Nathan Brindle

At long last, I conquered writer’s block and finished The Dragon’s Sister.  This is something of a follow-on to A Dragon in the Foie Gras, 20 years later, when the girl found in the stasis chamber in Chicago has re-entered society and wishes to become a US Space Force Marine.

This is a Timelines Universe story, and like most of the books in that category, it’s fairly short; about 22K words, 114 pages.  In terms of where it fits in the Timelines oeuvre, it would be just before the opening of The Lion in Paradise.

Two Sisters, Separated By A Timeline

When most people find out they have a long-lost twin sibling they never dreamed existed, reactions can range from happiness to anger.

In the case of US Space Force Marines Brigadier General Mei-Lin Lai, her “twin” is her timeline analog she was told did not exist.  And because of that reassurance, the expatriate Chinese taikonaut migrated to Timeline Zero from Timeline One Right, to take command of United States Space Force Base Terra Meridiani, on Mars.

But her analog did exist.  And was pulled out of a cold-stasis chamber in Chicago eighty years after she’d been recruited into a failed plot to disrupt an American presidential election.

Now Mei-Lin must grapple with a woman who is her genetic twin and wishes to join the Space Force Marines as a medic — and will go through Basic Training on the planet where Mei-Lin is the boss Marine.

Will the two women, identical but different, be able to form a sisterly bond?  And will Mei-Lin finally come to grips with the very existence of her other-timeline twin?

The e-book is $2.99 or read for free on Kindle Unlimited.  A 5×8 paperback version for you tactile folks who have plenty of room for bookcases is also available for $5.45.

The direct Amazon link is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CKW8P52F .

As I have been known to dad-joke before, “Indiana.”

Anyway.  I am in a position where I have four (“Five, sir!”) five things on the burners and none of them in a state of readiness for publication.  Why?  Because work is driving me crazy, and I’m getting older and don’t have the stamina I used to have.  (Which means, by 8PM or so I’m getting sleepy and want to go to bed rather than stare at a computer and write.  Sucks to be me, but now I understand why Dad started taking mid-afternoon naps after about 60.)

Fun bit:  We recently traveled to Louisville for the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction’s Supreme Council session.  Four days and nights with 1500 or so of our closest friends.  Got home, got an email a day or so later saying several folks had come down with COVID, including a friend I’d been in close contact with.  Luckily, neither my unvaxxed self nor my vaxxed wife managed to contract it — or we had no symptoms.  (The whole COVID thing is a massive cock-up at this point, don’t believe a word you hear from the guv’mint about it going forward.  Yes, they are going to try to lock us down again before November 2024.  Become ungovernable and tell them to fuck right the hell off.)

Anyway.

As stated, I have four, no, five projects in train.  None of them are close to publication.  Well, maybe one is, but not the one I’d prefer.

1. The Lion and The Darkness — this is the next novel in the mainstream Timelines series.  I’m almost done with Chapter 6.  Which sounds good, but it isn’t; this book needs to be 20 chapters or so, maybe more.  22,320 words as of the moment, and it needs to be 75K or 80K.  I got really stuck on it because it started to move in a direction I wasn’t prepared for, and I’ve barely touched it for the past year.

2. The Dragon’s Sister — this is a short or novella-length Timelines Universe story that examines what happens when the two Mei-Lin Lais — one from Timeline One and one from Timeline Zero — have an encounter on Mars.  It’s just been sort of exhausting to write because normally I write either about planets I made up out of whole cloth, or I write about Earth, where I can use Google Maps and that sort of thing to plot with.  Mars is mapped in Google Earth, but that doesn’t help as much as you might think.  Anyway, this book is just starting Chapter 5 and is 16,663 words.  It needs to be somewhere between 20K and 24K.  I think I have it figured out now, though, so it may well be the next thing I publish.

3. An American in Iya (working title) — this is a novel that follows The Tale of the Crane Princess in the Timelines Universe track.  It’s foreshadowed in Tale, at the very end.  I’ve barely started it (it’s only two pages and about a thousand words in) and the only reason I’m working on it is to get ideas on paper before they disappear.

4. In a complete departure from everything else (and unrelated…unless it’s related…and I haven’t figured that out yet), “Help! Truck-kun Won’t Leave Me Alone, No Matter What World I’m In!”.  Projected as a 50K word “light novel,” yes, it’s a fucking isekai piece that I’m writing mostly as humor relief.  The premise is, a party of adventurers is being targeted by someone with an isekai truck that takes them out as they complete tasks in various fantasy worlds.  Ultimately, there are five in the party, and they finally get together to compare notes and realize something is NOT RIGHT, starting with, where do Japanese kei trucks come from in medieval fantasy worlds?  The fault for this story can be chalked up to a fellow SF writer; my mind just started working after I read a Facebook post he wrote, conjecturing as follows:Thomas Doscher is, of course, the author of the popular The Vixen War Bride series which can be found on Amazon.  If you have not read it, and you’re into military science fiction, I highly recommend it.  He’s five books in and there’s a sixth coming.

Finally, there’s another book percolating, a Timelines Universe novella, called All Precious Stones and Peoples.  I can’t really talk about it without giving away spoilers for both The Lion and the Darkness and the book that will likely follow it, called The Lion and the Logic.  But it’s something of a bridge between those two novels.

So there’s a lot going through my brain lately.  Unfortunately I don’t know when any of these projects will see the light of day.  But I don’t intend to be another George RR Martin, even if people do mistake me for him when they see me, and even if it takes till I retire for my production to really ramp up, I’m absolutely planning on finishing the Timelines series.

Your thoughts and prayers in this endeavor are, of course, welcome…as are your book purchases, page reads in KU, and reviews on Amazon.