February 2022 Archives

Today through Friday March 4, The Invention Of Motherhood will be on sale for 99 cents in e-book, in advance of the release of The End of Childhood, third book in the series.

Pregnancy is dangerous in the Empire!

For thousands of years, Imperial women have used artificial gestation. But Grace was born on barbarian, pre-contact Earth. She can't call herself a mother without doing it the hard way at least once.

Grace has married into one of the most important families in the Empire - and Imperial politics are deadly at the top.

Despite the risks, she discovers that there are advantages, both to herself and to her unborn baby. The Empire will never be quite the same again.

The link for Amazon is here

The link for all of the other Books2Read retailers and library services is here

Setting: The Empire of Humanity. The technology can move ships millions of light-years in quantum time, keep people young and healthy indefinitely, or destroy planets almost without noticing. But people are still human - or a little bit more.

I joined Book Funnel recently. One of the things this allows me to do is have permanent samples of my books out there where people can download them for free to see what they like. These are substantial samples, not just a few paragraphs.

Empire of Humanity setting (3 series thus far)

Rediscovery series (complete)
The Man From Empire: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ifmk0v3wak

A Guardian From Earth: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/3gt14cfpj8

Empire And Earth: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/mqvlv2d095

Working The Trenches: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/qqhkb24v8g

(There is also a Rediscovery Omnibus of these four books, for those willing to buy four books at once for slightly more than the cost of two, but it contains no new material)

Preparations for War series (will be complete with the publication of Moving The Pieces on April 11, 2022)

Preparing The Ground: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ew9h6zekwh

Building The People: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/r9qs15r1y0

Setting The Board: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/p76p1bnsjk

Moving The Pieces: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/gmvjt7ov8y This is a free sample, available before publication!

Politics of Empire Series (The End Of Childhood will release March 14, 2022)

The Invention Of Motherhood: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/qpxjhxunv6

The Price Of Power: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ux10peuvyr

The End Of Childhood: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/s0ux9nmxo5 (This is a free sample available before release of the novel!)

Connected Realms setting and series

The Fountains of Aescalon: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/umfoo8ww89

The Monad Trap:https://dl.bookfunnel.com/bmt08nlr7z

Gates to Faerie setting and series

The Gates To Faerie:https://dl.bookfunnel.com/agm3hpkp2z

What Consumers Need To Know series (non-fiction consumer guides!)

What Consumers Need To Know About Mortgages: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x5wh99cuax

What Consumers Need To Know About Buying Real Estate: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/vgxfqu8rmj

All of the above links should offer the OPTION of signing up for my newsletter, but it should be an OPTION ONLY, not required. I think I've tested them all, but let me know if there is a problem on this score.

A site for my author business wants my privacy policy, so here it is:

I will not sell your information. I may give other authors I have reason to believe might interest a large portion of my list one time access to send you an email or do it myself on their behalf or put their 'pitch' in my newsletter.

Otherwise the mailing list will only be used for my own newsletters, which should not exceed monthly in frequency and probably won't exceed quarterly. I will promise no more than three in any calendar quarter, and will give clear notification if this changes.

I have finished uploading the files for The End Of Childhood (Politics of Empire book 3) and Moving The Pieces (fourth and final book in Preparations for War)

The End Of Childhood will officially release on March 14th. The preorder URLs are:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SKN2Y6Y
Books2Read(Apple, B&N, Kobo, etcetera): https://books2read.com/b/mKpGlP

Moving The Pieces will officially release on April 11th. The preorder URLs are:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SP1Q66M
Books2Read (Apple, B&N, Kobo, etcetera): https://books2read.com/b/31RXpa

I will be having promotions on the previous books in each series during the run up to their release. The first will be The Invention of Motherhood (Amazon link Books2Read link) will be on sale for 99 cents in e-book from February 28th to March 4th.

The same reason why I'm not interested in podcasts, youtube or Rumble channels, etcetera.

I process information faster than people talk. I find it much easier as well as faster to read a transcript than I do to pay attention to someone talking who has no feedback from me, and all video does for me is demand my eyeballs as well. If there's a reason (for instance, videos of disputed events), fine. Otherwise it's slowing me up.

I drive a lot. But when I drive, I listen to music, not people talking. Why? Because I'm paying attention to the road and my vehicle and what's going on. My mind will 'cut away' from distractions automatically and pay attention to what's important, a legacy of twelve years spent as an air traffic controller. But it means I may miss critical moments, or receive them garbled.

When I'm reading, my mind is on the material and if there are important distractions, I can put it down until I've dealt with those distractions. A much more comfortable situation.

Finally, creating an audiobook is more expensive than creating any kind of printed material (e-book, paperback, or hardcover). I'm willing to do it if there's enough demand, but so far I'm not seeing anything like enough demand to justify the expense.

It never begins dramatically.

It started on an ordinary day, when I'd been doing the perfectly ordinary thing of gathering evidence for a hearing. The case I was investigating had to do with the tort of infringement. In this case the plaintiff was alleging the defendant was generating excessive noise and interfering with the plaintiff's enjoyment of their property. Evidently, the defendant had refused negotiation on the subject and so the case was going before the relevant Primus the next day.

Both were out on the fringes of Sumabad, out in the hills, out where the towering arcologies holding tens of millions each petered out, and the residents generally had reasons to need or want ground space. The plaintiff was an academy for self-defense, with classrooms for hand to hand disciplines and ranges for things like disruptors, lasers, flechette guns, and even the occasional firearm. The other was the Grubaro Club, a nightclub catering largely to the Tumar culture which had a large presence in Sumabad and environs. Tumars liked explosions while they were eating and dancing. Tumars thought loud noises were exciting and envigorating. Unfortunately for their neighbors, these explosions and other noises often reached ear-splitting levels, and it was not only disrupting to the peaceful conduct of the instruction at Hills Academy for Preparation and Discipline next door, many of the patrons and instructors were combat veterans. It wasn't my place to judge, but I was pretty sure the Primus was going to mostly rule against the Grubaro Club - they had a responsibility to see that any noise they generated did not disturb their neighbors, and my spak recording was getting readings consistently louder than an original Learjet on high-power takeoff.

Scimtar himself contacted me. Grace, I have a job if you're interested, or rather a series of jobs. Mixed family and imperial. It involves demonic traces, mostly spraxos and nephraim.

I was no longer the barely trained woman who'd been nervous about facing a terostes by herself, but neither was I a Sixth or Seventh Order Guardian. I was mid-range Fourth Order - albeit trained by House Scimtar. Furthermore, if I were observed taking on spraxos, that could be the end of me pretending to still be Second Order. What's it entail?

We're seeing a surge in the number of demonic traces, not only here in Indra System but everywhere in the Empire. The conclusion is obvious.

The fractal demons were trolling for treason. It's what they did. The vast majority of their troops would be easy pickings for Imperials when the inevitable confrontation came. Unless they could get us to turn on each other, the eventual war would be notable mostly for a lopsided casualty count. They'd seduced the old stons without anyone realizing it until the old Empire was already gone, resulting in a civil war that ended up destroying the Empire - and afterwards, almost the entire human species. This time the leaders of the Empire were alert for their tactics.

The assignment?

Match demonic traces to human contacts by Event Line congruency. Investigate the human contacts by behavior. If you happen to destroy demons, we'll pay a bounty - nephraim are worth three fourths, spraxos thirty. Ancillaries too, although manesi and lemuure aren't worth much. What we're looking for is evidence to convict or exonerate treason, and we'll double your normal rate for results.

The money was nice even if Asto and I could live very comfortably off investments if we wanted, but demonic nobles were dangerous - and they had a habit of bringing in help when threatened. Still, I didn't think Scimtar would be offering me the job if he didn't think I was able to handle myself doing it - I'd given the family five children thus far, all of them above average tracking metrics for Seventh Order Guardians their age thanks to yours truly carrying them naturally instead of using artificial gestation. I'd done it for my babies, not for House Scimtar, but I knew Scimtar valued my efforts.

Grandfather is offering you a way into the Guardian's Ears if you're willing, my husband Asto put in his two cents.

I thought the Guardian's Ears didn't accept candidates born outside the Empire?

Maybe not, but it's worth pursuing if you want to win appointment as a Primus yourself someday.

That was a carrot that had my eye. Most Secundus-in-fact had more applicants for Primus-in-fact than they knew what to do with. Even a 'might be' defect like being born on Earth before the Empire arrived could be enough to make them pass you by. Also, I was a di Scimtar, which had advantages but also carried baggage. I wasn't really qualified yet - but I needed something to counter-balance the possible defect I couldn't cure, and it was never too soon to pick up that extra little something that would put me over the top when I was. I already had work in the Merlon's Eyes to my credit. Add something equivalent to the Guardian's Ears and that might be enough.

Why me? I asked Scimtar.

You've had ten years' experience as an investigator now, and we both know you're Fourth Order. Most of our investigators are Second Order, and weaker than average Second Order at that. They might be able to handle a nephraim, but a spraxos would squash them, and if they stumbled across a jopas it would be hopeless.

If there's a basileus?

You've survived two confrontations with them. There isn't another active investigator who can say that anywhere in the Empire.

I'd rather not risk it a third time.

So be careful and don't confront anything you're not certain of. Scimtar never had any sympathy for getting caught by your own mistakes. If there's the possibility of jopas, basileus, or something even stronger, bring it to my attention and I will use an appropriate agent.

When do you need a decision? I asked Scimtar. Who are you trying to fool, love? Asto asked me. I want to talk to the kids about it, I told him.

Tomorrow, I could tell Scimtar wasn't fooled either, fifteen hours from right now. He knew this was an opportunity as well as a risk. You can bet he thought he was doing both of us a favor. He broke contact without further complication.

Copyright 2022 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.