K.B. Nelson's Blog: Speculative Fiction-Unbound Imagination

Folds of the Script is free this weekend on Amazon. Enjoy this first chapter here!


Dedication

To the original and irreplaceable Ciaran Dolan of Ireland—you are missed indeed.


 

Chapter 1

“Ciaran Dolan flat-lined at 12:43 this morning, due to a prolonged synap production run. He has been resuscitated yet again. Do we abort?” I stared at that neural message imprinted over the dark lines of my antique bookcase, and for once, my mind simply hunkered, too disappointed to respond immediately. Some will later say this uncharacteristic hesitation showed the changes that were already happening within, changes that I had put in motion and could share with all machine-kind. Call it all back? Why not call back the wind that has swept, tangled and then kissed your hair?
-E


Ciaran shifted his leather pack once again, wincing at the raw rub of the thing against his shoulders. His quarry was upwind of him, moving ever slower over the steep hillside and through the tangle of the forest. He could smell the other now, the rank sweat and blood and fear flowed off him in rancid waves. For three hours he had tracked the man, through brush and rock and stream. But the chase was coming to a close.
He slipped behind the trunk of a tall oak, and shrugged the pack off, nestling it silently against the roots. His quarry had fallen again, the fourth time by his count, and now, he was struggling weakly to make it to his feet.
He wouldn’t be getting up again, not if he had anything to say about it. Ciaran dropped to one knee, fitting the arrow in his short bow.
The fitful sun glinted off the battered Roman helmet. A gladius, the short blade favored by these strangers, hung sheathed by his side. Ciaran could hear the man mumbling to himself as he got one foot beneath him, only to tip hard to his side again. He’d shed most of his armor some time ago, and his face beneath the helmet rim was dark with dried blood and dirt. Ciaran wondered yet again why he continued to cling to the heavy headgear.
The leafless tree branches trembled a bit around him, the late autumn winds pushing at them. He drew his line carefully, the string of the bow taut by the edge of his lips. It would be a clean shot.
Again the man floundered, like a horse in the last throes of a twisted gut. He cried out, words on the air dragged from a parched throat. “Help me. I have come home as you asked. Help me.”
Ciaran let the bowstring go limp, the arrow tipping toward earth. The soldier had not spoken in the language Rome, but in his own. He set the bow down, his hand on the oak as he rose slowly to his feet.
Abruptly, a woman in a white lab coat appeared in front of him and he jerked back with a startled cry. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” she snapped at him. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her chin jutting up at him. She stared him in the eye, fierce and unyielding.
“Sal,” Ciaran growled, finally recognizing her. “What in the hell are you doing? Trying to get me to give me an aneurysm?” He tried to see over her shoulder and she purposely moved to keep him pinioned with her gray eyes.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she growled.
“Time? I don’t know.”
“Three. It’s three.”
“Then I have hours yet! Why are you bothering me?” He tried to shove past her and she blocked him with her hip, forcing him to go the other way around her.
“AM! 0300! Morning before the sun comes up,” she sputtered, her arms unwinding from herself and her fingers snapping into his face, stopping him cold. “And I’ve been on duty with you since six this morning. Or yesterday morning. Or whatever! You are way over the union’s daily work hours, and that is going to mean you’re back into cost over-runs.”
Ciaran sagged then, his eyes going to the image of the Roman soldier who had frozen in place as soon as Sal had intervened in the feed. He could see the time and date glowing now by the man’s head, markers for when he could pick this up later. That also meant Sal wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“It was a good shoot today,” he murmured as a weak apology. “I just got caught up in it.”
“You always get caught up! You’re off script again, and you call this good?” she asked. She gestured to the soldier. “Where’s the southern Brigantes town? Where are the massing troops? Where is the architecture they wanted, the fields, the bathhouses? And why are you in fucking Ireland? This is a History Channel show, not some flipping half-researched historical romance like you used to post on the streets! You don’t get to play fast and loose with this, Ciaran.”
“I know. I just…” he stopped himself, running his hand over the relatively unfamiliar lines of his character’s face.
“I’m suspending you for a three-day,” she said.
“What?” he protested. “Come on Sal.”
“You make me come into this god-awful place and you think you’re going to argue about this? You want more down time? Is that it? Or how about a pay dock on top of it?”
He shook his head, his heavy red hair shivering the naked skin on his neck. “Nah, I’m coming out.”
“Then give your exit code and let’s go. God, it stinks in here, between you and whatever he is.” Sal gestured vaguely at the soldier.
He obeyed her, rattling off the string of numbers and letters. The scene began to darken from the edges in, the fade pattern he favored, if only because it made the shift from the platform to his workstation a little easier. He glanced over her shoulder and frowned, his mouth falling open a little. Because the Roman lifted brilliant blue eyes to him, mouthed “help me” with cracked and whitened lips before the darkness ate him up, slowly, synapixel by synapixel.
And ate Ciaran and Sal up as well.

An Interview with audio book producer/narrator Gregory Peyton


What in your background moved you to learn audio book creation? Can you share the point when you finally said to yourself, “hey, I can do this!”?

I've always been disposed towards voice work, ever since I was a
child. Probably the earliest memory I have of wanting to be a voice
artist was when I watched Fern Gully as a child and heard Tim Curry
play a spirit of destruction, and I said, "I want to be him." When did
I decide I could do it? I'm still not entirely sure, but I'm enjoying
giving it a try!

What book in all the world would you love most to narrate? Why?

That's a very difficult question. Narrating the Dresden Files would
be a dream, but better narrators than I are probably already lined up
for the job. The same goes for R.A. Salvatore's books, or the Iron
Druid saga, or any number of other high quality sci-fi or fantasy
novels.

What three tips would you give young narrators (what did you wish you knew before you went into this art-form?)?

First, don't expect to just breeze through a recording in one shot.
Second, don't try to go too fast- you'll get burned out and lose
interest. Third, try to stay in touch with the authors- they know how
all of the characters work; it's just your job to figure out how they
sound.

Do you undertake a lot of “pre-recording” work prior to sitting down at the microphone? What kinds of prep do you do?

I don't really do a lot of prep-work. I make up for it by doing a
lot of takes!

How do you care for your voice and still do a lot of recording?

Hot tea, resting your voice when you can, and also learning how to
be loud or intense without shouting. Acting classes help there-
project, don't scream.

How does your “real life” help or hinder your work as a narrator?

I'm a theatre major, so I'm not sure what kind of 'real life' I may
have. As to helping or hindering me, the people I meet might show up
as a character, either their tone, or cadence. On the other hand,
classes and other responsibilities take away from time that I can
spend recording.

If you could set yourself up a “perfect” studio, no matter the cost, what equipment, software, etc. would you use?

I'm pretty happy with the fairly inexpensive equipment that I'm
using, so I'm not sure that I would know what replacements to get. I
would, however, absolutely love to be in a soundproof room- I've had
far too many takes ruined by people talking next door, or a random
plane flying overhead.

How hard is it to please the authors in this business? Any tips for the authors who might be reading this or other young narrators who could use the information?

The authors that I've worked with (keeping in mind that I'm fairly
inexperienced) have been very polite, and eager to work with me- Brian
Hutchinson, who wrote Locmire's Quest, called me personally to make
sure that I had the pronunciations of various characters and races
correct. To both the author and the narrator, I would say that
communication is key. If a narrator has a question, or the author has
a specific point in mind, get in contact- it's important to both of
you that the book be the best product possible, so coordinate to make
sure that it is.

Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction work? What are the joys and irritants inherent in each kind of book?

Fiction. Fantasy, even. The joys of fiction- and especially sci-fi
and fantasy- is the sheer amount of creativity that can be put into
the work. New characters, fresh worlds, original systems of magic or
technology- the sky isn't even the limit. The biggest irritant? The
fact that a saddening number of authors don't take advantage of that
creativity- they rehash the same ideas over and over again. In
nonfiction, there's a far greater chance that you'll get a solid work,
explaining the real story of a person or event. On the downside, there
aren't very many dragons in nonfiction.

What insights have you gained about this industry that you’d like to share?

I was worried that this business would be terribly hard to break
into, but this website (ACX) is a wonderful starting point for any aspiring
narrator and, I would guess, for an aspiring author as well. My advice
to a fledgling narrator would be to just get started; make a profile,
make samples, send out auditions. The worst that can happen is that
the author says no- and then you just send another audition.

You can read more about Gregory’s background and hear his amazing array of accents and moods at:

https://www.acx.com/narrator?=AWH1NW1...

Gregory Peyton is currently working on three of my science fiction novels. They’ll be available by summer 2014.

The Dreamcatcher Fallacy
Strands of Silk and Fire
Folds of the Script

http://www.artistfirst2.com/Authors-F...

Here is the link for the radio program I was interviewed on...great fun, by the way. We talked about everything from writing science fiction to raising sheep. :-)

I am reading folds of the script on sand beaches. Wow! Quite a powerful read, with delicious metaphysical overtones. You may quote me on your blog.


Brooke Thompson

This is what I'm currently working on...about ten chapters in. Here is the first:

Chapter 1


The ship screamed as she fell.

My ship.

My companion.

The atmosphere ripped at her folded solar wings, tore her delicate communication arrays, all of her skin rippled with fire, with light, before it tore away, spinning and shrieking. She could not navigate such things as the painfully blue sky. She had glided, always, in the cold and dark. Not this conflagration.
Together, we burned. I screamed with her, on my knees in the room I had shared with the artificial intelligence for over ten years, hands warding off flaming air. I could feel us breaking, the aft crew quarters slashed away, the bridge imploding. Knit to her through my temporal implants, there was no way to separate. We were parts of each other, falling in agony.

And I could hear them, the crew, adding their own ragged death cries to our own through the open com channels. Only some went silently, the long exhales of surprise as they found themselves sucked out and flying beside her, burning as she did. We spun as she lost what little aerodynamic lines she had, tumbling now, and I retched and choked, hitting first the shiny black floor of the heart-center room of her, chunks of wall and machine boards rolling past and around me like darting sea creatures from my home-world. Then I was bounced off walls, ceiling, each impact at least driving the feeling part of my mind into a stupor. For one perfect moment, I felt suspended, the debris dancing with me, metal caressing skin, sliding by in slow motion.

We hit--bounded airborne as if she could find her wings, as if pieces of her were not already littered over a hostile surface, bleeding smoke and flame and pale bodies onto the earth-- and hit again, more final this time, sliding, canting, then another last slow roll, the metal alloy of her supports screaming now, drowning our puny voices out.

The tender slide of metal against skin ended, ripped edges cutting me, pinning me at last, delicate insect that I was. The Empress would have liked to see me like this, I am sure, bleeding out on the Jinnai home world, her nephew brought to heel and crushed at last. The pain roared in, this time truly my own, intimate and no less horrific.

Even then, the ship would not let me go. I turned my head to her delicate brain, the slender cylinder protected by force fields still danced with the arora borealis of her own sensation, thoughts, and emotions in a riot of pinks and reds and baby blues sliding through the clear chemical medium.

“I could not...” the words came through with static, with gut lurching pain, hers or mine, it no longer mattered now. I shoved with bloody hands at the huge chunk of metal grinding into my right leg and hip and gut, crying out as it simply settled more, intent on cutting me in half.

“I could not...”

“My fault. Mine. Mine.” I panted the words. She would hear me through our link; like me, she had no choice in the matter.

She had lined up on the battlefront, the Jinnai cruisers arrayed before her, the Tehelon ships, our ships, beside her. I remembered her horror as she felt minds so like her own, the fury and animosity and the fear aimed across the cold depths. And rather than fight, she had fallen, not a shot in her, not a shot fired. She had committed suicide, the only alternative she had because I could not quite let her turn and flee.
It had been my job to keep her focused, on task, balanced or even thirsty for blood. But I had failed her. It was not in me, either, the silent battles in space fought over what amounted to divergent ideas, the bodies floating away, the explosions blooming in data-streams and emptiness. Surely the Empress would have perused my psych evaluations, would have known that pairing me with a battleship would eventually get me killed. And the crew? The ship? Brushed-off collateral damage lost in the protection and expansion of her empire, financial hits easily absorbed so she could turn her cold eye to the next in line for her throne and begin to plot other happy accidents. Me? I had never had the stomach for such things. But I have always known that weakness kills as effortlessly as cold plotting.

“Jinnai ground troops inbound. I hear them, but I am blind, Cori. They will come. They will help you.”

She so seldom used my name. I lay my head back, eyes shut, sharing the last minutes of dark with her. A creeping cold was settling in my chest. “The Jinnai take no prisoners.”

“Monsters,” she said, automatically.

“No, Pella. We both know better. It’s just not their way.” Pella was a pet name, short for Pelican. I used to tease her about her ungainly undercarriage but her magnificent solar wings. Her real name was The Black Griffon. I smiled behind my closed eyes. Somehow the pain was receding, even my lock on her mind growing fine-threaded and frayed.

The ground jumped as the Jinnai troop transports landed. I didn’t care. Pella and I rocked together in our pain, bound as always, twins in a vast womb clutching each other to the last. Without the functional ship to keep the medium of her consciousness alive, she was dying as I was, growing cold, pulling back from what few sensations were left to her.

The soldier of the Jinnai came at last. I listened to him rip away the shattered entry portal, his armor and lasers making short work of the thing. I forced my eyes open. We might have committed suicide, Pella and I, but I was determined not to be a coward in the end. The door shrieked and shuddered aside and he stepped through, all six and a half feet of him, the lights on his helmet cutting through the dust that swept in with his entry. I could smell the air of his home world now, that, and the acrid waves of what used to be my ship. The silver-white battle suit picked up the colors of Pella’s chemical column, making them more pastel and flat. In his metal-encased hand hung a formal warblade, also silver with wicked teeth on one edge and the whole length shining with blue runes ready to drink an enemy’s blood. It would be quick. The Jinnai, from all I had studied, were not sadistic.

They were simply efficient.

But rather than striding the short distance to where I lay, he turned his head toward Pella. He stood there, his sword half-lifted, his helmet cocked to the side. And then he sheathed the blade, flipping it over his shoulder and flawlessly, soundlessly into his back harness. Moments later, he stood just outside the force field-encased room. The barrier crackled a warning while lines of orange light ran up and over his extended hand like a miniature lightning storm.

I could feel a strange yearning then, as if Pella had lifted her head and opened her eyes finding herself at last with a lover who could touch her. The force field hum, the background noise of ten years of my life, fell away and she willingly gave the Jinnai access into the most sacred sanctum of the entire battleship.

I lifted my head a little, my hand slipping and groping at the metal. “Leave her alone!” I screamed. “Pella!”
The Jinnai turned his faceplate toward me, his spotlight lanced into my eyes, and I threw my arm over my face. And then, he snapped back to the crystalline column and walked through to a place I had never been.

I sobbed as he reached out, tentative, the fingers of his hand oddly delicate now. And all of Pella rushed to where he touched, brilliant feathered arcs of light striking the clear inner wall of her skin, swirling there. She dragged me with her, and I understood at last. The Jinnai flared like a young sun in my mind, warm, powerful and wholly open. But like a sun, I couldn’t stare straight into his mind, even as I found myself drawn to it. Pella and I stood under that blazing brilliance, entranced, and I finally understood why a moth dares the flame.

And then she began to fall for the second time. I tried to grasp her mentally as she drained into the shadowed corners of my brain, the colors of her thoughts lingering momentarily without substance. I screamed her name, thrashing, crying. I had been prepared to die with her.
But to die alone, to watch her die first?

No. No.

There were no words as she let go at last, only a sigh that seemed to sink into the bones of my skull and a vibration like a struck bell that faded into the softer tissues at last before it flows away.

I forced my eyes open, blurry now through tears. The Jinnai stood by the AI containment column, his hand flat now on the perfectly clear surface, his head bowed as if he had felt her go as well. When finally he shoved himself away, his hand reached back for his battle sword with alacrity, as if by killing me he could break whatever fragile bond had formed there, between the three of us. He strode to me, his feet ringing on the black metal and detritus of what had been my home and sanctuary.

I didn’t glare up at him. I simple threw open my left arm along the floor and raised my eyes. Smiled and saw my smile reflected in his faceplate. There was nothing left now. Pella was dead. I would join her soon.

He stood over me, the sword pointing down at my breastbone, his gauntlets fairly groaning with the grip he had taken. I could feel him scanning me, hesitating there. And his hesitation both confused and infuriated me. Couldn’t he see I was ready, that the longer he waited the more he put to the lie what I had told Pella, that the Jinnai were not cruel.

“Do it,” I said at last. It sounded brave, but truly, I was in so much pain within and without that I wanted it merely to end. I could feel cold tears against my own cold skin, slicing even through the pain. “Do it,” I repeated, with even less force than the first words.

He moved then, dropping to one knee, laying his weapon within easy reach, his hands reaching out to touch the two button-like implants at my temples. A moment later, he flipped the helmet closures at his neck and transformed before my eyes, the robot-like thing set aside to reveal an almost ethereal face, with green eyes shot through with gold, and storm-cloud gray hair plaited back from a high brow. He looked young. He looked ancient, both at once. His battle gloves came off next, exposing long, refined fingers. Those fingers fell again to my temples, to the tech embedded there, even as his thumbs stroked my tears away. He half-smiled then.

I lay confused and broken under his touch. I could feel him again, blazing, golden, running through me like power through a chemical grid. He continued until there was only breath, his eyes, his presence within me. And when his head snapped up, casting around in a kind of panic, I nearly cried out as he broke the connection. He snatched up sword and helmet, leaving his metal-enforced gloves on the floor and abruptly, his steps pounding in time with my heart, he left me to bleed and die alone in the wreckage of a once proud ship.

My writing world is probably more varied than most. I play with poetry, craft sermons, and design comparative religion adult education texts. I’ve published research articles and personal essays in international magazines and have even worked with DVD and audio programs. I’ve published books about the Bhagavad Gita and how to make lifestyle changes through the gifts of a contemplative lifestyle. All of these offerings are seemingly different from the world of science or speculative fiction.

But here I will admit it without a blush: my first love has always been writing fiction, literally since I was in the second grade. In a way, it makes perfect sense that I am at play in all these different fields and genres. I come from an education family, with a father who was a principal and a mother who taught English and history at the High School level and had a degree in library science. My own master's degree is in comparative religion, with a graduate certificate in holistic healthcare and a year of theological school under my belt as well. I actually enjoy thinking deep and long about lots of esoteric things. At the same time, I have a blast with both the old and new Battlestar Galactica, film and written versions of Dune (I can still recite the Litany Against Fear) and of course, the Matrix, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Star Trek. I grew up with science fiction and fantasy books scattered all over the house. Mom and Dad bought me a pony largely to get me off the couch and my nose out of novels. It didn't really work; I learned to "write" on horseback, composing epic poems and short stories while riding through the woods near our home.

But I also wanted to do something with all this thought. Over the years, I finally have. And I do it best through fiction.

What an author can attempt to convey through poetry and non-fiction has much more impact when the reader is feeling those same ideas through a beloved character. In a sense, that’s the difference between belief and experience in religion—beliefs can change, but a deeply emotional run-in with Spirit? That’s much harder to dislodge in our psyches.

And in a way, science fiction and fantasy can be a kind of social action. There is a whole new speculative fiction sub-genre coming to life around the issues of climate change, for instance. Like those authors, I tend to bring my spirituality as well as my sense of social justice to life in my novels. Not with a 2x4 mind you, and not from a soapbox, but as part and parcel of what makes a good character tick. This has been particularly true when I write with gay leading men in my work. I want the world to eventually get to the point when the storyline becomes more important than the sexuality of the characters and where readers can see into their lives and come face to face with their own expectations and assumptions and compassionately question them. It is a way to write with hope for the future, and with a strong belief in the basic goodness and plastic adaptability of humankind.

Mostly, I deal with the central question of "what does it mean to be human?" I suppose I also write a lot about "what does it mean to love?"

And that is what good science fiction is all about--envisioning and breathing life into one possible future, asking hard questions and seeing how the ramifications of free will and choice affect the entire world. And doing it in a way that may affect our NOW as well. So I hope you’ll join me and take look at what I consider to be my best novel thus far. Good reading, everyone.

Strands of Silk and Fire is free this weekend on Amazon.com. This is the second book of the Dreamcatcher Fallacy Series and I think my best book so far. :-) Thanks again to Kathy Haug at Fern Creek Associates for the outstanding cover work!

I'm also running a Goodreads giveaway from Feb 1-14th on this title. Enter to win one of three copies!

Enjoy and let me hear from you!
KBN

http://www.amazon.com/Folds-Script-K-...

In recent years, science fiction has grown top-heavy with dystopian or post-apocalyptic novels. Maybe it’s the influence of blockbusters like The Matrix or the cult favorite Blade Runner. Maybe it even reaches back to the years of the Terminator movies. This darkness and pessimism is particularly true when sentient machines of any kind are added to the mix.


But I happen to agree with futurist Ray Kurzweil that the children of our creativity—sentient machines—will only follow the biological template of their creators. Machines will develop to be more and more like us, and we will hardly notice it happening. There will be no bloody revolution because the line between machine and human being will not exist in the way we imagine it. This is the basic philosophy that continues to underpin my own science fiction work—a view both positive and wildly dynamic.


Still, we know that evolution of any kind isn’t always a neat and clean thing, but sometimes is the stuff of great stories.


Folds of the Script, my sixth speculative fiction novel, examines what happens when machines, unable by design to process the presence of one another (what can’t work together can’t cause harm together), have a chance to upgrade with a human-like emotional and relational template. Faced with the choice to become more human, would they actually choose to go down that thorny path? That is only one of the several philosophical questions woven into this fast-moving and intellectually complex novel. Remember: thrill rides don’t mean you have to check your mind at the door.

Attention Science Fiction Lovers: K.B. Nelson’s 6th speculative fiction novel Folds of the Script and her other fiction and non-fiction work will be spotlighted in an author interview on the Authors-First Show on ArtistFirst World Radio Network, Tuesday, January 28th at 8:00 PM (EST). Tune-in from anywhere on your PC, or cell phone, or wi-fi device. Click to listen... http://lin1.ash.fast-serv.com:7988/st... or visit: www.artistfirst.com

From November 26 to November 30, try Book One of the Children of the Great Reckoning by K.B. Nelson for free as an Amazon Kindle book! All the other books in the series are also enjoying a special price of $.99 from November 26th to Dec 2. Or, if you are in the mood for religion and philosophy, Easing into the Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is also available for just $.99 as a Kindle edition on Amazon.