:21:00.000-05:00

Atrocious Adventure is now set up and ready to rock in the Dealer's Room at ChattaCon 32!

Come see me, come buy a book or three!

Prices for ChattaCon:

The Curve of Shadow -- $10
Machina Obscura -- $10
Aquaria -- $12

Funny the things you find...

2007-01-22T13:25:00.000-05:00

I once wrote a screenplay version of my short story "The Shepherds of M15" . While transferring the last of the post-drive-crash, most-important files to my computers I found the file. So if you're a producer or director for TV or movies and would be interested in taking a look at it, please contact me via e-mail.

The Post of Copyright Goodness

2007-01-18T10:33:00.000-05:00

I have received the copyright certificate for Aquaria, which may seem a quaint and old fashioned thing but is nevertheless reassuring. And considering the copyright for MO took over a year to get done owing to the Post Office anthrax scare, and this for Aquaria took all of two months, it's a good thing.

It makes it all seem that much more official and real, knowing there are two copies of Aquaria now in the Library of Congress.

Aquaria on Amazon

2007-01-14T15:05:00.000-05:00

Aquaria is now available on Amazon, and I just got done posting a wiki entry there containing the back cover blurb. You can now get it from Amazon for $12.72 + shipping.

The Post of Money Saving Goodness!

2007-01-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

FYI, official price for Aquaria at ChattaCon and indeed whenever I am selling them anywhere -- a mere $12.

A link of current note:

ChattaCon

I don't think they've updated for quite some time but you can get directions and hotel info and registration info there.

Bring comfy shoes because the consuite is about a quarter mile away from the Dealer's Room.

POD People

2007-01-02T09:35:00.000-05:00

Those of you interested in Publishing on Demand (by which I have produced the books spoken of on this site), check out the podcast I did this weekend on How to POD. You can also get it through ITunes if that's how you get your podcasting fix. Your Humble Writer/Publisher waxes eloquent on the entire process. Topics include writing, editing, formating, finding a POD outfit, getting ISBNs, filing copyright, obtaining artwork, and marketting.

Click the podcast link to the right to go to the Atrocious Adventure Podcast page, or search for "Atrocious Adventure Podcast" on ITunes.

The Post of Christmas Goodness!

2006-12-24T20:26:00.000-05:00

May you all have a merry day be it Christmas, Hannukah, Midwinter, or Solstice.

News: Atrocious Adventure Publishing will be at ChattaCon 32! Look for me in the Dealer's Room where I will have copies of all three books available for sale.

"All Three?!" I hear you cry. Yes indeedy. Aquaria is now on sale on the CafePress site and by ChattaCon will be available through all major book outlets.

And the Atrocious Adventure Podcast is now up through Chapter 8 of Machina Obscura.

Administrivia and Other Subspace Disturbances

2006-11-16T20:01:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday I dealt with the neccessary evils and distributed largesse upon a goodly amount of the population, to wit:

ChattaCon. Registration is in the mail, and the room is reserved.
Copyright forms, fees, and required 2 copies of Aquaria are in the mail to the Library of Congress.
Application and sample copy of Aquaria plus fees are on the way to BCH.

Today I arrived home to find a frakking giant box of books on my doorstep, so all is ready for the Thanksgiving release date here in this humble hamlet of which I am native.

Needed: A Temporary Underpaid Employee to help me mind the table at ChattaCon. E-mail me for details.

MO on Podio, and other Trivia

2006-11-06T16:16:00.000-05:00

If you've been following the podcast, I uploaded the second chapter of MO last night. Go. Go now. Listen to your humble Publisher's strangely accented voice stumbling over words she wrote five years ago in a younger, simpler, and more trans-fat ladden time.

In other news, I now await some copies of Aquaria to be used for administrative purposes (one for BCH, two for the Copyright Office).

I have the first copy and have been showing it off at the day job. It is large -- the size of a "Dummies" book, and about as thick. I am glad to see that the back cover came out looking vaguely metallic as I intended when I did the layout, achieved by means of using the gradient background capability of Publisher with subtle shades of gray and white. With the larger size I was able to put in a logo I've had sitting in my files for some time, featuring 'Lil Sputnik.

And before I forget, the front cover art is courtesy of Robert Hole, Jr., an artist and writer I met on the Speculations online writers' community.

I have been writing spasmodically on the topics of artificial intelligence, overabundance, thermal depolymerization technologies, and mind-uploading lately. Basically I've been pondering the question of when is enough enough? I guess you could call it the topic of ethics with regards to the overabundance which technologies of all kinds have allowed us now and will in the future. And also, as ever, the topic of how will we deal with AI, a topic near and dear to my heart which is never far from my mind. It's a jumbled mess in my head. Really. It is.

Teeth Gnashing is Done! Galleys on the Way!

2006-10-27T19:58:00.000-04:00

I am now awaiting the first copy of Aquaria from CafePress. If it has turned out well then it's on to doing the paperwork, etc., for distribution and all the rest of it. If all goes well, you should be able to order Aquaria from your local bookstores by ChattaCon (the third weekend in January for you non-Southern fandom folks).

Some good news: Due to some technical difficulties with CafePress, Aquaria will be in a slightly larger format. This means a lower page count and consequently a lower price. (Okay, okay, I had everything formatted for 5 X 8 and when I uploaded the manuscript the CafePress system politely informed me that it can't handle manuscripts of over 500 pages. After about 15 minutes of panic I reformatted it for the new 7 X 9 format and poof, it dropped to 383 pages. Resized the artwork and the back cover, re-did the barcode. MS Publisher is a writer-geek's best friend.) Thus you will be paying $18.70 straight off of CafePress, or a little over $12 everywhere else including Amazon.

Which, for a 181,300+ word novel, is a pretty dang good price.

Life is good.

In other news, all of The Curve of Shadow is now on the podcast site, and I am contemplating a 'cast of miscellany before beginning MO.

Atrocious Adventures In Podcasting

2006-10-15T21:37:00.000-04:00

I just posted the second half of "The Shepherds of M15" on the podcast site, so download and enjoy!

Podio-o-e-o-e-ooohhh!!!

2006-10-08T20:48:00.000-04:00

We're on Audio!

In my never-ending quest to overbook myself beyond all previous limits -- I am in fact looking into time dilation fields as a fashion accessory -- I have recently begun experimenting with doing audio versions of the stories in The Curve of Shadow. You can place all the blame on my friend the Media Pirate, he brought me back this little excerpt booklet from DragonCon about how to do podcasting and being of unsound mind and with a genetic imperative to play with Neat Electronic Gadgetry, I of course downloaded Audacity and started playing.

So now you can subscribe to the Atrocious Adventure Podcast on ITunes. The first two episodes are up in all their dubious quality. "Public Assistance" and "Khamaira's Journey" are currently available for your listening pleasure and I recorded the first part of "The Sheperds of M15" tonight and will have it up probably tomorrow night. You can also look at show notes and download the 'casts directly from the page at Libsyn by clicking here.

And yes, that's really me. Redneck accent and all.

=====

In other news, I am working on getting Aquaria into print. Right now I'm going through all the obligatory gnashing of teeth with CafePress. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Action! Adventure! Watermelons!

2006-10-02T22:05:00.000-04:00

Coming soon to a book outlet near you:

Money, mayhem and merriment – that's what Xyl wants back in her life after several weeks as Lieutenant William Grayson's reluctant "guest" as Atlantica recovers from the chaos of the Walking Dead riots. With her nanobots reactivated she can get back into NetSpace, get a job, find a new crew, and search for her best friend Pepper. She should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Crazy Eddie invites her to tag along with his crew to a block party that devolves into a riot when somebody in the crowd at the other end of Central Park frags a Security cloudhopper. She's saved from getting trampled in the panic by someone who should not exist – her own twin brother.

Xyl tries really, really hard not to ever think of her life before Pepper and Auriel and their friends. But she can't escape it when it's looking back at her out of the same silver eyes she sees every morning in the mirror. Now with Gracie on their trail after the two of them manage to kill a couple of Security troops, the choice is to confront their past together or let it fester until the whole thing blows up in their faces. Jodo runs with a crew of smugglers and it makes a good place to hide even when they leave Atlantica for the barren Wastelands, leaving behind all contact with NetSpace. Somehow Gracie knows about ViruCor and what she used to be and he won't give up until he brings it all out in the light. Either she and Jodo help him bring down the corp that created them or Gracie will turn them in for the murders they committed. But what Gracie doesn't know is that the situation is bigger than just a corporate slavery program – bigger than all of them. Big as in two hundred years of rewritten history and an insane Artificial Intelligence that plans to eat the entire world.

Drum roll please! Cover art is in!

2006-09-26T15:55:00.000-04:00

Behold! The front cover of Aquaria!

Expected release date is Thanksgiving.

Aquaria, the Book That Ate Fresno!

2006-08-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

Aquaria will be 591 pages when it is printed later this year.

Pricing on Amazon, at Walden's, etc., should be somewhere around $16 per copy.

Your Humble Writer/Publisher is amazed.

Editing Finished on Aquaria

2006-08-08T00:38:00.000-04:00

Final word count on the text of Aquaria: 181,303.

Sometime around the middle of the first run-through on the editing I switched to using the OpenOffice suite instead of Microsoft Word. So far it's been a good move and has resulted in remarkably little discombobulation, but now with the layout we come to the meat of the matter. This was where I had problems with my two previous tomes, MO and The Curve of Shadow. I've read numerous help files and tutorials regarding page numbering and section breaks, etc. Tomorrow I start on the layout. I'll let you know how it goes.

I once met a very wise man. While sitting on the back of a talking watermelon and playing Killer Cutthroat Canasta with Buddha, Andy Warhol and the Flying Walenskis, he said to me: "Back. Up. Your. Data."

Heed his words, my friends. You will be healthy, wealthy and wise.

In bed.

From LibertyCon 19

2006-07-28T13:55:00.000-04:00

We are now at LibertyCon! Come see us in Room 210 on Huckster's Alley.

LibertyCon

2006-07-25T15:37:00.000-04:00

Well, we're all set for LibertyCon.

Should you happen to be attending the con, look for AAP in Huckster's Alley. We'll be the table with the eye-slamming tie-dye tablecloth. If you should be so inclined, join us Saturday night for pizza.

Prices for Machina Obscura and The Curve of Shadow:

Machina Obscura -- $10
The Curve of Shadow -- $12
One of Each -- $20

In other news, editing on Aquaria is done.

And we have cover art on the way. More details will be forthcoming in the days ahead. I have received two sketches so far and the artist in question got what I was trying to convey very accurately. I can't wait to see it in full color!

Hope to see everyone at the con!

Editing on Aquaria

2006-06-28T10:38:00.000-04:00

The first re-write is done on Aquaria. Much was cleaned up (to the tune of cutting out 7 to 8 thousand words) and much clarified and, alas, much re-written because it sounded silly. I'm happy to report that that nagging sense of wrongness regarding the dialogue during Xyl's pentultimate confrontation at the end is now much, much better. I am sad to report that though I cut out an entire subplot I was not happy with and accomplished nothing, I fear the holes it left are still jagged and glaringly obvious. But I have a month left in the designated Editing Phase, so I am now off to begin another rewrite to clean it still further up.

Plans are go for LibertyCon.

Press release was posted to PRWeb last week.

Machina Obscura now available on the shelves at Waldenbooks Northgate in Chattanooga. It can also be ordered through Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, and other fine retailers, though you might have to ask for it by the ISBN number (# 0977773302).

On the Shelves!

2006-06-14T19:00:00.000-04:00

Sighted today: Machina Obscura is now on the shelves at Waldenbooks NorthGate Mall in Chattanooga!

There is talk of a book signing somewhere around LibertyCon, watch this space for further bulletins.

Also a press release will shortly be posted to PRWeb, from whence a great proportion of the Known World will be aware of MO.

All is on track for LibertyCon.

Machina Obscura T-shirts with the cover art on the front and info on the back (including the back cover blurb, all the related website URLs and the ISBN number) are currently available by special order. These t-shirts do not appear on the CafePress shopsite but if you want one contact AAP directly (via an e-mail to hb88@bellsouth.net) and arrangements can be made. There will be several available at LibertyCon should you wish to purchase one there.

Editing Begun on Aquaria

2006-05-17T17:01:00.000-04:00

As the goings-on with MO proceed apace, work now starts up on the sequel Aquaria. I completed the first draft on August 4th, 2004 after ten months of work and since then it's been sitting on my hard drive in a sort of digital fermentation. In a frenzy of organizational fervor back in April I actually set down a timetable and editing began on May 1st. This will go on until the end of July -- meaning the editing should be done by LibertyCon. After that will come layout of the manuscript for CP's format standards, assigning the ISBN, and all the rest of it. Meanwhile, I really, really need cover art.

Around and beside all of this, I need to produce another book sometime soon for release in 2007!

Wanted: The 36 Hour Day.

BCH -- Nice People Who Want MO...

2006-04-24T20:41:00.000-04:00

The good folks of Book Clearing House have requested 20 copies of MO in anticipation of orders from the likes of Waldenbooks, Barnyards & Nibblets, and other fine purveyors of the printed page. Once we have confirmation that MO is indeed on the Ingrams database then you may fire when ready, Grimley.

Your Humble Writer/Publisher was pleasantly surprised at the whopping discount CafePress gives for bulk orders. Holy Cow...

Things are moving right along. This has all been so easy I begin to wonder if I missed my cue to freak out.

The Wheels of Business Grind Slowly

2006-04-12T11:41:00.000-04:00

I'm sending off the contract for national distribution today, and within 2 months or so MO will be available to the bookstores and thence to you, Gentle Readers.

We are also on track for LibertyCon.

AAP plans for the summer of 2006:

LibertyCon.
Editing of Aquaria.
Working on a new book for publication in 2007.
Possibly another con in the fall.
Promotion of MO.
Getting cover art done for Aquaria.

Further bulletins as events warrant!

Convention News!

2006-03-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

Atrocious Adventure at LibertyCon 19! AAP's first official convention appearance will be in the Huckster's Room at LibertyCon 19 in East Ridge, TN, July 28-30. AAP author/publisher Carol E. Meacham will be there selling both Machina Obscura and The Curve of Shadow, signing books, and generally immersed in shameless self-promotion.

In other news, things are finally in process for distribution through Ingrams, so hopefully it won't be long before you can pick up a copy of MO from your local Waldenbooks, Barnes & Nobles, Borders, or dang near anywhere else. By the end of May 2006, if they don't have it, ask them why not?! And then ask nicely if they'll order you a copy. :-)

Of course you can still order your copies of both MO and CoS directly from CafePress without bestirring yourself from your own computer. Just go to our shop on CafePress.

Machina Obscura is OUT OF THE BOX!

2006-02-11T19:11:00.000-05:00

AVAILABLE NOW on our shop on CafePress (and notice please the snazzy new 'do on the shopsite), MACHINA OBSCURA! It's finally out in print with full color covers with Ursula's artwork in all its glory.

It's been a long strange trip from the summer of 2001 to holding the printed book. Written in June and July of 2001, published in electronic format by Mushroom E-Books in 2003, now to print in 2006, Xyl and Gracie's first adventure still holds up as a good yarn after all this time. I'm still proud to say I wrote this thing, my first original novel. (Weeellll, maybe not my first original novel, but the real first original novel is something best left to the forgotten sands of history and unpublication. It's awful. Really. Although it did have its moments. I can still read MO 4 1/2 years later and respect myself in the morning.) That's Xyl and Gracie on the cover thumbnail above, or rather their NetSpace Personas, Xyl's tatterdemalion wraith Persona on the left and Gracie's tube-dress-wearing Persona on the right. Around them you see MuSpace, with the cubical forms of NetSpace around them and the server boundary horizon above them.

Plans are in the works for great things regarding MO. Keep watching this space for news!

Current slogan here at AAP, "Aquaria by the end of the year!"

Plans are also under consideration regarding conventions in the summer. Further bulletins as events warrant.

The Wonder of It All!

2006-01-26T22:08:00.000-05:00

The ISBN numbers have arrived! If all goes well, within the week Machina Obscura will be in production. Watch this space for breaking news, and remember if you broke it you buy it. :-)

ISBN Numbers Applied For!

2006-01-05T21:44:00.000-05:00

The application has been sent for the ISBN numbers! We're now awaiting the assignment of the numbers, and after that we'll be only a few short days away from publication of Machina Obscura. Your Humble Publisher is agog with anticipation and excitement! In my own quiet way, of course...

Keep watching, folks, the plot only gets thicker from here on in!

NaNoWriMo 2005 Winner!

2005-11-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like writing to a deadline! AAP Author Carol E. Meacham started a week late but finished a day early in making it to 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month's yearly contest. Even though the contest is over, the book isn't. Not to worry! Carol will be finishing it and posting it entirely to the novel's blog site, The Fall of Avalon. As of this writing, it's up to Part 8.

In other news, things look on track for obtaining funds for ISBN numbers by the end of the year. Should all go as planned, Machina Obscura will be available at the latest by the end of January 2006.

In still other news, if you're in the Chattanooga area you can now get The Curve of Shadow at Books Neverending.

Halfway There! NaNoWriMo Novel moving right along!

2005-11-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

The Fall of Avalon is now up to 27,000 words, a little more than halfway to the goal of the National Novel Writing Month contest. Bear in mind that the contest is only to 50k, it doesn't mean the novel has to be only that long. "Avalon" seems to be heading for a longer run than that. We're up to Part 5 on the blog, so waltz on over and give it a gander!

There is a distinct possibility that "Avalon" may be found in print format through AAP in the future. At the moment our release line-up will be Machina Obscura first, and then Avalon. After that, the sequel to MO, Aquaria. Keep watching this space for details.

NaNoWriMo -- Blog Your Novel Month!

2005-11-07T10:48:00.000-05:00

Well, it's November again, and thus it's National Novel Writing Month and Blog Your Novel time again! Atrocious Adventure's Carol E. Meacham is participating this year (although having started a little late) with a retelling of the Arthurian mythos called The Fall of Avalon.

What is Blog Your Novel anyway? The idea is that you -- anybody -- has one month, November, to write a complete 50,000 word novel start to finish. One month. One novel. It's meant for people who may have never written a novel before, or maybe needed that last straw of incentive to give it a shot. You write, and you post to a blog, hopefully every day. In the case of Fall of Avalon, it will probably be every other day or possibly every third day, but the posts will be somewhat long. The idea is not to think, but to write. In this way, writing frantically to a deadline, one is encouraged to ignore that cursed inner critic which heretofore may have plagued you. In the case of AAP author Carol E. Meacham, it's somewhat of a challenge.

In any case, by noon today there will be the first postings to The Fall of Avalon, posted free to a blog for all the world to see. Enjoy!

Machina Obscura news...

2005-10-04T11:40:00.000-04:00

Machina Obscura is now ready to go to press. All that is lacking is the ISBN number. Manuscript formatting is done (after a bit of a wrestling match with Word refusing to do the page numbering right). Front and Back covers are done, with Ursula's most excellent artwork included. So now we must wait for the stars to align, the swallows to return from Capistrano, and the Giant Horned Grunk to sing a Klingon drinking song whilst accumulating the funds to get the ISBN numbers. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Possibility of Booksigning in Near Future

2005-09-24T11:08:00.000-04:00

There may be a booksigning in AAP's future. Yesterday Your Humble Publisher went to Books Neverending. (They're at 4039 Cloud Springs Road, Ft. Oglethorpe, GA. Easiest way to get there is to take I-75 South going toward Atlanta, exit at the Cloud Springs Road exit which is the first one past the Georgia state line, turn right onto Cloud Springs Rd, go about a block and you will see a large building on the right that used to be an outlet mall. The shop is right in front, you can't miss it.) A very good friend of Yr. Humble Publisher works there and clued me in on a booksigning they're thinking of doing in November. I spoke to the manager Danielle and my friend Jeff at some length about joining in on that. They haven't finalized their plans for it yet, but they're aiming for November. When I have the details, I will post them here posthaste and forthwith.

Also Danielle offered to sell The Curve of Shadow on a consignment basis. I'll be taking 6 copies to her sometime soon for those of you in the Chattanooga metro area who would prefer to go and get it live and direct. Price will be $12, but you won't have to pay shipping and handling.

The shop on CafePress <-- click here to go there!

Machina Obscura

2005-09-21T10:17:00.000-04:00

Machina Obscura, the first novel by AAP author Carol E. Meacham, will soon be available in print. Previously it has only been available in electronic formats through Mushroom E-Books and various online e-book retailers. After confirming some details, we're now free and clear to offer Machina Obscura through AAP and CafePress. MO will have a full-color front cover by artist Ursula Vernon, the same cover used in the electronic version. Only in 5" x 8" you'll be able to see a lot more detail, of course.

Watch this space for futher developments.

In Other Developments...

AAP publications will soon have ISBN numbers. This will make things a great deal easier in that with ISBN numbers the books can be ordered and sold through retail outlets such as Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Walden's, etc. They can also be sold through Amazon. ISBN numbers will open up a lot of possibilities in distribution and sales.

In Yet Other Developments ...

There has been some talk of getting a dealer's table at ChattaCon. If it happens, the plan is to have copies of both The Curve of Shadow and Machina Obscura for sale. You'll also be able to get your copies autographed by the author, Carol E. Meacham. At the moment this is tentative, so again watch this space for further information.

Off We Go! Into the Wild Inky Yonder!

2005-09-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

Hello, you've reached the blog and official website of Atrocious Adventure Publishing. Here is where to look for info of all sorts relating to events, new book announcements, book signings, conventions. If you have any questions you can ask by posting a comment via the "Comments" link below. Anyone may do so, not just registered Blogspot patrons.

So what is Atrocious Adventure all about? Atrocious Adventure publishes exclusively science-fiction and fantasy. AAP uses CafePress to print, bind, sell and ship books via publishing-on-demand technologies. This means that AAP can operate in that magical area of economics called "beyond shoestring" -- we make people who live on ramen and Pop-Tarts look like they're living in the lap of luxury. AAP consists at the moment of one person doing all the jobs -- writer, editor, cover artist, layout and design, and marketting. And all this while holding down a full-time day job and going to school part-time. So if you see Carol E. Meacham at a convention sometime in the near future and she's looking a little ragged, buy her a Diet Coke and nod sympathetically when she goes off into a long incoherent riff about MS Publisher, PDF files and Times New Roman 10 point. Those muttered ramblings are the sign of AAP's resident do-it-all hard at work!

At the present time, AAP's literary line-up consists of our debut title, The Curve of Shadow by Carol E. Meacham. This book is an anthology of three short stories:

Public Assistance
Khamaira's Journey
The Shepherds of M15

"Public Assistance"- Freddie Moon was three days from his eighteenth birthday when he was caught yet again for stealing. But instead of jail, he's given the chance to join a colony expedition to a new world. If, that is, he can find the courage to take the chance.

"Khamaira's Journey" - The story of a master mathematician and the Artificial Intelligence who holds the key to a forgotten past.

"The Shepherds of M15" - After a black hole rips through the solar system, the crew of the mining ship Forneus find themselves with a ship full of refugees 33,600 lightyears from home. What they find at the star cluster M15 will change human history forever ... if it doesn't kill them first.

The Curve of Shadow is available now at AAP's store on CafePress for $12 plus shipping and handling.

Also on AAP's store at CafePress you will see t-shirts with a rather extensive inscription. This inscription is an observation on the nature of life entitled Life is like a deep-space unmanned probe mission as written by Carol E. Meacham. You can view a larger image of the t-shirt and zoom in to read the entire thing. The border around it, by the way, is of the phases of the Moon. Good for those nights out at the telescope when you're in a philosophical mood.

Things to come: In the future, look for New Book Announcements, Book Signings, Conventions, And who knows what else may happen!

Questions? Post via the Comments link below. Thanks!