Happy Thanksgiving

by on November 23, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

Today is a day in America where we thank God for the blessings we have.

Mine would start with being alive. That’s actually rather important. I burst an appendix last year, blew it wipe open, so being alive is an achievement for me. And I have sleep apnea, so I have one of those nice little breathing elephant hoses pushing air into my nose so I can sleep better. Let me tell you, you never realize how bad you were sleeping until you start getting some good sleep in.

I’m also thankful for those of you out there who choose to be my friends. Or coworkers. Or whatever. You’re in my life, and most of you are pretty cool about it. I may have had an experience in the not-too-distant past where a number of people I enjoyed being with chose to vote me off the island. I treasure everyone who bucked that vote and said, “They don’t get to choose who I deal with.”

I’m thankful for my family. We’ve lost some recently. Two of my uncles (one is technical a great uncle, but he was always uncle to me) are dead now. They were both veterans, one of World War II, the other Desert Storm. But I’ve gotten new family as well. Cousins born. Marriages celebrated. Life and family goes on, and as time passes you realize you are no longer one of the youngest, but one of the middlest.

And I’m thankful for all the people out there who read my stories and enjoy them. Writing is something I do because I can’t imagine not. But my stories are better because of you. Because I want you to enjoy reading them.

So…Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who are part of my life. And know that I am thankful you are.

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Tarian ap Seren

by on November 22, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

I first met Tarian at Arnami Prime when the Wolfenheim fleet passed through. He was the commander of one of their primary orbital stations, and took it upon himself to make certain we didn’t cause trouble while in his space. He wasn’t the first Arnam I’ve met in my life, but he was the first who was undeniably part of the Arnami military. Defense force. The exact meaning is lost in translation due to cultural differences, but the point is that he considered himself more of a civil servant or logistical organizer than a defender of the Arnami race. He was willing to be that at need. It was why he volunteered to join the service, after all. But he never really expected to have to do more than separate disagreeable ship captains, or maybe talk down some people exchanging aggressive words. He was a peacekeeper. That’s probably the best translation we’ve come up with. Not that the Arnam ever had trouble keeping the peace amongst themselves, you understand. It was the other people who came by, like me, who they had to keep in line.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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Lucas Cats

by on November 21, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The cats of San Lucas are at least as warlike as mankind can be. They were in the middle of several rather impressive wars when we colonized their world, in fact. Three, maybe four depending on the exact definition, were religious wars of some kind. One of them was extremely serious, with losses on both sides equaling Earth’s Socialist Revolutions, and destabilizing the political structure of an entire continent. Most of the others were more colonial rebellions, on the outskirts of a previously united empire that had recently fallen into a serious civil war. These wars didn’t end when humanity arrived. There were only a few thousand of us, living on the seashores that any self-respecting cat stayed far away from. We, the aliens who crossed the stars to colonize their world, didn’t matter when it came to the political calculations of power on their world. Let that sink in for a moment.

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Justice and Ragnorak

by on November 20, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I haven’t seen much for movies lately. Going from a 100 dollar a month healthcare plan before Obamacare to a 750 dollars a month plan and another 400 a month to pay down medical costs it doesn’t cover tends to leave a rather massive hole in a budget. So movies have gone the way of the dodo for me in most cases.

But Marvel and DC are an exception to that. Marvel has made one hit after another that I’ve loved, and I keep on hoping DC will make a movie as fun to watch as Green Lantern. Each of them pulled excellent rating off with Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 and Wonder Woman.

But what of Thor: Ragnorak, and Justice League? Thor has been known as a far more serious series, especially the rather dour Thor 2. And we all know how joyful and colorful Batman v Superman was. So how did they fare? Well. I’ll say this, if you’ve seen the previous for either, you have not seen the movie. Both sets of previews successfully avoid spoiling anything.

Thor’s previews manage this by lying to us. Straight up lying. What you see in the trailers is not what you see in the movies. Sometimes the background is different. Sometimes the foreground is different. Sometimes the people are different. They did an awesome job of showing us the FEEL of the movie without spoiling the reality of the movie. Bravo. And Thor Ragnarok stands tall next to the Guardian of the Galaxy movies. It is seriously that good. It’s fun to watch, and every major character gets at least one crowning moment of awesome to show off.

Justice League manages it by…well…changing the director after the previews were done and reshooting a significant part of the movie to be a bit happier. Seriously. A good half of the previews aren’t in the movie. And Superman smiles. Yeah…I know…spoilers. But if anybody DIDN’T know Superman was going to be in the movie, in some way, if only as a dream sequence, they weren’t paying attention, so I don’t feel guilty there. And the rest of the cast steps up and takes notice too. And you know what? After a decade of watching normal people waking up with gifts and choosing to help granny cross the street, and then find a battle to fight where their particular gifts is good, watching gods among men like Wonder Woman and Aquaman going into battle with true alien supersoldiers was amazing. They aren’t normal people who woke up with gifts one day and decided to help granny cross the road. They are warriors, descendents of warrior cultures, trained by warriors to fight, and they SMILE after getting hit, stand back up, and throw it right back at the bad guys. It was FUN to watch the Justice League fight.

And in that way, I have to say that Thor Ragnorak and Justice League are more alike than they are different. Watching Thor, Loki, Hulk, and Valkyrie wade into battle with smiles on their faces was every bit as much fun as watching the Justice League do the same. They are gods, with a small g, rising to meet a challenge to their world that just needs fighting. Good versus evil. Life versus death. A small group of plucky heroes against an endless armada of helmeted bad guys. Ah. Good times.

Thor Ragnorak is standing towards the top of the Marvel movies list for me. Justice League does the same thing for DC movies. Queue the excited “Yeah!” from Aquaman on that little point.

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San Lucas

by on November 19, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Essential Galactic Atlas

San Lucas was simply one of many habitable worlds when South America sent their colony expedition. We thought it no more special than any of the other fifty-odd systems we had colonized, with thick jungles covering most of its equatorial belt. Our settlers picked virgin beaches to place their early settlements and ignored most of the thick jungle belts. They burned perimeter clearings into the jungles after realizing that humans turned out to be tasty morsels for the local animal and plant life, and only a few explorers ventured deep into the jungles. A few scientists reported findings that at least some of the local wildlife could be smarter than we imagined, but they were laughed out of their jobs and their research was discarded. Some say that was our first mistake. Trust me. That was nowhere near our first or our last mistake on San Lucas.

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