Book Review: Explorations: Through the Wormhole

Overall:  

I quite enjoyed the anthology, there were high points and low points, but it worked well as a number of stories linked by a common thread, wormholes.  Several of the stories also seemed to reference at least the first story, and from there others, to a lesser degree.  Whether this was accidental or intentional, it worked out well.  To anyone looking for a quick read of some engaging stories I recommend picking this volume up.  Below I have reviewed each individual story.

The Challenge:  

An intriguing story of a near future journey through a mysterious wormhole.  It follows the mission commander Elaine who had been training for a long duration colonization experiment on Mars when the wormhole appears.  It's nice to see a story with professionals doing their job even when the job changes suddenly.  The characters are believable, interesting, and relatable.  Excellent job.

Through Glassy Eyes:

Lady or the tiger.  Many of us read this short story in high school, the elegant cliff hanger that left you asking what door to open.  TGE is set after thr challenge and follows a mega Corp as they create, release and then deal with the fallout of the world's first networked neural implants.  It's an excellent sorry and one that anyone interested in such tech should read.  It is also quite similar to the short lived Web series H+ which is a must watch.  A great effort with touches of mega corps and a future that while only 70 years ahead had undergone significant societal change.

Here, there, forever:

Not my favorite of the stories.  It starts out promising, then takes an odd turn into fantasy.  The ending does raise an interesting question though about the nature of the rest of the narrative.  Quite a lot of echoing in the story however.  Another edit pass would have tightened it up nicely.

AI denier:

Fonts are important, especially with the letter I.  I originally went into this story thinking it was called Al denier.  The story stumbles at first to get the protagonist shifted forward in time.  Once in place however, it ran along fine with a woman out of time dealing with a future where the AI have taken over and turned most sentient biologic life into subjugated citizens, little better than slaves.

Flawed Perspective:

A story with a definite twist. When an earth exploration ship find itself cut off from Humanity, The Crew ally themselves with a powerful yet pacifistic race. They then take up arms against their new allies enemies and begin to carve out a new Empire for themselves. Ultimately this is a story about the corruption of power. And comma House of such corruption can blind you to your own history. An interesting read, that would probably work better as a full-on novel comma as certain advances are just glossed over in an effort to advance the plot.

The Lost Colony:

When a smuggler ship cuts it a little close trying to jump out of a protected wormhole things go very wrong for the crew.  This story had me pumped from the start with a very firefly-esque crew doing their best to keep their ship flying as they evade an STA patrol and attempt to jump out system.  Things don’t go to plan and they end up stranded inside the closed wormhole, looking for a way out.  A fun, self contained story, that was a blast to read.

The Aeon Incident:

What happens when you combine Star Trek with Warhammer 40k?  The Aeon Incident, that’s what.  Be prepared for intense battle armored action, mixed with first contact protocols of Star Trek’s Federation.  Action packed and fun, the twist at the end was a genuine delight.

The Doors of the Temple:

The Earth is being ravaged by a war against powerful aliens, and no idea is too outlandish to examine as a means of ending the conflict.  When a widowed Ace Pilot is offered one final chance at saving the Earth using mythology and a crazed, BO ridden Irish scientist he takes it and one final ride through a wormhole like no other.

Dead Weight:

Months from rescue with a damaged ship thrown through a sudden wormhole, Captain Guan Xi Has a mystery on his hands.  Who, or what is killing his crew.  A fun little mystery story with some nice twists.

Webbed Prisms:

This was probably the most interesting story so far.  Told from two different perspectives, on either side of the wormhole it showcases how societies differ and can changes, especially with advanced technology.  I don’t want to give away too much, but would love to see this one expanded into a novel.  Even so, as it stands now, it is a nicely contained story.

Anathema:

Quite an interesting story and one that diverges from the norm in a good way.  The crew of the wormhole corvette Anathema must escort 4 freighters to a mining colony cut off for 16 years.  What they find when they arrive changes everything.

When the Skies Open:

Not all colonies are created equal.  On an Earth colony cut off from resupply generations have past and what technology that is left is in ill repair, if it functions at all.  When a wormhole reopens and Earthers return they bring with them new miracles of technology and medicine, but at what price?  This was a well constructed story, with the mechanics of it such that you felt the confusion of the main character as she witnesses a major change to her society and wrestles with the long terms impacts, a good read with a solid, coherent story.

A Second Infection:

This was an odd one.  For the medically minded the story will be easy to follow, for others, get ready to learn a lot about how infections work.  The story gets medical and metaphysical fast so might not be everyone's cup of tea, but is an interesting take on the overall subject matter.

Personal Growth:

The longest story in the anthology wraps up the book, and follows the Hong Kong based crew of a budget mission through a wormhole.  Not giving away too much it works nicely with some of the other stories presented here (The Challenge, Webbed Prisms in particular) and bookends the anthology well.  Clearly some talent here and a well constructed, concise tale that handles its own internal technologies, sciences, and logic well.

In the end, this is a great book and a definite recommended read.

Explorations: Through the Wormhole Kindle Edition

Product Details
File Size: 2467 KB
Print Length: 376 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Woodbridge Press (August 31, 2016)
Publication Date: August 31, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B01LC0JZD4
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
Not Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Book 3 Update

While I am still waiting on my editor, I did receive the first concept sketch from my artist for Book 3, Rising Warrior/Rising Threat, and I am blown away.

I added the standard text and logo just because I couldn't resist, but it looks great even as it is.  I almost want to release the book with this as a variant cover.  The artist has also insisted on doing the full cover instead of just the character art.  Given that he is asking the same price as my last two artists who am I to argue, but I will pay him more.  I can't wait to see the final product.

Review Roundup October 2015

I have not posted any book or movie reviews of late, but that is because I have been doing them for my old friends over at Slice of Sci-Fi and their sister sites.  Rather than post each one as it went up I decided to wait and post the lost of them at once.

Listening 

Review Summary:

Listening is a movie that I would rate as average. There is little about it that makes it stand out amongst other movies, within and without its genre. This does not mean that Listening is a bad movie, it simply doesn’t bring much new to the table.

Containment

Review Summary:

I have never lived in a tower block/apartment building; part of the reasoning behind this is because I always saw them as perfect havens for disease vectors. This movie plays with that concept to a great degree, along with themes about not knowing your neighbors, fear of authority, isolation, and paranoia.

Nightmare Code

Review Summary:

The way these characters interact and the lack of flashy hollywood computer usage was a welcome change for me. I did my share of code writing and debugging in college and could feel their frustration. Forget the flashy screens and multiple person at a keyboard typing away like mad monkeys, this is what debugging code looks like. Mostly bored folks looking for stimulus as they scroll through line after line of text. Overall this is a great movie, and I recommend it for anyone who is interested in coding, computers and who wants to see a good A.I. movie.

June

Review Summary:

This is an interesting film, but doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, and most genre fans will spot inspiration from various other films. What I have found most interesting is the nebulous time frame the movie takes place in. The three adult leads will be recognizable to folks from my generation, appearing in numerous genre films since the mid-nineties. It was almost a 90s reunion, which kind of works as the movie appears to be set in the early to mid 90s.

Star Wars: A New Hope: The Princess, The Scoundrel, and The Farm Boy

Review Summary:

Do not consider this book a replacement for the movie, or the original novelization ghost written by Alan Dean Foster. Instead, look at it as a supplement. This book does an excellent job of getting into Leia’s head and really lets the reader/listener (since I am reviewing the audiobook version) know what she felt through this adventure. I almost would have liked the book to tell the whole story through her viewpoint, and those of the others as well.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: So You Want to be a Jedi?

Review Summary:

When most people think about Empire, they consider it one of the best of the Original Trilogy Star Wars movies. It develops greatly on A New Hope and expands on the nature of The Force and the Jedi, and the universe at large. This book tosses out most of that for fairy tale stylings, and adds a trite fairy tale about Yoda right in the middle of the book.

Star Wars Beware The Power of the Dark Side

Review Summary:

Overall the book doesn’t add much to the story, and is an almost straight retelling of the movie but does add new links to the prequel trilogy and also describes a far more desperate rebel fleet then other media has portrayed. The audiobook is quite good and the choice of music good as well, though I would have preferred if they didn’t use the Ewok theme as much. Given that this book tried to portray them as warriors so much more, hearing the jaunty theme from the movie here actually did them a disservice.

Do the Young Adult Retellings of the Original “Star Wars” Trilogy Work?

This was a follow up to my earlier review of these three books where I outlined what they did right, and also their significant failings.

Deadlands: Ghostwalkers

Review Summary:

Throw every trope and genre you can into the mix, it’s here in some form or another. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, but made for a fun pre-Halloween read. My oldest wants to read it after he finishes my old HP Lovecraft books. The book also features more than it’s share of violence, and might not be for the squeamish. If a movie is ever made of this, Rob Zombie will probably be involved, let’s put that out there.

More Reviews Incoming

Like the title says I will be posting some more reviews soon.  I have been forwarded ARC (Advanced Reader Copies) of two books by fellow Indie Authors that I am in the process of reading for review.

The first is The Forgotten Prince by Josh Hayes.

Release Date is 14 August, but I should have my review up in time.

The second book is Of Ice and Magic by Hugh B. Long.

Released on 16 July 2015, I will get this one done right after Josh's book.

I am also considering some more movie reviews in the future, and since I just reread it, a review of the book, The Martian, but I think I will wait until I see the movie on that one, compare and contrast.  I also came across some old notes of mine from discussions my oldest and I used to have about how I would remake/rewrite a certain movie franchise that I am considering posting, but I'm not sure yet if I should.  Time will tell.

Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings Rereleased

Long story short I wasn't seeing much in the way of sales through my previous distributor/publisher.  So since I bought the ISBN for Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings, I decided to pull it back.  After some healthy edits to clean up grammar and punctuation mistakes left behind by myself, my editors, and some created during the conversion process I have rereleased Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings as a Kindle exclusive.

This move is for a few reasons:

#1:  It allows me to enroll SW: ODW into Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited.  Many independent authors I have spoken with agree that KU has boosted their sales significantly.\

#2:  This rerelease allowed me to make some much needed edits, edits that if I had tried to make them through my previous distributor would have cost me.

#3:  I saw dismal, read almost no, sales out of the other e-book retailers, single digits from both B&N and iBooks.  Almost all sales thus far were through Kindle, so I am going to keep with that for now.

#4:  Hopefully this will generate renewed interest in the title as Book 2:  In Death's Shadow is forthcoming.  I have to put some finishing touches onto the last chapter, then it's off to the beta readers before one final scrub, assembly, and publication.

Anyone who purchased the previous revision of On Dagger's Wings should get the update automatically if they purchased through amazon.  For the few folks who bought the book through ibooks or B&N contact me directly with proof of purchase I and I will send you the update manually.

The Agony of Formatting and E-Book Conversion (A Tutorial)

Zero Cost E-Book Formatting and Conversion Tutorial

So you've written your book, edited it, and have decided to go indie on the publication, casting off the shackles of the "traditional" publishing houses.  But how do you ready your novel for publication without going to outside assistance?  You can always go out and pay someone to take your individual files, clean them up and convert them, or buy the software to do so, which can range from $40-$160 or more.  Well if you're willing to put in a little work and/or are on a tight budget, then consider this method.

I originally attempted this method as outlined on wikihow:

Convert-a-Word-Document-to-Epub

It's a good method, but somewhat incomplete and can result in some buggy output.

In my case the conversion of my book resulted in several thousand html based errors and convinced me to pay for the conversion, which I was never satisfied with.  Onto the actual tutorial.

Resources:
Word Processor (MS Word, Open Office, Libre Office, etc...)
Google Docs 
Calibre E-Book Manager
An Epub Validator  (There are many of these out there, but this one is free and was recommended by my original distributor)
Your Novel.

Part 1:  Formatting and Cleanup.

Step 1:

Using your preferred Word Processor open up your novel, be it all one file or multiple.  At this point you may not have done any formatting to the story itself  so it will look like the default plain text.  If you have already added a chapter title, then you are already a step in the right direction.

Step 2:

Highlight your main title, select "Format > Styles and Formatting" or the equivalent option for changing a "style" in your word processor, then select from the list of style options: "Heading 1" as shown here:

Step 3:

Repeat this process for every chapter, this is how you will assemble your table of contents later.

Step 4:

This is the step that will take up the most of your time, so settle in for several operator hours, but first meet your new best friend, the Pilcrow ¶. Click the  Pilcrow ¶ symbol (1)in your word processor and you should be immediately be presented with a view like the one below.  A properly formatted document will have nothing on the page except for the actual text and Pilcrows at the end of a paragraph.  Any additional spaces at the end of a paragraph (2), additional tabs (3), or carriage returns (4), should be eliminated.  Take your time here, as cleaning up these little errors will have a big impact later after you convert your document, so best to do it now.

Part 2:  Compiling.

Step 5:

Most word processors, MS Word in particular, have a bad habit of sneaking formatting into a document that you cannot readily see.  This formatting will bite you hard when you convert to an e-book format.  It was suggested by fellow author Bill Frisbee that a way to clean this up would be to first copy and paste the manuscript into google docs.

To that end, pull up google docs on your favorite web browser and paste the text from your novel into it.  Note, it is important to actually cut and paste it in, do not import the document.  I further recommend that this where you composite the whole document together.  To do this, after you paste in a chapter, go to the bottom and insert page break.

Repeat for every chapter.

Step 6:

Now that you've compiled/assembled your novel in google docs you need to export it.  There are several formats you can download it as, .docx, .odt, .rtf, .pdf, .txt, and .html.  I recommend exporting for submissions into .docx as most publishers prefer this format.  For e-book conversion though download it as an .rtf.  Now don't be shocked to see that the rtf file will be several MB in size.

Part 3: Conversion.

Step 7:

Now open up calibre (this is free software).  You will be presented with a screen like this one.

Step 8:

Click on the "Add Books" Icon in the upper right hand corner and select the rtf version of your novel.

Step 9:

Now click on the "Edit Metadata" Icon and enter in the pertinent data about your novel.

Step 10:

Click "OK" to exit back to the main screen and then "Convert books" Icon.  The "Convert books" window will pop up.  In the upper right corner of this screen find the "Output format" menu, select MOBI or EPUB. You can't do both at once, but you can do one then come back and do the other.  I recommend EPUB first as it can be tested with ease.

Step 11:

The left side menu has several items, but you'll only need "Look and Feel" and "Table of Contents."

Step 12:

Under "Look and Feel" check the "Remove spacing between paragraphs" box.

Step 13:

Under "Table of Contents" select the wizard button to the right of "Level 1 TOC (XPath expression).  This is where your formatting comes in handy.

Step 14:

From the drop down menu labeled "Match HTML tags with tag name:" in the new window that pops up select "h1" and click "OK."

Step 15:

You should now see "//h:h1" listed in the Level 1 TOC field.

Step 16:

Click "OK" and Calibre will begin converting. Conversion can take a few minutes, so be patient. If you converted to MOBI the first time, then hit the "Convert books" button again and select EPUB to convert to that format. Then you'll want to hit the big "Save to disk" button.

What you're saving is actually a directory (author's name) with a set of files (all their works.) Because off this, you'll want to save all your Calibre conversions into a super-directory called "authors" or some such. If you enlarge the picture above you'll see the location is:

Documents > My Documents > My eBooks > Authors

This is where you want to be, with the "Folder" field at the bottom of the windowblank when you press the "Select Directory" button. What happens is that Calibre will search this directory for the author's name and either save to that author's directory if it's already been created, or create it if it's not yet there.

Part 4: Testing.

Step 17:

Now navigate over to your epub validator and upload your newly created epub.

If you've done everything right then the system will return zero errors.  Most errors will appear as html errors though.

Yes, I cribbed most of this tutorial from the wikihow article, but there are some changes and additional steps that had I known them at the time would have saved me quite a bit of time, money and embarrassment.  

Design Day

So I have not been able to keep up a daily blog posting schedule, not yet anyway.  I am therefore going to shoot for at least a weekly if not a bi-weekly update schedule.

For today I'm going to talk design.  Maybe it's because I'm an engineer by training but bad and/or inconsistent designs have always bugged me.  I will not say that my own designs are perfect but I have always tried to keep my designs consistent and believable.

For this design day post I'm going to go over the progression in design of one of my own craft.  The Splicer-1000 "Dagger" fighter/trainer that plays such a critical role in Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings.

My original inspiration for the Splicer 1000 was a cross between the venerable X-Wing fighter from Star Wars and the proposed delta wing X-15 rocket plane.  I wondered what it would would look like flipped over and with a delta wing instead of its trademark split wings.


I originally designed many of my craft using paper and pencil, and unfortunately most of those drawings are now gone.  If I can find them, which is doubtful, I will scan and attach the image.

I then transitioned to CAD back in the mid-90s and redrew the designs in TurboCAD.  While I still have most of those files, I cannot access them anymore, the version I used back then is too outdated for any program I have to read the old 2-D drawings.

Then in the late 90s I started using AUTOCAD.  While I have again lost most of those early images I do have some of early redesigns.

Splicer 1000, Circa 1998.

The overall design was locked in earlier than this, a delta winged single seat light fighter with a mid-fuselage mounted cockpit, with twin engines, fuselage mounted weapons (story concession) and wing mounted missiles (in the pods).  It also features obvious thermal radiator wrapped around the engines and sensors in the wingtips.  

The texture maps here were cribbed straight from the old X-Wing alliance game.  I had no skill with them at the time, and it shows.

Splicer 1000, Circa 2001

The overall design here is not much changed, but I attempted to add details and some realism via textures and subtle additions.  The craft now features maneuvering thrusters in the nose and wingtips, along with runners of the cockpit to open and an actual cockpit interior.  The reverse thrusters are still pretty rudimentary but I added some basic maintenance hatches, the landing gear bays, and moving control surfaces for atmospheric flight.

Splicer 1000, Circa 2003

In 2005 I upgraded my autocad package and with it began a serious redesign effort of all my craft.  For the Splicer 1000, I wanted to start from the ground up and threw out the whole design, but endeavored to keep the major salient features, final result seen above.  I kept the delta winged design, but made it more of a cranked arrow similar to the F-16XL.  I also gave the outer section an anhedral, dropping it down.  The inakes of the earlier design are gone, replaced with simple reverse thrusters.  And I added a ton more maneuvering thrusters, this are space fighters and with damage expected I wanted plenty of redundancy.  I also redesigned and moved around the weapons, keeping the plasma laser cannons on the belly, and added new external missile hardpoints.

But it didn't start out that way.

Around this time is when I first really started documenting my design work.  This is how the design started, a grey blocky mess.

In short order I gave it a quick yellow color scheme to match with the standard cadet colors I described in the novel, added weapons, chamfered the wings to give them a more realistic shape and replaced the ovoid cockpit with something more angular and framed in looking.

In short order I darkened the color and shifted around the weapons, burying the larger cannons in the wings and I added the docking claw hardpoints to the engines.  These were something I always toyed with.  The fighters could launch or "land" on their motherships via arms that would extend and hold them in place.  Power could be recharged, fuel tanks filled, as well as life support systems.  I also cut in the reverse thrusters.

Next came the first version of the thruster emplacements and the moving of the Plaser cannons to a better location, that also fit the book narrative better.  There is also a vertical stabilizer there and the early wingtip sensor pods, upon which more thrusters are emplaced.

The landing gear came in next, which necessitated redesigning some of the thrusters and their placement.  Even is science fiction design compromises take place, at least if you want to maintain a sense of realism. 

Inert Training Missile:  Tactical Round Simulator (TRS)

Speaking of realism, these missile simulators for the trainer version are actually based on the CRS/PRS RAM simulators I helped to design during my time working at NAVSEA PHD.

Electron Particle Cannons (EPCs)

Plasma Laser (Plaser) cannons.

While on the subject of weapons, check out these close ups on the guns.  Notice all the thermal radiators built into each one.  Weapons in space will get hot, and they need expel that thermal energy away somehow.

At this point, the design has pretty much come together, complete with cockpit.  Now comes the DETAILS.

This shot does a good job of showing all the panel lines I cut in to make the craft look more user and maintainer friendly.

Finally come the textures. These really help the design come to life, showing wear and tear and dirt marks show that a craft is used and real.  Now, notice how there are no giant thermal radiators in this design?  For this generation of designs I changed my text base, the wings help serve at the thermal radiators as do the thrusters themselves when not in use, and internal heat sinks.

Beauty Shots.

Splicer 1000 Circa 2011-Current

Round about 2011 I decided to redesign my craft once again.  I had just completed re/modelling some of my enemy craft and now the hero craft didn't meet the same standards.  Also, the means by which I textured the craft had changed too, and the old method made it a serious pain to change color schemes.  As these things do, the redesign started small.  I like most of the old model, so I wanted to preserve it as much as possible, but change the parts that bugged me most.

I started by stripping away the old engines, but kept the parts on them that were most important, in this case the docking points.

From there I cut in a new, blended fuselage and engines.

A whole lot of cutting and chamfering later and I added the docking points back in, though they are angled this time.

This highlights one of them major design changes, the engine size and shape.  I went with a more octagonal exhaust this time with more details inside the engine itself.  See the old jet engine style exhaust on the old engine to the right.

With the main engines redesigned also adopted this clamshell design for the reverse engines.  This cleans up the profile of the ship for atmospheric flight and still allows a measure of thrust vectoring of the plasma exhaust.

A nice closeup of the cockpit, notice the minimal railing this time around, though I still need to redo that HDD console.

As part of the redesign I really considered the world I'd created.  The confederation has been space faring over a millennium.  In that time they would have something more advanced than simple gas thrusters like I modeled before.  So I sat down and did my research into proposed future propulsion systems, especially ones I could have double as thermal radiators.  The result is the hexagonal magnetic accelerator panels seen above that accelerate miniscule particles up to extreme speeds to kick the fighter around.  The downside, they burn out quick and require regular replacement.  Little details like this add a lot of realism to a story,

At this point, the single vertical stab just looked out of replaced with twin stabs.  Also, chekc the mirror image beneath.  That red panel is landing gear that I preserved from the earlier version.  But that grey panel next to it, that slides away to reveal an internal missile bay.  This is also a good time to point out the grills on the front of main engine.  Those serve two purposes:  #1 they are hydrogen ram scoops allowing the fighter to self refuel while on patrol or if it comes to a nice hydrogen gas giant.  #2 they act as thermal radiators, venting away excess heat.

Tt's all in the details.  For the most part, the grey bits in these shots are parts that carried over from the last version or we only minimally modified to onto the new design.  Next step texturing.

Standard Cadet Scheme

Fleet, Light Fighter

Sukhoi Flanker Inspired Scheme

Factory Fresh

These images serve to illustrate how much easier the new texturing method is and how it has allowed me to create various schemes with much greater ease as seen with the trio of fighters that grace the cover of Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings.

Cover Fighters