About Mac
Mac' Chandler is supposedly retired. At the end of 2022 I moved from Rochester MI to the milder climate of North Carolina and a condo without steps much more suited to my age. (75 as I write this)
Writing is still fun and I intend to continue as long as my mind stays fresh. I'm not a expert on English or a skilled grammarian but I love to tell a story. I thank all the people who take a moment to tell me they enjoyed my work.
Thank you!
Just got it.
Bought, looking forward to reading it!
Thank you, sir! I can now look forward to an enjoyable weekend of reading.
Well darn, I was doing my rereads and am just in the middle of book 8. I’ve bought the new one but think I’ll finish the first 10 so I’m current before reading 11
Oh well, lots of good reading over the next 4 or 5 days
Downloading now. THANK YOU, Mac!!
Got it yesterday. Read it last night – no sleep for me! Thanks for another great book. I really liked it!
Just finished the book and quite enjoyed it.
I just have one question:
To me the part with the Foys lacks any direct connection to the others.
Have you thought about removing their parts and just putting them into a stand alone sidestory until they make it to space?
No, they are part of the back story for the Family Law books and what will happen in those as I write more. It helps to my mind to keep the reader aware what is happening on Earth and how differently people live. I did that in previous books by for example telling the story of how Otis came up to Home as well as a couple others to lesser degrees such as Diana. I am resisting the temptation to mention April’s grandparents more often or explore Jeff’s family in India as that would take too much research.
Great read. Thank you.
Another great read Mac! Tanks for taking the steps to get your work published.
Stayed up ’till midnight last night to finish the book. Will probably take a nap this afternoon. A good read as all of your books are. Thank you. Will “patiently” wait (I’ll let others bug you) for FL 6, April 12 or a stand alone, whichever comes first.
omission error chapter 3
Once we have it built, we might even hire [Mo?] to do them for others if you’d be interested.
better beta readers required.
Meeting in Darwin for ANZ, SE Asian, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and possibly South African bankers, investment and aerospace people was planned but unknown if done .
Thank you for being specific. Will fix that. Figured other meeting were killed by the arrest.
Between two readers and Amazon fixed 5 typos. Probably a couple more lurking in there…
Greatly enjoyed the book. Though I noticed that you called April, Lee at one point.
“understands that,” Lee said. “That’s why if”
Other than that and a number of misplaced quotation marks (sorry but I forget where they all are now so I can’t point them out), it was a great read and I cant wait for the next in either series.
I’ll search and find that – thanks
Darn, I finished all 11. Now what can I read. Oh, I know, ALL of your other books because they are all excellent.
Thanks for continuing to write and I hope you keep on writing for a very long time.
Bought, read, thoroughly enjoyed and as usual waiting for the next one. Thankyou Mac
I quite enjoyed the book! Especially chapter 19 onward.
2 anachronisms though.
1. We remember the war and the treaty vividly having lived it. The Earthies who lived through it are all dead or retired. To the next generation, it is all dead history that doesn’t have any gut-level connection to them.
This book is set only about 8 years after the war (~2091), so there should be many people who still remember the war of Home independence.
2. Their agent in trade for Irwin is being sent to WHOOPS.
ISSII hasn’t been renamed to WHOOPS yet.
Again I really enjoyed the book, and look forward to the next. Your writing seems to get more enjoyable with each book.
Zephyr
Thanks. Whoops was supposed to have been edited out as it is in the Family Law books and it’s too soon for it. I’ll fix that. You are right on timing.
chapter 12
thatwere
chapter 15
the new guy at the counter is a North America [American]
chapter 21 2nd sentence
Like and [an] ungainly
“Are you hurt?’She worried
Thanks will fix
You are right I got my time lines mixed up between books and it is fixed now.
Nice job Mac! Just read ‘All In Good Time.’
My comment on transponders follows. They were invented in WWII and were top secret when first deployed. They couldn’t call them IFF boxes on the radio without giving the secret away, so they were code named “Parrots.” Hence “Squawk 1200 ident.” Thing is, the hardware was designed so that all of the numbers in the code were in octal. So the digits only range from 0 to 7. Small point, but if somebody asks you to ‘squawk 9999,’ they’re pulling your leg.
Neat thanks
Thoroughly enjoyed it, Mac!!!! Keep up the excellent story-telling please!!!
As enjoyable as always, Mac.
My one concern is the increasingly ridiculous tech disparity. I don’t know exactly how you’d spice up the suspense, though you hint in the Family Law series that April and the gang meet up with some aliens – more than the glimpse they got so far.
It’s really driven home when Mackay calmly approaches a gunman shooting at him with an assault rifle … and repeatedly hitting his armor with absolutely no effect – if your “bad guy” needs artillery to stop a single bodyguard / infantryman, the war is forever lost. Or Jeff jumping out of Earth’s atmosphere while being chased by a pair of missiles – if your enemy can never strike you, ditto. And of course, April dropping another 300 megaton bomb, this time on a pesky submarine.
Honestly, since Jeff’s jump drive doesn’t seem to need much if any momentum to use and has proven capable of moving some big rocks into Mars orbit, why not have him scale it up a bit, mount one on Home and explore the galaxy in style? … Just curious.
Also, if Home was jump-capable even to a limited extent they could easily move out of the way of any incoming from those pesky Earthies.
That’s why I’ve enjoyed the Vic and Eileen storyline in the last couple of books. Even though we know they survive and make it into space to appear in the Family Law series, they’re not all-powerful and pretty much on par with anyone who opposes them.
Speaking of that, I’d love a bit of Vic’s backstory, perhaps as told by him to Alice for the history she’s writing. The way he moves and offers to teach Eileen about setting and spotting booby traps hints at a special forces background, perhaps?
Looking forward to whatever comes next!
The thing about super-soldiers is even a hundred of them could not take over an Earth power. You simply can’t bust enough or shoot enough people to make a difference. You could send them to shoot as many as they could as an 8 hour day job and they’d never be able to approach the death rate from automobile accidents, medical malpractice and fools ODing on drugs. A full on war pursued that way would be an IRRITATION they would do something about only because of public relations.
Eventually the shortage of quantum fluid will be worked around – one way or another.
Actually control of the electrical supply is possibly enough to allow control over a community without needing to shoot anyone. Holding the community power supply for the community to control its members has been a workable strategy for historic societies that controlled water.
But the generation and delivery of electricity is spread over a large area and easy to disrupt.
Stephen
A mobile Home isn’t possible because Jeff’s step mum doesn’t trust anyone else with the secret of making her special fluid. It took multiple ships to jump the habitats and using the fluid in ships is better than tying it up in the habitats.
Secondly alot of people on the habs had business with other habs (Lakin’s lines, etc), and business with Earth and the habs are not independent in food supply.
Eliminating NA ships everywhere off earth means the Habs don’t need to worry about dodging stuff (and they possibly capture any NEAs that come close) and sets a cost for the other space going nations.
Love the book as always. Was hoping since the last post was Jan 10th we might get a Makey update. How are you doing? Taking any down time? Will you start another April volume, or have you something else in mind? Just want to know on of my favorite writer’s is doing well.
I’ve started both April 12 and Family Law 6. Outside of my books Mackey isn’t a very exciting person. At 72 I am frustrated I don’t have the energy I used to – so just shopping and cooking and doing my laundry takes more time and energy than I really want to devote to them. I haven’t been anywhere since I visited a nephew in North Carolina in the summer. I have some projects in jewelry making and drawing I want to pursue after I catch up editing the older books up to the improved standards of which I am capable now.
At 71 I totally understand, I’m thankful and impressed with what you are accomplishing
I read this novel, quite liked it.
I was looking to reread one of Mackey’s novels and can’t find it on Amazon. I can’t recall the name but it was either a stand alone novel or first in a series that hasn’t been written yet. The main character, after the death of his father, goes to Africa and learns to be a shaman or something along those lines. He then comes back to the USA and has issues with something along the lines of a magic mafia that controls things behind the scenes.
Sorry I had to unpublish that stand alone. It offended relatives who felt one of the characters was too easily identified and it was defaming. The book didn’t make enough money to ever be worth possible legal action.
Do you have a drawing or picture of the DSE high hopes or any of the other ships… I would love to make a model of them
Nope, sorry.
Space exploration – while hot Jupiters, etc could be of no worth there are ‘puffy’ ‘planets’ that could be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nje9qjb5IKI It’s Raining Iron On This Exoplanet, But Only In The Evening! or https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2005/eso2005a.pdf
Here’s hoping that you, your family, and your readers stay safe, happy, and healthy in the face of the Coronapocalypse!
I saw what direction this was taking a few weeks ago and stocked up on a very few things. I’ve always kept extra food available in the house. Once when our power was out for parts of four days we were the only family in our condos (72 units) able to prepare a breakfast. I made steak and eggs and hash browns down by the pool for whoever wanted it. But what most wanted was coffee above all. People still cut me a lot of credit for that event.
My wife is still working at the university – but there are no classes and few professors there. Her boss – chair of the History Dept. is there coordinating the switch to online classes. Few of the professors have any idea how to do it and never would if not forced to.
I am bugged in and took a drive around town yesterday (Sun.) to observe. There wasn’t any great reduction in traffic. Kroger might have been a little less busy for a Sunday. The restaurants appeared packed. I can’t see that anyone was changing their behavior. This is in the county with the most confirmed cases in the state.
My wife is also preparing online lectures and tests for her university students. We have sufficient food/water and we’re forgoing restaurant meals for at least the next couple weeks. Due to half-assed self-quarantine efforts (including mine) I’m expecting a prolonged several months possibly of potential virus exposure. Best, Jim
people are stupid sometimes…
in my country they panicked and all of them went to the supermarket
and thus congregating in large groups..
Its less stupid than you think as unless you are aged or immune compromised most people are not at risk if they get covid19.
Some might not show any symptoms and some might get flu like symptoms but the risk is passing it on to the aged or immune compromised.
Self isolation, etc will only slow the spread and prolong the problem – the solutions are vaccines (nothing soon) or 60% of the healthy population becoming immune to covid19 through an infection and recovery. There are no other probable choices (antibodies proliferation is still future tech) .
As someone in a higher risk category than most of the population I’m not changing how I live my life or spend my money.
Actually (@the post of Stephen January 31, 2020 at 6:35 pm) they are independent, since they have the starships to move all they need to them.
Loved your book as always my favourite author <3
Wish you and your family -as all others, too- healthiness, good nerves and considerate people around you all, helping or staying away.
One thing I noted last night, while re-reading the series. The Earth’s EM shield would have protected Home while in LEO, but once it was moved to L2 behind the moon it would have been outside the EM Field… They would be taking a lot more hard radiation unless they had added a lot more shielding.
If you figure a solution, might want to add a line or two in a future book to explain how that was fixed. Or just ignore it.. Your choicce.
Will ignore it rather than backtrack. I’m sure there are other things that don’t work in reality.
Really hoping this series starts to make some forward progress. The early books really hooked me but while i still enjoy reading them, when I finish each one I have trouble summing up the overall progress of the series. Looking to where family law intersects, I’m both intrigued to see how they get there and a bit disappointed at how stagnate everything seems to be.
I’m perfectly happy with the pacing of the stories. The only issue is that Mac isn’t managing to write one of these books a month 😛