Raw and unedited as always.
“Perhaps you should look into how oil drilling platforms work things,” Jeff suggested. “That seems closer to the model of what we’re going to do.”
“The middle administration, yeah, but the legal situation is completely different. A platform attached to the sea bed is under law of the nearest country even if outside the legal limit. We’ll be a ship under way all the time. That has to have a different command structure,” Li insisted. “You might also consider how you want the vessel renamed. I assume you do not wish to retain a Chinese name. You’ll find some are still superstitious about that, but I doubt our Australians will worry about it.”
All this is exactly why we need your help,” Jeff admitted. “Carry on and let me know when we can drop a test flight. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep sending you updates,” Li promised, disconnected, and immediately made a different call over a new concern.
“Chen? Li here. I just got through speaking with Singh. He wasn’t totally explicit, but he gave me the impression he wishes to drop on the first landing with new untested equipment. This is just totally irresponsible for him to risk himself. No way do I want to confront him on it, but if that’s what he really meant we have to find some way to dissuade him.”
“I’m not sure how to do that,” Chen admitted. “I work for him, as do you.” he reminded Li.
“He’s a minor investor on this venture isn’t he? Leak the possibility to the other investors and they’ll have a fit that their golden goose is going to play test pilot,” Li suggested.
“Maybe, if I can do it and not get caught, or act like I didn’t think it would be any big deal to reveal…Yeah that’s the way to do it. He’d believe it was an innocent act easier, because that’s how he thinks. He’ll put all the blame on the other investors for not being reasonable, by his measure.”
“I knew you’d figure out how to handle it,” Li said. “Thanks.”
Hi Mac,
Love your books. Do you have a possible release date for next April series book.
Nope. I don’t set hard release dates. # 8 is about 2/3 done. Depends on how much life keeps intruding. See the other comments for detail.
Cool! Thanks for the snippet.
Appreciate the snippet. Just finished rereading all the April books and then all the Family Law books. Just made me more anxious though, such enjoyable reading.
Thanks. Good to know it’s coming along nicely. Are you concentrating on this exclusively, or have you got other things in the pipeline?
I have two stand alone books well along. My publisher of the Family Law books is bugging me to move along on them. One titled Hoo Doo I’m wanting to spend some time on too. It has required more research than usual and I can’t/won’t visit Ethiopia to get local color.
I don’t suppose the other stand alone book is “A Quick Clean Victory”?
That book still seems like it could be really interesting read.
Nope. Besides Hoo Doo I have one well along called Outcast. I shouldn’t be a tease I’d love to finish the invasion story but haven’t even THOUGHT about it for months.
Sounds interesting. Can’t say I blame you for avoiding Ethiopia.. It’s not on my list of places I’d like to visit either.
Mac – So, I just got through re-reading both series (though I’m starting to think of them as the same series now after FL3). I’m very excited to see where you’re going, and wish you many more years of publishing. I have to admit at being somewhat of a fanboy now, since I think I’m on the 9th time through them now. Anyway – keep on typin!
I hope your wife continues to recover.
Somewhere I have read a talk between April and Jeff about personal defense drones that hovers over you shoulder..
And I have also read a talk between to people, where one tells the other about a girl he saw on home with the strange drone over her shoulder.. that terrified him.
But I can’t find either anywhere !!! (I Have checked the snippets back awhile)
Can anybody please tell me where these two pieces of text can be found ?
(if online links would be nice)
It’s in chapter 10 of They Said it Would be Easy book 7 of the April series. Shows about 39% thru book on my kindle, location 2357, although I am not sure if the font size I use would change those numbers for you.
The conversation with Jeff was at the end of chapter 4, location 974 which is where April shows him the drone. There is another conversation when he gives the revised drone to April, that is at the start of chapter 10, location 2257.
The working drones are in “the Said It Would Be Easy”.
Thanks, this have been bugging me all day, well since I had an idea while re-reading book 1 – April (started late yesterday).. And now I have an added excuse to plow through every book once more to come to those parts again… Nice
I thought it was hidden in one of the snippets or something, and the last book (#7) was read as it came out and not since I think..
I’m re reading the series for the N’th time and still find joy and new things, but one thing I’m more than a little vexed by is the size of M3 and general build. (As there are some location descriptions that I can’t seem to grasp. Ring E ?? Deck 17 ?? This to me says 5 rings.. and thats wrong. So how ? Might it actually be ring 1, E deck, section or door 17) How large is the cross section of the ring ? (width, height)
I know the general shape, but there are some stuff I find hard to visualize. So I’d love a drawings or even better a poster of the whole thing seen from a few angles. And a cross section showing levels/decks ect.
If I’m not in error, it has a cigar shaped central hub, with spokes going out to rings. The top and bottom of the hub don’t rotate with the rings and has a dock area and is severely irregular due to 0-gee space, factories and machines. A second ring is being built, will it be linked with the first one by a cross corridor ? (it makes kind of sense to me both to make movement from ring possible without going to the hub and to add more living space).
Yes I know I’m focused on this more than I probably should, but I hate not being able to visualize stuff I read about so that it makes sense to me.
So please give me some images showing size, decks ect.. I think I’m not the only one that want this !
I often wonder about this, too. Currently I think the structure is similar to this:
http://a36i.imgup.net/rings26b5.png
Honest – I don’t try to design it all that detailed in my own mind. Being general is a protection. The more detailed and specific it gets the less chance it will hold up very long. Some science fiction from twenty years ago is already silly.
I sort of can understand that, for well I’m writing my own humans into space story with twist or 3, and my mind started designing a similar space station and it is mostly complete now. I I need to make it as believable as possible, I just must and I can’t explain why…But then as I was re-reading April this burning hunger for how M3 looked rose and it hasn’t ablated yet, so I’d really like some images. (think fake poster showing how M3 was built). Please 🙂
(yes, even doctor have said I have a weird brain, they wand to look closer at it and they told me so, I freaked. It starts to look for solutions to everything I come across unless I actively tries not to, and I think its partly to blame for my never ending sleep disorder) :O
Anyhow, because of this I started to think through my own idea, and I realized, I both have a manufacture method, but also theoretics materials for the hull (based on cutting edge research by Nasa and several others, ballistic, radiation and structural), an active water based balance system and a core design. And when I “looked” at my design in my head I saw that there where really only one way to build something like this, in sections. We have the tech do this now (well not the materials, since the stuff can’t be mass-produced yet. ) The internal structure is a bit more unclear, but also it sort of makes sense to make it this one way. There’s even a way to detect and repair/replace any damaged hull component relatively easy.
Note: This i free to use by Jørgen (me), but I want credit if anyone uses any parts of this post. And I freely admit that Mackey Chandlers description of M3 in the April series gave me the seed for this idea to grow. 😀
My thought on the build process: Pre-made Framework assembled (load bearing), outer hull, sensors (load and loads of sensors) mm on the inside, airlocks, connectors, valves mm, inner hull, pressurize, live there and build next section, when the third section get started, the internal structure in the first gets built. Repeat until hub is done, then do the spokes and add the ring the same way. When the ring is complete start spin.With a ring radius of say 200 m to 500 m you get an internal length in the ring between 1250 m and 3100 m, so it would hold a great many people if done right. 😉
If you make a cross section of the ring, I think you’d find a rounded square, with space at the bottom for balancing systems and other stuff (engineering space). Then the A level with 1 G, the height are 4 m to allow for engineering spaces in the roof (electricity, water, air…), it has a wide corridor in the middle of each level and spaces on either side for homes, shops and so on.. Each or every 3-5 section has an airlock stair and elevator to the level above and every section as a spoke has a hub elevator. The other levels follows the same build. And due to the sectioned construction you’d have an airlock at every section, so navigating would be A level, section 34.07 (1 level, section 34 door 7). This could then even allow for some sections to have parts that span several levels to create larger spaces. And each section would not need to be curved, just stick together to section with a slightly slanted end and over time they would form a circle, and living inside would be easier since the floor never slanted, just rose at every section crossing. If theres a second ring the sections by the spokes should be converted so that they also have a direct connection to the second ring. And both these ring crossings and the spokes could have areas for homes, shops, factories, laboratories ect.
I could go in greater detail for my plan/idea has.. well I’m getting closer to a build level of details (many sub systems are not there yet, and I lack ideas for a better power system, grr, but a thorium reactor is starting to look good)
It slightly insane the amount of details my mind has conjured up… (and more keeps coming) *gasp*
And if you didn’t know, I absolutely love the April series.. <3