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on September 20, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #10Stars Rain Down is Out!
Post CommentJust dropping by to let y'all know the novel has been released. You can find more about the release (including download links) at the Oktopod blog.
Thanks again for your support, and take care!
~Chris
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on September 8, 2010
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on September 7, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #8Excerpt, and the fat lady starts warming up...
Post CommentWell, here we are. The project ends in about 27 hours, give or take. I can now say with confidence that it will fail, and I feel a bit strange sitting here at the end, wistfully looking back. There was a rush of support and euphoria in the beginning, and I found myself facing a future bright with possibility. That brightness faded fast over the following 30 days, though.
This project was my attempt to short-circuit a problem that's been vexing me: no one wants to listen to authors promoting their own work. Any website with useful traffic has strict rules against self-promotion, and they ignore any emails with even a scant scent of it. Of course, they're all more than happy to sell ad space, but that takes money I don't have. Thus the project.
More than anything, this entire adventure has been an exercise in frustration. I found it impossible to get any kind of coverage, and I currently have a small collection of unanswered emails in my sent box, some of which were to websites who honestly had nothing better to do with their time. Turns out they'd rather post nothing at all than give me the time of day.
Perhaps it was the tone of my emails, which were always rude, packed with death threats, and occasionally smelled of arsenic (don't ask how I accomplished that last part). Maybe it was the nekkid photos of myself plastered everywhere on my site, or it could be that those photos simply weren't explicit enough. It's impossible to know for sure, and a man could drive himself mad by guessing.
This update is a bit too down in the mouth, though, so let's take that frown and turn it upside down. On the silver lining side of things, the project succeeded in raising nearly $1,000, although a very large chunk of that was expressly for the purpose of hitting the Monkey Dance Quota. I think I've also come to grips with seeing myself on camera, which is certainly a victory for my self-confidence, and brings me one step closer to my life-long dream of appearing in a burlesque show.
Best of all, I got to jabber ever so briefly at you 21 wonderful human beings who so generously pledged your support for my silly little project. We haven't interacted much so I've had to fill in the gaps with my imagination; in my mind's eye, you're all Greek gods with fabulously chiseled physiques, and hearts made of pure gold.
I'd hoped to send you all some kind of consolation prize, but I can't figure out any way to do that for under 6 dollars, so I hope you can settle for my undying gratitude. It's not as cool as a copy of my soon-to-be-bestseller-and-then-optioned-for-a-major-motion-picture novel, nor is it as glamorous as the black-tie event I was eventually going to host on my future yacht, but it's simple, heart-felt and sincere. Thank you.
To finish up today, here's a final excerpt, snipped out of Chapter 15: Evermore. Minor spoiler warning: This clip gives away one early mystery in the book, so skip it if you want to be totally surprised come September 20th.
She was not only a starship, but the pride of the Eireki fleet. All around, her countless brothers and sisters arrived to fill the void, and joined their voices in a song of light.
She was the queen of that light. Its keystone. Its source and destination. She was the light of stars that danced in the dark of night, and the song of creation that stood before the destroyer.
Her lover came up beside her, the prince of her race who so often wandered the void in solitude. He radiated sadness and sorrow for the destruction soon to come, and for the peace they had failed to attain.
The chance for peace was gone. Now was the time for war.
She bowed to him and pressed forward, and her fleet raced to match. A trillion of her kind cut through the emptiness, blotting out the distant stars and carrying the entirety of the Eireki species aboard them. The Eireki who were creators and protectors, who filled her with love and life and purpose. They filled her with strength unimaginable. She and her crew, bonded through their thoughts, were one.
The enemy also rode in force, and she could feel their blight in the distance. They were the dark and twisted Nefrem. The so-called chosen children. They were destroyers, who existed only to devour and pervert the light.
Side by side, the legion of ships and their Eireki crews awaited the coming of the darkest one. The source of the destroyers. Their mother. Their living planet.
And then the enemy came, its arrival thundering across all of creation. The queen of the light bid her fleet to wait, and hide in the shadow of a gas giant. They would attack with the rising sun.
So it unfolded. The glow and warmth of the sun crested the horizon and the Eireki rode into battle. Two surging waves of ships clashed in a rain of furious, burning light, painting the void in rent flesh and the blood of the fallen.
There was death as never before, perhaps as never would be again, leaving both forces annihilated. When the firing stopped, there remained only two combatants: the vast crimson living planet, and she, the Eireki flagship in vivid green.
She kept her distance, firing on her enemy with beams that shredded space and time with their fury. It wasn’t enough. The flesh of the enemy absorbed her fire, and retaliated in kind.
Dancing in the dark of night, she avoided reprisal and sang her song of destruction, raining hell down upon the living planet and expending everything she had. Still, it wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough power in the universe.
Then, her Eireki crew conceived of a desperate plan. An unthinkable plan. She refused to comply, but they insisted that their lives didn’t matter. Nothing could matter except stopping the Nefrem. If they failed, all life would suffer for eternity.
Reluctantly, she accepted.
She wheeled about and charged at full speed, her weapons blazing a path before her. She entered the zone of the living planet’s influence, and its tireless psychic scream burnt the minds of her crew. There was no time to mourn. She pressed forward and howled the secret name of death, firing straighter than before.
She struck the enemy hard. Her whole body rocked from the impact but she continued on, and pressed the living planet backward, back into the gas giant, back into the waiting star-seed. Then she fired as she never had, pouring energy beyond comprehension into her foe. Her hollow-drives burst under the immense strain, one after another shattering in a fitful luminescent gasp until only one remained. Then the gas giant ignited, and its shock wave flung her to safety.
She had done it. She birthed an artificial star, a fusion furnace that would burn for sixty-five million years, with the last of the Nefrem and their living planet trapped within. It was a prison from which they couldn’t escape. The star would hold them and blind their eyes until it burned out.
She scanned inside herself for any signs of life, but there were none. The last of the Eireki were dead, as were all the other ships. She was alone. Empty. Still, there was one task left to complete.
Using the last of her stored energy, she traversed the gulf between stars and arrived at a system whose existence had been carefully concealed from the Nefrem since the beginning of time. Within this system lay the garden—a miraculous world so very much like the lost Eireki home—which had been chosen to serve a new purpose. A noble purpose. On that planet, balance would be restored and the Eireki would rise anew. From the ashes would evolve a better, stronger Eireki, capable of defeating the Nefrem once and for all.
Wounded, tired and limping, she looked down on the radiant green and blue planet, and asked forgiveness for the crime she was about to commit. Within her, the golden codex fulfilled its purpose: it adapted countless gene sequences to an eons-long program, imprinted them onto a biomechanical seed and spat it at the peaceful planet below.
The seed struck hard, raising inky clouds across the globe. The destruction would bring about change and new growth, while the retroviruses it dispersed became the seeds of resurrection. It was done. Now she could sleep and dream and wait for the children of the Eireki to wake her. She could sleep for sixty-five million years.
Thanks again for reading, for pledging, and most of all for giving me a bit of much needed hope. I'll probably pop by to make one last update sometime tomorrow, but don't be surprised if it's only about 6 words long.
See you, space cowboys...
~Chris -
on September 1, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #7New Video! Only 7 Days Left!
Post CommentSo, here we are in the final week of my Kickstarter project, and things... well, they don't look so hot. In fact, unless there's some kind of minor miracle over the weekend, I'm going to be celebrating a crushing defeat about this time next Wednesday.
But the game isn't over yet!
Today, I've posted a fantastic new video for your viewing pleasure, which includes a special and mysterious new prize. Unlike my last video, this one features my chubby and poorly shaven visage addressing you directly, accompanied by a series of rather sarcastic subtitles that help draw attention away from my face.
The fat lady isn't singing yet!
It may just be the 12 cups of coffee talking, but I feel something special. Can you feel it? I bet you can... It's kind of like muscular tremors and a headache, and I think that feeling is VICTORY!
So, let's get this thing done. Let's redouble, nay, re-quadruple our efforts! Contact everyone you know and tell them that some heavy slacker needs their help!
We can do it!
...and if not, oh well. Grab a bottle of nice wine, pour yourself a glass, and help me celebrate defeat. :)
~Chris
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on August 30, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #6Title and Origins
Post CommentI said I'd talk about the title in another update, and behold! This is that other update. Instead of just describing how the name came about, though, I thought I'd take the opportunity to explain the whole history of Stars Rain Down, from its inception in the margins of notebooks, to the final novel you'll be reading on September 20th.
That history is complicated by the fact that Stars Rain Down didn't start as just one project; it was actually four (or more) separate ideas that I eventually combined into a single, stranger whole.
Grab a snack. This is gonna be a long one...
Space Knights
The earliest and most important part was called Legacy Effect, a sci-fi project which I started brainstorming in 2000 after I saw Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Filled with frustration over what I considered Lucas' mishandling of his universe, I set out to create my own galaxy-spanning sci-fi franchise. My aim was to combine magic and technology much as Lucas had, but in a universe built with extensibility in mind, so that stories could be told from anywhere along its timeline without mangling continuity. Essentially, I was trying to craft an entire future history, from which I could cherry-pick interesting and important moments.
The universe was large and diverse, with thousands of alien races, countless habitable worlds, and a history dating back millions of years to when an ancient civilization ruled it all. In modern times, the human race had become a dominant force in the galaxy, thanks in part to the discovery of alien artifacts that jumpstarted our technological progress. Sometime after that discovery, humanity split into two powerful nations: the Earth, which became an isolationist theocracy, and the Confederated Fringe Systems, a secular melting pot of former colonies that broke away in a bloody independence war.
Hidden just beneath the surface was a covert struggle for the fate of the galaxy, waged between two orders of knights clad in living armor, who gained immense strength through the philosophy and technology of the ancients. Rather than simple good and evil, however, these two factions each believed themselves to be fighting for the greater good. They simply had different ideas about what the greater good was and how to achieve it.
It was a big, messy, difficult task... and that's probably why it never really came together.
The Hungry Planet
About a year later, I started working on the second most important component, a comic series called Nemesis Rising set in a far off solar system where Earthlings would never set foot. I envisioned it as a strange and wondrous place populated by three peaceful races who travelled from one planet to the next aboard living spaceships.
When a mythical horror called Nemesis, a monstrous living planet which devours everything in sight, returns from the void and begins its assault, a multiracial group of young people race off to retrieve the one weapon that can stop it.
I thought the core concepts of Nemesis Rising—an entire series devoid of humans, and a world where all technology is alive—were fairly revolutionary. It also dealt with themes I found intriguing, like pacifism under attack, and the dangers of dogma. Unfortunately, it ended up on a permanent backburner while other projects occupied my time.
Bleeding Machines
One subject keeps surfacing again and again: Biotechnology. At an early age, I became fascinated with the idea that machines could be constructed from living tissue, ultimately becoming more powerful and adaptable than their non-organic counterparts. I became so obsessed, in fact, that the concept shows up in virtually every science-fiction story I work on.
I developed some of these ideas further in 2003 when I started plotting out a science-fiction novel based on (don't laugh) the Transformers. I thought they offered a neat counterpoint to biotechnology, being machines designed to function like living creatures. I wanted to explore the place where these two concepts might eventually collide. What happens when technology imitates biology, and vice versa? Is there some natural end point that they would both evolve toward in parallel?
The planned novel,Transformers: Across the Sea of Ages, only ever existed as the barest of plans, but it served as a fertile garden for my imagination. Two fruits from that garden would ultimately survive: the idea that human beings were bio-engineered by an alien race for their own purposes, and that this other race had mastered genetic engineering and statistical models so completely that they could schedule the rise of specific mutations millions of years in the future.
Flood Waters Rising
By the Fall of 2005, all of these projects had been set aside in favor of my forever-in-production fantasy novel, Ebon Tide. That novel wasn't working, though, and I found myself pretty badly stalled out.
Then Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, and as I watched the catastrophe unfold on the nightly news, fresh ideas sparked to life. The problem was that none of those ideas really fit into a fantasy novel.
The question that started it all was this: Why do we send the National Guard into these situations? I grasped the need for a well drilled, government force with a strong chain of command, but the National Guard are nevertheless combat troops. They're neither trained nor equipped to deal with natural disasters.
It didn't make a lick of sense, so I started coming up with something that did. My idea was to form a global volunteer force, trained to drop into disaster areas and help the wounded. Instead of troops in camouflage with assault rifles, they'd be medics and firefighters dressed like traffic cones and equipped with first aid kits. I called them the Emergency Response Corps, or ERC.
I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to convince anyone this was a good idea, though. Instead, I started considering how the concept might work in a novel.
The Similar Title Effect
In 2007, I was getting mighty frustrated at my inability to finish Ebon Tide. The novel was supposed to combine deep world building, martial arts, spirituality and an avant-garde literary style, producing nothing less than a total renaissance in fantasy fiction. My ambitions were astronomical, and the fact that I couldn't reach them was infuriating.
The thought of aiming a little closer to Earth became attractive. I could write a more conventional science-fiction novel, which would not only give me a finished manuscript to shop around to agents, but also help me work through some of the kinks in my writing style. Right around the time I began sorting out my notes on Legacy Effect, something annoying happened... The first wave of marketing for BioWare's Mass Effect hit.
And it wasn't just the titles that were similar, either. Every new scrap of information I uncovered seemed to resemble my ideas, from the group the main character worked for to his semi-mystical abilities, and even the style of his body armor and design of his ship. The two universes certainly weren't carbon copies and there was no reason to suspect foul play, but they had more than enough in common to annoy me. I felt unoriginal, and if I finished Legacy Effect as planned, I'd likely be accused of ripping Mass Effect off.
The surprising part is that this turned out to be just the motivation I needed. With a goal of finishing my novel before Mass Effect hit shelves, I dug through my old properties, and manically went about cutting and rearranging them to fit together. After a few weeks of brainstorming and adaptation, I had sixty pages of notes detailing a universe, a cast of characters, and the plot of a novel. The world was cobbled together from a decade worth of creative flotsam and jetsam, while the plot was strongly inspired by the Iraq war, with a few dashes of a cartoon called Robotech thrown in for flavor.
With notes in hand, I closed the door to my room and went to work. About three months later, I had a finished novel.
I feel like I'm forgetting something here... Oh.
Titles
While working, the folder was always simply labeled Legacy. I knew I would have to do something about the title, but (for once in my life) I figured that could wait until I was done with the story.
Once it was finished, the title became the subject of numerous heated arguments with myself (does that sound crazy?). After throwing away dozens of ideas, I finally settled on Legacy Undying, a reference to an immortal alien spaceship that plays a key part in the plot. This title adorned the manuscripts I initially mailed off to agents.
A bit of failure sure can change your perception of things, though. The first agent sent back a form letter, and I felt a bit downtrodden. The second agent held onto the book and thought about it for six months, before finally turning me down politely. Around that time, Legacy Undying started to sound like a great title for a trashy vampire romance novel.
It was another six months before I looked into submitting the book again, this time to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. I spent a lot of time rewriting and rethinking the manuscript, and that was when I settled on Until the Stars Go Dark, a phrase I'd also worked into the dialogue. I liked the image it conjured, the determination it implied, and the sentimental value it held for one of the main characters.
Another few months disappeared while I awaited the ABNA results. My novel was eventually cut in the second round with one very positive review, and one that said it was probably pretty good for science-fiction, but the reviewer didn't care for the genre. I groaned mightily.
I was back to square one. I looked into a few more agents and toyed with the idea of mailing off more submissions, but that seemed like a long and painful game to play. I eventually decided that traditional publishing was a bad joke with a particularly cruel punchline, and I no longer wanted anything to do with it. If I was going to be successful as a writer, it would be by taking fate into my own hands, and ebooks would be the engine of that success.
In the run up to self-publishing, I modified the title one last time to give it some more punch, and that's the title I'm using today: Stars Rain Down. It retains the same basic concept, but is shorter and perhaps a little more mysterious. It feels right, and I hope you'll agree.
...and that's the Reader's Digest version of how Stars Rain Down came to be. It's missing all the gory details like what I had for breakfast, or how many hours I spent staring at the wall waiting for a good idea to come along, but it's complete enough and all true(ish). As for how all those different pieces came together in the final novel, you'll just have to wait for September 20th to find out.
Thanks for coming along for the ride. Look out for another story excerpt in the next day or so, and in the meantime, I'll leave you with a list of titles that didn't make the cut. Warning: They didn't make the cut with good reason.
- Legacy of Fire
- The Fires of Distant Stars
- Starborn Legacy
- Unvanquished
- Legacy Immortal
- Ex Infernis
- Mark of the Aggressor
- Devourer Awakened
- Recoil
- Elegy
- Monsters of Reason
- The Radiant Dark
- Requiem Recoil
- In the Valley Where We Die
- When Stars Began to fall
- Blood of Generations
- More Than Strength Alone
- Sorrow's Far Shore
~Chris J. Randolph
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on August 23, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #5Let's Talk About Terrorism
Post CommentDon't run away. I know it's a scary word (scares the pants off me, in fact), but its ability to elicit such a powerful reaction is what makes it so intriguing. That's why I wanted to write a novel that confronts the issue head on, and it's what inspired me to explore the subject from new perspectives.
Now, I'm not generally a fan of post-modernist philosophers (for a number of reasons I won't get into right now), but Jean Baudrillard wrote something about terrorism that caught me off guard. To paraphrase, "By dealing all the cards to itself, the system forced its opponent to change the rules of the game. And the new rules are savage, because the stakes are savage."
This sparked an idea that smouldered in my head for the next five years, and eventually led to some very big questions: What could drive an otherwise ordinary person to engage in terrorism? Can terrorism ever be justified? At the other extreme, who could resist the urge to strike back once all hope is lost?
And I had to admit that I didn't have the answers, but I was keen to explore them. The magic of science-fiction is that it gives us a safe arena to examine complex questions like these. We can cast them in a different light and see what shapes emerge. This spirit of exploration is what finally became the core of Stars Rain Down.
There are several threads that make up the final story, but at the heart of them is Jack Hernandez, a humanitarian aid worker and pacifist who miraculously survives a holocaust. Billions of lives are smothered all at once, and as the dust settles, Jack enlists with the human resistance in order to strike back. This is a man who once dedicated his life to helping the helpless, but now he's stabbing at a genocidal enemy any way he can, driven on by a potent cocktail of anger and unimaginable sorrow.
As readers, we witness his physical journey across a blighted Earth, and at the same time follow his psychological journey through regions of hurt and blind rage. We watch him mount a personal war using ever more desperate tactics, until he faces the ultimate test and learns the true price of his actions.
My greatest challenge was making sure Jack's decisions ring true to the reader. He's essentially acting out of character, but he's been driven there by a situation so monstrous, so horrific, that any one of us might do the same. Even when we're disgusted by his choices, it was imperative that we be able to sympathize and understand how he came to them. Redemption had to remain within reach.
In many respects, Stars Rain Down is an intentionally subversive work about good people driven to do terrible things, and the unexpected consequences that attend our every action. It's about the savage rules that come into play when the stakes are savage.
Does it answer any of those big questions I posed? No, nor would it be very honest to pretend it did. The best fiction, in my estimation, doesn't ever try to answer our questions. Instead, it casts a spotlight on them, forces us reconsider them, and helps each of us come to our own conclusions. That's what I set out to accomplish with this story, and I'll leave you to judge whether I was successful.
And if I miss, at least I was aiming high.
~Chris
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on August 20, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #4Weekly Excerpt & Call to Action
Post CommentAloha friends,
Time for another update, a few days later than originally intended. First up, it's now been a full week since the last pledge, which is the source of my gradually swelling panic. My efforts to garner attention seem to be running into brick walls, and occasionally the steel girders behind those brick walls.
Bad luck can't last, though, and I'm bound to start finding friendly venues soon.
Of course, I'm just one man, and I'd very much appreciate any help you wonderful souls can provide. Every friend you tell, link you send, and blog comment you post could be the difference between this project's success and failure. You also have a significant advantage over me when telling people about the project: you're not the guy running it.
I know many of you have already pledged your hard-earned dollars, but if you could please take a few minutes to spread the word today, I would appreciate it more than words can express.
Next up is this week's excerpt from Stars Rain Down. This is one of the shorter chapters, about a tenth of the way into the story, and occurs right as the invasion is starting. The character is Jack Hernandez, who's a member of the Emergency Response Corps. They're a humanitarian aid group sort of like the Red Cross, but turned up to eleven.
Hope you enjoy today's reading!
Chapter 6: The Earth Stands Still
The sky was dull grey, and rain was trying to fall in fits and starts. It wasn’t a storm yet, but the promise of something dreadful hid within the water fat clouds. Jack Hernandez wasn’t pleased. The last thing he wanted to see on returning from hurricane-ravaged Jacksonville was more rain. He’d been hip-deep in flood waters for so long he could scarcely remember what dry underwear felt like, and he spent the entire flight home dreaming about the warm San Jose sun. His plan was to do nothing but dry out for two straight days.
The sun, that cowardly bastard, was nowhere to be found.
Jack's train ride was quiet and fast, followed by an energetic if mechanical march back from the station and a quick trot up to the door. The apartment unlocked itself as he approached, and he was already half-stripped when the door closed behind him. He tossed his backpack aside, unzipped his jumpsuit and let it hang limply from his waist, drew his tank-top over his head and threw it to the floor. Hopping, he yanked off one boot and then the other, stepped out of the jumpsuit and left it in a damp heap. In another moment, his sponge-like boxers and socks were gone, and he collapsed on the living room carpet naked.
The air in his apartment was cool and—to Jack’s great satisfaction—bone dry. Without the television on, the room was silent save for the sound of his breathing and the intermittent patter of rain on the patio. It didn’t quite measure up to his sun-soaked dreams, but it would do. He lost track of time lying there on the floor, staring at the ceiling and listening to a world momentarily at peace.
When his phone began to ring, he was adamant about not answering it. Just let it go, he told himself. It can’t be anything important. The answering machine will get it. The second ring came and went, the third followed close behind. By the fourth, he was starting to reconsider. Before the fifth ring came, he was on his feet and moving.
He plucked the handset from its cradle. “Hello?”
“Hey Jack,” a sultry sweet voice came back. “You were supposed to call when you landed, dopefish.”
“Sorry, Jess. I was so tired, I came straight home and passed out.” That was close enough to the truth.
“Good news, then. I’m on my way over with an armload of groceries. I’m cooking you dinner tonight.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“How about because I miss you, silly?”
Jack smiled, and for a second his thoughts wandered to the ring nestled in its delicate little box at the bottom of his sock drawer. “Good reason. How far away are you?”
“Five minutes,” she guessed.
“That doesn’t give me much time to get dressed.”
“Whatever you’re wearing is fine,” Jess said. “See you in a bit.” Then dial-tone.
Jack dropped the phone back into its cradle and saw the message light blinking. It couldn’t be good news. It was never good news, but he hit play anyway.
“Don't suppose you recognize my voice, do you? It’s your mother. Maybe I should adopt the answering machine; at least it picks up the phone when I call. Anyway, just letting you know Charlie got promoted to Staff Sergeant. Isn’t that great? I know you don’t like what he does, but you should talk to him. He worked so hard, and... He'd never say it, but he still looks up to you. He only joined up with Carbon Corp because he wanted to help people like you do. He’s starting his third tour, Egypt this time, and I’d really appreciate if you at least gave him a call before he ships out. I guess that’s it. Hope you and Jess can join us for Thanksgiving. Love you, and call me sometime.”
It never ceased to amaze Jack how much guilt that woman could cram into a one minute recording. He also realized, with heavy heart, that she'd never understand the rift between her sons. When Jack joined the ERC, he dedicated himself to helping people any way he could, regardless of race, religion or politics. He risked life and limb for strangers every day, and it just wasn’t the kind of work a person could do without believing in the cause. He was a true believer, through and through.
Then Charlie made the most Charlie-like decision possible: he became a damned mercenary with Carbon Corporation. He wasn’t helping people; he was putting bleeding holes in them and blowing them to bits.
This was nothing new. Charlie always made messes that Jack had to clean up, and now their childhood was repeating itself, but inflated to a global scale. This was the culmination of a pattern, the last step in making sure everything Jack did was ultimately meaningless.
After a moment of reflection, Jack suspected that was a tad melodramatic.
They didn’t see one another much anymore, and whenever they did, Jack conveniently forgot he was a pacifist. There were black eyes, split lips and cracked ribs on both sides, and they finally decided that avoidance was the only sensible answer. It turned out to be a great policy, and they hadn’t spoken in two years. Two wondrous, blissful years.
As Jack stood by the phone, mulling over his little brother killing dissidents in Egypt, he heard the door open and all of the anger and frustration melted away.
In a few long strides, he crossed the floor and intercepted Jess in the open doorway. His arms encircled her, his hands pressed into the small of her back, his head craned down and he gently pressed his mouth to her soft lips. The bag of groceries between them dropped to the floor.
After a moment, he pulled away and looked into her brilliant blue eyes, but stayed so close he could feel her warm breath breaking against his upper lip. “I missed you, too,” he whispered.
“I noticed,” she said with a grin. “You’re naked.”
“You said whatever I’m wearing is fine. You, on the other hand, are way over-dressed.” He stole another kiss. “And so beautiful.”
Before Jess could reply, Jack’s arms cinched around her waist and lifted her up, then he spun her around. She filled the room with laughter, and he attacked her open mouth, hungrily kissing and nibbling at her lower lip.
He lowered her back to the floor with one arm and closed the door with the other.
“Dinner?” She asked.
He ducked his head under her chin and laid one kiss and another on the tender skin of her throat, all the while inhaling her sweet honeysuckle scent. “Dessert,” he suggested.
Then the moment was ruined. The datapad in his backpack blared out an alert, but Jack was adamant about not answering it. Just let it go, he told himself. It can’t be anything important. He froze in place, savoring the feeling of her warm body against his. The second alert came and went, the third followed close behind. The fourth began, but he wouldn’t let himself reconsider. Before the fifth alert came, Jess made up his mind for him.
“You have to answer it,” she said.
He reached into the pack, retrieved his pad and looked grimly at the screen. “It’s Priority One,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Well, I’ve been with the Corps for nine years, and I’ve never seen anything worse than Priority Two.”
He flashed back to orientation and heard his instructor's voice listing Priority One scenarios. “Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact.”
Jack gestured at the TV and it came on, but the black screen said, “No Signal.”
“Damn storm.”
“You should go,” Jess said with two tons of regret in her voice.
“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” his instructor droned on.
“I’m so sorry,” Jack said. “I have to go.”
“I know. It’s why I love you, Corpsman Hernandez. You’re out to save the world, and someday, you’re going to.”
“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” the old voice was now chanting.
“There's something I need to ask you when I get back. You’ll be here?”
She smiled and kissed him, and there was a tension that hadn’t been there a moment before. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear, “I’ll always be here waiting for you, until the stars rain down from the sky.”
And he knew she would.
On autopilot, Jack dressed in fresh clothes, checked his gear and flew out the door. He ran to the train station and caught the mag-lev down to Vandenberg, totally oblivious to everything around him. He didn’t notice everyone in the station fiddling with their malfunctioning phones, or gossiping about blank televisions. He missed the announcement that the train was being guided manually in the absence of the traffic network, and he didn’t even notice that his GPS was blank.
Jack didn’t notice because he was thinking about that question he would ask when he got back. During the trip, he didn’t once hear his instructor’s voice and the list of possible calamities. All he heard, over and over again, was Jess’ promise to wait for him, in that voice that was too sweet for words.
And that's the chapter. Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping me make this project a reality!
~Chris
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on August 16, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #3Cover Art & The Iterative Process
Post CommentHappy Monday morning, friends and future friends,
Since most of your rewards hinge on the novel's cover art, I thought I'd take a few minutes to show you what you're getting, and explain how the image came into being.
First up, here's what the book looks like:
Pretty spiff, right?
I won't lie to you; I'm awfully dang proud of that picture. In fact, it's been my desktop wallpaper for a few months now, and sometimes I look at it when I need a pick-me-up. Every now and again, I find myself mindlessly writing its filename over and over surrounded by little unicorns, hearts and happy faces... Errr, ignore that last part.
This image didn't just come together one morning over a cup of joe, though. Rather, it's the culmination hundreds of wrong decisions. I believe that's what we call 'the iterative process.'
Let's take a look at that process...
It all started back in April when I realized my 30th birthday was right around the corner and I still hadn't published a novel. I imagined what the ambitious, headstrong little version of me back in the 5th grade (that little punk) would think, and it wasn't pretty. In fact, the entirety of his message was ably communicated with just two fingers and a grimace.
It was time to get my derrière in gear, so I buckled down and chained myself to the desk. After a few days and long nights, I had this:
Don't mind the title. That's a topic for another update.
If you hate it, you're not alone. My intent was to combine late-'50s sci-fi cover designs, a clean geometric layout, and a bit of modern grunge. The result was reportedly akin to what comes out when you're suffering from food poisoning.
I went back to the drawing board. My rough concept for the next design was a scribbled, chaotic style, like it'd been written shortly after some cataclysmic event.
I also produced one more after talking to my brother, who's an avid sci-fi reader. He'd just stopped at the library and had a stack of books in hand. He handed me one and said, "This is the sort of book cover that grabs my attention."
It was a bunch of spaceships hanging around in orbit, which is a specific cliché I'd been studiously avoiding. I figured I might as well give it a shot, though.
With three cover designs now competing for my attention, I decided to present them to some of my favorite people in the world, the Colony of Gamers, and ask for their opinions. The overwhelming answer? They liked the scribbles.
Unfortunately, one key person wasn't satisfied: me (that little punk). The drawing board welcomed me back with open arms.
There was this:
...but it looked too much like some futuristic sequel to the Qur'an. Then I produced this:
And that one... well, that had something. It looked kind of junky, but I was sure there was a good idea inside. It just needed a few coats of polish, so I started polishing.
The blocky, too-CG looking mushroom cloud had to go, and I spent a few days wrapping my head around Blender's volumetric materials to produce something that didn't look like it was carved out of white plastic. Next, I layered on a half-dozen effects in order to add texture and better focus the eye, including one very nifty Illustrator smoke technique.
Before I knew it, I had a handful of different color variations:
I selected a winner pretty quickly, the little 5th grade version of me put away one of his fingers (that little punk), and the rest is history.
The flashdrive included with the $75 Emergency Response Corps package comes with hi-res, 300DPI versions of all of the above, and every single source file used to create them. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to learn from some my mistakes and successes, and maybe use these assets to create something wonderful and new.
I'm a big fan of wonderful and new. :)
And the collector's edition cover? It'll be one of the above, but I haven't decided which yet. If you've got an opinion on the matter, definitely let me know.
Until next update,
~Chris J. Randolph
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on August 11, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #2A Helpful Guide to Fundraising
Post CommentGreetings, wonderful supporters!
If you're anything like me (and I bet you are), you wake up every morning asking, "Why, lord? Why?"
When no one answers, you lie there in a daze for a while until finally ambling off to the kitchen where you absent-mindedly ignore a bowl of cereal, grind your teeth and dream up new ways to make me money.
What's that you say? This doesn't describe your average morning at all? No matter. Today, I'm generously offering you a guide chocked full of ideas to help me raise more funds, conceived of by the greatest minds on this or any planet, and crudely illustrated by yours truly.
Now, now... no need to thank me, citizen. Consider it a mitzvah.
Warning: Many of these suggestions constitute felonies in certain uptight jurisdictions, while others are more than likely crimes against nature, against one God or another, or against the very fabric of the Universe itself. The fact that I authored this document should not be considered an endorsement, and I hereby disclaim responsibility for any atrocities which may result from its application.
Idea #1 - Accost Strangers
Every day, you pass hundreds or sometimes thousands of people on the street. Simply shouting garbled gibberish at them can be reasonably effective, but if you really want to get me money (and I know you do), you'll want to consider acquiring a cardboard sign and chasing people until they're too exhausted and terrified to resist your *ahem* charms.
Setup Cost: < $1
Earning Potential: $1-$50 DailyIdea #2 - Mug Strangers
Much like the above, but involves a greater initial cash outlay for business materials. For the price of a simple knife, you can squiztuple your earnings!
Setup Cost: ~$15
Earning Potential: $20-$500 DailyIdea #3 - 419 Scamming
Are you the widow of a Nigerian Prince whose vast fortune is in danger of being seized by a corrupt government? Neither am I, but that shouldn't slow us down. Simply email the kindest, sweetest and most gullible people you can find, and let them know they can help you by depositing a few thousand dollars into an offshore bank account, where you will then transfer your late husbands fortune in order to protect it... or some such fallacious malarky.
Setup Cost: Nothing but time
Earning Potential: $5,000-$10,000 WeeklyIdea #4 - Farm Endangered Species
You'd be shocked how much people are willing to pay for things they're not supposed to have. In this case, you can appeal to their lust for the forbidden and their hatred of political correctness all at once. Simply capture a few members of an endangered species (e.g. Huxley Pandas, Mountain Gorillas, or Brazilian Mergansers, whatever the heck those are), then breed them and charge handsomely for the opportunity to hunt them, eat them, or whatever else rich weirdos will pay for.
Setup Cost: Maybe nothing, depending on locality.
Earning Potential: $1-$2 Million YearlyIdea #5 - Summon a Greed Demon
If you have the right sacrifice and mystical words, you can summon an ancient personification of evil and greed to our world, and bid him to give you money... which you can then give to me. Great plan, right?
Setup Cost: 13 Virgins
Earning Potential: $666 Million InstantlyIdea #6 - Invent a Time Machine
A simple time machine would open up countless opportunities to make me money, and I'm disappointed that you didn't think of it yourself. For instance, you could study the stock market, travel back in time, invest in a winner, then come back and allow me to reap your rewards. Too complicated? How about traveling back in time to steal someone's gold? Or perhaps you could travel 5 hours into the future, snatch a dollar from yourself, then back to only 4 hours in the future to snatch that dollar and its duplicate, and so on ad infinitum. Be creative.
Setup Cost: $20K for a Delorean and some plutonium
Earning Potential: $8 Billion Every Yesterday
Future Cost: ParadoxIdea #7 - Open an Inter-Dimensional Rift
Some crackpot loonies have misinterpreted scientists and now believe in infinite parallel dimensions filled with everything one could ever imagine... and they're right! How do I know? How else could ancient astronauts build the pyramids?! Thus, all you need to do is open a portal to a dimension where money is limitless and bring some of it back here to me.
Setup Cost: A scalpel with the mass of Jupiter, tuned to the natural harmonic resonance of the Universe
Earning Potential: All you can carry
Future Cost: The catastrophic unraveling of space and timeIdea #8 - Train an Army of Monkeys
Monkeys are adorable. They're like little, wild versions of ourselves. They're also mean little bastards that will chew your face off given the chance. With an army of such tiny, acrobatic monsters, a man could become unstoppable. Whole nations would fall to his power, and the world would be his oyster.
Setup Cost: On second thought, I'll be implementing this one on my own.There you have it: 8 exceptionally simple and easy methods for raising money. Most of them will make you rich beyond your imagination, and all I'm asking for is a little cut off the top. Is that unreasonable? I thought not.
Then again, I suppose these plans may (and I must stress may) be a little too adventurous for such tender and thoughtful scholars as yourselves. In that case, I guess I could just kindly ask you to tell a few friends about the project. Yes, I think that could do it... but where's the fun in that?
~Chris
PS - On second second thought, monkeys were a bad idea. Please send Animal Control. AAAGGGHHH!!!
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on August 9, 2010
Chris J. Randolph
Posted project update #1Inaugural Post & First Excerpt
Post CommentHere we go... I've raised the mainsail and we're underway. The port is shrinking into the distance and we're setting off for fantastic regions unknown. I'm ready for an exciting adventure. Are you?
I'll keep the chatty portion of today's update light because (obviously) there isn't much to report on just yet. Besides, it let's us get straight to the story.
Today's selection is from the very start of the book (Chapter 0), and it's almost exactly half of the chapter. I won't bother setting the scene for you because, gosh darn it, that's what this section is supposed to do. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and without further ado...
There was nothing left but a single fortress, its armor tarnished and its silhouette a black mark against the burnt sky. The metropolis surrounding it had been pummeled into bloodstained rubble and shattered glass, and the scene was the same across twelve continents. Where the Somari empire had once flourished in all its glory and arrogance, now only the fortress remained.
At its foot, where the air was clotted with shrapnel and ragged flames, the last survivors of the Trans-Continental Army made their final stand. They had been pinned down and slowly strangled to death, forced to take cover behind the mutilated remains of their civilization while spitting fire at anything that moved. Without hope for victory or escape, they were walking ghosts fueled by rage, too stubborn to admit they were already dead.
And still the invaders pressed on, coming at them from every direction. Enemy infantry advanced tirelessly over broken ground, leading the way for mechanized monsters whose artillery howled through the swirling dust. Each blast bit into the fortress’ failing armor and inched the war closer to its end.
Meanwhile, within the fortress and far from the crumbling line, sounds of the fight became a baleful symphony. Cannon fire beat an uneven rhythm, accompanied by a melody of screaming jets and the bark of ten thousand rifles. Strained voices cried out in chorus, then were silenced once and for all.
This song came to Kai while he slept and dreamed. He ran from one nightmare landscape to the next, chased by a living machine that devoured the ground beneath him. The unstoppable beast chewed up and swallowed whole civilizations to feed its hunger, and still it craved more.
Then an explosion rocked Kai’s incubation tank and he was awake. The nightmare world dissolved only to be replaced by the chaos of reality.
He blinked and blinked again but his eyes refused to focus. The world was blurry and ill defined, tinted by the cold blue gestational fluids. Something wasn’t right. The incarnation process wasn’t complete, but he knew there had to be an explanation.
A staccato series of explosions thumped at the chamber’s walls, and Kai struggled to keep cool. It was no time to panic. He pressed his eyes closed and slowly opened them, and this time the image became sharper. The laboratory was in shambles; sparks danced from the ceiling, and rows of mangled birthing tanks dangled limply from their umbilical cords.
A pair of genetechs in red gowns rushed over to him, one carrying an armload of clothing. The color had long ago drained from their faces, and their wrinkled hands shook as they went to work at the console. Their expressions spoke of terror mixed with sadness.
Somehow, Kai kept his head in check.
The string of lights at the top of the tank changed color and their blinking pattern became insistent. He understood the message, but the gravity of it didn’t strike him. Not that it mattered. There wasn’t any way to prevent what came next.
There was a rumble and the ratcheting of mechanical locks. The viscous fluid drained from the tank a moment later, exposing his partially developed skin to fresh air. There wasn’t any pain. Not yet.
Then the front of the tank opened and dropped him onto the cold metal floor where he curled up like a newborn. He wanted so badly to remain calm, but he had no chance. There was simply too much pain, and it grew so loud that it blotted out every other thought until only a mewling animal remained.
His mind retreated while his body rebelled. The tendons of his jaw stretched around a silent scream, and a series of quick convulsions violently ejected liquid from his lungs. More blue fluid splashed across the floor, reflecting the flickering ceiling lamps on its silken surface.
The genetechs were speaking, but Kai was somewhere else. Somewhere far away, out of communication range. It took several long minutes for the wounded animal to subside, and finally allow rational thoughts to re-emerge.
"It’s too early," one of them said.
"Nonsense. His nervous system is fully formed, and cellular automata are functioning within acceptable parameters. Sinit Kai, can you hear me?"
"Yes," he mumbled feebly. His mouth was an unfamiliar instrument. "Why?" he managed to ask.
The older genetech crouched down beside him. The scientist might have been a mountain once, but decades of erosion had left him shriveled, withered and craggy. "Our time has run out, Kai. You must leave this place while the path remains open."
Kai coughed and more fluid wrestled its way out of his throat. "I need to get to the front lines. The war..."
The genetech placed a hand under Kai’s chin, and gently lifted his head. "There is no war," he said. "All you hear is the last gasp of the dying."
"It’s a funeral," the other genetech said.
"How?"
The scientist shook his head as he spoke. "We lost at Sylus Gate, and the rest of our defenses collapsed in a cascade."
The other said, "Locara, Asheth, Telarius Point, and finally here. Each one a total defeat."
Kai looked down at his incomplete hand. The structure was in place, but patches of half-formed skin scarcely covered the lattice-work of muscle machinery. If his estimates were correct, that placed him in the eleventh day of incubation. His entire world had been conquered in just thirteen days.
His mind raced. "I’m still asleep," he said.
The genetech said, "I hope you’re right, and that you soon wake."
I think that's enough of a taste for today. Be sure to follow me here for more samples and updates in the coming weeks!
~Chris
Chris J. Randolph
Rocklin, CA
Chris J. Randolph (hey, that's me!) is a writer, futurist and possible killer robot originally from Redwood City, CA. When not talking about himself in the third person, he's usually writing about fictional people who pilot spaceships, fight dinosaurs a... view more
Such a classic way to go .. Let me know when the next project is going up.. I'll back it. Loved your first story.