ditto. Thank you, Mac. Love your stories (especially your characters and the situations they bring about, or get brought into by others). Wish we could find a way to help you (and other favorite authors) greatly speed up the time it takes to think up, craft, and rework each high-quality story. It’s just not fair that it takes us hours to read what takes authors months to think up, refine, polish/edit, prep and publish. The cognitive systems engineer in me screams that there simply _must_ be some way to aid authors in this important work. Great thought experiments, IMHO.
I was finished the day it became available and it was over in far too short time (about 2 hours after I had it on my kindle)..
So now I started rereading the whole series again, and plan to reread a few other similar series as well, in the hope that when I’m done with all those books and some other new books, April book 8 will be available.
I read too fast i guess, since I average about 3 books each day, sometimes more.
Tanks for a great series and please keep writing more.
I’m curious from your name if you are one of my Danish readers? My books sell really well there. Better even than other countries where English is the primary language.
Just to tease you and a couple other people commenting I will post an early snippet of April #8.
I love reading and I have a fondness for many different genres, but I always have extra love for books that are a set a few years into the future and where space is opening up is the current focus.
Especially since I already have though of several new inventions (ideas) that we should have soon (if patents and delays due to “older tech still earn plenty mentality” weren’t hindering it) and many of them (or similar) are in the books. Like glasses/headgear with AR(augmented realty) integration and communication support. (We already have tech to make something like that now, but it will kill of mobile sale, tv sale, ipad sale and more, so it is being held back..)
I feel that if humanity got it act together we could build stations like M3 now..And we really really should do it as soon as possible.
I suspect that Amazon groups sales. I bet my Norwegian sales show up as Danish. The same with several other regions. They don’t break it down for us. That’s OK – eight separate tax forms were enough to deal with this year.
Jørgen Gangfløt, I read quite a lot though not as fast as you. You did mention a few other similar series you would reread while Mac puts the finishing touches on April 8. I wonder if you would share those.
Well Bill F, the front runner for me is the Ell Donsaii series and Wen Spencer’s Elfhome series. They are not quite as connected to “this” world as I feel April series is, but they grab me the same way. I absolutely LOVE the Elfhome series.
I wish I could find more low key, get into space type series like the April series, but they are too few and hard to find, especially if you want the same kind of fun breathing written told stories with the same blend of plot (spacestation/intospace) and genre twist.. And a stories that don’t rush a head into interstellar space in book 2.
Take a look at the Vaz series and Ell Donsaii by Laurence E. Dahners as they both has some of the same elements. (and set a little into the future from us)
For more epic space opera I often turn to Thomas dePrima’s series “A Galaxy Unknown” and Mike Shepherd’s “Kris Longknife” series
Steampunk: “Lady of Devices” by Shelley Adina
Fantasy: Christopher Nuttall’s Schooled in Magic
But I personally am so starved for the “starting into space, living on space stations” type stories with good, fun, smart main character(s), that I’m currently writing my own twist on the subject..
If you give me the main points you are looking for, I could most likely recommend some more for you (I read a LOT and have time to do so because an undiagnosed sickness).
If you are looking for get into space stories, some others are:
Ryk E Spoor and Eric Flint: Boundary, Threshold and Portal (realistic)
Travis S Taylor: Warp Speed and The Quantum Connection (real scientists discuss this tech, but…)
You know, even this (April) series is not realistic. It has manned orbit-to-orbit commerce between space stations using chemical rockets, which is just not possible: the cost to raise the fuel would be prohibitive, it’s far cheaper to send ANYTHING straight from Earth, or drop to Earth and raise to the new orbit. The Rock was supposedly brought back using chemical rockets. It has earth-moon and even interplanetary search radar, which again is just not possible; the return echo drops with the -4 power of distance, and maintaining a 3D search at much more than 1000km is not possible using any conceived tech. We’ve not even found all the asteroids! It hss plasma drives working at atmospheric pressure. I could go on. The point is that I enjoy these stories, but they are NOT realistic. The series starting with Boundary is the most realistic I know. In general, SF has run up against some physics roadblocks we have not been able to get past in reality; specifically the cost to raise anything to orbit is presently far too high for stories like this to be realistic, and we have no way past this in sight.
Radar of a planet (very large) at an already known position and velocity is very different from searching for a (small) spacecraft at unknown position and unknown velocity. In the planet case, they only need to look in one direction, can use a small bandwidth, and lots of pulses over months, to get a return near an expected delay from the very large sphere. A spacecraft moving at an unknown (possibly large) velocity has a very large unknown Doppler shift, requiring a large bandwidth. It’s small, so not much return, and possibly stealthy. You need to scan all directions, with a cycle time in hours or days, not years. All these effects combine to make a 3D radar search at astronomical distances be simply not possible, by many orders of magnitude.
Civilian radars require a transponder to see very far. Military radars, not depending on a transponder, tend to work for about 300 km or less, in almost all cases, and those are not full 3D because there is a narrow band of heights that need to be searched. A longer-range exception was BMEWS, which looked only in two fans and , IIRC, could see the (large) ion trails not the missile itself.
If we could use radar to search for spaceship size objects at astronomical distances, we’d already have found all the asteroids, which is much easier.
Mac, I love your work. I especially appreciate how you are tying April to Family Law. (I always did like Gabrel). I think though that you could save anguishing over your covers, from here on out, if you would just use the artwork from a Solar. Everyone that counts would recognize it in a flash.
Got it, thanks!
http://smile.amazon.com/They-Said-would-Easy-April-ebook/dp/B01BCLPVSQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454354259&sr=8-1&keywords=they+said+it+would+be+easy
Bought. Thanks Mac!
Woot! Bought and now to read
Thank you . Just got it from Amazon UK. I might be late getting to sleep tonight.
Got it, read it, loved it!
Everyone, remember to write a (good) review over at Amazon!
My copy was defective. The end was too close to the beginning.
You’d have said that if it was 600 pages. I know you guys.
Guilty as charged.
I agree. It is excellent but it ends too soon. Please sir can I have some more?
Yep…great read!!!! BTW, if it was a 1K of pages, it would be too short!!! You are an excellent writer and I always enjoy your works!
ditto. Thank you, Mac. Love your stories (especially your characters and the situations they bring about, or get brought into by others). Wish we could find a way to help you (and other favorite authors) greatly speed up the time it takes to think up, craft, and rework each high-quality story. It’s just not fair that it takes us hours to read what takes authors months to think up, refine, polish/edit, prep and publish. The cognitive systems engineer in me screams that there simply _must_ be some way to aid authors in this important work. Great thought experiments, IMHO.
Okay, I am 2/3 way through the book now and I am already anxiously awaiting the next book. Everyone is correct, you are a wonderful storyteller.
I will post a review as soon as I finish reading the story.
I was finished the day it became available and it was over in far too short time (about 2 hours after I had it on my kindle)..
So now I started rereading the whole series again, and plan to reread a few other similar series as well, in the hope that when I’m done with all those books and some other new books, April book 8 will be available.
I read too fast i guess, since I average about 3 books each day, sometimes more.
Tanks for a great series and please keep writing more.
I’m curious from your name if you are one of my Danish readers? My books sell really well there. Better even than other countries where English is the primary language.
Just to tease you and a couple other people commenting I will post an early snippet of April #8.
No, I’m not from Denmark, I’m from Norway.
I love reading and I have a fondness for many different genres, but I always have extra love for books that are a set a few years into the future and where space is opening up is the current focus.
Especially since I already have though of several new inventions (ideas) that we should have soon (if patents and delays due to “older tech still earn plenty mentality” weren’t hindering it) and many of them (or similar) are in the books. Like glasses/headgear with AR(augmented realty) integration and communication support. (We already have tech to make something like that now, but it will kill of mobile sale, tv sale, ipad sale and more, so it is being held back..)
I feel that if humanity got it act together we could build stations like M3 now..And we really really should do it as soon as possible.
And as for a new snippet.. YaY jippi.
I suspect that Amazon groups sales. I bet my Norwegian sales show up as Danish. The same with several other regions. They don’t break it down for us. That’s OK – eight separate tax forms were enough to deal with this year.
Jørgen Gangfløt, I read quite a lot though not as fast as you. You did mention a few other similar series you would reread while Mac puts the finishing touches on April 8. I wonder if you would share those.
Well Bill F, the front runner for me is the Ell Donsaii series and Wen Spencer’s Elfhome series. They are not quite as connected to “this” world as I feel April series is, but they grab me the same way. I absolutely LOVE the Elfhome series.
I wish I could find more low key, get into space type series like the April series, but they are too few and hard to find, especially if you want the same kind of fun breathing written told stories with the same blend of plot (spacestation/intospace) and genre twist.. And a stories that don’t rush a head into interstellar space in book 2.
Take a look at the Vaz series and Ell Donsaii by Laurence E. Dahners as they both has some of the same elements. (and set a little into the future from us)
For more epic space opera I often turn to Thomas dePrima’s series “A Galaxy Unknown” and Mike Shepherd’s “Kris Longknife” series
Steampunk: “Lady of Devices” by Shelley Adina
Fantasy: Christopher Nuttall’s Schooled in Magic
But I personally am so starved for the “starting into space, living on space stations” type stories with good, fun, smart main character(s), that I’m currently writing my own twist on the subject..
If you give me the main points you are looking for, I could most likely recommend some more for you (I read a LOT and have time to do so because an undiagnosed sickness).
Let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
If you are looking for get into space stories, some others are:
Ryk E Spoor and Eric Flint: Boundary, Threshold and Portal (realistic)
Travis S Taylor: Warp Speed and The Quantum Connection (real scientists discuss this tech, but…)
You know, even this (April) series is not realistic. It has manned orbit-to-orbit commerce between space stations using chemical rockets, which is just not possible: the cost to raise the fuel would be prohibitive, it’s far cheaper to send ANYTHING straight from Earth, or drop to Earth and raise to the new orbit. The Rock was supposedly brought back using chemical rockets. It has earth-moon and even interplanetary search radar, which again is just not possible; the return echo drops with the -4 power of distance, and maintaining a 3D search at much more than 1000km is not possible using any conceived tech. We’ve not even found all the asteroids! It hss plasma drives working at atmospheric pressure. I could go on. The point is that I enjoy these stories, but they are NOT realistic. The series starting with Boundary is the most realistic I know. In general, SF has run up against some physics roadblocks we have not been able to get past in reality; specifically the cost to raise anything to orbit is presently far too high for stories like this to be realistic, and we have no way past this in sight.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4218/ch5.htm
Radar of a planet (very large) at an already known position and velocity is very different from searching for a (small) spacecraft at unknown position and unknown velocity. In the planet case, they only need to look in one direction, can use a small bandwidth, and lots of pulses over months, to get a return near an expected delay from the very large sphere. A spacecraft moving at an unknown (possibly large) velocity has a very large unknown Doppler shift, requiring a large bandwidth. It’s small, so not much return, and possibly stealthy. You need to scan all directions, with a cycle time in hours or days, not years. All these effects combine to make a 3D radar search at astronomical distances be simply not possible, by many orders of magnitude.
Civilian radars require a transponder to see very far. Military radars, not depending on a transponder, tend to work for about 300 km or less, in almost all cases, and those are not full 3D because there is a narrow band of heights that need to be searched. A longer-range exception was BMEWS, which looked only in two fans and , IIRC, could see the (large) ion trails not the missile itself.
If we could use radar to search for spaceship size objects at astronomical distances, we’d already have found all the asteroids, which is much easier.
Mac, I love your work. I especially appreciate how you are tying April to Family Law. (I always did like Gabrel). I think though that you could save anguishing over your covers, from here on out, if you would just use the artwork from a Solar. Everyone that counts would recognize it in a flash.