Stellar

Thank you. I will do my best to produce it soon.

No worries, it can be easy to get flooded by the little bell icon, especially when multiple people are commenting and reacting to anything. Thank you for your compliments; I try to keep it complex and varied, but not convoluted to the point of the minutiae driving readers away. The state of Earth was something I thought about a lot after the writing of Hidden Sunlight, when I had to make some conceptual decisions about how to portray the homeworld for the second novel. Though a unified species-wide government is a thing present in many science fiction mythologies, I couldn't quite reconcile that with my timeframe. During Shay's original childhood, the global federation was only decades old, but even after the narrative leap of two centuries -- with even more advanced technology and institutional maturation -- the idea of it being a utopian egalitarian paradise didn't make sense. The only way I believed my future version of humanity could have achieved that was by a fundamental shift in norms, one that would alter the structures of power that have existed largely unchanged for literally the last couple of thousands of years. Peacefully, this could occur through technological aid (specific major breakthroughs changing how we can influence the material universe) and social enlightenment (human perceptions of what civilisation could become, and a broader appreciation of unifying strengths) reaching a kind of shared insight, which would probably taken -- in the absence of the story's exterior conflict -- a least another couple of centuries. The alternative would have been a major and very bloody revolution to break out of the endless cycle of events. The world you are introduced to in Veil of Shadow is something that is halfway there, but still mired in many of the same problems that exist in our current time. It is well beyond present day in terms of what is possible, but all too familiar when it comes to the basics. Naturally, this meant that even the threat of an alien invasion would not be enough to interrupt humanity's deep-rooted ideological tribalism. If you've ever seen the movie Don't Look Up, it's a good reflection of this concept albeit as a comedy. The approaching apocalyptic threat isn't treated with the right level of seriousness until it's essentially right there and about to kill everybody, at which point it's too late. People argue about it, they lie to one another, blame each other, and bicker over what to do -- as if any of that really matters. Obviously, there is a relatively simple answer and way out, but ... human nature? It's a real bitch. The Earth of my future is plagued by unchecked economic interests, a dysfunctional democratic system, and the truth being treated as a commodity; twisted and distorted as a propaganda tool by whomever can make it serve their interests. If this sounds similar to the world today, that is no accident. Perhaps the one saving grace is fiction can have ordinary people becoming the heroes required, when and where they are needed, to do what must be done. Real-life never seems so blessed, and those world-changing individuals are truly rare. Ah, yes. Shay does have the Truth and the Sable Pearl with him, though at this stage, there's no idea if either of them can be used as weapons, or if it will take something else to get the job done.

The Taiqing catastrophe lost over 30% of the total human space forces. Perhaps the only positive outcome from it was that those destroyed ships were exclusively corporatist, and resulted in the ratio versus the number of federal ships going from roughly 1:3 to 1:8. Basically, CorpSec-Space had three quarters of its military capability wiped out in a single engagement, which would probably count as the most costly (in terms of both personnel and materiel) in human history. That's cold comfort for the defenders of the Earth though, because the enemy doesn't care a jot about human factions and who is who. That's Lucere -- not Lucerne. Sorry for picking on this detail, but I've seen this spelling mistakenly used before and it bugs me. The latter is a real-world city in Switzerland, whilst the former is an Italian word for 'light' and a particularly important place in my mythos. However, yes, Iskandar is headed towards Greece, and will soon meet Lucas and and his charge. While the most dramatic part will certain follow what's happening in space with Shay, it's worth remembering that Rashid, Ayize, Ralot and Mikom are all on the surface of the unnamed desert planet. They do not know what they are searching for, just that Dagen visited there two hundred millennia ago -- and to a number of locations across the planet -- before his travels elsewhere and his eventual death. Why he did this and how it relates to the unity of 'blood and stone' remains to be discovered. Thank you for following. I'll certainly do my best.

Commander Andropov has realised that their foe is a few steps ahead. He was never aware of the Herald's auguring ability -- as Shay and Yugan are -- nor how well orchestrated the entire chain of events was, from the viral outbreak through to the invasion and beyond, but he is certainly starting to figure it out. Thankfully, Dagen's farseeing is acting counter to that, so it's all a matter of which way the events can be swayed as the war progresses. No easy task to navigate for the defenders of Earth. The Herald managed to locate them halfway across the Milky Way once already, after it resurrected at Dagen's Grace, so there's a solid bet it will find wherever Shay and his companions have jumped to. The real question then becomes: how do you kill something like that? There surely has to be something -- an artificial power or a natural phenomenon -- that can do it! But ... a malevolent alien planetoid with abilities from beyond our universe is a dangerous enemy, and it won't go quietly. That's what I'm aiming for! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for reading.

REPRIEVE "Then comes a respite, an apparent strategic opportunity, but it is a subtle cloak for the danger to follow." -o-0-O-0-o- It happened sooner than expected. One minute, he was conferring with the two present members of the fleet admiralty, the theatre of combat thousands of kilometres distant. The next, a rogue tendril had branched from one of the two primary attack vectors; up and out, then around, rapidly circling west and back down in a direct stab towards Alpha 3.

Chapter 5 is out.

I generally try to do this too, and whilst tolerant of a certain level of functional misfiring -- moreso in the case of ESL than native speakers -- there might come a point where the problems are too much of a distraction to take the content seriously. Believe it or not, this is one of the more annoying parts of creative writing, for me: finding new ways to say the same basic things, or at least to space out repetitions far enough apart that it isn't any kind of sin. Using wonderful poetic language to set a descriptive set-piece is one thing, finding the ten thousandth way to tell the audience that your main character walked down the street is another. Mind you, I've seen authors go a bit far in the other direction and have every alternating term be another synonym for the word 'said' or 'smiled' or whatever -- it ends up sounding a little ridiculous, like somebody threw a thesaurus into a blender.

This is true, because there are fundamental parts of the human experience that change expression between cultures and languages, and out of necessity they must be treated with care in translation, lest the soul of the text be lost. Without derailing the original topic of this blog post too much further, I will say that it has been educational for me to observe the process even through the imperfect medium of Google's translator. I admire that Iroc has the fortitude to attempt this, as I'm sure it can't be easy. A lot remains superficially unchanged, but there is a different ambience, and in odd places, it feels distinctly new. Not only that, but some of the comments have both surprised and amused me -- yours included -- because I haven't seen anything similar from readers on GA.

Yes, that would be Iroc. I appreciate you re-linking the forum, but I did manage to find it a while back on my own, and now have the appropriate forum thread bookmarked so I can return to it whenever I please. It was only a minor concern (at the time) that I wouldn't be able to keep track of the state of the translation since I didn't know where it had moved to -- and also that I couldn't satisfy my curiosity over how German readers would react to what they were reading. Selfish academic interests related to culture and perceptions, you might say. Anyhow, thank you for your kindness. If I'm inspiring anybody's imagination and evoking emotion, then that's success for me as an author.

Well, since @Zuri has tagged me, I feel obliged to respond also and share this. The reason I am on GA is because, initially, I was a reader who loved gay romance, and the only place with a collection of any significance at that time was Nifty. We are talking in the late 1990s, when I was at the end of my teens, beginning of my 20s. Unfortunately, Nifty's contents are overwhelmingly sexual and often of somewhat questionable quality, so that led to further searching for other authors outside of that. GA was the first place that drew many of those authors I enjoyed together under a larger umbrella. Though my account is dated from 2010, I was visiting the site from much earlier than that as an unregistered nobody (2004 or 2005 maybe? I don't remember). At any rate, some time after creating an account, in 2012 I decided I should actually write something. I've always had an ability to use words unlike most, and I was sure I could create a tale that was magical and memorable, and explode a few minds along the way. That led to me starting Hidden Sunlight, and though I did not anticipate the journey that would entail, everything unfolded from there. The rest is history. Apologies for hijacking this reply a little, but Zuri -- if you could mention to your friend that I had to search for the new forum location after the domain change, since he didn't tell me about that, and the link I was originally given stopped working. I only wish I knew German better and wasn't reliant on internet translators to read, and also that I could actually write responses to some of the discussion, but ah well. I make sure to visit that thread from time to time.

Seems like a solid addition, Myr. More flexibility and utility for the author is generally a good thing. What a shame I'm so chronically incapable of producing new material these days that I don't know the next time I'd even take advantage of said upgrade.

Thanks for reading. If you have any further thoughts or comments, I'd love to hear them!

Thank you for reading and complimenting my work! Much appreciated.

Darren is a devious one, so you can bet there's something else going on here. As for the Spirit of Water, well ... that's a very weighty enigma, right there. Suffice to say, uncovering what motivates a divine personality is a Herculean task. Oh, and the ending was super fun for me to write. Araziah seems to want a harem.

In Lucy's defence, alongside acquiring an earth dragon token for Torsten, locating the Fear was the reason they were at Overmountain. If events had happened in a different way, it could have been one of the other three who found it, and -- equally -- it could have still been confiscated by Nero during the ambush regardless. While I can certainly understand irritation at Lucy treating this like some kind of an adventure, in all fairness, this situation wasn't something she had a lot of control over and I wouldn't place too much blame on her. As for the pluses, Torsten has indeed got what he needs, Sebby is definitely alive, though in really terrible shape, and Araziah does seem to have the right instincts for pressing Torsten's buttons. The showdown is incoming over the next two chapters! Hope you're ready for some action!

Yeah, definitely a lot going on at this point! The Grey Prince and his sisters did know where to find Araziah -- perhaps Darren had something to do with that? Indeed, what is Celeste finding out about? Seems to be important if the Grand Secretary is calling. The relationship between Torsten and Araziah is not overtly romantic -- yet?! -- but it definitely seems like there is some kind of feelings bouncing around between these two, regardless of how clueless they both are about it. Lucy is a love-hate character, I think. Almost everybody is going to either love her or hate her; she's not designed to be easily likable, unless you already vibe with her outlook. Not too unlike Araziah if you think about it -- he is probably the diametric opposite personality, but equally as polarising. And lastly ... Theo. While his death was always intended as a catalyst for other things, I had not expected certain portions of the audience to become so attached. I suppose everybody wanted him saved and on the 'A Team' ... but ... this isn't that kind of story. Unpleasant things will happen. Glad to see you're still enjoying it!

The thematic use of colour and symbols carries a lot of weight, but also the prejudice of judgement derived from such things. People will expect one to be a certain thing if one bears certain traits, and escaping the implications of those assumed problems is not easy. Indeed not black and white, there is a mess of rainbow present in between.

To be more precise, what happened in the epilogue of Veil of Shadow was essentially Tytos seizing full personal control of the other six companies within MFM by wiping out the entire family of each, and just assuring functional command of all assets continued unimpeded. He did this to transform MFM into an autocratic dictatorship instead of an oligarchy. Also, because he thought some of them (the directorate) were genuinely not worth his time and of trivial talent. Contemporary opinions tend to agree that this may, in fact, be the truth.

Crawley is one of the more popular side characters, definitely true! You've mostly intuited the alignment of the people involved, though only in a general sense at this stage. These lines become more clearly defined as, well, certain future plot developments will clarify. Let's just say you've got so many more egotistical assholes to meet in this story, and ... I've barely gotten started with the introductions by chapter three. I hope the rest meets your standards.

This is the central conflict of his chapter! His cross purpose is at moral odds with what Khaled does that gets him killed. He is a CorpSec double agent after all!

That is exactly what I am striving for! Thank you. A lot comes down to understanding motivations but that choices do still matter.

So now all the dramatic stuff makes sense, huh? Glad to hear it!

Thank you Bleu! It took some verbiage to describe the Mishith accurately, because they're foreign to our world entirely and capturing that requires being very specific on detail and drawing comparisons to what we are already familiar with to contrast. However, you finally have a good look at them, and they are magnificent biological adaptations, no doubt about it. On the other hand, Tytos is something we're all too familiar with, as he represents the ruthless and ambitious part of human nature that's always present in some form or other.

She is with Lucas, on Earth, after arriving there in the final stages of the previous book. Konstantin specifically ordered Lucas to take her to the surface and protect her, and while you have not seen them so far in Lucid Truth, they will make an appearance. So, unless Shay returns home in the next couple of chapters, that's not about to happen any time soon.

With a subtle burst of gravitational focus, the ship completed its jump, arriving far above the planet in the vacuum of space. For the first few moments, the danger was maximal, the suspicion at its peak, but then concern faded. The captain did not allow the alert to decrease for at least another minute out of pure caution, until he was satisfied that the probability of alien intercession had dropped to low enough. "Report." Tullius gave the command to a bridge officer. "Any signs of residu