The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a rad channel...
(With apologies to William Gibson.)
Honored samurai, ruthless ronin, wayward vagabonds, shadowy ninja and helpless villagers... welcome.
Opening Volley
It’s been a few weeks, I’ve been busy reading, editing and trying to clear up a problem with my graphic card. Excuses, excuses, always with the excuses. FORWARD!
Main Event
Now that “Dark Hour” is in the hands of the anthology publisher for consideration, I move back to larger projects I’ve been ignoring for way too long: Cymurai (“cyborg samurai” for those of you in Wales ;)).
My files go back to late 2020 but I know I was working on it during the summer of that year. I even took a stab at publishing it on Royal Road where currently eight chapters are available to read for free (see above link).
Unfortunately, I ran into trouble with outline and style and I put it on hiatus to work it all out. It’s still a mess outline wise, in fact, it’s a bigger mess than before, because I’ve put a lot more thought into it and now it seems like it needs a proper expanding of characters to round it out. I still don’t plan on more than one book though. I’m not one for series of novels — reading or writing.
Now, I’m exploring the idea of posting it on Vella. Unfortunately Vella is not available outside the States. I believe there may be a work around if I create a new US Amazon account. I already have a US PayPal/bank account, so that won’t be a problem. But I want to make sure this all works out (and have plenty of work ready) before I announce a proper drop. Let me know in the comments if you already have Vella (Amazon). For those of you who don’t or don’t want one, no worries, a proper publication will follow.
Couple of issues back I introduced a couple of SamuraiPunk/SamuraiScifi novels that I had come across: Automated Eve and Gray Ronin.
Hands down, Automated Eve (Rokuro Inui (Author), Matt Treyvaud (Translator)) is some of the most exciting, page-turning scifi I have read for a long time. Definitely one of my favorites of all time. Most folks would probably classify it under clockpunk or steampunk or alternate history, so if any of those are your gig, jump on it. While Automated Eve is a standalone novel, there are two more books in the series. (Both still only in Japanese.) I’ve begun the second novel which takes place 100 years after the original, and it’s perfection.
Gray Ronin (Matthew S. Cox) is the action-packed third novel in the author’s The Awakened Series. (Works as a standalone novel without having to invest in the others to enjoy.) Set in a future Japan divided among warring conglomerates run by daimyo overlords, the work has a very ShadowRun feel to it. As a fan of the TRPG, I felt a fondness for the novel, but I did have cultural/language reservations that, granted, only readers who have spent years in Japan will probably even notice. (WARNING: Those of you are very familiar with or live in Japan, brace yourself for some VERY HARD eye-rolling moments.) That said, the novel itself is decent, cover to cover action (Mr. Cox has a fondness for battle scenes), and fun.
Enough yacking, here’s a parody album to YMO by a Japanese group calling themselves OMY (Oriental Music Yellow). “Oriental Magnetic Yellow (OMY) are a Yellow Magic Orchestra parody band formed in 1994. It consists of video game music artists Shinji Hosoe, Takayuki Aihara, Nobuyoshi Sano and Hiroto Sasaki.“ — LastFM
We never meet without parting
Next issue... More on whether or not Cymurai (or possibly another work) will make its debut on Vella or not. Other miscellaneous fun. Blah blah blah.
Until then!
Made in DNA
For free fiction and a little bit of craziness: http://vocal.media/authors/made-in