Dan Melson: March 2024 Archives

With the release of Measure Of Adulthood tomorrow morning, Politics Of Empire will be complete as a series.

It was written loosely in parallel with the Preparations For War series, in that they both take place in the same setting and at about the same time. The differences are that while Joe and his wife Asina in the Preparations For War series are working at a grunt level on a primitive planet in enemy territory, Grace in Politics Of Empire has married into one of the most powerful families in the Empire, and she spends her time increasingly defending citizens of the Empire from incursions. She's also a mom, and her kids will be among the next generation of those most powerful defenders of the Empire.

In Invention Of Motherhood, Grace is mustering out of Planetary Surface Forces as the novel begins. Her agenda is to start a family, but she doesn't want to do it with artificial gestation - she was born on pre-contact Earth, and she can't look her sisters in the eye and call herself a 'mom' without doing it the hard way at least once. The difficulty is that not only are her husband's family are powerful operants, but they have powerful enemies as well.

Price Of Power begins about five years later, Grace's husband has just obtained one of the few jobs in the Space Forces that allows 'off base' privileges when off-duty, and she's looking for something she can manage while bringing up her children. The head of her husband's family gets her a position as an investigator working for one of his subordinates, and that's when a rival family decides to start a war with them.

End Of Childhood opens several years later. The Empire has caught their enemies marshaling troops for assault - the actual war is beginning - a war both sides have spent decades preparing for. Grace is now an experienced investigator, and the head of her husband's family offers her a job working directly for him, defending the people under his protection from infiltrating enemies and human traitors. Meanwhile, her husband goes missing on a mission assaulting a critical enemy industrial node.

As Measure Of Adulthood opens, Grace's oldest legitimate child has achieved legal adulthood - but she also discovers that her bastard son from a wild childhood has run afoul of the law. Meanwhile, the war grinds on - now thirteen years later, and the Empire is feeling the strain, while the enemy is getting increasingly desperate - and desperate enemies do unpredictable things.

(The links above are to Amazon e-books, but the paperback versions are also there. The links to the Books2Read sellers and library services are here (Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Overture, etcetera. Also available e-book or paperback at any of them):

The Invention Of Motherhood

The Price Of Power

End Of Childhood

Measure Of Adulthood

Preparing The Ground (and the rest of Preparations For War series)

PS: This is the last day to get the first three novels in the series for 99 cents each, at either Amazon or the Books2Read retailers

"Somehow, I thought there would be more for a god to do."

"Why husband, you always seem busy enough," Petra replied.

"Those are my own projects, and I know I spend more time than you would prefer on them. But I presumed the position of being a god came with its own duties and requirements. Thus far, I have found none."

"Husband, we are both Eternals - minor gods as such things go. We know there are at least two tiers above us. I spent ten thousand years and more as an Immortal. Outside of the chains of my creation, I was never tasked with anything. Art thou disappointed?" She'd taken to wearing what I called her Ultimate Lady from The Next Farm Over appearance most of the time we were together. She appeared as a dusky, light brown-skinned young lady with shoulder length medium brown hair, just barely into the first flush of maturity and shapely to the point where she drew eyes from all the men, even now at the end of her pregnancy with our first child. Petra's skin glowed with health, her hair shone with golden highlights in the soft brown. Nothing exaggerated or fancy - her breasts and buttocks were if anything slightly smaller than average, her parts just all fit together perfectly. Her hairstyle was dead simple - straight with just a hint of wave. She never wore complex fashions or glaringly sexual clothes or anything that clung too tightly, just simple and loose, hinting at the lush curves beneath. Nor was she particularly thin. Maybe by some perverse standards she might even be a little overweight. She almost never used cosmetics of any sort. But most women of King Edvard Haraldsson's court hated her for the way she drew male eyes despite everything they did to keep attention centered on themselves. They'd never understand what Petra had spent ten thousand years learning - men liked simple and elegant. These days, Petra was happy and content, and that amplified attraction even more.

"Nay, O Lady of My Heart, I am not disappointed, but happily surprised. The fact it is a happy surprise does not alter the fact it is a surprise. Why does the universe allow us to exist, when it does not require our assistance? Why are we thus privileged? There must be some purpose to allowing us this power."

"Why question thy good fortune, husband?"

"I am ultsi, milady, by habit if not by fact. We are seekers after knowledge, which requires us to be askers of questions, and I'm not explaining myself clearly, so let's approach it from another direction. Have you ever seen a living thing simply exist?"

"Trees. Grass."

"Trees and grass do not simply exist. They're in competition for soil and sunlight and water. All the other trees and blades of grass want these same things, and there's only so much to go around. Where are our competitors?"

"Other gods."

"The niche seems suspiciously empty. One of the rules is populations expand to make full use of resources. Doesn't it seem that with so much energy available, there would be more and more beings clamoring to take it for their own survival? Yet it seems that there's plenty there for all, and there's a disturbing next question."

Copyright 2020 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.

The first thing I remember was a sword in my hand and a corpse in front of me.

The corpse looked human, but wasn't. Judging strictly by outer appearance, it would have passed. Looking inside at the organs and genetic material, a star dragon was more closely related. At least a star dragon came from a three dimensional being. This corpse in front of me was from a different sort of place entirely. The body I was looking at was put together in a place of differing geometry. Fractal iterations within it said that it came from a place where the third spatial dimension wasn't as developed as we're used to.

My sword was real, but felt wrong. It was a standard charged bondsteel blade, a glossy dark gray in color. It should have been sparkling blue and silver, but it wasn't. What had initially appeared to be blood dripping off it was now changing, reverting to its true state - a two toned ugly blue and blackish green - as the glamour faded.

How did I know these things?

Good question. I could not remember anything that had gone before. Not who I was, not what I was, not where I was, where I was from. Nothing. I couldn't remember anything about how my dead opponent had gotten there, how I'd killed it, how or why we'd fought.

Logically, my memories should have been accessible to me through auros, even if I couldn't remember normally. But they refused to come. I tried perception, hoping to read the molecules themselves, only to discover I didn't have any. I wasn't material at all; simply a self-perpetuating energy pattern.

That wasn't right, or at least wasn't the whole story. I thought of myself as human, I identified as human, my mind told me I was a loyal adherent of humanity and the Human Empire. I was, at some level, both human and somehow important within that Empire.

There had to be an explanation that made sense, I just didn't know what it was at the moment.

Copyright 2018 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.

Amazon link
Books2Read link

In advance of the release of the final volume in the series, Invention Of Motherhood is reduced to 99 cents in e-book format.

Amazon kindle version here

Books2Read versions here(Barnes&Noble, Apple, Kobo, etcetera)

Kusaan del. It means 'divine finger'

The Empire of Humanity is locked in a war for survival with the Fractal Demons. Years on, the dice are still tumbling. Billions have died and planets have been destroyed. Meanwhile, an old loose end has resurfaced and forced Grace to confront a mistake from her teenage years - her son by a long-dead lover has lost his adulthood, and only Grace can save him from exile.

But the Fractal Demons initiate a new strategy, and are starting to turn the tide in their favor. Grace is unlucky enough to be assigned to deal with one of their first strikes under the new strategy, and she's unable to prevent several million deaths.

But she's learned enough to master her problems, both as the new mother of a two hundred year old son, and as one of those defending the masses of the Empire from assault by the demons. She has grown from her origins, and just because she seems to have a knack for attracting trouble doesn't mean she can't handle it. When the divine finger points at her, she steps up to deal with it.