Artemis Rising is #1,964 in Steampunk Fiction (Kindle Store), #1,356 in Steampunk Fiction, and #4,795 in Alternative History. Still at 3 customer reviews. I need a few more to get Audible to take notice – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
Discovered that John Browning invented the guns and Matthew Browning sold them. Kind of like how Eleanor and Walter divide the work. I went back and rewrote the parts with the Browning brothers.
My editor, Sandra, returned the rewrite of Book 2, so I tied up Forging the Chain Breakers and started working on integrating the edits instead. I have them all integrated now. Title is now “Celestial Accord”. I have an order for a new cover from GetCovers.com. I have a request for copy editing on Reedsy. Release by the end of September if I’m really, really, lucky. Chances are it will be at least October instead <sigh>.
Forging the Chain Breakers chapters this week: 36: Browning Assault Rifles 37: A Military Pow-Wow – started
Forging The Chain Breakers word count is 65,912, not counting Dramatis Personae (2,506 words)
If you want to be a beta reader and comment on Book 2 chapters, write a nice review for Artemis Rising on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.
Artemis Rising is #1,845 in Steampunk Fiction (Kindle Store), #1,043 in Steampunk Fiction, and #3,818 in Alternative History. Still at 3 customer reviews. I need a few more to get Audible to take notice – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
I needed a place for the New York City aeroport on Staten Island. The Edison Aeroport takes up the shore of Staten Island from the Tottenville Station to Mill Creek and from the shoreline to the Staten Island Rapid Transit Railroad. I also had to figure out how an aeroport would work. They wouldn’t have long runways and terminals like modern airports because they don’t have heavier than air aircraft and the passenger and cargo access such aircraft have. Especially since this is Steampunk, we decided that liftwood cargo ships, passenger ships, and military ships would all dock at towers. Gantry connecters would come out and connect to the ship and provide just the right amount of external power to keep the ship steady on the tower. Stability arms would come out to pre-designed hardpoints and lock in place to hold the ship steady in high winds. Passenger tunnels would extend to passenger hatches. Cargo ramps would connect to cargo hatches – all sorts of connections and complex machinery with plenty of gears…
I got to thinking about where Aeroports, especially Aeroports with significant military forces, will be in 1900. I decided they would be Galveston, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Staten Island, New York; San Francisco, California; London, England; Antwerp, Belgium; Le Harve, France; Bremen/Bremerhaven, Germany; Genoa, Italy; Vienna, Austria-Hungry; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Moji, Japan. It’s going to increasingly suck the farther down that list the city is…
In 1891, the British military used the Lee-Metford rifle chambered in .303 black powder. It weighed about 9.5 pounds, was almost 50 inches long with a 30 inch barrel. It was magazine fed from an 8 or 10 round magazine and had a rate of fire of about 20 rounds/minute.
My initial thoughts about Defender Marine firearms: Major Regdar and Walter visit Ogden Utah to talk with John Browning about designing weapons for the Defender Marines. Their electromagnetic guns are kludgy, prone to break, and not known for their accuracy. They do, however, have a very good design for a reloadable magazine. Walter encourages Browning to use the new smokeless powder and a magazine based on the lunar one for his design. Since this is about 3-7 years earlier than IRL, Browning’s automatic and semi-automatic weapons are developed earlier as well. Jagers at first carry a rifle similar to the Remington Model 8 (invented early) with a 20 round magazine. It is later replaced by an improved version similar to the M1 Garand, again with a 20 round magazine. Trolls at first carry a version of the M1895 Colt-Browning Machine Gun with a 30 round magazine, later a 100 round drum magazine. Later replaced by a version of the M2 (Ma Duce), with a 100 round drum magazine, although it can also be belt fed. These may have a cooling circuit designed by Nikola to cool the chamber and barrel using something like the cooling coils of the freeze cannon.
I got a new notional picture for the Troll troopers armed with their .50 Browning Assault Rifles. It is the picture that will be used for, at least, Forging the Chain Breakers, although it may also be the notional background picture for Selene Unchained. I like the Troll much better, but I like the old Moon background better. My guess is the GetCovers folks will probably make something even better – they have every time so far…
I’ve decided that when Walter and Eleanor go to the 1891 Cornell graduation to recruit engineers, they will offer five work/study opportunities to work for Gresham Aerospace and study engineering from the Crystal Keep. Three of the engineers, Juan Almirall, Robert Burwell, and Oren Heilman will go on to be the foundation of the engineering team for Gresham Aerospace. Two, Clarence Cory and Warren Meeker will become the initial Earthborn faculty of Crystal Keep University – Galveston. Cory was the real life first professor of mining and electrical engineering for UC Berkley. Meeker was the real life longest serving faculty member of the Iowa State University College of Engineering.
I’ve decided that I will only have the first four or five books be a real series. Artemis Rising will be directly followed by Book 2 will be directly followed by Forging the Chain Breakers, maybe Antarctic Honeymoon will be next, but I might jump directly to Selene Unchained. All the rest of the planned books I’ll try to make stand-alone. They share a setting and characters, but I’m going to aim to make each one stand on its own without the reader needing to read another book to understand what’s going on. I’m not sure how to organize that on Amazon. I may just say they are Victorian Interplanetary stories and not put a number on them and make the first 4-5 books the series Selene Reborn. What do y’all think?
Current titles with votes: The Moon’s Secret Envoy -2 The Moon’s Surprise Envoy -1 A Celestial Accord – 2 Moon Comes Down – 1 Selenites Path – 2
Chapters this week: 28: Galveston Aeroport Company 29: Aero Reconnaissance 30: Completed Sanctum 31: The Trolls Seize Fire 32: Facing the New Council 33: Military Update 34: Where Will it Fit? 35: A Beginning and a Milestone 36: The Browning Order – started
Forging The Chain Breakers word count is 61,959, not counting Dramatis Personae (2,472 words)
If you want to be a beta reader and comment on Book 2 chapters, write a nice review for Artemis Rising on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.
Artemis Rising is #336 in Steampunk Fiction (Kindle Store), #1,639 in Steampunk Fiction, and #1,258 in Alternative History. Still at 3 customer reviews. I need a few more to get Audible to take notice – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
Thomas Lucas, who lives across Broadway from Gresham Castle, may be an alternate builder for at least the upgrades to First Hangar. Information about Thomas Lucas IRL.
If you haven’t sent a reply with feedback about the title for book 2, please review the list of title suggestions and hit reply.
Not as many chapters this week. Two reasons, Deborah and I spent several days celebrating our 39th wedding anniversary. It takes longer for us old people to celebrate things – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it… Also, what the Shadowy Man is getting up to will be talked about more in this book than originally planned. That means adding some pieces in some of the already completed chapters.
According to the 1890-1891 Galveston City Directory, page 179, David Fahey was proprietor of Uhrig’s Cave saloon, 2102 Market on the corner of 21st Street. Residence same. That is more than enough to inspire even a half-way decent writer to create a setting for the Shadowy Man to pump the bricklayers for information.
John Locke (h) – Bricklayer in Galveston. Roomed with Fannie Stone. I added that he was from Eastside London because I wanted the Cockney accent. His friends were John Lipscomb (h) and George Blake (h) both historical bricklayers that I decided were Galveston natives.
Historically in 1891 there were three foundries in Galveston. One, Lee Ironworks, part of the C. B. Lee & Co. complex, was right near the railroad depot and was the run by the Alderman for the 6th Ward (Northwest Galveston), Charles Lee. Guess where Walter and Company got the steel plates to cover Nike and Artemis…
I’ve had a couple of questions about plans for future books. Those plans have changed a lot since I sat down to write Artemis Rising almost a year ago now. Currently, as of the changes made this morning, the plan looks like this:
The Rise of the Selenites (Series): Artemis Rising [Book 2 – please send your title suggestions] Forging the Chain Breakers Selene Unchained
The Adventures of Walter and Eleanor: Antarctic Honeymoon – may be book 4 of 5 in Rise of the Selenites Secrets of Kilimanjaro
Others: Flight of the Phoenix Beware the Wrath of Magi
Ideas that may become books: Return to Mars – A Walter and Eleanor adventure Getting a Clue – A Walter and Eleanor adventure Old Ones In England – A Walter and Eleanor adventure Fish People of the Amazon – possibly a Walter and Eleanor adventure Secrets of the Sphinx Floating Cities of Venus Dark Side of Mercury Secrets of Ceres Bombing Iapetus War of the Worlds – may be a series War in Heaven – may be a series Emory Upton in Mexico The Rise of Amir Al-Jalil Mike Powell on Mars
Plenty of untold stories and all that assumes I don’t get enough feedback from readers about wanting more story somewhere not covered by this list…
Chapters this week: Shadowy Man additions 2 Chapters split (additional 2 chapters) 27: Preparations for the Council 28: Galveston Aeroport Company – started
Forging The Chain Breakers word count is 48,947, not counting Dramatis Personae (2,183 words)
If you want to be a beta reader and comment on Book 2 chapters, write a nice review for Artemis Rising on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.
Artemis Rising is #1,435 in Steampunk Fiction (Kindle Store), #1,579 in Steampunk Fiction, and #3,813 in Alternative History. I got a 3rd customer review, still need a few more to get Audible to take notice – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
I had another couple ideas for a name for Book 2. “Selenite Surprise” or “Surprise Visitors” Let me know what you think.
NASA 1118 78.3F
Had some discussion about potentially adding Atlantis to the stories in the future. Maybe using the Sahara Eye. Major question to be resolved is how to destroy Atlantis so it is at least similar to the Plato story. One minor question would be how much metal reinforcement do they need? If they build in a Classic Greco-Roman or Gothic style, none. If they use steel like we do – the steel would probably be rusted to nothing and those structures compromised. If they use a more corrosive resistant metal (titanium, aluminum, special alloy) they may still be in place. Something to consider.
Something else that will show up earlier is how will the Selenites gain support among the communities under the control of Zafir? What if the Selenites are able to disguise themselves sufficiently to carry word of the coming freedom to everyone. Among other things, Angels are messengers. What if the people under Zafir’s control end up entertaining ‘angels’ unaware?
If Old One tainted leukos crystals are purple-black (like a UV light), and Moon leukos crystals are usually colorless or pale yellow, would Martian power crystals be red? After all, the reason Mars looks red in real life is the massive amount of iron oxide in the surface dust. Come to find out, Corundum (aluminum oxide crystals) with trace amounts of iron and tungsten make blue sapphires. Rubies come mostly from chromium traces. Of course that doesn’t mean I have to make Martian crystals blue…
I discovered that in real life, while Gresham Castle was being constructed the Gresham’s lived just behind the house on the south side of Avenue I between 14th and 15th. It is listed as the Thomas Chubb house on the historical landmark plaque out front of it. That is Edward and Vickie’s house in the story.
I also looked up what the major ports were at the end of the 19th Century. They were the ports of the “Northern Range” in Europe. That’s Le Harve, France; Antwerp, Belgium; Rotterdam, Netherlands; Bremen/Bremerhaven, Germany; and Hamburg, Germany.
Chapters this week: 21: American Commonwealth Military Council – added before 22 22: At This Meeting of the Board… – completed 23: Grey Wednesday 24: Galveston Aeroport Collusion
Forging The Chain Breakers word count is 45,808, not counting Dramatis Personae (1,831 words)
Artemis Rising is #1,224 in Steampunk Fiction (Kindle Store), #1,368 in Steampunk Fiction, and #3,293 in Alternative History. I got a 3rd customer review, still need a few more to get Audible to take notice – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
Submitted the new book 2 to Sandra, my editor. It may be a while before she can get to it. She’s a very good (and popular) editor. It’s better for her to have the manuscript and wait to get the time than have the time and be waiting on the manuscript. Hopefully I’ve fixed the issues and we can get this published by the end of the month or early September. Still need a good title for it. I did have another idea: Cutting In at the Presidents’ Ball. What do y’all think?
Started working on Book 3 which is now Forging the Chain Breakers. Since I was able to pick up a lot that was edited out of either Mirim for the WIN or Antarctic Honeymoon, I’ve made a lot of progress by just touching up chapters picked up from the cutting room floor, so to speak. Chapters 1-21 are essentially the same as chapters written earlier for either Book 3 or some other story. 21 had extensive changes to the final board meeting.
Chapters this week: Preface: Sinister Success 1: To Business 2: Gresham Steamship Company 3: Cotton Exchange and Board of Trade 4: Financial Setback 5: Firearms and Electromagnetic Weapons 6: I Guess Your Budget Is “Yes…” 7: Tea, Bolivia, and Pilot Training 8: But First, New York 9: A Preacher, a Feminist, and a Sorceress Go To Tea… 10: 15 Union Square West 11: Breakfast At Tiffany’s 12: Dinner Plans 13: Winchester Repeating Arms 14: Coltsville 15: Preparing For Dinner 16: Dinner At Delmonico’s 17: What’s Next? 18: Engaging Management 19: Talk With Browning 20: Gresham Steamship Board 21: At This Meeting of the Board… – in progress
Forging The Chain Breakers word count is 41,143, not counting Dramatis Personae (1,695 words)
Artemis Rising is #993 in Steampunk Fiction (Kindle Store), #1,158 in Steampunk Fiction, and #2,655 in Alternative History. There are still just 2 customer reviews – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
I’m getting some readers in Kindle, so that is encouraging.
As I mentioned last week, the rewrite of “Mirim for the WIN” is so major, the book will be getting a new title and cover. I’m currently considering “Selenite Party Crashers”. I plan to send the new version of the manuscript to Sandra for editing by the end of the week.
The problem with “Mirim” was that there wasn’t enough conflict/setback for the story to be very interesting. In an effort to avoid that problem in the future, I reviewed the plan for the future books with an eye toward what the conflicts/setbacks would be for each story. That changed the focus of the stories some, changed the timeline a lot, and spurred a change in the book titles and order. There are now eight books in the immediate series with “Beware the Wrath of Magi” being added.
A pleasant side effect of the reorganization was that the planned books aren’t as intertwined. Instead of “Antarctic Honeymoon” being next, “Forging the Chain Breakers” will be next, focusing on military and political preparation for freeing the Moon. Bad news – Plan A will be delayed until at least 1893, maybe much later if the Robber Baron has anything to say about it. Good news – Plan B may have the Moon free by the end of 1891…
Artemis Rising is #885 in Steampunk Fiction, #3,063 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books), and #5,415 in Exploration Science Fiction. There are still just 2 customer reviews – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
I’m getting some readers in Kindle, so that is encouraging.
Still working on the changes to Mirim. I’m thinking of calling the new book “Moon Comes To Earth” or “Envoys and Ambassadors” unless I can find something better. Mirim for the WIN is just too obscure and Mirim looks too young until you read that she is actually 45 and just looks that young. I need a better title and cover to draw people into reading the blurb. I need a new blurb as well, I guess.
First pass complete for Chapter 21 to the end. Completed the second pass for the full book as well. It expanded to over 86,000 words and from 24 to 30 chapters.
Artemis Rising is #734 in Steampunk Fiction, #2,690 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books), and #4,882 in Exploration Science Fiction. There are still just 2 customer reviews – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
To make the changes necessary to give Mirim for the WIN a story, I’m going to need to make at least two passes through the story. The first one will focus primarily on addressing the ‘tactical’ level editing issues. The second one will focus on fixing the ‘strategic’ level issues. I may need a third pass to make sure it all fits together correctly. Then it will be back to Sandra.
I’m thinking it will need a new title as well. Mirim will be a major character, but Elisha and Ima and their struggle to get some official support, even if they can’t get official recognition, from the American Commonwealth will be important.
First pass complete for Chapter 1-21, this includes adding more than 10,000 words and two chapters.
If you want to be a beta reader and comment on these chapters, write a nice review for Artemis Rising on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.
Artemis Rising is #1,162 in Steampunk Fiction, #3,967 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books), and #6,602 in Exploration Science Fiction. There are still just 2 customer reviews – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
I realized some additions to Mirim for the WIN need to be made to clarify the size of the challenge, as seen from Mirim and Elisha’s point of view. Elisha is, essentially, the headman of a village tasked with representing all the people of the Moon (less than 100 thousand) to an organization that has multiple countries with millions or tens of millions of people. Mirim, for all her skill, has never attempted working a Women’s Information Network the size of Galveston’s. Mirim has also never worked with women who are wives of diplomats, or even Presidents, of those huge countries. All that is on top of being on a completely alien planet. I guess I didn’t write it because I knew how they would cope, but the reader would have to be able to read my mind to know how they cope. Sandra said she had recognized that, but to wait until she’s made a first pass before I start a significant rewrite like that.
I did go through Mirim for the WIN and Antarctic Honeymoon to look for places to put descriptions of the various locations in Galveston to make the story come alive better. That took up most of my writing time this week.
Biggest news last – Mirim for the WIN is a great slice of life, but a very poor story. Everything is too easy and there are no real challenges or setbacks. It also doesn’t really fit into the Steampunk genre because there isn’t really any adventure. It looks like I’m going to need to back up, rethink what I’m doing in the various books in 1891, and try again. I’m not sure yet, but that will probably mean Mirim for the WIN will not be the title of the next book. Work on Antarctic Honeymoon will be suspended until I get Book 2 straightened out.
Artemis Rising is #351 in Steampunk Fiction, #1,384 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books), and #1,436 in Steampunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store). There are 2 customer reviews – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so.
More progress on Antarctic Honeymoon. Mirim for the WIN has finished its first week in developmental editing. I’m getting prepared for a research trip to Galveston, Texas – although I was recently informed that we needed to do more than just research. Finally, I learned a lot of interesting tidbits, most of which may never get into the books directly.
Eleanor’s probably father, Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, was the most famous of the residents of Knebworth House. Knebworth House is an English country house in Knebworth parish of Hertfordshire in England. It has been home to the Lytton family since 1490.
Added John Moses Browning to the Dramatis Personae. No changes to the amazing historical person. He was one of the most important firearms designers in history, Moses Browning held 128 patents for firearms in his lifetime, including patents on designs that laid the basis for many modern firearms. This includes gas operated semi-automatic actions which are used in almost all semi-automatic and automatic firearms, and the .50 caliber ‘ma deuce’ machine gun, possibly the most widely used machine gun in history. Last I heard, .50 caliber BMG (Browning Machine Gun) was the single most used ordinance in the history of the US Air Force.
Also got to use the origin story of Browning’s gas operated mechanism idea. In the 1890’s he was testing a rifle and noticed the muzzle gasses pushing back the vegetation nearby. From there it was only a question of how to harness the energy from those gasses to work the mechanism.
Did some more research on the business elite of Galveston in the 1890’s and realized that Thomas wouldn’t have been engaged to Abby Kempner – her father, Harris Kempner, was an Ashkenazic Jew from Poland. A Jewish man, born in the Russian puppet state of Poland, on the border of Prussia, speaking Yiddish as his first language, wouldn’t have allowed an Episcopalian to marry his daughter. So I switched the birth order of John Henry Hutchings youngest two children and Thomas Gresham is engaged to Rey Sealy Hutchings instead.
Many of the people on the various boards in Chapter 26 were historical people. George Sealy, Frank’s future father-in-law, and John Henry Hutchings, Thomas’ future father-in-law, are on the board of both the GL&V Railroad and Gresham Aerospace. Col. Moody is on the boards of the Gulf, Laredo, and Veracruz Railroad and Gresham Steamship Company. George Brakenridge of San Antonio, Texas, Isaac Garza Garza of Monterrey, New Leon, and Francisco Yturria of Matamoros, Tamaulipas are on the board of the Gulf, Laredo, and Veracruz Railroad. Manuel Carrillo, Tia Dolores’ father, is on the board of Gresham Steamship Company. Henry Rosenberg is on the board of Gresham Aerospace.
In the 1890’s the approaches to the Port of Havana were defended by a bunch of shore batteries. Even though the United States of the West Indies have been free from Spain for about 30 years, I figure the batteries probably still have guns in them. That means the Bateria de Santa Clara can add some local… color to Chapter 26.
Finally decided on specifics for the houses the Selenites get to stay in while in Galveston. I finally realized that instead of trying to shoehorn the Selenites into one of the famous houses in Galveston, I could just “cut and paste” some houses from the same time period into “blank places” in Galveston. Therefore, at the end of Chapter 8, they acquire two properties, neither of which were in Galveston, but both of which existed in Texas in 1891. The Keeper House was placed at 1702 Ball and is copied from the Rotan-Dossett House from Waco. The Selenite Embassy was placed at 1502 Broadway and is based primarily on the Cartwright House in Terrell, Texas. The Cartwright House really does look like an Embassy, especially after the Selenites put in leukos-powered electric lights like the modern Cartwright house has.
I organized the Walter’s Galveston document ahead of travelling to Galveston this weekend to do some scouting on the ground. I plan on getting some pictures of some of the buildings that still exist and see about getting pictures from the Rosenberg Library for some of the rest of them. I’ll also be meeting with Jami Durham at the Historical Society who was very helpful in getting a feel for the Gresham family.
Had to figure out where at least a couple of the aero/Aether ports would be. So one is in the New York area (where Edison Aetherics builds all the aetherships before the Tesla Drive) and another is in London. The Royal Victoria Aeroport lies between the Royal Albert Dock on the north and the Woolwich Railway on the south.
Some of you may recognize the symbol of the American Geographic Society. It is the same as the symbol for the Interplanetary Geographic Society Press. It has corn sheaves (corn is native to Central/North America) and an uncommon world map projection called a Berghaus projection or Berghaus star. The particular one used has North America and the American Sea prominently displayed. The American Geographic Society, based in Havana, West Indies, will become the Interplanetary Geographic Society at some point. Two other organizations similar to the American Geographic Society were the Royal Geographic Society in Great Britain, and the Smithsonian Institute in the United States. The famous National Geographic Society was founded in 1888, but is still fairly new and not as well known.
Chapters this week: 25: Talk With Browning – finished 26: This Meeting of the Board 27: American Geographic Society – started
Antarctic Honeymoon word count is 53,133 not counting Dramatis Personae (2,268 words)
If you want to be a beta reader and comment on these chapters, write a nice review for Artemis Rising on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.
