Ramblings of an old man with pretensions of authordom
I pushed the button a little while ago on The Lion in Paradise.
Eventually (but not yet at 8:19 PM EDT) it will be available here: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B09DFS7VJ7
But not quite yet.
Buy it for $3.49 or read it on KU. I’ll put up a more detailed post tomorrow after the thing finishes publishing.
Still Indiana.
But The Lion in Paradise is finished in draft, is in edits, and I hope to have it published in e-book format soon. The paperback, if anyone other than myself is interested 😉 will come sometime later — I have a move to deal with and it’s going to be at least a month before things die down enough for me to bother formatting a paperback.
Indiana.
Oh. That’s not what you thought you’d get here 🙂
The Lion in Paradise is rolling slowly along. The book is divided into three parts, each set at a different time period. The first part is about half done. The second part is nearly done. The last part (which is a longish epilogue divided into three chapters) is finished.
Yeah, I write things out of order.
The next Seasons short story, Autumn’s Smile, is stuck in the middle while I frantically try to figure out the rest of the plot; I know where I want to go, it’s what happens in the middle that’s breaking my brain. I may leave off TLIP and concentrate on finishing that, since it’s a Christmas story, and even though it’s July, well, Christmas is coming. Yeah, I know. Pagan Norse gods in a Christmas story, written by a Jew. Sue me.
Too bad I don’t make real money off writing. I could quit my job (or, in a few months, theoretically retire) and sit around all day trying to figure out what to write next.
In the meantime, the lady, the cats, and I are looking for a new place to live, since my mother (who owns the house we’ve lived in for the last 16 years) is booting us out in favor of my sister. Oh well. Would be nice if she’d done that earlier, when the housing market wasn’t utter crap. (I do not have a good working or filial relationship with my mother, and haven’t for years, so that explains most of that. If it were up to me, I’d up stakes and move to Fort Wayne, where the kids and the grandkids are, since I can work from anywhere, but my wife is still working at a job that isn’t exactly telecommuter-friendly — hard to teach swimming and do aquatic therapy via Zoom — and won’t retire for at least another two years.)
On the other hand, downsizing in anticipation of moving to a smaller place is somewhat refreshing. It’s just all these books…Maybe I should open a used-book storefront and sell off all my old paperbacks on Amazon…
In fairness, we own a condo we could move back into (after evicting the friend who’s been renting it from us for the last decade), but we’d prefer not to do that for a number of reasons — one being the friend, the other being it has only one bathroom and we’d have to cram in at least a tiny half bathroom to make it work. It’s an option, though.
I’m going to open a comment thread. However:
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Independence Day is coming up!*
You’re going to relax on the beach, or laze around on the couch. Either way, you’re looking for something science-fictiony to read.
Got you covered. I’m running a free promo for all of the Timelines books (both novels and the three short stories, two of which are really more like novellas).
And yeah, you could read these books for free on KU — but I’m offering to give them to you for free FREE free starting Sunday, June 27, 2021, 12:00 AM PDT and running through Thursday, July 1, 2021, 11:59 PM PDT.
In other words, why borrow them from KU when you can own them forever?**
Here are your links…but remember! This promo doesn’t start till [insert Jan Gabriel intoning, “SUNDAY…SUNDAY…SUNDAY!!!!”] Sunday, June 27, and if you’re in EDT like me, it won’t show up till 0300. Why? Because Amazon works in the Pacific time zone. If you have an issue with that (and WTF are you doing up at 0300, anyway, for crying out loud?), please feel free to complain to Amazon.***
Please note that the books below are arranged in the author’s intended reading order.
 |
January 1993. Somalia. Operation Restore Hope. A Marine platoon pulling a security patrol runs into an insurgent ambush in Mogadishu, and when the platoon commander winds up unconscious from a blow to the head taken when an IED rolls his command Humvee, and the First Sergeant is killed as soon as he exits his vehicle, command falls to a badly wounded gunnery sergeant — initially trapped in the same vehicle with his platoon commander and their driver, but conscious and alert and ready to bring some personal hell down on the RIFs…if he can just get out of this damn vehicle, grab a rifle, and drag himself and his busted-up, non-working leg over to a firing point without bleeding out.
June 1993. Washington, DC. A First Lieutenant with a freshly-healed scar on his head encounters a beautiful redheaded floor nurse at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He’s there to see his Gunny, who’s been stuck in the hospital with a broken femur since he was transported home in February. He’s the platoon commander who was knocked hors de combat by the IED, and he’s been sent to find out why his Gunny is obstinately refusing to accept an important decoration for his participation in the incident. Turns out that’s going to be quite a job, because Gunny’s got his reason. Will the Lieutenant, and his ally the nurse, be able to convince his Gunny there’s a better reason to accept the decoration? Might be they’ll need a little help from a friend… |
 |
John Wolff has been handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Again.
He’s already saved the love of his life from an early death – thirty years after she died. Now, a beautiful young woman, who is clearly his daughter, has appeared from the timeline branch where that same love of his life survived and married his counterpart. She says they need his help fighting off invaders from the far future. Who, by the way, are looking for him. Why? Because they want the starship drive he and a friend invented, the precursor to their time machine. Problem is, in her timeline, it hasn’t been invented yet. What man can resist a cry for help from his own daughter? Particularly when the invaders think she’s a saint. Or possibly, a devil wearing saint’s clothing. And they’re looking for her, too. Thus begins the Timelines Saga, and the story of the Lion of God. |
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Thirty years ago, Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., AKA The Lion of God, had a pretty exhausting week.
Her world was invaded by time-traveling soldiers, she was nearly turned into human toothpaste by an experimental dimension jumper when she went to find her parallel “Dad,” who just happens to be able to borrow a Space Force fleet to come and take out her world’s invaders . . . and then she found out she was considered by those same invaders to be a saint in their odd religion, and one of the targets of their invasion. If that wasn’t enough, she nearly fell completely out of the universe into a time rift, being saved only by the skin of her teeth by her parallel “Dad”. After all that, learning she was going to be the one to bring universal healing and long life to the human race in her particular timeline was just the icing on the proverbial cake. Anybody else would go home, turn off their phone, pull all the blinds, lock all the doors, and take the rest of their life off. But Ari isn’t “anybody else”. And her cult of admirers across two timelines won’t take “nobody home” for an answer. Fast-forward thirty years. Scientists have detected radio transmissions in an unknown language from several hundred light years away. And now she’s been asked to use her special “saintly” skills as demonstrated on her last “mission” to make first contact with whoever they are. And that’s only the beginning. Looks like Ambassador Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., is going to have another pretty exhausting week. Or six. |
 |
Delaney Wolff Fox is a spy. A cute spy. A deadly spy.
A spy you want at your back when stuff gets real. From a palatial office in Johannesburg, to a fancy whisky bar in Sydney, Australia, to a beautiful private beach in southwest Florida, to the great and wild city of New Orleans, Captain Delaney Fox, United States Space Force Marines (Intelligence Division) finds herself beset by assassins at every turn, while first saving an alien government’s valuable artifact from the South African cartel that’s stolen it, and then being assigned to guard said artifact while it completes a world tour, on loan from that same alien government. But like the proverbial fox in the proverbial henhouse, you can count on Delaney to complete the mission and come out with the prize, intact and in hand – even if the “farmer” isn’t all that keen about her doing so. |
 |
Captain Delaney Wolff Fox is back.
She’s just led her team on a months-long hunt through the penal world al-Saḥra’ (known otherwise by its semi-satirical name “Sanddoom”), looking for an industrial-sized illegal drug “kitchen” that’s been supplying colony worlds with various illegal substances via a network of involuntary migrant “mules”. That hunt ended satisfactorily, and rather explosively, with the destruction of the “kitchen” and hundreds if not thousands of personnel associated with it. Now the team is heading back to Earth, hoping for some well-deserved shore leave . . . And when the sleeper wakes, asks for and consumes an entire pound of goose liver pâté, and asks for more, it’s pretty obvious they’ve got A Dragon In The Foie Gras |
___________
* Whether Slow Joe Biden or your lockdown-happy governor or mayor likes it or not.
** Really, this seems like a no-brainer only a socialist wouldn’t understand.
*** If you didn’t grow up in Indiana, or what is known as “The Region” up around Gary, Indiana, in the 1960’s-1970’s, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Try this.
Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, 6/22, and running through Saturday, 6/26, my two fantasy shorts will be available to download from Amazon for free (not KU, this is a free FREE free book promo).
I do have a third one of these Seasons stories in the works, but it’s going slowly, due to other engagements and the third Timelines novel taking precedence.
Enjoy!
The planet Sanddoom (er, sorry, its inhabitants insist on the name al-Saḥra’, these days) will figure pretty largely in the first half of The Lion in Paradise, so I thought I might provide a teaser map. (Click to enlarge.)
The map was generated with the planet generator found here. “Sea level” (if a completely dry desert planet can be said to have a “sea level”) is located at the black outlines. The lighter the color, the greater the elevation.
A couple of notes about the place names: Kanz al-Sultan (كنز السلطان, “The Sultan’s Treasure”) is the location of the great mine which has already been described in The Lion and The Lizard.
The city al-Madinat al-Jadida (المدينة الجديدة, “The New City”) is the name finally tagged to the Nameless City which was the original dumping ground, er, relocation target, er, place which was built rather rapidly for all the forced migrants back in the 2030’s and was never given a formal name. When the USMC intervened on Sanddoom (sorry, al-Saḥra’) in 2047 (as described in The Lion and The Lizard), they found the ruling Islamic Council had refused to name the city because they had never accepted being exiled in the first place. So the Marines, being Marines, simply called it, “The Nameless City.” Of course this was taken up by Space Force and the Space Force Marines, as well as by the new Governor they had imposed on the planet, and was used incessantly and officially until the Islamic Council finally broke down and gave the city a name — which was meant to evoke the city of Medina back home in Saudi Arabia, but since “Medina” just means “City”, calling the place “The New City” was just as much of an asshole move as calling the planet, “The Desert” (which is what al-Saḥra’ means). For what it’s worth, the inhabitants mostly call the city “Jadida” for short.
“First Water” and “The Great Rift” will be explained in the book.
The book, by the way, is about half done. Or half baked. Whatever.
Oh. Wanna see what the planet looks like, terraformed? Of course, that’s much later.
This book is kicking my ass, but it’s going to be fun when it’s done.
Here is a preliminary cover for The Lion in Paradise, which is about 3000 words along and I don’t believe will be in anyone’s hands until sometime early next year. At least, that’s the schedule.
Again, this is preliminary and subject to change, but it’s mostly the way I want it.
If you have obtained a “free” copy of any of my Kindle books from a site other than Amazon.Com, you are reading stolen merchandise. All of my books are copyrighted (or in the process of being copyrighted) via the US Copyright Office and no one other than Amazon.Com or myself is authorized to provide downloads of free copies of them.
People who do that crap should be hit with a kinetic weapons strike from orbit.
It shouldn’t matter, because any book an author asserts copyright in is automatically protected regardless of registration status, but for what it’s worth:
| Name (NALL) < | Full Title | Copyright Number | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brindle, Nathan C., 1959- | Dragon in the Foie Gras | TX0008957769 | 2021 |
| Brindle, Nathan C., 1959- | Fox in the Henhouse. | TX0008936368 | 2020 |
| Brindle, Nathan C., 1959- | Lion of God. | TX0008886448 | 2020 |
| Brindle, Nathan C., 1959- | Midsummer Night’s Hunt. | TX0008937318 | 2020 |
| Brindle, Nathan C., 1959- | Reason. | TX0008936363 | 2020 |
| Brindle, Nathan C., 1959- | Saving the Spring. | TXu002190800 | 2020 |
The Lion and The Lizard and A Dragon in the Foie Gras are in the queue waiting for the Copyright Office to act on them.
8 Jun 2021: Amended to add the entry for A Dragon in the Foie Gras.
Bottom line: If you didn’t get it from Amazon (or shared through Amazon by someone who bought it on Amazon), you’re reading a copy I made zip zero nada on. And while I’ve said in the past I don’t write for profit, but for fun, the point is, nobody should be sharing my books (or anyone else’s!) on the open Internet for free.
And there’s at least one pirate website that’s going to get a DMCA takedown notice very soon.
And no sooner do the new books go up than I find two words, one in each book, that’s incorrect.
Well, because I’m OCD, I fixed them and re-uploaded the books. So if you downloaded before today, you may want to go into Amazon’s “Content and Devices” area and tell it to redeliver The Lion and the Lizard and/or A Dragon in the Foie Gras to your Kindle reader or device.
The error in TLATL is on page 279 of the Kindle edition; the word “reducing” should be “oxidizing”. I fixed the first instance of the word on page 278 but missed the second instance on page 279. Mea culpa. (And nobody’s bought the paperback but me, so we’re safe there.)
The error in ADITFG is on page 54 of the Kindle edition and is simply a brain fart on my part; Delaney’s older sister is named Raven, not Becca — Becca is her great-aunt (John Wolff’s sister). Again, mea culpa.
With any luck, that’s it.