lucbyard

“In planetary news: Faulty gravimetric compensators have been blamed for the recent loss of two Cobalt Initiative vessels which burned up falling into the atmosfield above Pele recently, killing two pilots. The findings are unlikely to quash rife speculation that it followed a firefight as tension between Cobalt and the Eclipsis ships in orbit continues to grow. Both organisations insist that at present, they are
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The new Star Trek series, in particular, have been met with criticism from certain parts for being... 'too political.' Another comment I saw 'once upon an internet' was how it was ramming its woke agenda down our throats...

The inadequacy of their subject knowledge is startling and I am convinced, has nothing to do with science-fiction. SF has always been a platform for politics and
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I've been feeling the Beauty has been looking a little dull in plain white so I've been trying out some colour blocking to giver her paint job a bit more character.

Dark red (obviously) and I've gone for an asymmetrical arrangement becasue teh Beauty doesn't follow the rules. ; )

The Bechdel test is becoming more widely known as a way of gauging representation of women in media. It's not perfect but works, mostly because so many books, films and TV shows fail it.

Not afraid to face the facts, I have applied the test to my own book and compared the results to a well-respected science fiction film.

You have to get one green
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Playing around, admittedly. Here are 4 cover designs for my first novel styled for four different eras of cover-art... loosely.

I was told that my original had a 90s vibe so I thought 'What would a 00's or a twenteens cover look like?'

So here we have 90's

Early 00's

Late 00's or graphic novel

Twenteens poster art style.

I could do 2020's but it
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I love graphic design. So when my story resulted in only three of these ships, they all got their own emblem based on their names. It's taken ages but been a really fun project.

The difficulty was in keeping the style while representing the very different creatures and there are more scrapped doodles that I could count.

Anyway, here are the three designs with a
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I finished reading the first book of 'The Deep System' last night on Twitch and with it, completed the fourth draft.

What an experience! I've really enjoyed doing it - it wasn't a very interactive stream but that's not what people come for, I suppose. The streams are mostly watched afterwards on demand and I've been getting around ten views of each stream - which
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'Below the canopy her name was painted in an artistic scrawl along with pin-up artwork of a scantily clad woman in heels and tiny shorts. Below a heavy volume of dishevelled red hair, a dark red stripe went from her left eye, down her neck and back ending at a glowing blue circle embedded below her shoulder blades, resembling the markings and ventral lift engine
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I finished the final index (chapter) of teh first half of my second book today.

'It feels good' is the short blog.

My Twitch streaming has kept the fourth draft of Boxrunner going so progress continues apace there too but getting to half way through my second book is really important.

Just that there will now be less ahead of me than there is behind
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Every now and then, one of your characters opens up a little and says something that you didn't expect.

The Forwarder is usually suspicious and calculating - cynical to the core. Perhaps that comes from a core belief of self reliance.

The quote differentiates between the two similar sounding concepts - but points out what the character sees as a key difference. Confidence, we receive
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'Where the butterflies go' is an esoteric poem inspired by Phoenix McAndrew's lyrics for a song she posted on Instagram.

There is an explanation as to what it means, to me, at least. Take what you will from it. All I ask is that you stop for a moment...

... and wonder where the butterflies go.

When someone reads an excerpt from your first gritty, industrial hard sci-fi story and says "It sounds like a good premise for a YA novel."

Up with this, I will not put.

Steps are being taken in the sequel. 😂😂

It is the case that there was less cause for more mature violence and language in book one... That's just how it played out and
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