Cover Art

A lot of work goes into a book's release even after the writing is done.  Editing for proper grammar and consistency in the story.  Deciding on a font and size of print.  Coming up with a quick blurb for the back of the book or inside cover.  

However, before any of that can be noticed, a cover must be developed that catches a reader's eye and conveys an idea regarding the theme of the book itself.  With that in mind, the folks at Amazing Things Press have come up with a cover for my next book, Post Exodus, that I think fits this bill rather well.

As the cover isn't completely "official" yet, I can't publicly display the whole thing yet.  I can give out a little preview though.

There will be more to come over the next few weeks.  You can get more frequent updates on my Twitter feed and Facebook page.

An Onerous Task

With the right choice of words and structure, even the most everyday of tasks can become an exciting narrative.  With a simple change in how things are described can give a new perspective on even the most tedious of chores.  Shedding a new light on how things are seen can add a degree of excitement to something almost everyone has done at one point or another in their lives.

Once again I am forced to walk away from the warmth and comfort of my home.  I travel down the well-worn path with my large beast at my side.  A beast whose muscles were barely covered by a thick coat of fur.  A beast that could tear a throat out with his powerful jaws or slumber peacefully curled up next to his owner.  It all depended on his mood at the time.

Our travels at this time necessitated by the need to answer the primal Call Of Nature.  The instinct was too much for my simple abode to contain.  These periodic sojourns into the wilds were necessary and important for the both of us.

As we make our way past trees and small fields of grass and flowers, unseen eyes spot us passing by.  Peering out from the darkness, they watch us until we are no longer in their field of vision.  The beast at my side and I are both dismissed from their thoughts almost as quickly as we disappear from their sight.  The shadowed beings then return to their combat on war-torn battlefields, cutting and singeing of flesh for consumption, or whatever tasks they were undertaking before my passing.

The instincts of the beast have not reached a high enough point that he would strain against the narrow tether connecting us.  This allows me to control our direction as other paths and routes splinter off our desired path.  I maintain this control until we reach a field larger than the others we passed.  At one end of the field the yells and screams of children of various ages could be heard.  At the other end was our destination, a small cluster of trees where the beast could perform his naturally demanded activities in privacy.  As he did so I looked across to the children and smiled as some contorted themselves around large pieces of equipment while others squealed as they were chased from one discreet hiding place to another.  While all looked innocent at the moment, I knew many injuries had been suffered and much blood had been spilled at this place over the generations.

The beast unleashed a growling sound to inform me that he had finished what he came to do.  We carefully returned to the peace and safety of my home along the same path which took us away.  This time I nodded to acknowledge some of those hiding in the shadows that observed me.  Others I passed unaware of their presence.  Once we returned and safely entered my home, I began to perform a few tasks to satisfy my own instinctual needs.

Who knew walking the dog to the local park could sound so interesting?  Is there a chore or task you have ever thought of differently in order to make it less tedious?

The Tale of The Noah continues....

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my story of the Noah completed in time to enter it in the science fiction contest I had planned on.  Real life reared its ugly head and interrupted my writing time too much.  The story itself also took on a life of its own that would not allow itself to be ended quickly.

I did go back and do a little editing to my previous entries in order to clarify a few things and correct a couple of mistakes.  I will update the previous posts with these edits by this time next week.  Word of these updates will be posted on my Facebook page.  In the meantime, here is a continuation of the story itself that I did manage to make despite interruptions, interferences, and power outages.

The majority of the crew of the Noah battleship waited patiently for a communication from Earth. Those that would be directly involved in the evacuation maintained their systems in a state of readiness. Others waited until their duties maintaining the environmental systems for the humans were required. While the environmental systems could be maintained automatically, the upkeep of a dry environment by a ship built for those that normally resided in oceans wasn't to be trusted to computers alone.

Darryl studied the interference patterns his cousin had emailed him. Without realizing how long he had been staring at the graphs and listening to the audio recordings, he finally got a grasp on what was before him. He rubbed his tired eyes, printed out a few key files and made a couple of notes, and carried everything to the dining hall. There he searched for one scientist in particular. This researcher had a hobby that involved numbers and multiple possible permutations and sequences. If anyone could figure out the details of what Darryl's cousin had sent him, it was a long-time D&D player and Game Master.

Darryl saw Alistair sitting alone eating with one hand and making notes on graph paper with the other. He approached the lone scientist with pages in hand. After a few minutes of discussion, Alistair looked away from his notes to the ones Darryl had presented. Looking over them briefly he stated, “It's simple. It's a base 12 encoding. Just different enough to our own base 10 to seem random unless someone is used to looking over numerical possibilities. I'm due to be back in the lab shortly. Once my shift is over, I will look over your notes and this signal and let you know if anything rises from the mists of confusion.”

Darryl thanked Alistair and grabbed a quick snack for himself from the buffet tables. He was due to start a work shift himself soon. As he was getting ready for the last few hours of his work shift, two pieces of news came to Darryl's attention almost simultaneously. Alistair had started to decode the information Darryl had given him earlier. While an exact translation was impossible, there were data components that could be easily interpreted. Alistair would meet with Darryl later with the information.

The second piece of news impacted the camp at large. The politicians had finally come up with a message to be broadcast to the Noah. The message accepted the help of the Noah in evacuating the planet, should they provide enough evidence that said evacuation was necessary. They also wanted to know the specifics of the plans for the evacuation so priorities could be made for getting more valued members of humanity safe first. There was no mention of how it would be determined which members of humanity were more valuable than others. The people that worked around the base were nearly unanimous in guessing that the politicians would form the head of the line. There was little to no mention of rescuing the non-human residents of the planet Earth. This came as no surprise to anyone that had worked with the politicians for more than five minutes.

The Noah received the message and excitement and activity both increased significantly as the crew prepared themselves for the evacuation plan. There was some confusion regarding the possibility of prioritizing the evacuation. The Noah felt that all life was equally important, regardless of how obvious or subtle their contribution to society may be. Because of this, their evacuation plan treated all the residents of Earth as equals and would evacuate them all at once. They were already scanning less intelligent lifeforms and comparing the results with their original scans when they originally transported everything to Earth. They looked for variations in DNA sequences that had crept in over numerous generations. This would allow them to simply update their files for reconstitution instead of collecting completely new DNA scans. There were a few new species that were descended closely enough to previously known species that an adjustment was all that would be required.

The Drag'kun battle fleet was primed for their attack. Designated crafts were starting to alter their course in order to intercept and attack the Noah battleship. The rest of the fleet would quickly enter Earth's atmosphere and begin razing major population centers. Panicking citizens would later be collected for enslavement. They would then be forced to extract usable materials from the wreckage of their own former homes and places of industry. Some would be given the ardous task of gathering raw minerals from the planet itself. There were no plans for stocking food or supplies for these slaves since they weren't expected to survive their duties.

Please leave a comment saying what you do or don't like about the story and where you think the story may go.

Where are "The Noah" Going?

I have decided to enter my tale of The Noah in a science fiction contest.  With the entry deadline, looming, most of my writing time has been dedicated to filling, editing, and completing the story.  I am hoping to have it finished and submitted in the next few days.  Once my submission has been accepted, I will post links to it here, on my Facebook page, and in my Twitter feed.

In the meantime, feel free to browse through any of the stories I've previously posted or check out some of the authors over at Amazing Things Press.  Go. Read. Enjoy.

Seeing The Whole World

Once before I posted about someone without the ability to see.  The idea of the exact opposite has been floating around in my head for many years.  What are some of the things someone would do if they found themselves with the ability to see anything, anywhere?  Viewing the past and future would still be impossible, but it would be easy to look at anything currently occurring on the planet.

I was finally coming to terms with my sight. It wasn't something that most people have to adjust to. My peripheral vision wasn't narrowing to a dark tunnel. It wasn't getting more difficult to read signs at a distance or books up close. I had to adjust to the fact that I could see everything.

When I say everything, it is much more than simply a matter of my vision being 20/20. At any given moment I could focus my view on a section of wall and see every nail pinning the drywall to the stud, how much the wood compressed and how much of it splintered when the nail was driven in, each stroke of the sander smoothing out the mud in the panel joints. I could easily see all of this regardless of whether the subsequent construction had been covered with paint, wallpaper, or both.

More than that, I could lay back and let my point of view roam anywhere in the world. I could see diplomats speaking to each other in a secured conference room on the other side of the planet. Since I couldn't hear them and never bothered to learn to read lips, all of the state secrets they may be passing to each other were still safe.

All of this started with an attack. I was working my usual evening shift at a corner convenience store. An armed thug rammed thug sauntered through the door, pulled a gun, and shot me in the head. As I lay on the ground bleeding, he rummaged through the cash drawers and helped himself. He walked away with just under $500. Not worth the life he just intended to take if you ask me. Even with the security cameras at the front door, behind the counter, and in the parking lot outside, the police were unable to identify the guy. Since I had seen his face very clearly, I told them I would gladly point him out in a lineup if they needed me to. They never called me in.

However, his shot wasn't lethally accurate. The bullet just grazed my skull. Somehow the pressure wave in the fluid inside my skull caused something to change in my brain itself. At least that's what the doctors keep telling me each time they call me in to take more pictures of my head. They don't know what kind of effects the difference in my brain chemistry may have, but that's only because I haven't told then about my new planet-wide visual acuity.

Doctor's orders kept me out of work the next couple of weeks. My boss said he would hold my position for me as long as I didn't sue the store. He smiled and sounded like he was joking, but I kind of doubt that. By the time I clocked back in for another evening shift, I was already aware I could see considerably more than I had before. With a little practice during slow parts of my shift, my vision was improving by leaps and bounds. After my first week I could count not only the cash in the drawer without opening it, but see exactly how much was in each shift's drop envelopes as they sat inside the safe in the boss's office.

The first time I noticed how much more I could see it was more out of boredom than anything else. I was sitting on my couch watching television. A movie was on that took place in the Sahara desert. Seeing all that sand blowing around and the shimmering heat was making me a little thirsty. I looked in the general direction of my kitchen and wondered if I had any beers in my fridge. Instantly I could see inside the refrigerator as though the door and wall between it and me were made of clear glass. All of the contents were clearly visible to me. It came as such a surprise that I blinked a couple times and the view disappeared. I sat and stared at the wall for a minute, thinking the whole thing must have been a hallucination caused by being shot.

I looked at the wall between me and my bedroom and again thought about the contents of my fridge. Nothing happened this time. Since I was looking at my bedroom wall my mind wandered to what clean clothes I might have to wear the next day. Suddenly I could see all of the folded shirts and pants in my dresser drawers. I noticed a couple of shirts I knew I had left in the hamper were sitting in my drawer. I realized this couldn't be a hallucination since I had no way of knowing my sister had washed my clothes and put them away while I was in the hospital. I'm not sure why I didn't start to panic. I began to look through other walls in my apartment. I could see how much soap was left in the bottle in my bathroom, this despite three walls and the plastic of the bottle itself potentially blocking my view.

I started to experiment with how far I could see. I peeked into other apartments on the same floor as mine. Then into rooms in apartments one and two floors beneath my feet. I kept extending my view further and further. Reading the expiration dates on the labels of food in the store on the corner. Counting the seeds in the vegetables on display at the farmer's market down the street. I will admit I spent too much time peering into the women's locker room at the gym a couple blocks down while sitting alone in the living room of my apartment. There seemed to be no limit to how far my vision could reach or how detailed a view I could get.

This new ability was a source of fun for the most part. I could watch any NFL game I wanted without my television being on or traveling to a stadium. I could watch a movie being made anywhere in the world. Women's locker rooms weren't the only places I looked at ladies in various states of undress. In general, whatever I wanted to see, I just looked at.

The fun stopped a few months after I got back to work. Once again, an armed thug entered the convenience store. This time he was wearing a ski mask despite the heat of the August evening. Without even thinking about it, I glanced at his waistband behind his back. There was a gun behind his back, loaded with the safety off and a round chambered. A quick look behind the ski mask told me how much danger I was truly in. The face hiding behind the cotton was the same one that belonged to the man that had shot me once before. There was no way I could give him the chance to kill me or hurt anyone else again.

What are some of the things you would look at if you could focus your sight on anything?  What would you look at first?

Population Control

Conspiracy theorists have been accusing various military and governmental entities of various programs to control their subjects.  Subliminal messaging, misinformation, and chemical mind control are just some of the methods suggested.

What if one such program was truly implemented?  A chemical compound that would make people suggestable without effecting their effectiveness.  The compound could be put in water supplies or foodstuffs.  People could then be lead to professions that would benefit the leadership without questioning why they were following such pursuits.  Civilians could be made to not question the actions of the military.

How would such a chemical be detected?  Would it be possible to stop such a program once it got started?  Is there any way of knowing it hasn't already begun?

The sergeant approached General Yatimo's office with a degree of apprehension. The folder in his hand contained information that nobody really wanted to see. It had the potential to shake up the entire Command Structure that had been in place for generations. One single fluctuation in a normally flat line of a graph could mean an end to everything their society had been developed to become. It wouldn't happen immediately, but the people that had detected the problem were more than happy to include projections for the end of all the peace they had enjoyed. While there wasn't anything General Yatimo could do, he and the other Leaders may be able to find some way to keep humanity from falling into the chaos that existed before The Program was instituted.

The sergeant nodded to the general's secretary. She had been calmly typing at her computer terminal when he entered the outer office. Because his duties included bringing regular reports to the general, she knew him well. However, today wasn't one of his regularly scheduled appearances. The information he carried couldn't wait the three days until he would normally deliver his reports.

The secretary gestured for the sergeant to have a seat. The sergeant ignores her suggestion and waits for her to make General Yatimo aware of his presence. She already knew the answer to the question but asked it anyway, “Do you have an appointment Jefferson?”

The sergeant's reply was completely flat. It carried none of the fear and apprehension he felt. There was also no sign of the joy he usually expressed at the few moments spent in the presence of the lovely woman. “No appointment this time. However, I have a report that has been flagged as Priority 1 Alpha. The general must see it immediately. The Leaders will be calling an emergency session this evening and he has to be prepared.”

No emotions altered or changed her face as she processed the meaning of what he had just said. “He is currently meeting with a civilian. They should be done in just a few minutes.” With that her attention returns to her computer terminal. She activates her headset and begins making calls. From what he can hear of her side of the conversation, she is canceling and rescheduling the general's appointments for the rest of the day. After the sergeant's meeting is complete, the general will probably have her clear his calendar for a much longer period of time.

The sergeant continues to stand and wait patiently for General Yatimo's earlier visitor to finish. The import of what he has to say make the few minutes seem to drag on for much longer. The general's office door finally opens and a diminutive older gentleman in common clothes emerges. The sergeant pays him no attention as he enters the office before the door closes behind the previous guest. The general is involved in something on his terminal, much like his secretary had been when the sergeant first arrived. The general becomes aware of the sergeant's presence when a folder is slapped down on his desk.

Without preamble the sergeant gives the general a headline that summarized the data in the report and its implications. “The Program is in trouble. An individual is developing a resistance. It is only a matter of time before all the peace we have enjoyed for so long comes to an end.”

General Yatimo sits stunned for a minute. He opens the folder and looks over the reports. He doesn't understand all of the technical language, but the summaries are enough for him to get the idea of what the scientists had to say. The sergeant explains as the general forms his own understandings of the situation.

“Testing of blood samples 'donated' last month show a decrease in the variable proteins associated with standard Program implementation. Similar levels were detected in a single sample last month, but it was deemed an error in testing. The increase in these variations since seem to indicate an expansion in resistance. This despite all the assurances there would be no resistance when The Program was first developed.”

Still getting over his initial shock and absorbing the data before him, General Yatimo asks the sergeant, “How widespread an area are we looking at?”

“Right now all of the people showing decreased protein levels are residents of a single small town Southern Nevada. No direct family connection has been found. They all work in different professions and eat and shop at different businesses. The only commonality between them all is the neighborhood in which they reside. More residents of the area are being 'encouraged' to visit their local blood donation centers so further samples can be collected. A similar program is being instituted in nearby towns and communities.”

The full meaning of the reports hits General Yatimo. He states a few facts the sergeant had realized and come to grips with on his way to deliver the information. “The decrease in the variable proteins means that people are building up a resistance to the control chemicals we've been feeding them for generations. An occurrence that shouldn't be possible. Civilian's minds will begin to think outside the parameters we set for them. They will behave as they did before The Program was initiated. The authority of The Leaders will erode as conspiracy theories grow and people question government and military policies.

“The source of this resistance must be found. Once we know how it is spread, we can stop it and eliminate anyone whose blood shows the decrease in protein levels. That should be sufficient to maintain our control over the population for centuries to come.”

The sergeant was reluctant to point out to General Yatimo the conclusions on the final page of the reports. There it was indicated the current resistance developing in the civilian population was due to the effects of nuclear tests decades ago in the desert near the small Nevada town. The effects of past military actions were hampering the future of that same military entity.

If you wanted to control the world, what method would you use?

Fourth Degree

This is another story idea that isn't from my brain, yet one I had quite a bit of influence on.  It is a tale from my son's notebook of stories.  At this point, I can easily see his creative and artistic talents leading him many places in the future.  If only he would stop growing up so fast.

My name is Jackson S. Master.  At the age of five I started to practice swordplay.  It took me thirteen years to master a technique called "the four angles of death."  After high school it became more difficult to keep training.

One day I found a rare metal called morphanite.  I decided to create four swords out of it.  When I tried to practice with them, I started to change.  At first my body turned all black, then stripes of red formed around my waist and chest.  After a few seconds I noticed that I had become faster, stronger, and more agile.

It seemed to me the only thing for me to do was protect the weak and innocent.  They call me Fourth Degree due my use of four swords at the same time.  Evil better beware the blade of the hero.

With summer vacation in full swing, I think the two of us will sit down and develop some of the ideas from his notebook into a few full fledged stories.  Before long we may even have two published authors in the house.