Tag Archives: Mark Wandrey

Book Launch Alert – THE MUTINEER’S DAUGHTER

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What would it take for you to discard everything you believed in and give up your sacred honor?

What would it take to make you rise up and fight when all the odds are against you?

Mutineers Daughter Ebook Cover

Think about those questions.  Really, THINK.  I have.  I’ve given it a lot of consideration.  Many meat-space processor cycles have been devoted to that, and the literal truth is that I have no idea.  I’d like to think I know the answer.  I’d like to believe that I’d John McClane the shit out of it if I was ever challenged in such a way, but that is merely supposition.  I’ve prepped for it, but have never faced the Great Test.  Others have.  Many of my friends have, people that I respect.  And sometimes they stood and did not fall back.  And sometimes they failed.

Absent putting myself into a life or death struggle, or engineering things so that I face a moral quandary where I might have to sacrifice my honor — honor I highly prize — in order to prevent an even worse fate, we can all turn to our histories, both personal and shared histories.

And we can also turn to fiction (and — best of all — science fiction).

In this case, I present to you two characters, Mio Sanchez and Benjamin “Benno” Sanchez.  One is a 14-year-old girl (which I am not) and the other is a Naval Chief Warrant Officer in a future space navy (which I am also not, but I’m closer to being that than a teen girl).  In mine and Chris Kennedy’s new book The Mutineer’s Daughter, they each face BOTH of those questions. They each make hard choices in which there may not be a 100% right answer.  In fact, the feedback I’ve gotten from several of our advance readers is that they can understand what Benno and Mio choose, but they don’t necessarily agree with their choices.  The split is about 50/50 on those who would do those same things and those who might choose the safer, less morally ambiguous route.

And in the meantime, between and because of their tough moral choices, we also get a lot of kick-ass sci-fi action.  Railguns, point defense cannons, missiles, x-ray laser (xaser) warheads, multi-g acceleration, faster than light drives, stabbings, shootings, ground combat, etc.  This one has it all!  The Mutineer’s Daughter is a cross-genre book, trying to find the sweet spot straddling character-driven drama, hard science fiction (where the physics is as accurate as possible), military science fiction (where we focus on both close-quarters Space Marine style ground combat AND big ship-to-ship fleet engagements), space opera (sci-fi stories with an epic scope, involving big questions and clashes between empires and political ideologies), and young-adult sci-fi (which should be accessible for teens and still exciting for adults, like The Hunger Games (there’s some limited cursing — they are sailors after all — but I would never mind my own teenage girls reading this one)).

A word for my readers and for those who have been waiting PATIENTLY for the sequel to A Sword Into Darkness:  this is not that sequel, but it is of a kind with ASID.  The ships and ship-to-ship combat will feel very similar to you if you loved Sword.  In fact, this book got me off butt and got me back on the horse and actively writing that sequel Lancers Into The Light.  I hope to continue apace and have it out this year as well!  I am indeed looking for beta readers for its first half, so hit me up if you want to join in.  For you fans of Nyrath’s/Winchell Chung’s resource site Atomic Rockets, he REALLY enjoyed The Mutineer’s Daughter, and I hope you see some words to that effect on his site really soon!

As for my writing partner/publisher Chris Kennedy, man, you could not ask to know a better dude.  A retired US Navy Commander, an aviator, an educator, a great dad, and a great husband, he continues his string of greats by being an awesome publisher and a fantastic writer.  He’s easily the most prolific author I’ve ever met, and the train of pure kick-assery shows no real signs of stopping.  He is the author or co-author/contributor of like 17 books and the publisher of almost 39 more, and that’s just in the last four years.  He has his own Theogony series of military sci-fi (8 volumes), his Can’t Look Back fantasy novel, and OF COURSE, the AMAZING Four Horsemen Universe of merc-based military sci-fi that he and Mark Wandrey co-created (now up to 12-15 volumes, and which I contributed a story to in their second anthology For a Few Credits More.

I first met Chris four years ago at my first science fiction convention, RavenCon in Richmond, VA.  He was just starting out as a writer then, too, and already helping to write the book (literally) on succeeding with self-publishing.  We were both Navy, both dads, so we hit it off pretty well.  Our writing styles were very different, but that just goes to show how AMAZING this genre is (and its readers) that we could both find success.  We saw each other at multiple conventions, traveled to a few together, and he was a great friend when my marriage fell apart and I was going through the divorce (with all the unintended consequences to my writing throughput).  Then, at LibertyCon in 2016, I had a sit-down with the great Bill Fawcett, sci-fi writer and publisher elder statesman.  I lamented my lack of progress on finishing Lancers Into The Light, wondered how I could knock ’em out like my bud Chris Kennedy, and Mr. Fawcett suggested why don’t I just collaborate with Chris and have him finish it?

I balked.  Sword and Lancers were my babies, but the basic idea was not a bad one.  I met with Chris and we talked it over, and both agreed that we should do something together.  At that time, he was also working out the particulars with Mark Wandrey for their Four Horsemen series, but that was a shared universe.  This would be an actual co-written novel, between two very different writing approaches and with vastly different production rates.  And, remember, I was the one who was having difficulty balancing life, work, and writing.  Still, it had great potential.

A few months later, wanting to maximize our individual strengths, and to explore both a more character/moral based story than just our usual action-pop or physics-porn, as well as tap into the potentially lucrative young-adult market, I sat down and hashed out the story idea and first outline.  We met up, discussed changes, planned out a writing schedule and routine, and said “Go!”  The plan was that we would trade off chapters and characters.  He would stay planet-side with Mio and the resistance.  I would be up in space, on the ships with Benno as he went from loyal officer to desperate mutineer (spoiler!).  I wrote the first chapter that November, gave it to Chris so he could make his chapter, then sat back to wait for him to deliver it and I’d write my next one.

Remember the prolific thing?  Yeah, Chris gave me his next 10 chapters.  His whole half of the book.  Like a month after I gave him my ONE chapter.

I panicked.  I admit it.  I hadn’t even STARTED chapter 3, and here he was, FINISHED.  I apologized for my misunderstanding on what the work routine was supposed to be, then knuckled down and started writing.  But, as alluded to and discussed in previous posts, I was still working out exactly how to do that work-life-writing balance.  My day job is HIGHLY time-and-focus-intensive, and when the day is done, you sometimes just don’t want to write.  Weekends, well, I was juggling time with my kids mid-divorce, time dating and eventually “going steady” with my wonderful, understanding girlfriend Kristin (yes!  Like Kris in ASID!).  So, I made progress, but, shamefully, I kept missing my own self-imposed deadlines, kept breaking my throughput promises to Chris.  For his part, he was VERY understanding and supportive, plus he had all that sweet 4HU action to keep him distracted, but I did owe him big.

Finally, once the divorce was final and the kids moved away, once my job ceased to be a 24-7 crisis and I gained more confidence in charge, and once my beautiful, evil, task-master of a lady-love reminded my regularly to sit down and WRITE, I finished (only a year late!).  Chris jumped to at the beginning of this year, kicking complete ass as publisher in getting the edits done, the cover finished, and the launch strategized.  And now, here you have it:  The Mutineer’s Daughter, on sale as ebook and paperback, Book One of In Revolution Born.  I think it is an absolute improvement over ASID and has indeed got me going gangbusters on finishing LITL.  I think you’re going to LOVE this one, but only YOU can determine that.  So don’t wait!  Go!  Buy!  Read!  Review!

I gots writin’ to do!  First Lancers, then Book Two of In Revolution Born, following The Mutineer’s Daughter.

Mutineers Daughter Print Cover

Un-Amateur, Un-Professional

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Hi there.

It’s been a while.  For those of you who don’t know me (or have — quite reasonably — forgotten about me), I’m Thomas A. Mays, intermittent sci-fi author.  Welcome!  For those that do know me, hello again, sorry for the significant delay.

When last I wrote, back during the innocent days of November 2016, I would have called myself a semi-pro author (self-published category).  I had written a book over the course of a number of years, published it in 2014, was lucky enough to find an audience for it, and very much enjoyed the spoils of said publication.  This included short story sales to magazines, invitations to anthologies, getting featured as a guest at local cons, hobnobbing with other authors, and regular interaction with fans of my work — all with the understanding that I was working toward the next piece, whether that be a sequel or an entirely new, next big thing.

But that sense of myself included a fair bit of self-delusion.

I have to admit to myself and to you that I am no pro.  I’m more than an amateur.  Amateurs don’t get queries from fans and folks in the business.  Amateurs don’t have to declare their hobby on their taxes.  But, having met real pros, pros who have figured out the work-life-writing balance, I have to recognize that I am not amongst their ranks.

I am proud to call many of them friends.  I am not so arrogant as to call myself their equal.

It’s been going on 4 years since I published A Sword Into Darkness.  Its sequel, Lancers Into The Light, is half-finished.  It’s been half-finished for over a year.  I have the path to finish it, but I have not been able to sit down and actually put the words on the screen.  It is not writer’s block.  I more or less doubt that is a real thing.  But I have allowed almost everything and anything to get in its way, even though it is a story I love and a marked improvement over the original, with better writing, larger stakes, more fantastical science, and more epic battles throughout.

Now, if you look at how long it actually took me to write ASID from conception to completion, I’m not actually doing that poorly.  But that is the timeline of a hobbyist, not a pro writer.  I’ve written other things in that time, but I’m not writing like a pro, no matter how much I might have deluded myself in the heady days of 2015.  I’m not writing daily as much as I should.  I’m not making 1K or 2K or 5K words a day, consistently.  I’ve written a few shorts and made progress on one never-ending project or another, but I haven’t gotten that sequel out, nor have I met my commitments as I should have, much to the consternation of my partners and peers.

I could blame that on a number of things.  There’s been a lot in my life in 2016 and 2017 that I could throw up there to say, “This.  This is why I haven’t produced.”  There’s been divorce and new love, both of which require an investment of time.  There’s been my dedication to being a good father, despite physical distance and lack of time with my kids.  There’s been the day job, which deserves the lion’s share of my time.  That’s because it’s both what I took an oath to do, and it’s your tax dollars at work (no, not saying what it is, if you wanna know, google me).  (It’s also AWESOME.)

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But while those are all legitimate time-sucks, they are not reasons.  They are not why.  Every pro out there has very similar obstacles to their progress.  They still make the time.  They still have the dedication and the will and the ability.  That’s what makes them pros.  What is the reason?  I honestly don’t know.  I just know that despite many promises to myself, I often found myself distracted or prioritizing those other things over my writing.  Sometimes, after work, instead of spending an hour writing, I’d lose a day in social media, or drop a day watching the idiot tube, or focusing on those legitimate distractions.  The will and the consistency were not there.

This is not an insurmountable issue, however.  The first step is recognizing the problem, and then having the support and the forcing mechanisms to grow those skills, to develop those habits.  And I’m happy to say that my consistency is improving, through both self-will and a VERY understanding and adorably slave-driving girlfriend.

So, why tell you this now?  Well, one, I feel fans of my work are owed.  And, two, I have something to show you at last.  Along with Lancers, I had another project I’ve been working on.  Actually, there are multiple projects (a lack of imagination has never been my issue), but this is a fascinating one.  How it came about is fodder for a future blog post but, in short, I will have a book coming out this year.  It’s not what I’m working toward.  It’s what I’ve done, along with the great, the prolific, and the very much every bit a professional Chris Kennedy.  He’s the author of (among many things) The Theogony trilogy, Codus Regius, and the co-creator of The Four Horsemen Universe with Mark Wandrey.

This is a full book, in editing now, co-written by Chris and me, from an outline by me.  The working title (it may possibly change), is The Mutineer’s Daughter.  It’s about a dedicated warrant officer in a post-diaspora (x2) space navy, serving to make a better life for his distant young daughter.  He’s then forced to do the unthinkable to save her from rapacious Terran troops.  The book alternates between two perspectives:  the warrant officer’s on a space-faring destroyer; and his daughter, forced to grow up and deal with the occupation of her homeworld.  The story kicks ass, and it has ABSOLUTE series potential.  It’s been in progress since around October 2016 and — if I was a pro — it would have been finished last February.  Took me a year longer than planned, but here it is, and the fact of its existence invigorates me and makes me want to finish more, including Lancers.

So, I’ve come to terms.  I’m not really a pro, not yet.  But I want to be, and after a very tumultuous time in my life, I’m working to become one like my friends and mentors.  I look forward to one day calling them peers without being a fraud.

And how do I prove my intentions to you?  I just have to keep producing.  Watch this space!