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Tis the season to be scary

  Morning exercise and teaser. Because, as you know October and all that... Captain Ross winced as he heard the shot. They were trapped, dead men. An hour ago they had collided with something as they breached the thermocline. What it was, Ross did not know. A whale? Some piece of debris from an earlier wreck? In any event, the leak and fire had killed most of his crew and sent HMS Revenge to the ocean floor. They had struggled for hours to effect repairs, till long, long after it was clear that they were doomed. Grimly, Ross had handed out pistols from the armoury to the fifteen survivors. He had given no orders, there was no need. The men had just nodded and taken the weapons, one by one. Ross looked down at the weapon. Slow or fast? Did it really matter? Now? He thought of Joan. What would she think if he, no, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. He looked at the pistol beside him and picked it up. “I’m already dead,” he said. “That’s right you are. So do yourself a favour...
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Of Ships and Names

  What did a battleship do? Or a cruiser or a destroyer? Learning interesting things to not sound like a nong when using those words. For those interested here is the cliff notes version. A cruiser is your basic 'workhorse' warship. It does the commerce raiding, escorting and is the backbone of your fleet. They need to be a mix of speed, endurance and firepower. A Battleship by contrast is all about the big guns and bringing them to dominate a naval battle. Big guns, armour to withstand said guns and a measure of speed to get anywhere useful made Battleships very expensive. This made committing them a chancy thing at best as they were a lot of eggs in one basket. By contrast, a Destroyer is a specialist warship. Originally short for torpedo-destroyer, it was a platform for bringing the then-new weapons to the battlefield. Later, they filled other specialist roles such as anti-submarine or anti-aircraft roles. So what does this mean in your typical Space-Opera? Ideally, we want ...
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 Sorta Live! Kinda. Listen to one of my stories from Have Human, Will Travel on You Tube. Turn the sound up because we're all learning here. https://youtu.be/1CFeHgvSV8Y
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 It Lives! I have made a book and posted it on Kindle. It's called 'Have Human, Will Travel' and is a collection of short stories about well, humans. It's also only $2 so I'm pointing out that's only 25 cents a story. A good deal compared to going to the movies in my opinion. Anyways, it's there, read it so I get more sales than from my wife and parents.
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The Battle of Vesuvius INSPACE! done. Hooray! Hooray for me. Writing again after a brief pause where I sold my house, quit my job, moved to another town and bought a new house. Hmm, still need a job since this isn't exactly paying yet. So, the Battle of Vesuvius. INSPACE! Yes, that Vesuvius. The same one that goes bang was the site of the first big victory of Spartacus' Rebellion. It happens about 150 years prior to the other event. So how does a battle from over 2000 years ago provide inspiration for one involving ships, space marines and lasers? To which all I can say is; learn your history and buy my book!
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 Quick short story, it's kinda adjacent to the space opera. Sorta. Never Punt an ET. The first rule they hammer into you when going outside the Sol system is 'do not punt the ET'. Even if they are annoying. Especially if they are annoying. No matter how much you want to pick up the ET by whatever and drop-kick them away, as far as the local gravity allows. No matter how much the local law types thought the puntee deserved it or how much they are laughing you will be deported back to Sol, There you will spend the rest of your sorry life working off the deportation charges and EarthSec will keep an eye on you forever as well. There are benefits mind. An entire subculture exists around punting ETs, never mind the legalities and ethics. And as someone bold enough to do it freestyle, while the Goverment takes a dim view, the same cannot be said for the people. The current ET in question was a Franeck, sort of like a hexapedal, feathered avian about the size of a cat if you'v...
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 Please, stop believing the narrator Yes, yes I know. I already posted something today. That's because I have goldfish brain and had left the draft about fictional fascism sitting in limbo for a while. Hears today's rant. I noticed it as I completed the first arc for what began as Sparticus(inspace!) and is increasingly looking like Macbeth, also in space! Glynn and Artura are getting more like Mr and Mrs Darth Vader, sorry Lord and Lady Macbeth with each page. Which is okay, that Will said something about imitation after all. Anyways, back to what set this off. Our protagonists believe different things as a result of having different upbringings and whatnot. Their pairing is, well a mismatch. Anyways both Glynn and Artura believe in a version of history about what happened during Contact.  Glynn's one is purposefully wrong, it's obviously close to the party line and well, should be suspect on that alone. It's like reading some mid-century account of the colonisatio...
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