Oolite Bulletins

Coyote, a ‘ripping yarn’ of the spacelanes, is now available for your delectation.
It can be downloaded here.

Downloading now.

Very nice, very nice indeed. Very well done commander. Only one typo.. unless Samlon is the right name for the native fish of that planet?

Thanks allikat…

… ‘samlon’ is a nod to Barnes, Niven and Pournelle… google it.

El Viejo wrote:

Thanks allikat…

… ‘samlon’ is a nod to Barnes, Niven and Pournelle… google it.

I will, odd that I read Jerry Pournelle's monthly column (yes it is still around post Byte) and never saw it mentioned...

bravo El Viejo

very enjoyable indeed.

Nice read. I started it yesterday, planning to do half of it yesterday and the rest today, but when I got to the middle of the story I thought "screw tomorrow, all now" and carried on reading to the end.

Good job El Viejo. You sure you don't intend to write more fiction?

I have to concur, and excellent piece of work. Nice mention at the beginning ;D

It is great to see the maps that the community in general worked so hard on being used to add a splash of colour to the fiction. This is of course nothing without a good writer breathing life into the world.

Do you write anything else? I find it difficult to believe that this is your first detour into the written arts. Excellent work sir.

Very well done. Bravo!

Cheers,

Drew.

Awesome job, El Viejo! Un-putdownable..

You even made me a little moist-eyed at the end there..


Skaffen-Amtiskaw says to tell you that if you don't write more fiction, it will be most upset with you, and will be around personally to "discuss the matter".

Thanks guys.

@ a_c – I’m trying hard to resist the temptation of writing more. However, I have just plugged a brand new keyboard in… 30k words was too much for the old one… so we will see.

@ClymAngus – the only ‘fiction’ I’ve written since leaving school over forty years ago is the occasional CV.

@Diziet Sma – oh dear… I wouldn’t like to upset S-A (or SC for that matter). The trouble is that the ‘Clear Air Turbulence’ starts to feel neglected.
It’s really nice to get back in the cockpit again. Hey-ho!

Retired or no, apart from watching your slight veer towards minor repetition (shrapnel pinging off the hull) your as good (if not a **** load better than) a lot of published people.

I'm way too "Sally Anne" to be published but for a man with a strong command of character and dialogue such as yourself? At least consider the possibility of penning an original magnum opus.

ClymAngus wrote:

minor repetition (shrapnel pinging off the hull)

Those bits nearly caused a rewrite… but by the time I’d realised, I was on the final proof read and I needed to get it ‘out there’. I had thought that the descriptions of space combat would be the easiest bits to write, but it was the other way around. I think that you have to be either really brief, or really detailed… there is no middle ground.

ClymAngus wrote:

the possibility of penning an original magnum opus.

This is dangerous… you’re talking about the ‘grand space opera’ in three parts that I would love to write. That would probably take a fair few years to do… and I really don’t think I’m up to that. Having a ready-made ‘Ooniverse’ to hang a short story on… well that really helps, and there are another seven charts to work my way through.

To slightly misquote a James Blish title… ‘And All the 2048 Stars a Stage’.


Regards

Just finished reading this. I'm no expert but I'd like to say how much I enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time to entertain all.

El Viejo wrote:

I had thought that the descriptions of space combat would be the easiest bits to write, but it was the other way around.

Ditto. I found that really tough. It's difficult to make it sound interesting other than turn, shoot, pitch, turn, shoot...

Cheers,

Drew.