scribesshade

JANESKI: The story behind “Much Madness Is Divinest Sense” in Planetary Anthology Series: Luna

Posted on May 18, 2020 by scribesshade

LORI JANESKI TAKES OVER THE BLOG TODAY. LORI’S STORY, MUCH MADNESS IS DIVINEST SENSE, WAS INCLUDED IN TUSCANY BAY BOOKS’ PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY SERIES: LUNA. TODAY SHE WILL TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HER STORY IN LUNA.

Science fiction needs more cops.

That turns out to be the motto for everything I’ve been writing recently. I was pretty much raised on Star Trek, sci-fi classics like The Day The Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet; and my mom got me started reading Isaac Asimov and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars at an early age. As far as I can remember, the only sci-fi cop in everything I watched or read as a kid was Elijah Bailey, from Asimov’s Robot series.

I didn’t just love sci-fi; I loved mysteries. I started reading a lot of Mary Higgins Clark in about fifth grade, and she is still one of my all-time favorite authors (may she rest in peace). The Queen of Suspense, indeed. I remember dreaming that I could write a book that someone would stay up until 2am on a school night to finish, just like I did with her books.

After college, I discovered the magic of crime shows when I started watching NCIS regularly, and I have devoured every cop show I could find since then, including classics like Perry Mason and Gunsmoke.

Eventually, I realized something, and had to wonder: why aren’t there more cops in space? There has to be crime, right? People are still fallible people, no matter what century they’re living in (unless you’re in the 80s paradise of Star Trek: TNG, of course). So why is Elijah Bailey the only one I could think of?

At the time, I’d never seen Babylon 5, so I couldn’t include Garibaldi in my survey of space cops. He is one of the best, but when I started writing my own stories, I’d never heard of him. I hadn’t even binge-watched Deep Space Nine until well after college, so I couldn’t include Odo in my list of space cops, either. Even with those two included, the profession is still sadly underrepresented in science fiction.

So, that’s where I got Special Agent David Forbes Carter, from the Interplanetary Police Forces, Division 7. He and his story have been ten years in the making, and the story I wrote for the Luna anthology is another step in that long, long road from that fifth-grader who stayed up to read Mary Higgins Clark, to the author who finally managed to print an actual story.

The Luna anthology story is part of the same universe as The Carter Files, as well as the short story I wrote for the Freedom’s Light anthology several years ago. David Carter doesn’t make an appearance in this one, but two other characters do.

“Much Madness Is Divinest Sense” is the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem that I found when the short story was finished. I had poems at the beginning of my other books and short stories in this universe, so it was only appropriate to include one here, too. It described the story’s main character perfectly.

Division 7 Director Jacques de Tournay is the scariest kind of madman–the kind that knows he’s crazy and doesn’t care anymore. The kind who’s smart and cunning enough to turn his knowledge and experience to something that is terrifying. In his case, it’s vengeance.

To him, his madness is divinest sense. His reasons don’t just make sense to him, they’re completely justified.

One thing I always remember from taking philosophy in college is that the opposite of the best thing is, of necessity, the worst thing. So, what happens when the best, most talented director of the most powerful law enforcement agency in the galaxy turns insane?

The other character here, Agent McClellan, is another madman, but he isn’t the same kind of crazy as Director de Tournay. He isn’t worried about justifying himself or his actions to anyone; he loves the insanity because he has more fun with it.

I tried to make the motivations of the two madmen different, to show the stark contrast between the two. It always irritates me when a perfectly good villain in a movie or TV show or book is suddenly presented as someone you have to feel sorry for. It can be done well in some cases, but when you spend the whole movie hating the villain for his dastardly deeds, and then all of a sudden he reveals that he’s the injured party and has a good reason for being a psycho, it feels wrong. That’s why I loved the depiction of the Joker in The Dark Knight. You never find out anything about him–why he’s crazy, his background, any of his reasons (in fact, he lies about his history and his reasons throughout the show), and you never ever feel sorry for him. He doesn’t even have a name, other than the one he uses to terrify Gotham.

Without giving too much away, I wanted to do that for my villains. I wanted them both to have reasons for their actions–a good one for Director de Tournay, and a scary one for Agent McClellan–but in both cases, they’ve gone beyond pity. They may be mad, but they’re still responsible for their actions. Their reasons can’t excuse them.

Any more of their story, you’ll have to read in the Luna anthology, or my recently published book: The Carter Files: Phoenix. They are available on Amazon in digital and print copies.

If you like the universe, there is another short story in the Freedom’s Light anthology. That one, “Backwater,” is about the farmers on Mars and their fight against the encroaching Interplanetary Parliament.

Don’t forget: Back the Blue . . . even in space.

You can find Lori’s blog at https://littlesquirrelbooks.wordpress.com/.

FABIAN: Noir in Spaaace! The Story Behind “Daddy Issues”

Posted on May 17, 2020May 13, 2020 by scribesshade

KARINA FABIAN TAKES OVER THE BLOG TODAY. KARINA’S STORY, DADDY ISSUES, WAS INCLUDED IN TUSCANY BAY BOOKS’ PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY SERIES: JUPITER. TODAY SHE WILL TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HER STORY IN JUPITER.

In our next installment of Topic in Spaaace! It’s all about the noir, baby.

Actually, it’s about noir and baby.

I love writing a good mystery, and what’s better than a murder with a paternity case and a natural disaster tossed in.

One of the fun things about noir is that you build this huge, operatic world, full of dirt and danger, and then see it through the lens of a single character. Jupiter is perfect, with the sweeping storms and hostile atmosphere. There’s no way a standard human could live in its hostile atmosphere, so I turned to genetic engineering:

They say that if man were meant to live on Jupiter, God would have given him thicker skin and hydrogen-processing gills. That same “they” also said if man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings. Of course, by 2867, we’d not only cracked our genetic code, but could stack the nucleotides like gods playing with toy blocks. We gave ourselves wings or fins and gills and skins to suit any environment we wanted, and to hell with what God wanted.

When the geneticists designed humans for Jupiter’s environment, they fell into two camps. One wanted to create super-dense molecular structures that could withstand the incredible atmospheric pressures – the heavies. The other decided a more elegant solution was an inflated barrier between dense skin and the more delicate internal organs – the guppies, because the amusing result was that they float instead of sink like us heavies would. But floating or walking, we were all just trying to get ahead in this gaseous soup we called home.

From this genetic mix in a gaseous soup, the characters crafted for me a tale of deceit and loss, as the privileged classes connive to keep their power and wealth and the rest of the schmoes try to get by. But what does that mean when the next Red Spot storm threatens to destroy a continent-sized swath of home for the next hundred years? How can a guppy carry the child of a heavy who’s been dead for over a year? How well can cynical PI who is entering heat (yep, animal gotta-mate heat) keep her wits enough to find a murderer and get justice for an orphan whose only chance at survival is for her father to take responsibility for the result of his own indiscretions?

Once again, I had a lot of fun with the details. Oxygen plays an interesting role, as does genetic engineering. No, I’m not going to tell you! Go get the book. There are so many great stories to enjoy in it. But when you finish Daddy Issues, I hope you’ll drop me a comment and let me know what you thought.

After all, it’s part of human nature to want feedback, and no matter how we mess with the genome, there’s no escaping human nature.

Karina writes both serious and seriously funny science fiction and fantasy. You can find her stuff at https://fabianspace.com

Guest Blogger, Planetary Anthology Series

FABIAN: Love in Spaaaace! The Story Behind “42 Years of Summer”

Posted on May 16, 2020May 13, 2020 by scribesshade

KARINA FABIAN TAKES OVER THE BLOG TODAY. KARINA’S STORY, 42 YEARS OF SUMMER, WAS INCLUDED IN TUSCANY BAY BOOKS’ PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY SERIES: URANUS. TODAY SHE WILL TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HER STORY IN URANUS.

The third installment of the Topic in Spaaace! series is Love.

I’m generally not a romance writer, but when I learned that Uranus’s orbit means half the planet faces the sun for 42 years and is away from the sun 42 years, it seemed the perfect backdrop for a long-term commitment. I wanted something epic and romantic to match the beautiful planet. I also wanted to match what would be the harsh realities of marrying and raising a family.

The story begins with a wedding just as winter ends and summer begins and two lovers make their vows – the perfect symbol of hope. Lila and Hoagie would raise their family under the light of the sun and enjoy their waning years beneath black sky sparkling with stars. Their love guided them through bringing up the first generations of Uranusians, through company strikes, disease, and famine.

I told the story past tense, through the eyes of a woman still as in love as the day she made her vows, even though she tells her tale to her grandchildren on the night before the summer ends and the 42 years of winter begins. I hope very much to tell stories of my husband to our grandkids someday. And when I tell the serious ones, I know I’ll tell them in the same adoring voice.

I feel that this story is a plausible one, however, in that the kind of people it will take to make a long-term settlement in a dangerous new world are the kind who will commit, through good and bad. That commitment will carry into relationships as well as work. I also know from personal experience that such commitment can be rewarding and as natural as breathing.

The story is shorter than most I write, a little bittersweet, and still gets me misty-eyed to think about. If you don’t generally like romance, I promise there’s a lot of great stuff about mining Neptune and living on a station so far from rescue. I can write sappy, but in small quantities.

There are a lot of great stories in this anthology, looking at the planet and the god it’s named for in creative ways. I’m proud that my own sweet story was included.

Karina writes both serious and seriously funny science fiction and fantasy. You can find her stuff at https://fabianspace.com

Guest Blogger, Planetary Anthology Series

KENNISON: Sunward

Posted on May 15, 2020May 13, 2020 by scribesshade

JEB KENNISON TAKES OVER THE BLOG TODAY. JEB’S STORY, SUNWARD, IS INCLUDED IN TUSCANY BAY BOOKS’ PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY SERIES: JUPITER. TODAY HE WILL TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HIS STORY IN JUPITER WHICH IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER FOR ITS SEPTEMBER 29TH RELEASE. THIS BLOG POST IS REPUBLISHED FROM JEB KENNISON’S WEBSITE WITH HIS PERMISSION: https://substratewars.com/2020/05/12/sunward-in-the-republished-planetary-jupiter-anthology-preorder-now/

My story “Sunward” is in the upcoming “Planetary: Jupiter” anthology. It’s a tale of lost colonists in Europa’s ocean yearning to return to the fabled planet of the gods. Their imperious queen mounts a space program at great cost…

The anthology also features stories by well-known authors like Lou Antonelli, Arlan

Andrews, Julie Frost, and Richard Paolinelli… all with a Jupiter connection, either set on and around Jupiter, featuring the god Jove himself, or on a more general theme of the weight of leadership.

The stories set near Jupiter itself take several different tacks. “Sunward” and Karina Fabian’s “Daddy Issues” postulate genengineered humans able to live in the environments of Jupiter’s midlevel atmosphere or the oceans of moons like Europa. “Encounter on Ganymede” by Coleen Drippé has characters whose consciousness has been moved into robotic bodies. Other stories have standard humans working in mining colonies around Jupiter. The stories which are only metaphorically connected to Jupiter are set in diverse locales: the sack of ancient Troy, 1950s America, a future moon shuttle.

My story, “Sunward,” explores what a genengineered human colony in Europa’s ocean might be like, and within the size limitations, explains how they might survive: spoiler, they use a hydrogen sulfide metabolism near undersea volcanic vents, where other genengineered organisms provide food. The humanoids are some vague combination of human brains, hands, and eyes with dolphin and manatee features, with communication via light and sonar abilities. Thus despite the alien environment, they conduct a society recognizably like ours with factional clan politics, love, and greed. Their geothermal vent power stations are starting to fail as the drill bits left by the original Earth colonists break down and can’t be replaced, since the Europans lack diamonds or other hard-rock cutting tools. The action begins when a radical new queen takes power and forces her people to mount an expedition to reach the Earth before the power stations fail and their civilization collapses.

Tuscany Bay’s Planetary Anthology Series Book 8, available for preorder for delivery Sept. 29th, 2020 on Amazon Kindle : Planetary: Jupiter

Guest Blogger, Planetary Anthology Series

FABIAN: Sports in Spaaaace! The Story Behind “Marathon to Mordor”

Posted on May 14, 2020May 13, 2020 by scribesshade

KARINA FABIAN TAKES OVER THE BLOG TODAY. KARINA’S STORY, MARATHON TO MORDOR, WAS INCLUDED IN TUSCANY BAY BOOKS’ PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY SERIES: PLUTO. TODAY SHE WILL TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HER STORY IN PLUTO.

A few days ago, I wrote about Nuns in Space and the story behind “Moonboy” in the Planetary Anthologies: Luna. Today, we continue the theme with Sports in Spaaaaace!

It seems natural that sports will be a part of extra-terrestrial culture. Humans enjoy play and competition, and sports activities are a good way to keep in shape. I’m not a team sports kind of person. But I have included microgravity sports in my science fiction worlds. In Discovery (A Rescue Sisters novel), I have a game called Splat, which is like a mad mash-up of soccer, handball, and Lacrosse, and is a lot of fun to write when your nuns play to win. However, it’s typical of most sci-fi sports: team, ball, microgravity.

For Pluto, I wanted to do something different. I also wanted something bigger. That’s when the idea of a race came to mind. I toyed with the idea of a race on Pluto, with a lot of landscape and dancers, but even with beautiful description, it’d be people or vehicles going from A to B.

I made it a long race to Mordor. Mordor Macula is the large red area near the north pole of Pluto’s moon, Charon. Mostly, because “Marathon to Mordor” sounded so cool in my head.

The idea of athletechs and the athgeeks, people or teams that are both athletically excellent and technologically proficient, came next. In space, we won’t be able to have just jocks or just braniacs, especially in the rough early days of interplanetary colonization. The athgeeks and support teams participating in Marathon to Mordor were more than competing on a physical level; they were proving new technologies.

But it was still a race – A to B, with some challenges to push the suits and players to their limits. How to make that a fun read? At the time, I was listening to ESPN while working as a cashier at Firehouse Subs, so I was immersed in sports commentary and wacky commercials. Anyone who knows me, knows I like wacky. So enter travel commercials for Pluto – We Have Atmosphere! and suit air fresheners Crisp – Leave the Stink at the Gym.

The Pluto anthology was the first one I got excited about, especially since Bokerah Brumley was talking about it and the chicken story she was writing. (“The Pluto Chronicles”). I had a great time imagining this story. I hope you enjoy it and the other wonderfully imaginative tales in this anthology.

– Karina Fabian

Karina writes both serious and seriously funny science fiction and fantasy. You can find her stuff at https://fabianspace.com

Guest Blogger, Planetary Anthology Series

ST. AUBIN: The Quirky Side of the Venus Anthology: or How Jude Lawe Gates Taught Himself Venusian Karate

Posted on May 9, 2020May 13, 2020 by scribesshade

MARGO ST. AUBIN TAKES OVER THE BLOG TODAY. MARGOT’S STORY, VENUS TIMES THREE, WAS INCLUDED IN TUSCANY BAY BOOKS’ PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY SERIES: VENUS. IN ADDITION, MARGOT ALSO HAS A STORY IN THE VENUS EDITION OF THE SERIES. TODAY SHE WILL TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HER STORY IN VENUS.

After having written “How to Train Your Werewolf”, I really wanted to write something space-y for the next anthology. Writing about the Greek goddess of Love seemed like cheating. Blending into this was my fondness for the short stories of Harry Harrison, in particular “ The Men from PIG and ROBOT”. I wanted something uplifting, quirky and with an emphasis on character.

Jude Gates ESQ was born in part thanks to the Baen Free Radio Hour. They talked about the Liaden series, describing one of its offshoots as staring characters resembling Wooster and Jeeves as Men About Space. This tickled my funny bone

and settled into my subconscious. Then I started rereading the complete short story anthology of Dorthy L. Sayers, starring primarily Lord Peter Wimsey. I particularly enjoyed the later stories, about Harriet and Lord Peter as parents, or working together. I suppose Mr. & Mrs. North and Nick & Nora Charles in The Thin Man had their influences, too.

The lynchpin was while going through Amazon looking at books. Then on CSPAN I heard about a book called “ Who owns the Moon?”– and land ownership and mining rights were as complex, if not more so– than the law of the sea. Suddenly, clever lawyers in space-saving our world from excess litigation captured my imagination. It didn’t hurt that Tom Stranger had come out recently. Thank you Larry, I think I popped a rib laughing. While I did have this idea floating around before Tom Stranger came out, it did help me realize that this whole thing had to be a comedy.

While Jason evolved organically with the plot of his story, Jude was fully formed before the story was written. So he was not only on the search for more money, he was in search of a plot.

Because it was Venus, I knew Jude had to fall in love. A nebbishy awkward fellow with a gift for gab would require a very special lady to fall in love with. Thus Saudella was born. In order to see his charm, she’d have to be a mind reader. It’s space opera, of course that can happen! I admit, I borrowed some of her character from the secretary on WKRP in Cincinnati.

Looking further for a flushed out plot, I borrowed some plot points from a Babylon 5 episode. That would be A Voice in The Wilderness, season 1. The episode neglected to delve into how mining rights might be affected. Therefore I knew I had a new slant on Epsilon III. Then I looked up some stuff about mining rights– and fun facts about the planet Venus. Writing a story is like making sausage. You are allowed to get parts from anywhere, but they better taste good together.

The last and final ingredient was actually Tinney. I borrowed his name from a friend’s last name on FaceBook. I wanted a contrast to Saudella’s unique AI experience. I also had a narrative voice that was certainly not Jude, but it knew enough about Jude’s private thoughts it had to be an AI with neural net access. Not to mention, if his knowledge was as vast as it would have to be– he’d need help organizing it. Plus, he needs a lot more storage than a human brain has available. Last but not least, he’s a little reminder that it really is Space Opera.

He is a great boisterous foil for Jude, plus helped define what technology is like in this world. He isn’t exactly Jude’s Bunter, lacking in any social graces. Yet he says all the things that Jude won’t say and more besides. I admit, no knowledge of how AIs work went into building him. This is space opera. I won’t besmirch “science” by calling this “science fantasy”. I tried to introduce some realistic concerns here and there, because Bujold taught me that even space opera has to feel real at some level to sell your world to the reader.

Knowing a little bit about computers, I decided to give him a portable body. Basically, a robot shell that he can inhabit, and do physical things for Jude now and then. It’s an idea that I partially borrowed from Fool’s War and When Gravity Fails. The idea is that The AI both lives in Jude’s head to help him with his law practice, and can also inhabit the robot body. As a complex piece of software, he can jump to one or both places. The only issue is that the part of him in the robot has a limit to how far it can transmit data privately.

The plot is as follows:

The esteemed head of an astronomically wealthy family dies, leaving several relatives conflicted over the will. As the family lawyers to the deceased, Jude and his brother are asked to present the will and arbitrate the estate holdings. The megalithic conglomerate that spans the galaxy becomes the arena where powerful personalities clash over differing opinions on future direction for the company.

The strangest part of the conflict is over mineral rights for the Planet Venus. Who knew our galaxy’s white elephant was prone to causing such strife? Well, Venus is the goddess of love in Roman mythology, so maybe we should consider ourselves forewarned.

On the way to the reading of the will, he learns that another lawyer is joining the fray to reveal a secret codicil that will determine the future of planets.

To make matters worse, he’s falling in love with this beautiful and mysterious woman, whose motives and role are unknown. Rumor has it that her input will drastically change the will with a codicil. It is clear she has some unusual talents. It may even be possible that she would use his feelings against him. All while he does his best to protect the family– against itself, and all other interests, business and personal.

When another family member is killed at the reading, and the wife of the original deceased disappears, who knows what will be the outcome for the family? For the corporation? For the planet?

And all Jude has is a vast knowledge of interstellar property law, a wisecracking AI, and a brother who straightens his tie at awkward moments. His father and head of the law firm, who has known the family all of his life, must correspond virtually because he is also dying from an intergalactic virus.

I suppose it is fitting that the reading of the will takes place on Mars, the planet of strife.

I think the hardest part of writing this story was actually finding a name for it. I stole Venus Times Three from a classic novel of science fiction. It started out as a working title. The editor liked it, so we kept it.

The most horrible thing about all this is that my search engine, plus AMAZON show me the name of my own short story, but not this classic work of Science Fiction! I hope I can encourage more people to read classic science fiction. But it’s okay if you read me, too. I hope you have as much fun reading this story as I had writing it.

– Margot St Aubin

Margot St Aubin has tried everything from web designer for a law firm, security guard for a famous auto company (among other places), a clerk at the Borders home office, to learning to code. No one told her that pythoness had anything to do with well poisoning. If you ask nicely, she makes book covers. She loves to travel, which seems to mean getting stuck in foreign countries, being harassed by the secret police, and being shut out of famous landmarks by burly men with machine guns. Juggling words and harassing fictional characters is overall more satisfying. For her sins, she is stranded in New York city for the duration. She is hopeful that messages in a bottle will lead to rescue soon. She lives in a bunker with her family at an undisclosed location in Queens.

You can check out the entire 11-book series right here. While four of the books have already been released, the remaining seven will be coming out in six-week intervals and can be pre-ordered at the link above.

Guest Blogger, Planetary Anthology Series

FABIAN: Nuns In Space? The Story Behind ‘Moonboy’ in Planetary Anthology Series: Luna

Posted on May 8, 2020May 7, 2020 by scribesshade

KARINA FABIAN TAKES OVER THE BLOG TODAY. KARINA’S STORY, MOONBOY, WAS INCLUDED IN TUSCANY BAY BOOKS’ PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY SERIES: LUNA. TODAY SHE WILL TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HER STORY IN LUNA.

Hi. I’m Karina Fabian, and I write nuns in space.

Go ahead, say it loud. Say it long. Nuns in Spaaaace! The stories are as much fun to write as the concept.

Why space nuns? It actually started on a date night. My husband and I used to come up with story ideas on dates, and this time, I was writing articles about different religious orders, and Rob was volunteering with Artemis Society. The ideas crossed.

It makes a kind of sense. The Church has always followed exploration and (arguments with Galileo aside), has a strong history of scientific research. Rob and I decided that to get our order of religious sisters off the Earth, they needed to provide some kind of service of value to the early spacers. Search and Rescue, medical, and engineering came to mind. The Rescue Sisters were born!

We’d written several stories and I wrote a novel starring some of these intrepid nuns. It was interesting to combine the grit and high-tech stakes of space life with the faith, practice, and moral stakes of spiritual life. The Rescue Sisters stories have taken place in the asteroid belt, in LEO, and even as far as Pluto. But I’d always thought there needed to be one on the moon.

So, when Declan Finn asked me to write for Luna, I had my chance.

First, I needed a setting. I was lucky, because thanks to a talented friend who wrote for one of my anthologies (Infinite Space, Infinite God), I already had a moon “world” to write in. “Brother Jubal and the Womb of Silence” by Tim Meyers is still one of my favorite stories. It takes place on a hermitage in the Aristarchus Crater and on the support station, Drake Lunar Station. He was kind enough to let me adopt his world into my Rescue Sisters Universe.

Next, I needed a rescue. After all, these are the Rescue Sisters. I’d been wanting to explore the idea of children in space and toyed with the idea of rescuing some spoiled brat who went off on his own, but it felt superficial. After all, if we’re involving nuns, we need a spiritual element. Besides, unless I’m doing humor, I try to assume people are generally smart. No kid is going to risk certain death in the cold of space just to go haring off by himself.

What would make a child risk everything?

What if he had nothing to lose.

Enter Cory, the first lunar-born boy just on the cusp of manhood, who has found out he won’t live to 20. Whose entire life is one of medical tests, over-protective parents, and shallow distractions. A boy who longs for adventure, like the hero in his favorite series of novels.

The story begins when Cory decides to take his fate in his own hands and head out to an adventure that will probably lead him to an early death – or worse, a life of abuse and desperation before he eventually dies. Fortunately, God had different plans for him, and he meets the Rescue Sisters.

I really appreciate Declan giving me the push to write this story. Otherwise, it would have sat in the back of my mind, as useless as Cory felt he was.

Nobody should feel worthless.

Karina Fabian writes both serious and seriously funny science fiction and fantasy. You can find her stuff at https://fabianspace.com