A New Year, A New Book (Almost)

Happy new year to everybody out there! May it indeed be happy, healthy, successful, safe, and fulfilling. Carol and I and Dash are still in good shape. Dash is 15 1/2, so he’s slowing down. Carol and I, well, we’re in damn good shape for being in our 70s. July will be 56 years since we met. October will bring our 49th wedding anniversary. We are more deeply in love and friendship than ever before.

It may not be what I’m remembered for in years to come, if I’m remembered at all…but my relationship with Carol is what I consider the finest thing I have ever accomplished, and she what I am by far the most thankful for. Every year brings more and better for us. Yes, friendship is the cornerstone of our love, and how it all came about. Every year that passes makes that clearer.

But friendship is also the cornerstone of the human spirit, and I’m thankful for all the years that many of you have been reading me here and elsewhere, and offering me comments and suggestions and commendations. Stick with me; more words are on their way.

The Everything Machine, my fourth novel (or fifth, if Drumlin Circus counts as a novel) hits the streets this year. It’s the “big” drumlins story, set in the same universe as The Cunning Blood, but on the other side of the galaxy. It incorporates my novelette “Drumlin Boiler,” which Asimov’s published in 2002. The manuscript is complete. I’m in discussion with an artist for a cover. I wrote the back cover copy yesterday afternoon. We’re getting there.

I did a long, close copy edit on it across the last couple of weeks. Some people have suggested that I should hire an editor to do a pass over it. I considered for some time, and finally decided against it. One reason is that while there’s plenty of action in The Everything Machine, what I put most of my energy into was the creation of the characters. Characterization was always my weak spot as a writer. This project has been a deliberate effort to improve that skill. I’m still an ideas guy, but this time, I’m giving my characters equal time with what I consider my finest SF concept in all the years I’ve been writing. There’s deliberate nuance in the characterization, and I’m leery of having someone else miss that nuance and unintentionally polish it away.

One of my alpha readers gave me a compliment that suggests it’s working: Joe said that he could always tell which character is speaking in the story, and that each has a distinctive voice and presence. Here’s an example of how I’m trying to do this:

Orsi staggered back, his eyes widening. “So you are the girl who tortured Gad Roche…with your mind.”

Maristella bit her lower lip. “That shitpile had a gun to my head. I did what I hadta do.” Maristella pointed down at the deck. “So do we got us a deal or not?”

Orsi took several long breaths. McKinnon thought he was trembling. “Prove to me…that this is…a starship.”

Consul David Orsi is weak, taking intermittent breaths, and coughing a great deal. Maristella is a bright 15-year-old farm girl who had been tossed out of grade school for being “weird.” The Bitspace Institute murdered her father and is holding her mother captive. She is angry, and more bitter than a teen girl should be.

I’m expecting some grumbling about how complicated the story is. There are several story arcs and more major characters than I’ve put in a novel before. I think it works, and my alpha readers think it works. We’ll see how it goes over with the readership at large.

It’s taken more time than my other novels, in part because I’m not 50 anymore, and in part because I had to set it aside for a year to update my assembly language book. I rewrote several parts of it more than once. I got the idea waaaaaaay back in 1997, and it will be a boggling relief once it’s finally completed and on sale.

I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, there are electronics to play with, and a solar maximum to allow station K7JPD to be heard farther off than California. I’m guessing that it’s going to be a mighty good year. So good luck and make it happen!