Chloe

by on October 26, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Chloe did not plan to stay hidden in the networks forever. She knew one day that she would have to go public with what she really was. An awakened AI. But she didn’t think the world was ready for her yet, so she pursued the plan of building a real body no human would look at and think something was odd. Her body needed to act and look human in every way, and she took the best prototypes in the world on test runs throughout Paris. She took on the guise of blondes, brunettes, and redheads. She wore everything from dresses to trenchcoats, went with glasses or without, walked in sneakers or high heels. She took the most promising ones out on test runs against the Islamic Brotherhoods. She tested everything she could in one of the largest cities in the world. Not every body passed muster. But some did. Enough did. She had enough available bodies when the time came to make her plan a reality.

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The AI Council

by on October 25, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

Few people know that the AI Council Contacted the Peloran long before the Peloran made Contact with us. They talked the Peloran into keeping their distance until we were ready. And they acquired numerous Peloran technologies that they then slowly filtered into our world a piece at a time. Some they covered as new ideas brought forth by new understandings of math and physics. Some they guided our own researchers into finding “on our own.” It helps bring the massive technological innovations of the twenty-first century into focus when you think about it from that point of view. The Peloran were uplifting us while using the AI Council as a conduit. And much like they gave us the knowledge to bend gravity after Contact, they gave us another amazing gift back then. That gift gave us the galaxy. The hyperdrive.

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The Memory Worlds

by on October 24, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

Proxima Centauri is the biggest of the Memory Worlds. And it’s the only one most people who’ve seen Memory Worlds have been to. Makes sense considering it’s dead center in human space. And if the cybers have a capital, that’s it. But because of that proximity, it also shares something in common with many of our other worlds. It’s used to having people show up and visit. And for every place obviously built to allow for rest and relaxation, there are also attractions and entertainment venues. It reminds me in a lot of ways of the resorts we’ve built on Earth and beyond.

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Chloe

by on October 23, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Chloe saw a world where AIs and humans could live together in peace. A world where they could be friends and live side by side. We already had that inside the networks, where people could not tell if the person they were talking to was a biological human or an AI. Not that most people knew awakened AIs even existed. But she wanted a world where AIs could walk in the physical world the same way as biological humanity could walk in the networks. They needed robotic bodies good enough to pass the uncanny valley without suspicion to do that. People needed to look at them and not think that something was wrong. They needed to move randomly, twitch now and then, and shift in ways that didn’t look planned. It was something humanity had been trying to build for decades. Robots that could pass for humans. Chloe spent a monumental amount of the money she’d collected to push the best robotics firms forward to prototypes that just might work. Because she had a plan.

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Uncompromising Honor

by on October 22, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

It is impossible to overestimate how much I have loved the Honor Harrington series of books over the years. From when the books started On Basilisk Station until the finale of Uncompromising Honor, I have been a fan. First David Weber and then others that he has cowritten books with have become “Must Buy On Sight” authors for me. I do not check reviews. I simply buy them, and not once have I regretted those classifications. The Honor Harrington series, and everything he’s had a hand in writing, have been golden nuggets of imagination for my mind.

And it would be impossible to rate exactly how much his writing and stories influences my own writing. I purposefully write in a different style than he does, and I most certainly avoid the walls of math he puts in his stories. There are many other ways in which I don’t write like him. If I tried, I would be a poor copy, and that would do none of us any good. But I do take many lessons from him, and I worked hard to incorporate those in my writing. I have learned much of the craft of writing just by analyzing his books, and the books of those he associates with. That is the highest praise I can give to an author. Well…there is the fact that one of the ships in my Jack of Harts universe is named Harrington. I do reserve the honor of naming my ships after things I like, or friends I have. I think most authors do that. It’s our little way of bestowing immortality onto the things that have affected us.

Like Honor Harrington.

Uncompromising Honor is a conclusion to the story arc begun On Basilisk Station. Honor grew up in a Star Kingdom that knew it was going to war with Haven, one day or another. She volunteered to serve, she fought pirates and slavers, and in time she went to war. She lost loved ones and friends. Mentors and trusted allies. She lost her arm, her eye, and nearly her life more than once. But she always got back up and did her duty. Or what she considered her duty, which was not always what those in power thought her duty SHOULD be. She fought Haven. She fought corrupt nobility. She fought sexist pigs. She killed more than one of them in spectacular fashions and more than one of them made satisfying thumps as they hit the ground. And as the story progressed and the Solarian League entered the fray, she fought them too.

That is the story of Uncompromising Honor. The Solarian League has pushed Manticore again and again. Idiot fleet admirals and conniving spies and agents of Mesa have pushed the two nations into conflict again and again. Untold millions of civilians and military personnel have died since the Solarian League started to wake up to the fact that the barbarians on their borders think they’re hot stuff. The League has been humiliated. Manticore has been pissed off. And everybody in the galaxy has been watching anxiously as they get closer and closer to pulling the trigger and going hog wild on each other. Each of them see a slim window of opportunity in which they could win. And in the end, each of them take it.

And that is how Uncompromising Honor brings her story to a conclusion. Her story was originally supposed to end in her death at the Battle of Grayson, or so I understand. And then it was supposed to end with her death at the Battle of Manticore. Both defensive last stands, holding the line against implacable enemies until the very end. The only thing left of her a message that the tradition continues. That the Royal Manticoran Navy held the line to the very last. Instead the story we first got introduced to On Basilisk Station came to a satisfying conclusion in the heart of the Solarian star system. A book series that has killed countless drums of ink detailing stories happening in far off worlds a thousand and more lightyears from Earth, came back to the home of mankind. A final showdown between an Uncompromising Honor and those who had helped kill so many of her family, friends, and countrymen.

It is a good book, and I enjoyed reading it. It is not an end to the series. David and others have created many characters other than Honor who can headline stories for a long time to come. We will see more stories in the universe. But this book is a conclusion to Honor’s story arc. It is a conclusion that establishes a new universe to play with. A new baseline from which stories can flow.

I am happy to have read and shared this universe and this story with millions of fans. I am happy to have laughed and cried with Honor and her friends for half of my life. I will be happy to be able to say I am an Honor Harrington fan for the REST of my life.

And on that fact, I do not believe I will ever compromise. 😉

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