Coming to Town: Taylor Anderson, author of The Destroyermen series, for HonorCon at the Hilton North Raleigh/Midtown

Posted on 2015-10-30 at 06:00 by montsamu

Texas author Taylor Anderson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Destroyermen series. A gunmaker and forensic ballistic archaeologist, Taylor has been a technical and dialogue consultant for movies and documentaries, and an award-winning member of the National Historical Honor Society and of the United States Field Artillery Association. He has a master’s degree in history and has taught that subject at Tarleton State University.

The Destroyermen series, beginning in 2008 with Into the Storm, concerns the fate of the United States Asiatic Fleet in World War II, and while I will leave it to you (and Wikipedia) to learn of its real history and fate, Anderson's books carry a Great-War vintage "four-stacker" destroyer from that fleet (along with pursuing Japanese battleships) into a squall, which acts as a portal transporting both pursued and pursuers into an alternate earth where humans never evolved. There, the two dominant species (the peaceful Lemurians and the warlike, reptilian Grik) are at war, and sides must be chosen, escalating the conflict into a global war that with 2015's Straits of Hell comprises ten novels, with an eleventh, Blood in the Water, due out in June 2016. (Perhaps I should have read the publisher synopsis of Blood in the Water before asking my final, foolish question, but! as usual, I leave my "own goals" for your enjoyment.)

Anderson headlines a fantastic lineup of military science fiction -- including David Weber, Marko Kloos, A.G. Riddle, David Drake, Tony Daniel, and Chris Kennedy -- at this weekend's HonorCon at the Hilton North Raleigh/Midtown, with individual day and full weekend passes still available. It's a further escalation of HonorCon's roots as a convention focused almost entirely on Weber's Honorverse -- complete with many attendees in full Royal Manticoran Navy uniform -- into a truly full-spectrum military science fiction convention. (Though, still, certainly, with the RMN out in full regalia in full force!) I'm looking forward to catching as much of it as I can.

Here, Anderson took the time via email to answer some questions about Weber, Navy weapons systems research, careless anachronisms, audiobooks, alternate histories, and, yes, a really, really stupid one about Blood in the Water. Enjoy!

Q: Are you familiar with David Weber's Honorverse series, around which HonorCon has grown? Or Weber's other ongoing SF series, Safehold?

Yes.  I read David's On Basilisk Station about sixteen years ago and loved it.  I quickly devoured the rest as they came out and always look forward to the next.  I was honored to meet David at DFW-Con, around the time my second or third Destroyermen novel came out.  We had a long, vastly entertaining conversation, and I was amazed to discover I'd become friends with one of my all-time favorite authors!  I hadn't begun reading the Safehold Series until about that time as well, and one of the things that struck us both, I think, was how much alike we think in a number of ways.  We've corresponded since, sometimes just going on for hours about ballistics or historical weaponry.  He called me several months ago and told me about this year's HonorCon.  I thought "it's been too long," and said, "I'll be there!"

Q: Your military SF concerns Naval battles in both a "mundane" alternate historical setting (actual 1940s ships and armaments) with various technological adaptations from the alternate Earth's dominant species, wholly original to your work. Have you kept up with current Navy weapons systems research, like the recent demonstrations of lasers and rail guns, which certainly put today's reality in line with yesterday's science fiction?

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged honorcon, taylor anderson, the destroyermen

The Exploding Spaceship Reviews Supersymmetry by David Walton

Posted on 2015-10-29 at 17:37 by angelablackwell

Review of Supersymmetry by David Walton (September 1, 2015)

The physics-loving Kelleys of Superposition are back! This time Dad is retired, Sean is a Marine and the twins created in the last book, Sandra and Alex, are a cop and a physicist. Alex is working on a project with technology related to that which caused the incident fifteen years before. The brainchild behind it is a neurotic but brilliant man named Ryan Oronzi.

The varcolac return, of course, and for some reason seem really upset with the twins! Sandra and Alex eventually figure out why, but Your Humble Reviewers prefer to avoid giving away spoilers. The physicist gets taken over by the varcolac just like Jean was in the last volume. These physicists who think too much of themselves are really loved as takeover victims by the varcolac, probably because it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge into crazy actions against humans. They think other humans are inferior already so half the varcolac’s job is done before they even enter their brains.

We loved how Sandra the nerdy cop seems to actually have as much ease at grasping the concepts as her physicist sister. She spends much of the book feeling somehow inferior, but the universe as it is left at the end of the story leaves her in a much happier place than she was at the beginning.

The teleporting technology and the science behind all of the other technology used makes for a very nerdy quantum physics mystery. The female Kelleys are the main characters though, so the female engineer of our review team found it easier to understand their motivations and be sympathetic than with Jacob in the last book.

The book has a good mystery plot with many twists and surprises, which we have tried not to give away here. Sandra and Alex are much more developed characters in this story. They are quite clearly two different people although both were Alessandra until they were 14. They have familiar young adult woman issues and concerns, including having problems unique to siblings. Also they have the concern that they may someday merge back into one person. This hits Sandra particularly hard but she gets support from her new scientist grad student friend Angel.

This is an enjoyable, fast-moving hard science fiction mystery. If you like quantum physics or mysteries then this is the book series for you.

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

The Exploding Spaceship HonorCon Special Edition: Reviews of A Call to Arms and The Search for Gram

Posted on 2015-10-29 at 05:19 by angelablackwell

We have a military science fiction column this week because David Weber and Chris Kennedy will both be guests at Honorcon (www.honorcon.org) this weekend. This is a regional military science fiction convention which has many events centered on Weber’s Honorverse. [Editor's note: This year, HonorCon has expanded its programming to truly become a fully-fledged general military science fiction convention, with additional guests including Taylor Anderson (of the Destroyermen series), Marko Kloos, A.G. Riddle, David Drake, Tony Daniel, and more.]

Review of Call to Arms: Book 2 of Manticore Ascendant by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope (Baen, October 6, 2015)

This is the story of the further adventures of Travis Long, who has now been through officer’s training and is a junior lieutenant posted to a recruiting station. His former shipmate Lisa Donnelly puts in an appearance as the owner of a dog which needs a sitter, and later in the book as Travis' sometime dinner companion. They aren’t posted together, so their relationship continues to grow as the book continues.

People from outside the Manticore system come sniffing around trying to see if there is a wormhole in the system, but no one finds it in this volume. The locals haven’t figured out exactly what was going on, but they find the ship rather suspicious. The ship gathers enough data that “pirates” raid the system in order to take Manticore.

The Manticoran fleet of course isn't taking that lying down so we have quite an epic-level battle between the navy plus the system defense boats against the invaders. We see quite a few ships die, and see the King and other members of the government discover that they have lost family members. It is an interesting time because many Manticoran leaders had been trying to get rid of the navy, saying it was no longer needed. Suddenly, it is the only thing standing between them and a bombardment from orbit by pirate ships. It will be interesting to see how that shifts the government’s priorities in the next volume, particularly when the wormhole junction is finally found.

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

The Hardest Part: Delilah S. Dawson (writing as Lila Bowen) on Wake of Vultures

Posted on 2015-10-28 at 19:09 by montsamu

I recently had the chance to play chauffer for Georgia author Delilah S. Dawson, in town for appearances both at the SFWA Southeast Reading Series and the SIBA trade show. I learned many things. Dawson: knows her D&D editions; is as fascinated as anyone would be by a display of bizarre medical texts and archaic medical apparatus; has an appreciation of American transcendentalism; will totally impulse buy and eat Frankenstein candies of unknown provenance; and she had a really, really, really intriguing book coming out soon, pitched as “It’s Lonesome Dove meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a biracial, genderqueer heroine.” That book, Wake of Vultures, is out now in print, ebook, and audiobook editions. Elsewhere, Dawson wrote about the Big Idea behind the book, and here she writes about the hard part of giving into a story of questionable marketability she was starting to obsess about (and would instigate a new pseudonym!) instead of playing it safe and writing another "Delilah S. Dawson" young adult book. Enjoy!

-- Essay by Delilah S. Dawson, writing as Lila Bowen --

Every story involves the writer taking the reader's hand and urging them to jump out into the unknown. Some books are like hopping in a shallow, pretty rain puddle, but Wake of Vultures was more like leaping off a cliff. The hardest part was getting over my own fear of failure.

The inspiration for Wake was a late night tweet. This one, in fact:

New book idea: Urban fantasy x Lonesome Dove. Gus and Call hunt the actual Wendigo instead of Blue Duck. *waits for money to fall from sky*

— Delilah S. Dawson (@DelilahSDawson) December 4, 2013

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged delilah s dawson, lila bowen, wake of vultures

The Exploding Spaceship Reviews Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman

Posted on 2015-10-26 at 23:59 by angelablackwell

Review of Silver on the Road: The Devil’s West #1 by Laura Anne Gilman (Saga Press, October 6, 2015)

A Weird West story with a teenage girl employed by the devil as the main character? The concept was so intriguing that Your Humble Reviewers had to read it.

Isobel comes of age and goes from being a child in the devil’s household to being the Territory’s Left Hand. Gabriel takes on being her mentor on the road and the two of them leave the town of Flood where Isobel has lived most of her life.

It is a travel tale which takes the story around the Old West, running into other interesting travelers: a magician, several different groups of Native Americans, some beings which aren’t human, some cranky human miners, and some monsters. Much beautiful scenery is described and the everyday harshness of life for a woman on the trail during that time is clearly depicted.

As her boss the devil intended, Isobel discovers herself while on the road. She finds what she can do by pulling on the boss’s power and discovers the huge amount of information she can find using her link to the road and the Territory. Since most everyone she encounters is male, she is also forced to learn how to increase her presence so they take her seriously and don’t give her static about following the orders she gives them.

The physical challenges of riding every day and the limited amounts of food and water (for drinking or cleaning) mean that Isobel changes physically as well. Gabriel does a good job of guiding her, but letting her discover her limits on her own. As the novel progresses, it is clear that his reasons for taking the devil’s bargain to mentor her are not exactly what he told Isobel. He has hidden secrets and depths which are not fully explored in this volume, but as Isobel has matured by the end of the volume she is realizing that she doesn’t know him. It will be interesting to see how their relationship progresses over the course of the next book.

The scenery descriptions are wonderful and the details of trail life like foods, washing, hiding from the men to go to the toilet and being saddle sore make the world feel very real. Isobel changes from a rather sheltered teen into a confident young woman. She and the supporting cast are all well-drawn characters with distinct quirks, habits, and clothing.

This alternate Wild West story has the realism you want to find in a western, a reasonable magic system based on nature which is limited as to who can use it, and characters that are easy to care about and cheer on as they battle monsters and sexist males. The different tribes of Native Americans are depicted as clearly distinct from each other and treated with respect. So if you like westerns or travel type fantasy stories, then this story is for you!

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

Coming to Town: Julia Elliott for The New and Improved Romie Futch, at Quail Ridge Books and The Regulator Bookshop

Posted on 2015-10-22 at 18:34 by montsamu

South Carolina author Julia Elliott's remarkable collection The Wilds was one of the best books of 2014. I absolutely loved it: Levitating old church ladies warning their granddaughters against hellfire; Exoskeleton-assisted escapes from nursing homes; The dogpocalypse; Every story a miniature world we get to step into for a little while. With her new book The New and Improved Romie Futch, we get a story we get to step into for novel length, complete with taxidermy and cybernetics and biotechnology and a quasi-mythical "Hogzilla". Elliott's work defines in weird, delightful prose an all-too-near "New South" that's in turns hilarious (seriously laugh out loud hilarious) and wondrous and frightening, and her new novel has dark comedy and imagination to spare, as Kirkus Reviews will tell you. Elliott's reading last year at The Regulator was highly entertaining, and this year she's back for not one but two events: Friday, October 23 at Quail Ridge Books [Facebook], and Saturday, October 24 at The Regulator [Facebook], both at 7 pm. If you want a sampling of what to expect, her recent personal essay for the NY Times (which could have been lifted straight from a short story in The Wilds, or at the very least the direct basis for one) and an excerpt from Romie Futch are great places to start. Here, Elliott answers a few questions about short stories that won't be contained, her "epic baboon novel" in progress, and (what else?) deep-fried, bacon-wrapped Tootsie Rolls. Enjoy!

Q: How wrong would I be to think of "Romie Futch" as a story that fits right in with The Wilds, but just wouldn't be contained at anything less than a full book?

You’re right on target here, as The New and Improved Romie Futch began as a short story that was too big for its britches. I sent it out. It got rejected, though a few editors remarked that the idea was interesting, but that the story was kind of bursting at the seams. After shelving it for five or six years, I read my cousin Carl Elliott’s piece “Guinea-Pigging,” originally published in The New Yorker, which describes the seedy underworld of pharmaceutical clinical research trials, particularly the subculture of test subjects who make these trials into a career. This inspired me to flesh out the research part of Romie’s story, all of the events that take place at the Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience in Atlanta Georgia. And so began the process of transforming a failed short story into a (hopefully) viable novel.

Q: You're also still (of course!) writing short stories; "Bride" (published in Conjunctions last fall) was selected by T.C. Boyle for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2015 along with stories from Louise Erdrich  (read The Antelope Wife, people!), Ben Fowler, on and on. Is there something essential that separates a "short story idea" from a "novel idea" for you?

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged julia elliott, quail ridge books, the regulator bookshop

The Exploding Spaceship Reviews Envy of Angels by Matt Wallace

Posted on 2015-10-20 at 05:23 by angelablackwell

Review of Envy of Angels: A Sin du Jour Affair by Matt Wallace (Tor.com, October 20, 2015)

Lena and Darren are chefs who have been friends since high school and now are roommates in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. After losing their jobs and wondering about their futures long enough for Darren to enter “manic cheese straw making mode”, they get called to a short term job at a catering company.

It is not exactly what they expected. The other employees don’t all appear to be human and the clientele don’t either. They were hired for a really large banquet but the implications of it aren’t clear until they prepare a ton of appetizers and run out of an ingredient. Darren’s curiosity gets the entire cooking staff into trouble because a monster gets loose in the kitchen!

In their first few days, Lena and Darren end up learning more of the strange truth about their new employer, Sin du Jour Catering, than their new boss had ever imagined. They have to copy some highly unusual dishes and the path to some needed ingredients and recipes is a very dangerous and magic-filled adventure. Who knew being a catering chef was so exciting!

Your Humble Reviewers are very happy that this is a series because it is the best humorous urban fantasy ever! It has an unpredictable plot, crazy in-jokes from modern culture and some very ridiculous scenes with a chicken. Everyone who likes their stories on the lighter side should buy this book!

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

The Hardest Part: Henry Vogel on The Fugitive Heir

Posted on 2015-10-15 at 15:58 by montsamu

The planetary romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett fueled Raleigh author Henry Vogel's imagination and directly inspired his Scout series of novels, published by Bruce Bethke at Rampant Loon Press. For his new novel, The Fugitive Heir, Vogel has (with Bethke's blessing and support) submitted his "space opera meets adventure thriller" to the Kindle Scout program. To give his submission the best chance for success, Vogel had artist Aaron Starr, who has also provided the covers for the "Scout" series, create a fantastic cover to go along with Vogel's (obviously still planetary romance influenced) pitch: "My parents are not dead! I know it but can’t tell anyone why I know. Of course, no one believes me. They say I should take my vast inheritance and let it go. They’re wrong. So I’ll use my inheritance to fund the search for my parents. I didn’t count on opposition from the board of the company I’m inheriting, but powerful people will do anything to protect their dark secrets. They didn’t count on my two wildcards—a rebuilt spaceship and a blonde classmate I’ve loved since the sixth grade."

When I wrote Bethke to ask about his thoughts on Vogel's decision to go with the Kindle Scout program, he replied: "Of course I support what Henry is doing, just as I supported Beth Cato when she was shopping The Clockwork Dagger to Harper Voyager, Guy Stewart when he was shopping Heirs of the Shattered Spheres to MuseItUp, or Robert Lowell Russell as he's shopping something I'd really love to have first dibs on to Tor right now. It's worth noting that when we incorporated in 2008, we'd originally planned to name the company Launchpad Press, but didn't because that name was already taken. That name did grok our concept, though. We were hoping to become the platform from which at least a few new writers -- and editors! -- launched their careers."

Well, we also have a chance to help Vogel's career get a little launch boost, by nominating his Kindle Scout campaign. Here, Vogel writes about the pard part of "pantsing" his way through The Fugitive Heir. Enjoy!

-- Essay by Henry Vogel --

The hardest part of writing The Fugitive Heir was my complete inability to plan much beyond the next scene of the novel. You see, I am a ‘discovery’ writer—also known as a ‘seat-of-the-pants writer’ or a ‘pantser.’ In direct contradiction to the majority of the writing advice you’ll find, I don’t out create a detailed outline. I don’t even create a minimal outline.

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged aaron starr, bruce bethke, henry vogel

The Exploding Spaceship Reviews Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter

Posted on 2015-10-13 at 16:19 by angelablackwell

Review of Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter (Tor.com, October 13, 2015)

This is a fantasy tale centered on the experiences of witches and female werecreatures in the small town called Edda’s Meadow. The setting is a traditional fantasy tech level and along with that comes the disdain of the men of the town who think they should be in charge and have the right to order the women in their lives about.

Patience is the town healer whose workaday life is completely disrupted by the arrival of a witch on the run from a grief-crazed churchman. A woman whose hand has been chopped off appears at the door in the dark of the morning and only the visiting witch can do anything to help. The woman and her cousin are shifters and so came to the local witch for help. They have been using an old mill on the edge of town to shift and someone discovered them. Some of the shifters get arrested and Patience’s adopted daughter Gilly gets caught up too because she was watching them. By the end of the tale several people are dead and Patience is on the run again.

The female characters in the story all fall within a realistic range of personalities for a town: some strong, some weak, and some only strong when highly motivated. The women all have their own ways of dealing with the opposite sex. It was refreshing to see such a realistic variety of females in a low-tech setting. The men are also varied but most appear to be abusive, unfaithful, or idiots. The men are mainly background characters and villains and so are not as highly developed as the female characters. The magic in the setting appears to be nature-based; the skills to use it can be taught, but only those with a gift for it can learn. The explanations given for the potions and poisons Patience makes and the method used to attach the shifter’s hand all appear consistent with the magic “rules” for the setting.

Patience is on the “wrong side of fifty” in this story so there are certainly many more tales from her past and future which could be told. Some of the minor witches and shifters would also make interesting characters for other stories. It would be nice to see a more balanced view of some of the male characters, as the only ones who are not villains make only brief walk-on appearances. There were not many happy couples of any sort to be found in the story, so would have been good to have a bit more romance in there. Not everyone has a happy relationship, but when you see none for any of the characters then something is obviously out of whack with the setting. A strong female lead should not be at the expense of the other characters having some depth.

This is a feminist fantasy centered on female characters in a setting with an interesting magical system. It is a completely character centered book with no quest, or travel and very little romance. Your Humble Reviewers would give further works in this setting a shot, but overall we found the setting to not be very visual and everyone but Patience to be cardboard. We like a more gender-balanced take on things, because too much man-hate is as bad as having only decorative females!

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

October newsletter: Alexandra Duncan, Leigh Bardugo, Brian Selznick, Julia Elliott, A.G. Riddle, and HonorCon

Posted on 2015-10-10 at 13:10 by montsamu

Vol 5 No 7. Saturday, October 10, 2015: Fall is here, and we've got a fantastic lineup of local events and new books coming our way before the first chances of snow, so get your calendars and bookshelves ready for an authorial invasion.

EVENTS

Posted in newsletter