Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Imperium’

The New Faith…

June 22, 2012 1 comment

Fafnir T’Skarin

[Mars: Falcanian Mining Colony Aren-Zülar]

In his gilded office, Urksa Vorskrai stood on a balcony at the center of the vast Falcanian mining complex. Here he watched over the Khanate’s off world construction operations. Three years ago, the Guilthari caste Lord had failed to win the hand of Princess Sitara. But in that time he had amassed much personal power by his acceptance of D’Har-Ziral, a new Falcanian faith which preached the Falcanian species was destined to rule over a sacred world, out among the stars. Rumors of such a planet’s existence had been whispered among the populace, and served only to generate a fervor for this Holy Land. A select few in the Shotar’s inner ring knew the truth of it.

The titular head of Urksa’s faith, Kheira Drakonis, hid away in her retreat high on the Himalayas, far from her worshipers. At all times watched and cared for by the priests of The Road Of Light. Certainly, the illuminated princess did not create the faith which had come to venerate her. No, that had been the creature who curiously called himself Fafnir T’Skarin. Reclusive in his ways, Fafnir came forth to preach the greatness of the Falcanian cause as embodied in the Vralis. He would shout out to his followers: “The Shotar holds us back; he must embrace The Road Of Light and seek out our Promised Land, Falcania-Vor.” Fafnir’s religion was that of revelation, and means of salvation of self through Kheira’s being. For it is said she had touched the face of The One.

Urksa gulped honey wine out of a goblet, smiled while crews below hauled hrisanar ore to be refined into engine coils for the greater effort of the Falcanian Khanate. Above him, in drydocks three FX-24 Space Battleships were being constructed. At this very moment the Shotar would be about to board the first completed Capital Ship for an inspection. Lord Vorskrai, proud of himself, was pleased that he could serve his Shotar in the effort against the Imperium, even if it meant he had lost one of the Shotar’s lovely twin daughters to a member of the blasted Drakorian Guard. Urksa, if nothing else considered himself a true patriot!

============================================================================

From Under A Raptor’s Wings. All I can say is, poor Urksa… yeah, he comes off as a jerk in On the Forge of War, but this path to power he has chosen might not lead him to where he wants to go. He might even be someone else’s pawn…

Related articles
Categories: Books, Ebooks, Neo-human, Science Fiction, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Abbreviated Blurbs…

June 20, 2012 Leave a comment

Smashwords when it ships a book, sends the short blurb that comes up in a search on Smashwords, rather than the long description after you click on the cover  to some retailers. This is actually a bit of a problem, the abbreviated blurb I wrote for Smashwords, was really only meant for the function it serves on that site, not for other retailers, where I assumed my much longer, and plot involving blurb was going.

Needless to say, I decided to rework my long version blurb for Falco Invictus: On the Forge of War into a smaller version, which can be shipped to those retailers that do not carry the long form version. Now reducing it down to this is not as compelling as the long version…

   The year is 2030, and the planet rebuilds in the wake of World War III, the “War on Terror“. Frederika von Gotha, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, a product of genetic engineering, called a Morningstar, serves as a spy for her tiny nation. Being the perfect honeypot helps! She is given a mission, learn about the mysterious Falcanians and the secrets they keep hidden away on their artificial island.

You’ll notice I mostly reworked some of the word placement. The above only gives me 8 characters to spare.

Here’s the long version…

  Augmented by Genetics and Cybernetics the Transhuman reign over the Globe. The year is 2030 and the planet rebuilds still in the wake of World War III, the “War on Terror”. The United States is no more, yet from its ashes arose the Imperium which seeks to rule all it surveys. For vengeance, and survival Imperator Romulus sends his newest space battleship: DSV Excalibur to seek dangerous allies to help him complete his dominance over the planet. If he succeeds no nation will be free from Julius Romulus Giovanni’s boot, in particular the small German Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg.
One woman is a well honed blade: Frederika von Gotha, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and a product of genetic engineering called a Morningstar, as a spy for her tiny nation she is given a mission, learn about the mysterious Falcanians and the secrets they keep hidden away on their artificial island. Once she steps foot on Vanguard, neither Frederika nor the world, again on the brink of chaos will ever be the same.

The above I think provides a fuller notion of what the story is about, not to mention includes various plot threads, whereas the short version sort of focuses only on one.

Just some links for where you can buy it, should you so desire…

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/103412

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064Y48OK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0064Y48OK

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/falco-invictus-rodney-c-johnson/1108022126?ean=2940032917175

http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000103412/Johnson-Rodney-C.-Falco-Invictus-On-the-Forge-of-War/1.html

Related articles
Categories: Books, Ebooks, Fiction, Neo-human, Rodney C. Johnson, Science Fiction Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On the Forge of War – New Cover!

May 23, 2012 4 comments

Augmented by Genetics and Cybernetics the Transhuman reign over the Globe. The year is 2030 and the planet rebuilds still in the wake of World War III, the “War on Terror“. The United States is no more, yet from its ashes arose the Imperium which seeks to rule all it surveys. For vengeance, and survival Imperator Romulus sends his newest space battleship: DSV Excalibur to seek dangerous allies to help him complete his dominance over the planet. If he succeeds no nation will be free from Julius Romulus Giovanni’s boot, in particular the small German Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg.
One woman is a well honed blade: Frederika von Gotha, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and a product of genetic engineering called a Morningstar, as a spy for her tiny nation she is given a mission, learn about the mysterious Falcanians and the secrets they keep hidden away on their artificial island. Once she steps foot on Vanguard, neither Frederika nor the world, again on the brink of chaos will ever be the same.

================================================================================

I do this sometimes, redo covers when the impulse strikes. The thing I’m not overly pleased with, is the city  in the background. It’s supposed to be Vanguard Island – though it resembles Canada… ;)

This is actually a companion piece to this cover:

Sort of a beginning of the story, and end of the story. Want to guess which is which? You can only get the above cover on Amazon, as Smashwords won’t let me have multiple versions of one book up. I don’t get why we can’t put up new editions like that.

To celebrate the new cover, On the Forge of War is FREE at Smashwords until May 26.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/103412

Promotional price: $0.00
Coupon Code: DH32K
Expires: May 26, 2012

Related articles
Categories: Books, Ebooks, Fiction, Neo-human, Science Fiction Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Valküri Strikes!

May 21, 2012 1 comment

 

[Alaska: Iksar’rang Base June 12, 2033]

“Arshira, are you in position?”

“We’re ready to strike.” Arshira’s night vision turned the darkness into a contrast of green shadows. Located in a sinkhole, which had been dug out of terra firma, the Iksar’rang had established an octagonal base, formed from a purplish-gray material which they’d brought with them from Ksar. She tightened her vision, and her cybernetic enhanced eyes allowed the Valküri to easily pick out a cluster of guards stationed on a battlement, manning a particle cannon. The tentacle headed and beaked Iksar’rang talked among themselves in their chirpy language. Iksar’rang came in various, dappled colors, with unique family patterns on scaled, and fur bodies. Near seven-feet tall, frog tongues snapped out of beaks to probe the air. When the Imperium had invited the Iksar to this planet they had chosen Alaska as the place for a base because it reminded them of their rocky, barren homeworld of Ksar. A human Centurion joined the Iksar’rang at the particle cannon. The bronze clad soldier appeared to be in charge, as, without fail the aliens jumped at his commands.

Claw-boots gripped the rock, from her place on a cliff side, Arshira crouched. Offering encouragement and instruction, the voice in her golden bird-like helmet prompted: “Temujin’s strike force will be in place soon.” Perched together on the granite rock face, her Valküri Sisters, Arshira’s Swan warriors waited, regaled in gold and green battle armor. Each woman, potential energy prepared to spring into the sky on great wings. Plated tails undulated like cats, ready to pounce. Faces masked by predatory helmets, which obscured all but elegant jaw-lines to complete the appearance of humanoid birds of prey.

Arshira commanded the advance team in this raid against the Imperium. Her tail swung, while she contemplated the battle to come: A fleet of FS-9 Raptors would assail the valley, and then drop ‘ground forces’, along with heavy equipment, R-12 Mauler tanks, troop carriers, and ‘Storm Angel’ sleds. All supplemented by battledroids. Once the assault force were in place, then the FS-9 Raptors would turn their railguns on the main particle cannon, the base’s primary threat. “Considering Shuriken, how we got this intelligence, we might be playing into the Imperium’s own schemes.” Arshira said. She had interrogated the source herself, and understood that they were here because of what she had advised. The Valküri Swan commander couldn’t escape the responsibility of this choice.

“We’ll know soon enough.” The Imperial Strato-General assured his protege. “Won’t the Iksar’rang be surprised when that shield collapses?” Shuriken Kra exclaimed from his Operations Center miles away.

“We’re also at a disadvantage,” Arshira acknowledged, while she peered closer at the Iksar’rang who manned the cannon. “Railguns against a force armed with particle beams,” thoughtful, she sighed. “Superior weapons.”

“You’re our superior weapon.” Shuriken encouraged. “We’ve always held a tactical leverage in the air. Picking off a thousand flying foes is never easy to those slaved to the ground.” ISG Kra boasted. “Besides, sometimes there’s nothing more effective than a solid object moving at an extreme velocity.” The valley rumbled at the low resonance of twenty FS-9 Raptor corvettes on fast approach. Temujin Sardur’s strike force had at last arrived. In a blur the superman’s Hunter-Seeker Drakorian force came into the valley, loosed a deadly volley of fire onto the sinkhole which alit the lowland in a bluish flash. All things considered, it almost could be thought to be beautiful. “Begin the assault Arshira.” Shuriken ordered. “Drop that shield!”

Three-six-six-twelve Arshira punched into a transmitter, the code provided to her by her informant. The Akjang-T’Shaak heard one of her Valküri report: “Iksar’rang shields have collapsed my Lady.” Opalescent mother-of-pearl wings extended, Arshira and her Valküri entered into the confrontation lightening-blades lit, coruscating platinum brilliance, beacons in the night. In her other hand, Arshira pulled out her coilgun and fired magnetized explosive slugs. As she flew into combat, a quote from the Telchar Shanral came to the Valküri’s mind: In War and Love, only Victory matters, all else isn’t good enough.

Violet energy beams sought the FS-9 Raptors that now circled the valley, for the moment the vessels new protective shields disrupted the force of the particle beams. Confusion ruled down in the sinkhole. Why had the base’s shields failed? It took a precious few minutes for the base commander to regroup. Defense had been centered on the alien shielding technology. From holds in the FS-9 Raptor’s underside, gray armored ‘Wingmen’, Falcanian Marines took to the air, and waged a ground assault. Equipment fell, motored into combat.

Troopers began to form up in front of the base, the local Legion and Iksar warriors. Curiously, they did not fight as an integrated unit. The Legion remained in formation, while the Iksar’rang scattered into smaller groups. Both groups fired up into the night sky, particle guns unleashed deadly arcs of purplish light in an attempt to pick off flying Falcanian warriors.

Horrified Arshira watched, gasped as one of her Valküri: Shivani Tariksar, a close friend vaporized in mid-air. Consumed by the violet beam the Valküri incinerated, her flesh turned to ash and crumbled in the sky. A testament to her last battle, the indestructible hrisanar in Shivani’s bones supercharged by the beam glowed a bright green aura, only to fall in a glittery cloud.

Enraged, Arshira swooped close to the earth, found the nearest Iksar’rang; she clawed at him with her talons, gouged out his eyes and ripped off its probing tongue. Vajra slashed off a head-tentacle, clearly this caused much pain to the alien. Her next slash took off its arms. After all this she left him alive in order to suffer. The Iksar’rang no longer a threat, exhilarated by the violence, Arshira Hol-Drakonis cut herself a bloody way across the field of combat.

===================================================================================

A scene from the forthcoming, Falco Invictus: Under A Raptor’s Wings.

 

Related articles
Categories: Books, Ebooks, Fiction, Neo-human, Science Fiction, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Let me talk about “On the Forge of War”

March 28, 2012 1 comment
Original description: President George W. Bush...

Original description: President George W. Bush delivers his remarks on the global war on terror during a visit Thursday, Sept. 7, 2006, to Atlanta. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Let me talk about “On the Forge of War” for a second. The book which now exists came to be in the wake of 9/11. The setting, and world which I wrote were written in response to the things that I witnessed unfolding before my eyes. In point of fact, in its very first draft this was really “on the nose”.

In the final version it is really more of a background thing. The post-9/11 world which I depict just happens to be where all the action takes place.  This book is not about a “Great war between the West and Islam” that a person at first blush might assume, nor is it a giant take down of the United States as a villain like some others might desire for it to be. Much of this is why the story takes place in a POST-War on Terror world and not “during the war on terror”. The backdrop is not the story…

Saying all that, I know this sort of stuff might become prickly for people of various stripes: Right, Left, Christian, Muslim, and what have you.

My blurb: Augmented by Genetics and Cybernetics the Transhuman reign over the Globe. The year is 2030 and the planet rebuilds still in the wake of World War III, the “War on Terror”. The United States is no more, yet from its ashes arose the Imperium which seeks to rule all it surveys. For vengeance, and survival Imperator Romulus sends his newest space battleship: DSV Excalibur to seek dangerous allies to help him complete his dominance over the planet. If he succeeds no nation will be free from Julius Romulus Giovanni’s boot, in particular the small German Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg.
One woman is a well honed blade: Frederika von Gotha, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and a product of genetic engineering called a Morningstar, as a spy for her tiny nation she is given a mission, learn about the mysterious Falcanians and the secrets they keep hidden away on their artificial island. Once she steps foot on Vanguard, neither Frederika nor the world, again on the brink of chaos will ever be the same.

The above is an honest summery of the first story. There’s nothing I used to hate more than going into a bookstore and being suckered into a book which I later found I hated because of a blurb on the back cover which gave me a less than honest view of what the novel was about.

However, I can see how someone might look at that, and indeed assume the whole thing is simply intended to garner an emotional reaction – though, naturally I WANT YOU TO HAVE AN EMOTIONAL REACTION. Hey, you can HATE it for all I care, yet even evoking hate in you means as a writer I WIN. If you just sort of went “Ho hum…” and twiddle your fingers only then have I failed as a writer.  Though getting that sort of reaction likely tells me I wrote something which caused you to be outside your comfort zone. GOOD.

I’m not writing to “teach anyone a lesson” , I leave that to the preachy producers of Star Trek when it’s on TV. But if you squirm just a little when  George W. Bush shows up with his bullhorn on the ruins of the World Trade Center, I’m OK with that. And yes, I am aware that scene is likely to lose me readers. Here again, I had to write what was going through my head at the time. September 11th was very topical during the period I was working on this story.

Or I should say reworking it. The original incarnation was very ethnocentric, and focused on the religion of Asatru, but in the wake of 9/11 – I found I didn’t really believe in the things I thought that I did…

Hence was born “On the Forge of War”.

Related articles
Categories: Books, Ebooks, Fiction, Neo-human, Science Fiction, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Three Books That Left An Impression

March 25, 2012 4 comments
Dune, by Frank Herbert

Dune, by Frank Herbert (Photo credit: elycefeliz)

Or, three of my favorite books. Whatever title serves you best.

1. DUNE by Frank Herbert. This novel, more than any other has had a direct influence upon my writing style. It’s a book which I find myself going back and rereading over, and over. I find it poetic, and the world Frank Herbert created engaging. Not only Arrakis but the whole of the Imperium.

2. Shogun by James Clavell. I like thick books! A sweeping romance which also helped me become interested in Japanese culture. Also its one of those books which I internalized and am pretty sure you can see fingerprints of it on my own writing style. I do know at least one of my characters owes their existence to this book.

3. Stranger In a  Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. A book which made me go, “Wait! You can do that?”. Whenever I am considering pulling back a bit on some of my metaphysics, I flip to this books ending, and remind myself its A-OK to include  the stuff I do.

Honorable mentions. The three books above I read when I was young, around 9-12ish. This book I’ve read recently within the last few years, and its style also did have some impact on my own, as well as it helped me realize that my own writing sort of fits into this series category, that of Scifi-Romance.

Skyfall by Catherine Asaro. I picked this up in a dollar bin, found it an easy read and completely fell in love with Roca Skolia who reminded me in some ways of Frederika/Arshira from my Falcanian Legacy Series.

Related articles
Categories: Books, Fiction, Neo-human, Reading, Science Fiction, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,