Miis in Nearspace – Part Three

Although we did meet the alien Dr. Ndasa in the first book, Vilisians are not terribly different from humans in appearance (at least I didn’t have to try to recreate their scent-language for Miis). In Dark Beneath the Moon, we meet some new characters both human and alien.

Jahelia Sord

Jahelia Sord is a thorn in Luta’s side for much of this book, but she was such a fun character to write. It was also fun to turn her into a Mii, with her distinctive black-and-white hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cerevare Brindlepaw

You want aliens? Here you go. Cerevare is a Lobor, a species with a lot of similarities to dogs or wolves. Cerevare was my first really big Mii challenge, but look at how gorgeous she turned out!

 

 

 

 

 

Fha

From dogs to crows— Fha belongs to a crow-like species the crew dubs “Corvids.” You can be sure it took me some time to figure out this one, but with this wig for her feathers and that pale “beak,” Fha’s Mii is exactly right.

Up next, characters from Beyond the Sentinel Stars, including our first look at the mysterious Chron.

Miis in Nearspace – Part Two

See the first post in this series here.

Along with the original crew of the Tane Ikai, there are a few other notable characters in One’s Aspect to the Sun. There are a few who turn up briefly in this book but make larger appearances in a later volume (Luta’s brother Lanar, for instance), so I’ll save them for now. Today you’ll meet Maja, Dr. Ndasa, and Luta’s mother, Emmage.

Maja Tacan
Although Maja and Luta are struggling with a lot of old resentments and are mostly estranged at the beginning of One’s Aspect to the Sun, Maja has a considerable presence across the series. Her Mii looks a lot more cheerful than her character does when we first meet her.

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Yalin Ndasa
The Vilisian doctor was my first “alien challenge” in making Nearspace Miis. I love how he turned out! You can’t see it in this picture, but he does have the single long braid that his character has in the book. Note the classic violet eyes so common in Vilisians.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emmage Mahane
Well, yes, Emmage does look a lot like Luta. Which is in keeping with their character descriptions in the book, not a sign that I was getting lazy with my Miis. ;)

Next post we’re on to Dark Beneath the Moon and some pretty challenging aliens. (But you won’t believe how well they turned out!)

Miis in Nearspace – Part One

For my birthday last year, my daughters gifted me the game Miitopia for my Switch. Of course, one of the first fun things to do with this game is create characters, and I had the idea that it would be fun to try and re-create the people from my Nearspace universe as Miis.

I was right. :) It was fun, but I hadn’t really considered the challenge of faithfully reproducing some of the aliens the crew encounters. However, as I proceeded along, (and being inspired by some of the creative ways my daughters had created non-human characters for their own games) I realized how very versatile the creation system can be, with a little imaginative use of the tools offered.

So, to celebrate the release of the newest Nearspace title, A Veiled and Distant Sky, I’ll be sharing the results of this endeavour over the next few blog posts. It’s been really fun to do, and I especially love the way the various aliens turned out. But let’s start today with the original crew of the Tane Ikai.

Luta & Hirin Paixon
Although Luta and Hirin are about the same age, of course Luta has stayed very youthful because of (spoiler alert!) nanotechnology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rei dam-Rowan

Like all Erian women, Rei wears pridattii, swirling facial tattoos around her eyes and over her cheeks. These were definitely a challenge to re-create, but I was happy with the way they turned out. Rei’s signature long, chestnut-coloured hair and golden eyes were a lot easier to incorporate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baden Methyr
As the resident “tech-dog” on the Tane Ikai, I thought it only fitting to give Baden’s Mii an eye-implant gadget. He doesn’t actually have one in the books…at least, not one that we know about. Yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yuskeya Blue

If you’ve read any of the Nearspace books, you’ll recognize Yuskeya immediately. I loved that one of the wig options in the character creation interface let me recreate her gorgeous hair so beautifully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Viss Feron
The Mii-version of Viss (the Tane Ikai’s engineer) looks just as affably cranky as I always imagine him. Buzz-cut and all!

Come back tomorrow to see some other characters from One’s Aspect to the Sun, including our first alien, the Vilisian Dr. Ndasa. Then stay tuned to see who else pops up!

A Veiled and Distant Sky Releases Today!

It’s a book birthday! The ebook of A Veiled and Distant Sky comes out today from Tyche Books, so if you’ve pre-ordered it, you should see it in your library. If you didn’t pre-order, what are you waiting for? Go get your copy! ;)

When Luta Paixon and the crew of the Tane Ikai discover a dying wormhole explorer who’s been missing for decades, it’s a mystery; but the bigger mystery lies in her only words: “Save Lillifleur.” Because the colony ship Lillifleur disappeared without a trace almost a century ago.

Meanwhile, a different mystery lies closer to home; Luta’s son Karro and his wife want no part of the life-extending nanobioscavengers that have kept Luta safe from harm and aging for over fifty years. Confused, worried for their future, and even a little angry, Luta struggles to understand why anyone would reject the gift of near-immortality, even as the debate over nanobioscavenger technology rages throughout Nearspace.

Stranded in an unknown system with Karro and Aliande aboard, Luta faces potentially dangerous drones, a mysterious virus, and a looming alien threat to a forgotten colony. She’ll have to contend with all of this and more before she can unravel secrets from her family’s past, and hope for a little luck to get everyone home to Nearspace safe and sound.

I’ll be posting more about the book and some fun things about it in the coming days, so stay tuned!

My Top 5 Sci-fi Series Worlds

Coming up May 15th-19th I’ll be participating in OWSCyCon, an online genre convention (all genres!),  for readers, authors, and others in the publishing industry. I’ll be hanging around the science fiction, fantasy, and urban fantasy sections, and I have a lot going on that weekend, including a Facebook takeover event, a world-building showcase blog hop, a big giveaway, some Cover Wars brackets, and a Character Battle! Whew, it’s going to be busy and fun.

In the leadup to the convention, some of the Sci-Fi participants are posting “My Top 5” blog posts, and this is mine: My Top 5 Sci-Fi Series Worlds. I love world-building and talking about world-building, so this seemed like a natural fit for me. However, I’ve read books set in many great fictional worlds, so this took some thought! In the end I’m not sure these are truly my “top 5” or if they’re more like “5 of my top favourites plus one,” but I tried. ;) Read on to see what I decided…

Honourable Mention: Gateway (The Heechee Saga)

Books: Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Heechee Rendezvous, Annals of the Heechee, The Gateway Trip, The Boy Who Would Live Forever
Author: Frederik Pohl
Why it’s great: fabulous worldbuilding and intriguing aliens

It’s a long, long time since I read Frederik Pohl’s classic series, but the books, the world, and the characters have stayed with me in a way that many don’t. If I recall correctly, I first read Gateway during the university science fiction English course that had a big influence on my life. I think perhaps it made such an impression because it was one of my first introductions to a really believable alien encounter scenario. In Gateway, humans can take chances on piloting mysterious artifact spaceships without knowing where they will take them, and I realize there are echoes of this idea in both the wormhole-spelunking explorers and the types of aliens I try to write in my own [intlink id=”2094″ type=”page”]Nearspace[/intlink] series–echoes that persisted in my brain for long years after I read the books. If you love a beautifully-realized future with intriguing characters and aliens and a relentless plot, you should give Gateway a try. It’s a classic, but it holds up pretty well.


#5 Mindspace (Mindspace Investigations Series)

Books: Clean, Payoff, Sharp, Marked, Vacant, Fluid, Temper
Author: Alex Hughes
Why it’s great: believable future worldbuilding and a perfect main character to guide you through the world

The “world” of the Mindspace Investigations series is our world, but in a future where telepathy is real, Tech Wars have torn the world apart, and telepath/drug addict Adam finds himself pulled and pushed in many directions as he tries to get his life back. I love this series in large part because this world is so well-imagined–I mean, what would humans do if some of us had telepathic powers? How would we react? And how would we function in a world where technology had been forced to fall back from its current prevalent position? It’s all very believably drawn and imagined, and there are so many storytelling possibilities inherent in the world itself! Of course, I’m also a sucker for books that mash up genres like science fiction and mystery, so it’s not surprising I’m sold on this series. If you like that kind of mashup set in a realistic sci-fi near-future, these books are for you.


#4 Rimway (Alex Benedict Series)

Books: A Talent for War, Polaris, Seeker, The Devil’s Eye, Echo, Firebird, Coming Home
Author: Jack McDevitt
Why it’s great: far-flung future worlds paired with intriguing deep space mysteries

While Mindspace takes place in our near future, the world of Rimway is far, far off–thousands of years in the future, in fact. Humanity has expanded across many planets and the far reaches of space, artificial intelligence is actually intelligent, and–finally–flying cars! ;) However, against the backdrop of this highly detailed and beautifully imagined future world, humans are still very much the same, which adds so much to the overall verisimilitude of the books. Despite our progress, there are still explorations to be made and mysteries to be solved, so these books offer just what I love in great science fiction.


#3 The Galactic Empire (Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse Series)

Books: Terminal Alliance, Terminal Uprising
Author: Jim C. Hines
Why it’s great: the twist of a future where humans are not on top, and the wonderfully imagined alien races

And now for something completely different…janitors in space! In the Galactic Empire of Jim C. Hines’ post-apocalyptic series, humans have been relegated to cleaning the toilets and tidying up after all the other sentient races who’ve fared better than we have through the march of history. I’ve been a fan of Jim’s for a long time and even had the pleasure of belonging to an online writer’s group with him long, long ago. However, it’s the exquisite combination of humour and world-building that really make this “world” a standout for me. I know, I know, there are only two books in the series yet! But that doesn’t stop it from being a definite recommendation from me if you love the lighter side of science fiction.


#2 Alternate History Earth (Oxford Time Travel Series)

Books: Fire Watch, Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout, All Clear
Author: Connie Willis
Why it’s great: the unusual occurrence of time travel that actually works!

It’s a little difficult to actually name the “world” where these books take place, since it’s our world in an alternate timeline where time travel is actually possible. However, I have to include it on this list because in the Oxford Time Travel series, Connie Willis actually makes time travel work. This is no small feat and although it’s been attempted a zillion times, writers are rarely able to pull it off without issues. You may not agree with me that this constitutes a “world” but to me it does; and in addition, Willis deftly navigates multiple times and historical events to bring them to life for the reader, while still tying them all together with the timeline and experiences of the main characters from the “present.” I think this series is a magnificent example of world-building, and if you’re skeptical that time travel can really be done well, I suggest you give it a try. You can read almost any of them as a standalone book, although you should read Blackout before reading All Clear, since they’re really one book that was published in two volumes. To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of the few books I re-read on a regular basis.


#1 The Expanse (The Expanse Series)

Books: Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon’s Ashes, Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath
Author: James S.A. Corey
Why it’s great: the pure breadth of imagination in the world and civilization building

For sheer scale and imagination, I have to give the number one spot on this list to The Expanse. As I wrote in my original review of this first book on Goodreads, I fell in love with it because it had “grand-scale space opera, fascinating characters, tons of complexity and some great sense-of-wonder stuff.” The first book in the series is one of my favourites ever, in part because the world of the Expanse — the Belt, the Outer Planets, all of it — and the inhabitants of the world, are so brilliantly imagined. It all just works, drawing you in and not letting you go. The transition to a television series also seems to have captured this particular world-building magic, although I’ve only seen the first season. All in all, The Expanse has to be #1 on this list.

So, what do you think? Have you experienced any of these worlds? Do you want to fight me over my choices? (Just kidding, I don’t fight on the internets) However, I’m happy to hear your thoughts on the science fiction worlds you love!


OWS CyCon officially runs May 17-19 with the CyCon website and Facebook events acting as the hub for all of our events. Sign up for our newsletter or RSVP to the event to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the bookish goodness we have to offer. Plus, you can read more about our participating Sci Fi authors and their Top 5 favorites in Sci-Fi before CyCon starts. Visit the blog hop page any time leading up to CyCon for the latest posts and your chance to enter our MEGA giveaway (open May 10).

2018 in Review: Writing

I was just looking back at my year-in-review post for 2017 and having a laugh at myself. I’ve just finished trying to reconstruct the months from June to December in my writing/revision tracker, because I only kept good records for the first half of the year, and my 2017 post said much the same thing. I could make a comment about old dogs and new tricks, but I do have a new tracker all set up and ready to go for 2019, so we’ll see if I can change my errant ways.

At any rate, 2018 shaped up with just over 150,000 words of new writing, an increase over the year before, which makes me happy (this number doesn’t include blog posts). I finished four new short stories, one middle grade chapter book, a novella, and made progress on several other longer projects, including coming *this* close to finishing a new Nearspace novel (which I should finally achieve by the end of January at the latest). I kept a few stories in submission throughout the year and had a couple of acceptances. I self-published four new titles. I gave a couple of courses and professional development sessions, one of which was new. I helped our local writer’s group publish an anthology. All in all, a very productive year for me.

I’d like to do a little more short fiction in the coming year and finish some of my languishing works-in-progress. I do have a detailed plan, but since no plan survives contact with reality, I think I’ll keep that to myself. :)

Friday Desk Report – June 29, 2018

Oh my! So much going on this week, I hardly know where to start!

Well, today this happened:

So exciting to see it at #1! You can still catch Planet Fleep for .99 until the end of the day on June 30th, so don’t miss out!

Next on the list, this beauty: an ebook set of the three Nearspace novels! I am in love with the incorporation of the three covers here. If you want to pick it up for your very own self, click whichever of these links works for your e-reading preferences:

And last but not least, my baby graduated from high school this week! I’m a very proud mama (even if I don’t understand how the time went by so quickly!). :)

Friday Desk Report – January 26, 2018

Whew! It’s not hard to tell it’s the beginning of the year. I got some writing done, worked on promotional stuff, made a new short story available on a bundling site, set up a new bundle I’d like to curate, and poked around on Patreon for a while.

I’ve been thinking about Patreon for some time now…is it something that could work for me as a writer? I’m leaning toward giving it a try, but no firm decisions yet. I’ll keep you posted here on any developments. I do have some fun things I could do on the platform, I think.

The big news this week is that my copies of Beyond the Sentinel Stars arrived! I think it wasn’t really real until I held a copy in my hands. Which also meant I was able to take this picture…full trilogy!

This has also been my second week of doing a yoga practice every day and–wow! I am really feeling the effects (in a very good way). Of course I’m still at my treadmill desk, too, but the yoga is bringing something entirely new and welcome to my physical state. I discovered this wonderful channel on YouTube–Yoga with Adriene–and if you’re thinking you might like to try it, I can’t recommend her strongly enough. No pressure, no stress, no demands to do things perfectly or quickly. Adriene’s laid-back and restful style of instruction is exactly what I needed. Check out her beginners’ videos if you’re curious. Every day I can’t wait to get to the mat for my practice.

Just for fun, this year I’m tracking what I research for various stories. Things I looked up on the Internetz this week for writing: old general store images, row houses, and words in the Mi’kmaq language.

 

2017 in Review: Publications!

So, this post will be a little more upbeat than yesterday’s treadmill desk lament. I published things in 2017! And strangely, I realize, they mostly come in twos.

Two short stories in anthologies: I had stories in Where Evil Dwells: The Nova Scotia Anthology of Horror (“The Girl in the Stones”), and the 2017 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide (“Station Run”). Two very different anthologies and very different stories! “The Girl in the Stones” is set in Cape Breton, when a couple moves into a house that comes with a strange pile of stones in the yard, menacing dreams, and a frightening history. “Station Run” finds a young girl on a space station discovering that her programming skills have unearthed a secret that will rock the world of the station and those who live there.

Two self-published novelettes, “Waiting to Fly” (set in the Nearspace universe), and “The Goddess Problem” (an Olympia Investigations story). “Waiting to Fly” is set in the early days of Nearspace colonization, when getting to a space station was only the first step, and getting off it again might not be easy-especially if you’re a young woman on your own. “The Goddess Problem” finds our favourite supernaturally-attuned detective, Acacia Sheridan, employed by a Greek goddess on a missing-persons case.

Two books: a new collection of short stories, The Cache and Other Stories, and the third book in the Nearspace series, Beyond the Sentinel Stars. The story collection includes stories published since my last collection in 2011, as well as a couple of bonus stories you won’t find anywhere else. And Beyond the Sentinel Stars finds Luta and her brother Lanar embroiled in a desperate attempt to prevent another Chron war from ravaging Nearspace.

On the editorial side, 2017 saw the publication by Third Person Press of Rise of the Mudmen by James FW Thompson. I’m very pleased to have been involved in the publication of this first novel. The story follows a group of young survivors through a zombie apocalypse in an alternate 1980’s timeline in Cape Breton.

Cover Reveal: Beyond the Sentinel Stars

I’m super excited to reveal the cover for Beyond the Sentinel Stars, coming in December from Tyche Books! This is the third book in the [intlink id=”2033″ type=”page”]Nearspace[/intlink] series, and you’ll find all the characters you love onstage again. The art is once again by Ashley Walters, who did a wonderful job of setting the scene for this novel. Luta and Lanar really look like brother and sister to me!

Oh yes, I should probably actually show you? Here you go:

 

What’s happening in Nearspace now, you ask?

Luta Paixon and the crew of the Tane Ikai have made it back to Nearspace safely, but that safety is short-lived. As if a disastrous diplomatic mission to the crow-like Corvids isn’t enough, Luta’s old enemy Alin Sedmamin is back—and asking Luta to help save his life. In exchange, Sedmamin is offering secrets stretching back more than a century into Nearspace’s past—secrets that could prevent a war.

Meanwhile, Luta’s brother Admiral Lanar Mahane is faced with an awful truth: the Protectorate is spread too thinly across Nearspace to offer adequate protection or defense when the aggressive Chron turn their murderous sights on Nearspace again. They must forge new alliances if Nearspace is to survive, but it’s almost impossible to know who to trust.

As interstellar conflict looms on the horizon and a political plot of tremendous scope and daring threatens to destroy Nearspace from within, Luta and Lanar will test the bonds of family and the strength of hope as they struggle to maintain peace in a world that seems destined for war.

It looks like the official release date will be December 19th, but you can pre-order now at AmazonKobo, and Amazon Canada.