As I write this, I still have almost two weeks to go before the end of school. As you read it, I will have been done with school for almost two weeks. With any luck, Nova Dancer will be ready to go, and I’ll have made substantial progress on Patience Under Fire.
Watch this space for more information over the coming days.
Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike and Astrid Maxxim and her Undersea Dome have been updated with minor format fixes and proofreading. Find either of these books wherever fine ebooks are sold. If you previously purchased either of these books, you should be able to re-download the newer version.
Nova Dancer is now available for preorder at Amazon and Smashwords.
Nova Dancer is a space adventure set so far into the future that Earth is nothing more than a myth. We follow an intrepid crew of a small free trader as they ply the spaceways in search of passengers of freight to transport.
Nova Dancer is a novella-length story and is available for 99 cents.
Astrid and her father gathered their dishes and took them to the kitchen, placing them in the dishwasher. Then they walked into the family room. Dr. Maxxim started to sit down, but Astrid waved for him to follow and led the way into the living room beyond.
“Now would be the time to talk,” she said.
They stood in the center of the formal living room that was almost never used. Astrid pointed to the doorway that led from the room, down a long hallway. That hallway was lined with small rooms that had once been servants’ quarters.
“So, what’s the deal?”
“Have you ever noticed how strange this house is?” asked her father, seemingly taking them onto a different subject.
“Um, sure. Especially since there are big parts of it we don’t even use.”
“This house was old when my grandfather bought it,” explained Dr. Maxxim. “I don’t know what it was exactly, but he liked it and bought it. It was all the way back in New York State then. When he moved out west, he brought it with him. He had it taken apart and reassembled right here. Then over the years, he began modifying it, changing it around. My father made a few changes. Both of them were happy to have a house full of servants taking care of them. I never felt comfortable with all these people living among us, and us acting like they were invisible.”
“Mom’s right, Dad. People don’t act that way anymore.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “You’ve looked in those rooms before?”
“Sure. They’re mostly empty, but a few of them have some furniture in them. They’re not too bad. Aren’t they about the same size as my bedroom?”
“No. Your bedroom is about fifty percent larger. And these rooms are only as large as they are, because they were intended to hold eight household staff in each one. They had their own dining room and common room at one time. They were right here, as a matter of fact. Your mother and I turned it into the living room. When we first got married, we went on a building spree, you might say.”
“You created my bedroom by dividing up a larger room, right?”
“Yes. We did the same thing with our bedroom. We added bathrooms. We put in the pool. We had the kitchen remodeled and created the breakfast room. Then we sort of ran out of gas. At least I did. We just closed off the rest of the house that we didn’t use.”
“Have you thought about doing anything else?”
“I guess I just figured that I would leave it for you when you grow up,” he said.
“Well, I have a lot of ideas,” said Astrid. “Some of them, I think we need to start on right now.”
It’s a funny thing. I had started and stopped writing Astrid Maxxim and the Antarctic Expedition several times, but by the time I was done, I was just hitting my stride. I immediately started working on Astrid Maxxim and her Hypersonic Space Plane. The previous books had hinted quite a bit about what would be in this book and I just continued on.
This was without a doubt the quickest I had ever finished a book. I started the rough draft August 24, 2014 and finished it September 13th. Twenty-one days inclusive. The very next day, I started on His Robot Girlfriend: Charity, It took forty-two days, exactly twice as long, but still pretty quick. A big part of this is probably because I just finished a second twelve credit graduate program at SUU, and I hadn’t been able to write much during those months.
The cover for the book went through half a dozen drafts as we got just the right spacecraft and image of Astrid. Though not created at the same time, this cover and the one for the upcoming Astrid Maxxim and her Outpost in Space fit really well together.
I am still hopeful that I can publish three books this year. This might seem ambitious, an it is, but I think I can do this because all three are near completion. This is because I have been working on all three. I’ll write one for a month and then switch to another, only to switch back, or even move on to a third. If I can do it, the schedule might look something like this:
May= Nova Dancer
This might even be sooner, because the draft is done. It depends on how much time I have to write over Spring Break.
September=His Robot Wife: Patience Under Fire
Yes, I know this was supposed to be last September, but it’s going to need the most revision time.
December= For King and Country
This will be the final Senta and the Steel Dragon book, and it’s going to be something like 150,000 words, in other words, about 50% larger than other books in the series. This is one deadline I really don’t expect to make, though I would like to.
This is not an April Fool’s joke. I’ve completed the draft for Nova Dancer, a sci-fi space story. If you are wondering why this book is done and the others that I’ve supposedly been working day and night on aren’t, well, it’s like this. Nova Dancer has been sitting around almost complete for a couple of years. I reached a point where I needed a break from writing His Robot Wife, which is very dark, and I realized I only needed a couple of chapters to finish Nova Dancer. Of course the mood I was in, made it a little dark too.
Nova Dancer takes place in the far future (some 28,000 years from now) in an interstellar society that no longer remembers Earth as anything more than a myth. There’re aliens, starships, and lots of good old sci-fi goodies. I’m going back to writing my other books for a few weeks before I start editing. Look for Nova Dancer to appear within a few months though.
Early Monday morning, the four young Americans arrived at the airport. Their plane was awaiting them, all serviced, fueled, and ready to go. The Maxxim Starcraft 170 was a sharp, if unusual looking aircraft. Designed by Astrid’s father Dr. Roger Maxxim, the 47 foot long Starcraft featured a long pointy fuselage with a small canard wing just behind the nose. The main wing was at the back of the aircraft, and carried twin turboprop engines, with the propellers facing rearward. These were known as push-props. The cabin, which could accommodate up to nine passengers, was more than spacious with just Astrid and Denise and their carryon luggage. Dennis and Toby took their places as pilot and co-pilot respectively.
An hour later, the Starcraft was soaring westward over the Atlantic Ocean. Though no jet, its cruising speed of 320 mph would carry them back in Maxxim City in under ten hours, even allowing for a short refueling stop in Atlanta. The girls carried on a spirited game of Toad Town using their MX-360 PDAs.
“Do you want to go sit up front?” asked Dennis, walking back down the aisle. “I’ve got to make a pit stop. Toby’s got the stick.”
“I told you that you shouldn’t drink so much orange juice right before takeoff,” said Denise.
Her brother ignored her and continued on toward the diminutive restroom at the rear of the cabin. Astrid unbuckled her seatbelt, walked to the cockpit, and carefully climbed into the pilot’s seat, strapping herself in.
“This is cool,” she said.
“I know,” said Toby. “By the time we get home, I’ll have enough hours to pilot one of these babies myself.”
“Good, you can fly us to Hawaii in two weeks.”
“I don’t know if I can go,” he said. “I haven’t asked yet. I know my dad will be fine with it, but Aunt Gerta thinks that I spend too much time away from home.”
Toby’s great aunt had come to live with him two years before, when his mother had passed away after a long struggle with cancer.
“What the heck is that?” cried Toby, as a loud beeping rang out in the small compartment.
“It’s the SAR,” said Astrid. “Somebody’s fired a missile at us.”
She pointed to the round radarscope at the bottom center of the control panel. It showed a blip coming up toward them from behind.
“What do I do?” asked Toby.
“I’ve got it,” said Astrid.
Taking the control stick in her left hand, she grabbed the twin throttles with her right, shoving them both forward. The engines screamed as they pushed the aircraft toward its maximum speed of 400 mph. Astrid didn’t take her eyes off the radar. The blip, indicating the missile, came closer and closer toward the center of the amber screen. At the last moment, she jerked left on the stick as she stamped down of the corresponding foot pedal and the plane rolled over onto its back. She and Toby watched as a missile shot past them, below the plane, and from their upside down perspective, just above their heads. It flew right through the space where the Starcraft had been.
Astrid flipped the plane back right side up and banked right in a climbing turn.
“What in the world is going on!” shouted Dennis behind them. “Are you trying to crash us?”
“There was a missile,” said Toby. “She just saved all of our lives.”
“Now let’s see if we can find out who shot at us,” said Astrid.
They spotted several recently made contrails high up in the sky, but no other aircraft in their vicinity.
“I’m sure that was an air-to-air missile,” said the girl inventor. “Our attacker must have high-tailed it as soon as they fired.”
“Just a couple of weeks ago they were trying to kidnap you,” said Toby. “Now they’re trying to kill you.”
“Yeah,” mused Astrid. “I wish they would hurry up and make up their mind.”
All nine members of the Maxxim Board of Directors were seated around a very large oval table. Astrid’s mother left her to take a seat at the far end, leaving Astrid to face the entire group, and she was feeling very small. The girl inventor knew how it worked. Those at the table didn’t own all the shares of Maxxim Industries. In fact, she herself had quite a large block inherited from her grandmother. But these nine had been chosen by the shareholders to oversee the operations of the company, so they had tremendous power.
“These will be the new line of Maxxim Supercell Batteries,” Astrid started, lifting the cover off of the cart full of mock-ups. Mr. Brown had outdone himself. There were more than 30 different battery sizes represented—everything from tiny button batteries to large, square lantern batteries.
“Aren’t there already lots of battery manufacturers?” asked Astrid’s aunt Lauren, usually her harshest critic on the board. “Why would we want to get into a such a crowded business.”
“Our batteries will change the marketplace,” replied Astrid. “They will change the world. First of all, since they are made with our own, patented Astricite, their charge will last much longer than any other batteries. Secondly, again because of the Astricite, they can be made for far less. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they will be far less toxic than batteries made with lead, mercury, or cadmium.
“Every year Americans alone dump 180,000 tons of batteries into landfills where toxic contaminants leach out into the soil and water. Every year dozens of children are hospitalized because of ingesting tiny batteries, from which corrosive or poisonous chemicals are released.”
“Our batteries would be safe to swallow?” asked former Senator Charles Bentlemore.
“No,” Astrid replied. “There is still the problem of liquefaction necrosis, which occurs because sodium hydroxide is generated by the current produced by the battery.”
“But our batteries won’t leach into landfills?” asked board member Saul Smith.
“Correct. Astricite has a relatively short life, on the order thirty to forty years depending on the sample size. After that, it degrades into its component compounds, all of which are non-toxic.”
“How much money can we make on this?” asked Astrid’s uncle Carl, her father’s brother and Aunt Lauren’s husband.
“As my mother can confirm,” said Astrid, “batteries are a $64 billion dollar business.”
“How soon can we get these to market?” asked Mr. Roy Dillanson.
“I’ve talked to Mr. Gortner in production, and he says we can have a factory in place in fourteen months.”
“Why don’t we just use an existing factory in China or Mexico?” asked Aunt Lauren.
“We will discuss that after Astrid has gone,” said her mother. “You are finished, aren’t you Astrid?”
“Yes, Mom.”
City of Amathar 