My Fiction – Page 5 – The Unwanted Blog

55 pages ain’t bad

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Mar 162018

I started on a story for Book 2 of my “War With The Deep Ones” on Sunday night (based on an idea I had last Friday afternoon) and finished the first draft moments ago. Works out to about 55 pages. Not a bad pace… ten or so pages a day would finish a good sized novel in less than a month. Of course, 55 pages might not necessarily be 55 *good* pages, but it’s better to have them down and trim a lot, than to have nothing written down.

Book One is not as “cosmic doomy” as a lot of Lovecraftian tales are, more “regular doomy” since the Deep Ones are fairly mundane critters compared to cosmic horrors like Yog Sothoth and Nyarlathotep and Justin Beiber. But things ramp up on the Doom Scale in Book Two.

Still not quite sure what to actually *do* with all this. I’m going through the latest version of my first “Zaneverse” novel, hopefully to wrap up my final edit and then to try to convince a publisher to publish it, but as for “War?” Dunno.

As a reminder, the first “War” story is Honolulu, the second is Champion of the Seas. Feel free to check them out.

Pax Orionis Progress!

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Mar 012018

If you’ve hung around this blog long enough you may recall “Pax Orionis,” a book i started writing detailing an alternate history where the United States went ahead and developed Project Orion. I even started a Patreon to support the development of the book! But after a few of the stories were written, it sorta faded into the background as other needs and projects became overwhelming.

I’ve finally finished the next Pax Orionis story, “The Magicians.” It is *not* the story I was working on the last time I posted… still pecking away on that one (“Starship Troopers”). The one I’ve just finished is about 20 pages and is currently in massive need of editing and revision (it’s a mess), but it is at least completed. So more stuff *is* coming!

Almost promptly after my previous post saying I was back on the job of writing Pax Orionis, I got sucked into another, completely different writing project, a bit of Lovecraftian sci-fi/horror called “The War With The Deep Ones.” I’ve written a whole bunch of that… pretty much a whole novels worth.

You can read the first of those stories (“Honolulu”) here:

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=36676

And you can get the second installment (“Champion of the Seas”) here:

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=36833

Pax Orionis diverges from our timeline when the Cuban Missile Crisis becomes the Cuban War. Pax Orionis is being written as something of a history collection, including official accounts, personal recollections, tech reports, excerpts from history books and novels and magazine articles. if this sounds at all interesting, feel free to take a look at some of the earlier posts, and certainly wander by the Pax Orionis Patreon. If you sign up, it’s only a buck… and only when new stories get posted. You can also catch up on the earlier stories such as “Deadliest Catch,” “Birth of the Bomb” and “The Blast from Jackass Flats.”

War With The Deep Ones: Champion Of the Seas

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Feb 112018

Who wants some fiction? A tale of a cruise ship on the high seas when the world is attacked by Lovecraftian sea monsters, Champion of the Seas is, I think, pretty good. This is the second full yarn in the “War With The Deep Ones” book that I’ve released; the first being “Honolulu.” I also released a bit from the “interstitial tales” that will be wedged between the main stories.

To read a preview of the story and to order the whole thing in PDF & EPUB formats, click the “Continue Reading” below.

War With the Deep Ones: another one done

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Jan 302018

Finished another tale, “Brass Valley.” Not a terribly long one (one of the shorter ones), but still kinda interesting.

I’ve ordered the stories in the spreadsheet according to the order I think they’ll go in the book. Irritatingly, the second story, the one following on after “Honolulu,” is one that I kinda stalled out on… and it’s one I need to not only finish but make work.

Clearly it’s turning into a good-sized work, but I suspect a good editor would go through it with a woodchipper. I could easily see half of the length being filtered out.

It had been my plan to release the stories in the proper order, since it would make more sense that way (there is a process to the invasion that explains why some places are surprised and others aren’t). But I think I’ll release “Champion of the Seas” next… I think it’s a pretty good one, and stands well on its own. Stay tuned.

Some uplifting music

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Jan 252018

I’m poking away at the last two major unstarted (until now) stories for book one of “War With The Deep Ones, “Brass Valley” and “Amber Aspect.” And this (Ligeti’s “Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, 2 Mixed Choirs and Orchestra”) seems just about perfect for the mood I hope to convey:

No scene such as this occurs in book one, but if I were to pick the music for a hypothetical Lovecraftian movie, this, or something very like it is what I’d tell the composer to include for the scene where the hero, antihero, victim or whoever approaches the vast, incomprehensible cosmic horror. If you’ve seen “Oblivion,” that’s actually pretty much what happens here anyway…

War With The Deep Ones: Interstitial Tales

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Jan 242018

My plan for the first WWTDO book is to have a collection of short stories, each an incident set within the first few days of the Deep One invasion, each story being on the order of ten or more pages long. But *between* the stories I plan on including little short yarns, a page or three long, that give a chronologically sequential history of the doin’s with the Deep Ones and other relevant Lovecraftian issues. Most of these deal with the Office of Insight, giving a history of the secret government branch dedicated to studying and preparing for cosmic horrors.

I think what I’ll do is reserve the bulk of these little tales for the final book, even though I’ll probably release each of the major tales individually. So if you want the full back story, you’ll just have to get the book.

Also: the original trio of reviewers seemed to really like the historical backstory, enough so that sometime after finishing up Book 1, I’ll turn the backstory into a complete book itself. I’ve already written forty or so pages of that, set in the early 1990’s…

And after all that yammer, here are the first two of the tales. They start just after the raid on Innsmouth, and introduces some guys just doing their job who have received an unwanted introduction into a larger, weirder world. Rather than PDF or EPUB, it’s just blog-text, just click below. As always, comments, critiques and large sums of cash welcomed.

War With The Deep Ones 1: Honolulu

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Jan 222018

Here is the first tale from Volume One of War With The Deep Ones, “Honolulu.” It’s provided complete in both PDF and EPUB (Kindle) formats. I would be interested in any and all constructive comments, criticisms, suggestions. Feel free to spread this far and wide… any relevant people, forums, discussion groups, whatever, that you think might like this, feel free. And if you do, let me know where.

Also interested in whether you prefer the PDF or the EPUB version.

The terribly short background for this story: it’s more than a century after the events of H.P. Lovecrafts “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” The Deep Ones – a race of amphibious humanoids (think: kinda like the Creature From The Black Lagoon, except smarter and more froggy) have finally decided that they’re done with mankind. There are a lot of them. And the vast majority of mankind is wholly in the dark. They are hard to kill, they have commitment to cause and they have shall we say patrons and allies that are just plain bad new for Mankind. On our side, we have… us. And some associates at Brass Valley…

Some of the stories will have recurring characters. Most will be one-and-done. This is about an event of global scale, after all… there would be billions of stories to tell here. I’m not going to try that hard, though.

War With The Deep Ones 1 Honolulu epub format

War With The Deep Ones 1 Honolulu pdf format

Let me know what you think. I’ll release the other stories here and probably at Amazon from time to time, for probably something like a buck or two a pop. If you are a Big Time Publisher and you read this and want to throw a gigantic advance at me and/or movie rights… let’s talk.

If you read this and enjoyed it, please consider putting a little something in the tip jar.

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“War With The Deep Ones”

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Jan 202018

On and off I continue to tap away on my “War With The Deep Ones” project. It started off blisteringly fast, but unsurprisingly slowed down; still, I’ve written around 350 pages for the first book.

I originally described “WWTDO” here half a year ago. But the short form is that it is a sequel to H.P. Lovecrafts’ “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” along with several other of his tales. As you may recall from “Shadow,” at the end of the story we find out that around 1930 the Feds raided the Massachusetts city of Innsmouth and took hundreds of “people” captive, hiding them away in concentration camps. The reason for this is that these people are hybrids of humans and “Deep Ones,” aquatic non-human entities who are somewhat interested in wiping out mankind. “WWTDO” takes place a bit more than a century later, when the Deep Ones finally get it together and make their move on mankind.

What I have so far are around 15 separate short stories all dealing with different aspects of the war. My plan at this time actually involves four books… “WWTDO 1” which covers the first few days of the war, “WWTDO 2” covers the first few weeks to months, “WWTDO 3” finishes out the war. The fourth book would be more of a historical novel covering the history of the Office of Insight, the secret government organization formed after the raid on Innsmouth to deal not only with the Deep Ones but also with the other Lovecraftian threats that are found.

I think what I’ll do with this is release one or two of the stories (probably Honolulu) here, posted in PDF & EPUB format, and then release the others either individually or as one solid book, self published on Amazon in digital format (like a number of US Bomber Projects I’ve got available there). Since I have no cover art I think I’ll dispense with printed versions, unless there is some deep abiding desire.

As seen from the list below, a few of the yarns kinda stalled out during the writing process.

Corporate Jets off Aircraft Carriers

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Jan 042018

Some months ago I pondered the possibility of launching and landing C-17s’s from aircraft carriers (result: no). But how about corporate jets such as the Gulfstream G650? The takeoff run of the G650 is a bit over a mile, so obviously a standard takeoff run would not be possible. I’m dubious that performance would be improved enough through stripping weight so that the plane could self-launch from the deck of a Nimitz-class carrier. And corporate jets aren’t equipped with either arrester gear nor catapult attachments on a properly strengthened nosegear.

The purpose of my curiosity is a piece of fiction I’ve been noodling around with. The requirement is to be able to fly passengers (as many as possible) to and from an aircraft carrier, non-stop, a distance of at least 3,400 miles, up to 4,700 miles, without inflight refueling. So… how difficult would it be to make the required modifications? Is there a chance in hell that corporate jet landing gear could take the beating a carrier landing would give it? Could such a jet successfully get away with using, repeatedly, the emergency “nets” that aircraft carriers can deploy in the event that the arrester cables don’t work? Can the nose gear be relatively easily modified for the catapult system, or would it have to be completely replaced, with structural reinforcement to the aircraft structure?

And… how long would this take? Assume that bean counters and red-tape aficionado bureaucrats can be defenestrated if they cause a ruckus. The Skunk Works is given the task to modify X number of corporate jets for this role, told to work day and night, waste anything but time, nobody cares if it’s pretty, if the glue is carcinogenic, if the workplace is properly diverse, and to hell with the union. Is this the sort of thing that could be hacked together in days? Weeks?

This being fiction, I can always cheat. Perhaps the responsible parties have already made these modifications and are just keeping the planes in reserve. That would be easiest, and it would fit the story, but I remain curious about the possibilities of a crash program.

Can a C-17 operate from an aircraft carrier?

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Sep 262017

Something little known is that the US Navy ran trials of operating a C-130 from an aircraft carrier (the Forrestal). For reasons that seem good to me, I’m pondering the question of whether a C-17 could operate from a modern carrier such as the Nimitz or the Ford.On the surface it looks like no, since the stated takeoff run is about three times the length of the Ford or Nimitz… but with reduced cargo?

Alternatively; what aircraft capable of substantial payloads (mostly passengers) could operate from a modern carrier, while flying at least 2,500 miles?

Yeah, the purpose is fiction. The situation is an emergency, something that has to be slapped together in at most a few days, so it’s not a call for major modifications or a new design.

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