Look at this! A finalised, ready-to-go cover for my latest novel from Solaris, Crash. This here’s the front, back, and the unadorned artwork. I like this a lot, it’s very science fiction.
Crash is out in June. I’ll not be specific, as you know, details subject to change and all that. But it’ll be around then. The link will take you to the Amazon UK sales page, where, if you’re of a mind, you can pre-purchase it. Go on, treat yourself. I will be held personally responsible if you hate it.
Here’s the blurb:
The Market rules all, a computer system that plots the rise and fall of fortunes without human intervention. Mankind, trapped by a rigid hierarchy of wealth, bends to its every whim. To function, the Market must expand without end. The Earth is finite, and cannot hold it, and so a bold venture to the stars is embarked upon, offering a rare chance for freedom to a select few people. But when the colony fleet is sabotaged, a small group finds itself marooned upon the tidally-locked world of Nychthemeron, a world where one hemisphere is bathed in perpetual daylight, the other hidden by eternal night. Isolated and beset, the stricken colony members must fight for survival on the hostile planet, while secrets about both the cause of their shipwreck and the nature of Nychthemeron itself threaten to tear their fragile society apart…
Yesterday I posted a calendar of the coming year. It was quite woefully wrong, a consequence of working on my own and never speaking to anyone. Chief among its errors was mention of a couple of short stories that will appear in Hammer and Bolter. They won’t, as the ezine is now defunct, a fact that was revealed at the Black Library Weekender. In its stead, new stories will be available every Monday, to buy individually. My stories, very loosely connected to Skarsnik and Baneblade, will be two of those. When, I dunno, although if I were a betting man I’d say around the time of the books’ releases.
Here’s an updated version of the calendar.
My first story for Interzone will be published in issue 243 (not 244).
I’ll be at Black Library Live in Nottingham on 3rd March, then the day after at The Scifi Weekender in Pwllheli.
I am going to be at Salute with BL, on 20th April in London.
Out this month is the Mark of Calth anthology, in which is my second Horus Heresy story, “The Shards of Erebus”, and this opens the collection. Cool, eh? I was wrong about the date originally as I got it from Amazon. Lesson for the future, always check the BL website first… Mark of Calth will first be released as a BL/GW exclusive.
Baneblade, my first published novel for The Black Library (and the first one I wrote), is out on 7th May.
The Crash is out on 25th June. My second original novel for Solaris, it’s about a colony expedition that goes horribly wrong. Published this same month is The Best of Hammer and Bolter II, included therein is my story, “The Rite of Holos”, originally published in Hammer and Bolter 24, and a direct prequel to The Death of Integrity.
Skarsnik is out, my second BL book. This hits the shelves on 19th July.
My third novel for The Black Library/Games Workshop is released 3rd September. Space Marines galore, Genestealers, and a twist.
I’ll be at the Black Library Weekender II.
As I said yesterday, there’s a few more appearances I’ll be making for BL, but they’re yet to be finalised. Other than that, I better sort some more work out, or I’ll be on the street…
Criminy, another new year, my 40th to be precise. I’m halfway through my life, or thereabouts. Now that’s something to chew on. Once more the terrifying brevity of human existence troubles my thoughts.
Happy New Year!
I don’t celebrate New Year much. This year (I suppose “last year”) I watched Predators on telly, which was better than expected, then went to bed at 11.30. I’ve always found New Year’s Eve a bit of an anti-climax, unless you can find a good house party. And I always get maudlin about my mortal span (see above). In any case, now my son Benny is four, there’s no going anywhere on days like that. So, onto 2013, it’s a busy one. Here’s a rundown of what’s happening in the Guyniverse come the next twelve months (all provisional, naturally).
My first story for Interzone will be published in issue 244. Hurrah!
I’ll be at Black Library Live in Nottingham on 3rd March, then the day after at The Scifi Weekender in Pwllheli. See you there?
I am also going to be at Salute with BL, on 20th April in London. I’ll be at several other events with the Black Library this year, and I’ll be posting details of those nearer the time.
Baneblade, my first published novel for The Black Library, is out on 7th May. Expect a linked story in Hammer and Bolter before the book comes out.
The Crash is out on the 25th. My second original novel for Solaris, it’s about a colony expedition that goes horribly wrong.
Skarsnik is out, my second BL book. This hits the shelves on 19th July. There’ll be a tie-in story about another famous Greenskin warlord in Hammer and Bolter. If you’re seeing a pattern here, that’s because there is one.
My Horus Heresy-era short story will appear in the Mark of Calth anthology, out on 13th. I actually just finished this today, and will tell you the title when I am one hundred per cent sure I won’t get into hot water for it (meaning, I’ll ask my editor).
My third novel for The Black Library/Games Workshop is released 3rd September. Space Marines galore, Genestealers, and a twist.
And that’s about it for the time being. I’ve got several other projects bubbling away, and as I said I will be appearing at other events. As for this blog, I’ve made my one and only New Year resolution to get all my Death Ray work online. And then I’ve a four-year backlog of SFX material; and that’s just the stuff I’ve got permission to publish. FYI, the blog got 25000 views in 2012, nowhere near the likes of John Scalzi’s eight million but not bad, I think. Things I’m hoping for this year? Less rain.
Seasons greetings all!
Yep, snow is falling on my blog. It looks like dandruff, but it is supposed to be snow. That means Christmas approaches, and so do many deadlines… Ulp.
But I’ve been so remiss in not blogging, so here’s a short message.
For your delectation today, I have three marvellous pieces of news. First, here’s the cover of The Crash, my second book for Solaris, out next June:
It’s a work in progress right now, but it’s nearly done, I think. For a description of the book, see my previous post.
Another announcement – I’ve been fortunate enough to have been asked to write a short story for the Black Library’s advent calendar this year! I can’t tell you what it is about, because it’s Christmas and Christmas is all about surprises, but I can tell you that it will be available on 17th December. Click on the link to find out more.
Lastly, if you go here to Whatever, John Scalzi’s blog, you can see me dance like a monkey on an electric wire (figuratively speaking), trying to get people to consider Reality 36, Omega Point, and Champion of Mars as Christmas presents. You mean you hadn’t thought of that yourself? Then think about it. It’s a great idea. Really.
Ahem, I should mention that Mr Scalzi has thrown open his blog to all authors, other books are available, and indeed, there are many other writers in the thread talking about their own books, many of which sound pretty damn fine.
If you’re a writer yourself, I heartily advise taking advantage of Scalzi’s generosity and join in the festive PR frenzy.
Later this week, I’ll be posting the cover for my next 40k book, The Death of Integrity. Till then, stay frosty, it’s cold enough to do so, even if it is unfashionable to say so (at least it’s not raining any more here in England. And it has been raining ALL YEAR).
Last week, some of you might have seen an announcement from Solaris concerning my second book to be published by them. This is another of the projects I’ve been alluding to on this blog and Twitter over the last few months, but have not been able to speak about. Typically, the news broke when I was eyeball deep in anime moppets and monsters, editing SFX‘s anime special edition. I still am, in fact, editing the magazine, but I’ve a few fleeting minutes to blog about the book now and tell you a little more about it.
First up, here’s what Jonathan Oliver had to say at the Solaris website and When Gravity Fails, their editor’s blog
Unalloyed greed, markets dictating the will of humanity – when The Crash comes, nothing will be left standing.
In a topical science-fiction take on the world’s current economic woes, breakthrough author Guy Haley envisages a society in utter thrall to commerce, which must constantly expand to sustain itself. When a mission to the stars begins to go wrong, the fragility of human society and progress is exposed.
The Crash is due for release in July 2013, it is Haley’s second book for Solaris.
His first, Champion of Mars, was released in May this year and was described by SF legend Stephen Baxter as “a novel with an ambition on the scale of Olympus Mons itself, and it delivers. Recommended.”
“Guy Haley’s SF invokes in me the same excitement I had when reading Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg and Arthur C. Clarke’s works for the first time,” said Jonathan Oliver, editor-in-chief of Solaris. “His fiction is packed full of ideas while maintaining a very human voice. Haley’s work is complex, exciting and vastly entertaining and I’m delighted to welcome him back to the Solaris fold.”
The Market rules all, plotting the rise and fall of fortunes without human intervention. Mankind, trapped by a rigid hierarchy of wealth, bends to its every whim. To function, the Market must expand without end. The Earth is finite, and cannot hold it, and so a bold venture to the stars is begun, offering a rare chance at freedom to a select few people.
But when the colony fleet is sabotaged, a small group finds itself marooned upon the tidally locked world of Nychthemeron, a world where one hemisphere is bathed in perpetual daylight, the other hidden by eternal night. Isolated and beset, the stricken colony members must fight for survival on the hostile planet, while secrets about both the nature of their shipwreck and Nychthemeron itself threaten to tear their fragile society apart.
I have a big old thing for colony SF. I enjoy following bands of plucky frontier types struggling to survive on alien worlds, and I absolutely love colony ship gone wrong scenarios. The tougher the odds the better. In this loose category I’d include the Deathworld Trilogy by Harry Harrison, Grass by Sheri Tepper, some of Neal Asher’s books, Non-stop by Brian Aldiss, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, the Colsec trilogy by Douglas Hill (ah, good old Douglas Hill), Aliens, Avatar (still not seen it thought), Aliens, Pandorum, Red Fang by Philip Palmer… You get the idea, there are loads more. I looked at the theme of man’s expansion into space a little in Champion of Mars, but this is more of a BIG SF take on the concept – weird alien life, interstellar travel, exotic worlds, the works.
The Crash is ostensibly a standalone novel, and naturally a part of it will deal with the way I fear Earth might be heading – overpopulated, environmentally degraded, impoverished, with a small, new aristocracy who are fabulous wealthy, and the rest of us struggling to survive.
It’s also inspired by this famous quote by Kenneth Boulding: “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” And by the concept of “Spaceship Earth.”
However, don’t expect hundreds of pages setting out what I think is wrong with modern capitalism. Most of the story is about the fight to stay alive on an alien planet with limited resources. Ultimately, I want to develop a space opera series set in this universe, charting a future history where scattered groups of human beings shipwrecked on numerous worlds take differing routes to survive, and how the very diverse range of cultures these circumstances create eventually come into contact – and conflict – with one another. All very exciting, but I need to finish the first one before all that.
What’s your favourite colony story? Let me know!
A review of the DVD release of Danny Boyle’s film Sunshine, from Death Ray 05, published in 2007. My opinion of the film has mellowed since I reviewed it initially, and I think were I to regrade it, I’d give it four stars. But the science is still silly, even though they had ubiquitous astronomy hipster Brian Cox on science consultancy duties.
FILM: THREE AND A HALF STARS EXTRAS: THREE STARS
2007 • 108 mins • 15
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh
A multi-national crew race to almost certain death in an effort to re-ignite the dying sun and save mankind in this UK SF effort.
It’s a clever choice from the team behind 28 Days Later to make a film that has global cooling at its heart when we’re all running around worrying about the exact opposite, and this is one of the conceits that make Sunshine a bit brighter than your average SF blockbuster. It’s a shame then that it never quite dazzles. The good bits are as shiny as 2001: A Space Odyssey, the bad bits a nasty cross between the dark side of Solaris and Event Horizon.
For a start, a lot of the film’s science is nonsensical. For example, how can a man be vaporised by sunlight millions of miles out from the star, yet a bomb made only of metal survive unscathed in a plummet through the sun’s (very, very hot) corona? The sun is also far too small throughout (in reality it’s so big that more than 98% of all matter in the Solar System is to be found within it). There are also too many incidents of unprofessionalism on the parts of the crew for the film to convince. In real life, astronauts check and triple check everything. You’d think this would be even more the case on a last-ditch mission to save mankind, but not aboard the Icarus II. And while it is conceivable that even the best of the best spacemen might go a bit nuts when under so much pressure, the Pinbacker subplot is exceedingly silly.
Still, Sunshine manages to be both atmospheric and exciting. The interplay between light and darkness in the film is beautiful, evoking a sense of wonder that is brilliantly enhanced by the haunting score. The set pieces are masterfully executed, and the finale has you inching forward on the sofa, daft though it is.
Sunshine has design and mood down perfectly, but it is nowhere near as clever as it wants to be. Perhaps that’s asking a lot, but it does set itself up as a thinking man’s film. If you want light-drenched awe, watch The Fountain instead.
Extras: The release DVD has numerous goodies, including a director’s commentary, Brian Cox commentary, an alternative ending, deleted scenes, web production diaries and a short film. But none were included on our review copy, and this may not be the final list.
Though it is never stated in the film, in Sunshine the sun is dying not of old age (it’s due to run out of fuel in about five billion years) but because it has been infected with an exotic particle that is disrupting its normal behaviour.
The frankly stunning cover to Champion of Mars was painted by Dominick Saponaro. Visit his website for more examples of his work.
My new book, Champion of Mars, is out in the UK today. I’m excited about this one, as the story the book grew from has always been close to my heart. An epic tale spanning hundreds of centuries, Champion of Mars takes in the near future, the far future, and the times in between.
Here’s what famed SF author Stephen Baxter had to say in his review for SFX:
Kim Stanley Robinson meets Edgar Rice Burroughs. That’s how Guy Haley’s jam-packed sugar-rush of a novel reads, as you dive into its two alternating Martian timelines: one a gritty near-future Mars, reminiscent of Robinson’s mighty Red Mars trilogy, where pioneers seek out native life and struggle with the noble goal of terraforming, and the other a very-far-future Mars so advanced it’s come out the other side and turned into a bronze-age-ish hero society not unlike Burroughs’ Barsoom. The champion of the title is called Yoechakanon, and with his spirit-lover Kaibeli he is trying to save the remnants of mankind from a strange pan-dimensional invasion. But it gradually becomes clear that in fact the champion’s far future is intimately connected to the near future, both through an interweaving of very imaginative era-by-era interpolating episodes, and through mysterious deeper linkages, such as the presence on the young Mars of an enigmatic artificial woman called Cybele …
The whole thing is a marvellous planetary romance which crams in what feels like every Martian trope sf writers have ever dreamed up – and maybe that’s timely, in the year of the Barsoom movie John Carter. In places it strains at the seams, the final wrapping-up is a little rushed, and sometimes Haley’s prose is a touch pulpish, though it’s a tone that actually fits the subject matter very well. But all in all this is a novel with an ambition on the scale of Olympus Mons itself, and it delivers. Recommended.
There are other reviews here and here. You can also read interviews with me about the book (and my other work) at SFX, the Solaris Editor’s Blog, and on I Will Read Books.
And, here’s an extract! This is “The Last War of Tsu Keng”, one of the bridging chapters that, through the course of the book, bring the stories of the far future and the near future closer and closer together.
The Last War of Tsu Keng
Year 15,105 of the Hegemony of Man
The ships sang for joy as their pilots approached, eager to be free of their hangar.
The cavernous eyrie of the Royal Dock vibrated with energy, men and sheathed spirits running to and fro, support automata refuelling the machines and loading them with projectiles. The scramble alarm chimed its carillon, a calm exhortation to battle. Light dazzled, caught on a million facets of crystal and metals. The Royal Dock was a wonderful display of the decorative arts; that, and power.
Tsu Keng’s principle eyes were poor at such close quarters. He saw the furthest ships clearly: slender, killing darts a kilometre distant. They would appear distorted to a human’s perception, for Tsu Keng’s field of vision extended all around him; everything nearer to him was a smear of colour and movement.
But he could feel his pilot, the ripple of his approach cutting through the Second World as he walked toward the ship. He walked Tsu Keng’s gangway and presented himself at the ship’s main port. Krashtar Vo came into sharp focus as he came close to Tsu Keng’s near-sight eyes around the door. Behind him floated the spirit form of his companion, Kybele, ethereal against the tumult of preparations for war.
Tsu Keng saw the pilot in both worlds: as he was now, a Martian bred for the rigours of combat space flight – squat, heavy featured, dense bones, thick muscle, internal organs protected by fluid sacs and strengthened by encysted smart gels – and as he was in the Library, a flickering mass of faces, of histories, one laid over the other, a line of personalities stretching back to the dawn of this era. Permissions and activation whispers swarmed from Krashtar Vo, to interface with the ship’s own Second World self. Tsu Keng’s soul was different, monolithic. Not for him the psyche-clouds of the human Martians, or the choirs of the spirits, whose co-operative subminds made up a greater whole. Tsu Keng’s material and psychic self were indivisible. He was made for one purpose, and desirous only to serve that purpose.
Tsu Keng lived to fly, nothing but to fly.
His systems thrummed in anticipation of it.
“Greetings, Tsu Keng.”
“Greetings, Krashtar Vo. Welcome aboard, my pilot.”
Tsu Keng’s door skin developed a seam and rippled apart, and Krashtar Vo stepped inside. The gangway and door deliquesced, and Tsu Keng drew their lead-grey substance back into his larger mass. His door eyes rolled backward, their eyelids closed, and these too retracted into his body. The portal became smooth skin. His epidermal layer shivered, and a pattern of scales rippled, diamond plates lifting sharp edges up and then lying flat as Tsu Keng activated his armour. The atomic structure of his hide interlocked and became rigid, pressurising the liquid and ablative layers below it.
Krashtar Vo’s feet made only a padding sound as he waddled through the ship. He was heavily adapted for his role, and could lead a comfortable life neither upon the surface of Mars nor within a microgravity environment. It was said some of the pilots enjoyed the deep habitats within the atmospheres of the gas giants, but they seldom stayed there long; the call of deep space was too great. A sacrifice, this modification, some of the humans held.
What do they know? Krashtar spoke mind to mind. He had been a pilot only a few years, but already his bond with Tsu Keng was such that they could achieve interface without the aid of machine or spirit. No price is too great for this.
Tsu Keng thought this true. He had no conception that it could be otherwise.
Krashtar Vo gained the command bridge; he slipped into his couch and lay back. Tsu Keng wrapped himself about the pilot. Krashtar Vo’s body was hardened to the perils of slip space, and so required no stasis field, but Tsu Keng held him tight nevertheless.
There was a sensation like a kiss, and their minds ran one into the other. Tsu Keng felt a caress, and the man’s companion departed. They were lovers, it was said, Krashtar Vo and Kybele, and had been through many lifetimes. Unusual, a man and his companion to be actively engaged in an affair of the heart, or so Tsu Keng had been told. This also, Tsu Keng did not truly understand, not even when he and Krashtar Vo were one.
A call echoed through the canyon; one note, long and low, the song of the squadron alpha leader. The other ships responded, and the hangar became a sounding chamber for a harmonious outpouring of emotion.
We are ready, the ships and their pilots thought as one. We will fly.
The cradle arms holding the alpha ship folded back, and the ship dropped from the racks, plummeting to the floor. Gravity engines came alive, and it sped toward the dock mouth and out into sunlight.
Follow, it thought. The beta ships dropped – one, two, three. Then all the ships rained down, like oak leaves in autumn. They twisted around one another, a cacophony of hooting song sounding in both worlds, the electomagnetic spectrum crowded with their delight.
Tsu Keng and his squadron mates jockeyed for position, not breaking formation, not quite. Below them on the floor of the Royal Dock, men and machines moved painfully slowly, as slow as unphased Stone Kin. Tsu Keng and his kin laughed at them, fighting the desire to engage their slip drives there and then.
Not here, not now, said Krashtar Vo. Not safe.
The ships tumbled out of the hangar mouth into the Marrin, great bats leaving their roost. Sunlight turned their grey skins silver, and when they passed through the broad beams of the mirror suns, the scales of their armour sparkled iridescence.
Onward, upward! To war! To war! the alpha sang. Five hundred combat ships obeyed, falling into formation. Their shadows raced up and over the canyon bluffs, drawing excited gestures from onlookers below. In the Second World, companion spirits mobbed the souls of the ships and their pilots, wishing them well, good hunting, come home. Air roared against Tsu Keng’s skin, his sharp prow forcing it aside.
Oh, to be a ship of war! they sang. Oh, to be in flight!
Sky turned from caramel to blue to purple to black, the ship’s song became thin and then vanished into vacuum, heard only now in the Second World.
Stars shone unhindered upon the raiment of infinity. They were not alone. The heavens blazed with shiplight, bright dots moving swiftly, vessels the size of countries diminished by distance to needle-tips. Thousands upon thousands of them filled the sky in long trains, rising from Earth, Venus, and Mars, from the habitats, from the belt, from the moons of the giants, heading away from the Solar system, heading out for the stars and for safety.
The greater part of mankind was in flight.
Out from the warships, past the crescent of Mars, a great light burned, one that appeared foul and wrong to the eyes of the ships, a second sun in place of Jupiter.
The Stone Sun, brighter now than the tear in the sky it would close. The hyper-dimensional object Jupiter was becoming would constrain the Stone Kin within the gravity well of Sul, seal the tear in reality and keep the Stone Kin from infecting the wider universe. Sulian ships swarmed about the transmogrified gas giant, the fruit of Man’s last great labour, working without pause to ignite this second, uncanny star and save mankind.
It was here the Martian ships flew. This is where the Stone Kin concentrated their efforts. The craft of the kin descended to the lower dimensions and assailed the construction fleet daily, for they, like Man, wished to be free. This was but the latest of a thousand skirmishes.
To the fight, my brothers! called the alpha ship. To the battle!
Tsu Keng’s wings unfurled, as did those of his brothers and sisters. Their unity of purpose and mind saw them all drop up from this world, their wings folding them into complex eleven-dimensional geometries where the wills of the pilots could more effectively move them.
You are not here. Krashtar Vo’s inner voice, indistinguishable from Tsu Keng’s own, told him of his place in the universe, convinced him utterly that he belonged somewhere else. You are here.
Concentration was difficult. Things assailed them as they passed the Veil of Worlds into slip space, the infections of the Stone Kin spreading even there.
Screams scarred the higher reality of the Veil as ships succumbed to raking claws and incomprehensible technologies.
A short slip. Tsu Keng knew that he was elsewhere. That was the natural order of it. How could it be otherwise?
The Martian squadron materialised deep in the Jovian subsystem and into the heart of battle. Tsu Keng’s wingmate flew straight into a cloud of debris at near-luminal speed, tumbling into a million pieces. Tsu Keng’s combat wing split, the four remaining ships spiralling in evasive manoeuvres as thousands of anti-collision hardbeams vaporised the debris.
Krashtar Vo looked upon the battle through Tsu Keng’s eyes, his mind comprehending their situation as Tsu Keng bent his own mind to the task of survival. Their battlefield spanned anything up to eight spatial dimensions, only the highest and the second temporal axes safe, unsullied by violence. Combat was conducted at speeds approaching the four-dimensional maximum for objects of their mass. At such velocities, relative position at a distance was impossible to judge, so they fought at close quarters.
A dozen Terran ships fought a desperate fight with four Stone Kin vessels. The Terran ships were near-identical to those of Mars, the same in all but song. Their armour was scarred and their movements panicked. The Stone Kin craft – if they were craft, none had ever been captured, and no crew ever seen – warped and flexed. Their presence was an intrusion into three dimensional space, and their forms were not fixed. It was as if they rotated in their own space, presenting first this aspect of themselves to the lower dimensions, then that, where they could be understood only as disparate parts. The spirits and humans of ordinary spacetime perceived them no more clearly than blind men describing an elephant. Beams of exotic particles erupted unpredictably from their surfaces. Their effusion and potency defied analysis. Eleutheremics could not predict them. They might impact upon a ship with less effect than a ray of moonlight, or they could cut it in two.
The alpha ship severed the fleet’s higher linkages, lest the Stone Kin infiltrate the ship’s cortices. Training, experience, and force of will would determine the outcome of the day.
The Stone Kin shattered two more of the Terran ships to glittering clouds, and bright fire roiled and died in the vacuum. The remaining Terran craft fell back, joining with the Martian fleet. The ships greeted each other with long songs, broadcast on inter-ship ranges, but they were muted. The Terran ships were exhausted and afraid.
Today they could all die. They were poorly matched against the Stone Kin, no matter how many Sulian craft crowded the sky. The Stone Kin’s power was ineffable.
Survival did not matter, not to Tsu Keng. He and his fellow ships found the Terrans’ fear contemptible. To fly, that was all. To fight, that was what was demanded. He had no fear, he would fly, he would fight. Death was immaterial.
The Martian fleet surged forward. They ducked and arced like dolphins as their engines pushed at the fabric of space.
The Stone Kin revolved their incomprehensible bodies to face this new threat. Beams jagged out from them, all targeted unerringly on the alpha craft. Beams of infinite colouring intersected on the space where the alpha swam. Too late, its pilot attempted to exert her will and force the ship elsewhere. Its wings were part unfurled as it was cut into a hundred pieces, fragments of it spinning out and impacting on those following it.
Some of the younger vessels, those with inexperienced pilots, hesitated and swerved, songs vibrating with panic. The rest hurled themselves on, diving through the lattice of beams the warping Stone Kin projected. More ships died in ecstasy, annihilated as they flew.
The Martians had lost thirty ships already.
Krashtar Vo and Tsu Keng moved themself into an attack pattern. They part-deployed their slip wings. Their remaining wingmates spiralled down after them, copying their leader’s action.
Pilot’s and ship’s shared skin prickled as slipshields came online. Krashtar Vo enforced his interpretation of events upon Tsu Keng and the craft jinked madly, moving from location to location without crossing the space in between.
Tsu Keng deployed his cannons and opened fire. Krashtar Vo extended his mind, unique organs in his brain pre-observing an infinity of outcomes. Their joined mind was capable of processing vast amounts of information at once. Self-imposed ignorance was the lever to the imposition of will.
Vo’s mind, pushed to great heights by that of Tsu Keng, observed all possible quantum outcomes exactly simultaneously, not sequentially, preventing any one state of truth being determined before the desired outcome was chosen and enacted.
Not all men could become pilots, just as not all spirits could be ships. The act of forcing one’s will onto an eleven dimensional space required a stupendous act of double-thinking, for they had to be both ignorant and aware they were doing it. Awareness that all possible outcomes existed contaminated the observance of said outcomes, reducing the number of outcomes to one, and crippling the possibility of success. Through denial, they thus preserved the undetermined state of things before the time was ripe for determination to come into effect. At the same time, they saw what they saw; the inevitability. What happened was always the only answer. The pilots of Mars were unshakeable in their conviction that they were right.
They were bred to defy fate.
All truths, however, are subjective.
Together, Tsu Keng and Krashtar Vo observed exactly where the Stone Kin would be, and fired. But the Stone Kin operated outside of time, observing their fire at precisely the same moment, their will undermining the certainty principles of the aggressor.
Even if it was inevitable it would be hit, if the target could force its own interpretation of events onto the firer, then it would miraculously avoid the shot. Always. If the ship could force its own observed interpretations on a target’s, then the opposite would occur – it would always be hit. The target would either always be hit, or always be missed, but never both, as decided by the eleutheremic arguments constructed by the duelling craft, and how well they tricked their opposite number into adopting their point of view.
Combat was a matter not of flight, then, but of sheer will.
For a few brief moments, two observable realities vied with each other for dominance. Only one held true at any one time, but both could be true at different times, and the ships, the Stone Kin and the cannon’s ordnance flickered into and out of existence, describing multiple fractured courses and positions, the universe blurring into a myriad possibilities, time spread like a rainbow. The fabric of reality groaned under the strain.
Probability was wracked by a monstrous contest of wills. Packets of energy exploded or failed ever to have existed about the weaving, poly-possible craft. The ship was, then wasn’t, then was again, its potential ruination hanging on the threads of contested interpretation.
Seventeen thousandths of a second and it was over. Tsu Keng’s fire raked over the body of the Stone Kin. Volleys from his wing mates crisscrossed the thing. For one moment its pulsations stilled and its form solidified into something ugly and squamous.
It imploded, and ceased to be.
The Martian fleet flickered through the space the alien craft had occupied, rolling and singing as they moved from one potentiality to the next. Emboldened, they assailed the remaining three Stone Kin. Many died.
The sky wept tears of light as ships left mankind’s birthplace in their millions, fleeing the tear in the sky. The harsh light of the transformed Jupiter glared at them all as they fled. The Stone Sun was one fight closer to being kindled, the Stone Kin one step closer to being trapped. Earth, Mars, Venus – the ancestral homes of Man – would be entombed with them, but the plague of the Stone Kin would go no further.
Tsu Keng did not care. Tsu Keng flew.
Finally, if you’d like to read the first two chapters, you can do so right here.
Champion of Mars is available at all good bookshops, and off that internet thing.
Wassup.
A brief post regarding the SFX Weekender. It’s like, wow, the end of this week. I’ll be there, will you? As a publicity pig and part-time SFX flunky I’ll be hosting a couple of panels and yes, doing some signings. Also, I’ll be in the bar. A lot. So come and have a drink, because I like drinking even more than I like science fiction.
I’m confirmed for another convention already this year, more on that later, so don’t weep if you’re not coming and you really, really want to stand near me. I’m putting myself around a bit in 2012.
16.00 – Screening Zone
How to Get Published
I’ll be moderating the panel How to Get Published, a self-explanatory title. With me will be editors Anne Clarke of Orbit, Anne Lyle of Angry Robot, Simon Spanton of Gollancz, and David Howe of Telos. That’s a really good mix, covering two of the biggest imprints, the fast-rising new star on the block and a small press. Referring back to my earlier posts on this matter, if these guys say something is so in this field, then that’s the way it is. A great opportunity to find a bit about how the publishing industry works, and tailor your writing plans accordingly.
As I’ll be directing the discussion, I’m not supposed to say much, but I’m sure if you want to ask me a few questions about how I got my words into the datasphere, I’ll be allowed to coyly answer.
18.00 – Bartertown
I’ll be signing my book Reality 36 alongside living legend Gav Thorpe at the Angry Robot stand in Bartertown. Come along and say hi. Maybe you could give me a cuddle. Gav’s great, but he’s not the cuddling sort.
10.00 – Bartertown
I’ll be on the Solaris stand with fellow author Jonathan Green. Although Champion of Mars isn’t out until May, please come along and I’ll tell you all about it. I’m sure I can sign Reality 36 too, if my publisher isn’t looking. This is a great chance to see what I look like with a hangover, by the way.
15.00 – Screening Zone
We’re All Doomed!
Another day, another panel to moderate, this one on apocalypses in SF. Generally more famous authors than me will be commenting, including Simon Bestwick, Ken MacLeod, Paul McAuley, and Gareth L Powell. I’ll be passing the conch.
