They held it at the Crown Plaza Hotel near DIA this year, which was a new venue. The new location was sort of a mixed bag, while I felt there was plenty more room for vendors, artists, and media, there was a bit less room for panels (which is a big part of why I attend!)
That said, it was a fun convention. I was supposed to have three panels: Ow! My Spleen, Where Did This Chocolate Come From?, and Combat in SF and Fantasy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to the panel on Chocolate, though I heard it went well.
The Ow! My Spleen panel discussed injuries of characters, always a fun topic. While I didn’t get everyone’s name from the panel, I was moderating, also participating was Sam Knight and Chaz Kemp. Both of them had some great contributions about what horrible things to inflict upon characters (all in the name of plot, story, and character growth, of course).
The Combat in SF and Fantasy panel went excellent as well. We had Johnny Woodard, Betsy Dornbush, Chaz Kemp, and Courtney Farrel and one other author whose name I couldn’t remember (I think I have his business card, he had great things to say). We had a very full room, with great discussions and I really want to thank Johnny Woodard and Courtney Farrel for their excellent expertise that they brought to the subject and it was awesome to have Chaz Kemp with an artist’s perspective.
All in all, I really enjoyed Starfest and I hope to be back next year!
Hi everyone! I’ll be giving away stories for free on Amazon this weekend. My short stories Look to the Stars and The Freeport Mutineers will both be free during Starfest 2016. What that means is that you can get both stories from Amazon for free from March 12-13.
Look to the Stars blurb:
Look to the Stars, a short story by Kal Spriggs
Mason McGann is a smuggler, a liar, and a cheat.
With his ship impounded by customs, he figures he has no choice left but to auction off information about the lost Dreyfus Fleet.
But things are never what they seem when you hold information that can change the course of history.
The Freeport Mutineers blurb:
The Freeport Mutineers, by Kal Spriggs
Troubled by the rumors spread throughout the Southern Fleet, the young officer turned to the Marines and Sailors under his command… yet he and they were betrayed, arrested, and convicted of mutiny, all under the orders of the ambitious Lord Admiral Hennings.
Faced with the prospect of not only his own death, but that of the men under his command, Wachter must somehow find a way to do the right thing. Yet there is little hope with he and his men jailed, weaponless, and condemned, while the town of Freeport lies under martial law and the threat of dark sorcery.
Only one course lays open to him, to break his oaths and to swear allegiance to the cause of another, to become exactly what his enemies have accused him of being: a mutineer.
Hello everyone! Valor’s Child is now on Kindle Scout. The excerpt there contains the first five thousand words. Those of you who nominate it (if it gets selected for publishing), will then receive the entire novel for free.
The planet Century lies at the very verge of human space. It is a frontier world, where hard work is not only essential to survival, it is a way of life. Jiden knows all about hard work, and she’s ready to buckle down and fulfill her dreams, to rise above her parent’s modest background and to stake her claim and be successful on her own merit.
Yet there’s one hurdle she has to face, her grandmother insists she attend the Century Military Academy’s Prep School. She plans to keep her head down, to get past this last obstacle, and then to pursue her dreams. Yet nothing goes to plan: she becomes the center of controversy, she finds herself drawn into infighting among the other candidates, and worst of all… she finds a resonance within her heart at the ideals of duty and service.
Remember: your support is what will get this book published. Please take the time to go to Kindle Scout and nominate it. Here is the direct link: Valor’s Child on Kindle Scout
Hello everyone! I’m happy to announce that Valor’s Child, my military science fiction/space opera young adult novel is coming to Kindle Scout. I’m really excited about this book, I’ve had some great feedback on it and I hope it will appeal to a broad audience. The general theme of this series is going to be a cross of Ender’s Game and Starship Troopers.
So what is Kindle Scout? I’m glad you asked! Kindle Scout is a publishing service within the umbrella of Kindle. Basically, Kindle has stepped up things and created their own in-house publisher. The way it works is actually quite novel: Authors upload their manuscripts to Kindle Scout, where anyone with an Amazon account can view their work. Those who like it can vote for it (you get up to three votes at a time). The best part for readers is that if the book they voted for gets selected for publishing, then they’ll receive a free copy when it is published. That’s right, just for participating you get a free copy. Pretty cool, huh?
In this way, Kindle Scout is crowd-sourcing books. What they provide for me as a writer is that they have all the assets of a publisher: they pay for copy-editing and they help to promote the book.
This is something of an experiment to me, so we’ll see how it works. Hopefully a lot of my readers will check it out. I’ll post the link on Friday when it goes live. (Edit: It will go live on Saturday 13 Feb)
My short story, Look to the Stars, will be available for free January 22 & 23 on Amazon since I’ll be at CoSine this weekend. You can get it here.
Mason McGann is a smuggler, a liar, and a cheat. With his ship impounded by customs, he figures he has no choice left but to auction off information about the lost Dreyfus Fleet. But things are never what they seem when you hold information that can change the course of history.
Look to the Stars is a short story in the Shadow Space Universe
For those of you in Colorado, I’ll be at the CoSine convention in Colorado Springs this coming weekend (22-24 January 2016).
CoSine is a smaller convention but one I really enjoy because they have fantastic programming, great organization, and everyone there is super friendly. The guest of honor this year is none other than Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files. There will also be a host of great authors and panelists.
One of the cooler aspects of the event is they have drinks and food on Saturday night at the Author Reception and Signing. For authors, it’s a great way to hang out in a much more relaxed situation.
I’m a bit more limited this year because I’m also having to do Army Reserve training during the weekend, so I’ll miss out on most of Saturday and all day Sunday, but I’ll attend a couple panels Friday afternoon and I’ll be there at the Author Reception on Saturday.
Here’s my schedule:
Friday:
4 PM: How to Intelligently do Horrible Things to Your Characters
5 PM: The Singularity and Social Media
Saturday
5:30 PM: Author Reception and Signing
Please come down and see me at the Con (or that other, way more famous guy, Jim Butcher).
As part of the new site content, I’m introducing character biographies to the website. I’ll have background details and general descriptions of central (and some side) characters for each of the series I write in. Up first (because it’s the smallest cast of characters) is the the Star Portal Universe and the cast of Fenris Unchained.
I tried to strike a balance of giving enough background to develop the character without including any real spoilers. As one might imagine, on Fenris Unchained, this was more difficult than I’d like, but I think I did alright.
Ideally I’ll add pictures of the characters at some point, but for now, I’m taking the time to go through and do the same to all my other universes. The good news is most of this is already done in the form of notes I keep for myself, I’ve just got to scrub those and make sure I don’t give away any spoilers.
Up next I’m working on characters from the Eoriel Saga and then from the Shadow Space Chronicles. If this is well-received, I’ll continue to do more of them. As always, I value feedback on these, please let me know what you think!
You can find the first set of character biographies here or just check in the Star Portal Universe section.
Leo Champion’s Desert Strike is a book. Okay, review done. No, seriously, it’s a book. And it’s got things in it. Go read it.
In all seriousness, there’s a lot going on in Desert Strike. We see war on a global scale, with a Chamberlain-esque government determined to avoid it, a hyper-violent enemy determined to murder and/or enslave the good guys, and a strange semi-benevolent star-spanning nation which supports both sides in return for the resources they’re fighting over.
Mix into this massive landships up-to and including aircraft carriers, a mix of tech that feels gritty and at the same time cutting edge, and incompetent leaders within the good guy’s chain of command, and you have a very interesting setting for the story that unfolds.
The book has several characters, and what Leo Champion does best is making those central characters seem real with believable goals and ambitions. You have a bad-ass, general, Jaeger, driven by anger and revenge. You’ve got a young, rookie pilot, O’Conner, who wants to leave his mark. These are the “Tropes” the “of course he has this person” but Leo goes further than that, he makes them real. The side characters abound, with momentary glimpses at a bigger universe, then whipping back to the central plot.
And what a plot. The enemy has been given free rein, and they use it. This isn’t a book where the good guys have it easy, where victory is well within grasp if they only work hard for it. If anything, I’d say the odds are too heavily stacked against them. At times, you feel that the only victory left is a pyrric, one, where the planet is left a radioactive wasteland… yet somehow you still cling to hope that the good guys will turn the tide.
Desert Strike is a book which surprised me in a lot of ways. I’ve enjoyed reading several of Leo’s books, but he writes in a certain tone, one which is instantly recognizable. Desert Strike takes his normal tone and softens it a bit, ironic in a book about combat and war. It has a fun edge to it, one which isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself, a bit of tongue in cheek even as a character’s life is in the balance.
The aerial combat feels like Vietnam Era, the ground war feels like something from the far future, and everything fits in a way that is hard to describe. If you’re a fan of military science fiction, I think you’ll enjoy the solid characters and gripping combat. If you just like exploding stuff, well, there’s plenty of that here for you too.
It’s about to go hot.
On the dry world of Arkin, the Zinj are taking over. A technologically-competent strain of Islam that make ISIS look like the Amish, they’re challenged only by the nations of the West – and a divided West without much will to fight.
Among those who do have the will are fighter pilot Egan O’Connor, a working-class kid from a tough neighborhood, ready to test himself and serve his country. He’s a chivalrous rookie ready for an honorable battle.
Jimmy Newland’s a cavalry NCO who’s earned his spurs. He’s ready to fight but he doesn’t want to; he’s seen enough skirmishes to know how bad it can be. But he’ll do his job if the cold war gets nastier – as it’s about to.
And there’s nothing chivalrous at all about Air Marshal Elisabeth Jaeger, a career intelligence officer promoted to field command. Twenty-five years ago she saw her husband murdered by the Zinj; she’s spent the time since avenging him. As she’s about do on a scale just a little bit broader than spywork…
After seeing that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was coming out the same weekend as not only my anniversary but also my move, I was pretty certain I wouldn’t get to see it until the following week. Fortunately for my sanity, my wife is also a fan and we managed to fit it into our insane schedule for the weekend.
Since the move revolves around surprises and plot twists, I’ll keep this review spoiler free and friendly to those who don’t want anything ruined. I may, at a later time, discuss some of those things, but not here.
First off, it captures a lot of the spirit of the original. This is, in no uncertain terms, an homage to the originals, albiet one written by a younger generation. The themes, of good struggling against evil and of evil against good, are the same. The idea of family legacies and of discovering ones full potential, are there as well. There are many references, both direct and indirect, to places, people, and events of the previous movies, along with deliberate parallels written to make the audience go “Okay, this is Star Wars.”
I’ve seen a lot of discussion about the movie’s merits, but much of the disappointment (and there is some) is more from those who didn’t manage their expectations. There is no way that JJ Abrams and Disney are going to recreate the Expanded Universe books, page by page. For one thing, there’s too much there and for another, it would strip away all the pleasure of the mystery and wonder of discovery. I loved Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn books and those of Michael Stackpole’s X Wing series, and other books of the expanded universe were fun, engaging, and exciting. What they are not is a good way to write a new and exciting movie. I’ve heard they’re writing new books, set in the new universe. I’ll probably read some of them and I might introduce my children to them, someday. For that matter, I’d love the opportunity to write some of them.
Where the movie succeeds is in capturing the excitement, from the very opening crawl to the last, emotional scene, you can feel that this is Star Wars, that the cast and crew poured love and excitement into its crafting, and that it is a movie that your children will want to share with theirs. It did what I hoped it would and resurrected the franchise.
Is it a perfect movie? Not in the least. There’s a tone of pandering at times, of giving the audience what they want. As an adult, there were many twists that I could guess at, ones that a child or someone new to the genre probably wouldn’t. Some of the constraints of the good guys, as well, were maddening, but mostly, again, from my own perspective rather than the flow of the film.
Still, the movie is exceptional in that it breathed new life to the Star Wars franchise. I’m excited to see the next one, thrilled to have spin-offs like Rogue One, and overall filled with questions. I highly recommend the movie to all fans of the original Star Wars trilogy.
The number one job of an author is to tell a story. In this sense, illustrations such as maps and drawings can be excellent tools for an author, particularly when they are used to immerse the reader more fully into the world.
I’m the type of reader who spends hours, sometimes days pouring over the maps, imagining myself in those worlds and feeling a bit of a thrill as I follow the characters along their journeys. While I also enjoy the occasional drawing of a character, location, or item, seldom do these things resonate with me as well as a good map.
I’m also the type of author who is into world-building: creating a living, breathing world… and maps are a key part of that for me. I’ve had the world layout for Eoriel mapped out for almost twenty years, tweaking details, changing names of cities and mountain ranges, altering coastlines slightly, but always with the same general layout. The same can be said for the Shadow Space Chronicles, I’ve had the general layout of the universe in mind for years, and I’ve spent countless hours drawing out star systems, planet orbits, and the typical routes that ships travel. I do this because I want to know what path the characters will take and why. I want to know what language the locals will speak when the characters stop into a bar or tavern.
What does this have to do with the story? A bit of nothing and a bit of everything. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what language they speak in the bar… but the fact that they have a culture and language adds a level of richness, of reality to your writing. So to, does having a map, of knowing that the characters can take the dangerous mountain pass in the dead of winter or divert two hundred miles to a fortress held by enemies which is the only other way through. Knowing that the characters will need three weeks (or three months) to travel to the next star system not only gives you a way to pace your story, but adds all kinds of fun plot developments and character arcs. What do they do to pass that time? How do they get along together on a tiny ship? Which character(s) snap under the pressure?
Drawings, in the same way, not only help the reader to visualize the world, but it helps you as an author too. Even a crude sketch can help you to develop what a character looks like in order to better describe them, or whether that city in the mountains is nestled in a valley or sprawls across a hilltop. For a reader, a nice drawing can be an added bit, a way to fill in some of the details or even to add to the layer of mystery around something in your story. As they say, a picture can be worth a thousand words.
How do I approach both of these? Well, to be honest, with a map, I want there to be reasons for conflict. Natural boundaries are frequently the dividing lines for nations… but sometimes those nations may disagree on which dividing line they are prepared to accept. A nation that lives and thrives in the jungles may come into conflict with another nation which clearcuts the jungle to establish farmland. Mountain tribes might raid lowlands where the growing season is longer and food is more plentiful… or lowlanders might send conquest parties to seize mineral rich valleys for mining.
Rivers, coastlines, bays, and lakes all serve as methods of transportation and as boundaries. Mountains serve as boundaries and have profound effects upon rainfall and local climate. Forests and jungle can act as barriers or havens, while swamps and marshes serve as foreboding locations and obstacles for characters or refuges for those who need to hide. Deserts too, can serve as both obstacle and refuge, depending on the cultures of the people involved.
Drawings can hint at cultural themes, with stylistic emphasis in order to accentuate descriptions in your writing. A well drawn illustration at the start of the book can set the mood or establish a theme for the reader, putting them in the right mindset.
Maps and drawings are both tools. Learning to use them right is an excellent way to develop your novel and take it to the next level.
Kal Spriggs 