Irwin appeared in their video exactly like the official North American release showed him, except he had on a heavy neck collar attached to a waist chain and another long heavy chain hanging to ankle shackles. A separate long chain connected wrist to wrist. There were two black clad figures standing behind him pointing sub-machine guns at his head. He recited the same message exactly as before. When he naturally paused a little in his recital one of the figures nudged him with a muzzle.
At the end of the official video somebody off camera called: “Cut!”
The black clad figures lowered their guns and swept black balaclavas up and off of their faces revealing the President of the USNA and the Secretary of State.
The Secretary smiled and reached in his pocket. “Good boy!” he said, and tossed a treat. Irwin stretched a little to catch it in his mouth and looked stupidly happy.”
“It’s ridiculous,” April said, shaking her head.
“Good, that’s exactly what we were aiming for,” Chen assured her. “The thing was documentary length by news standards, but it made them look ridiculous, not us. If we claimed their video was fake that would be easy to ignore but we just demonstrated how easily it could be faked. That has much more power than the unsupported claim.”
“What?” Chen asked at the flash of consternation that showed on April’s face.
“It just occurred to me. Somebody down there will believe our video with the added officials just like they did North America’s video.”
“Well sure. I could have put them in clown suits and somebody would believe it.
any ETA on book 11
April 11 is about a third along and I just started Family Law 6 yesterday and have a couple thousand words.
I love these little snippets, keeps the appetite whetted. It must be complicated writing Family Law at the same time, making the past and future agree with each other on every detail. Will certainly snap this up when it publishes!
I try to not be too specific – sometimes I mess up.
When its finished.
LOL
Ann
funny Ann…. I thought July was great because my top 5 another’s came out with new books. now all read so I have the long wait. been getting picky on my books. with Kindle Unlimited try books and finish them all the time. but for about a year now I’ve been enjoying rereading good authors rather than read so so author for the first time. my top 5 in no order is Mr Chandler, NC Read, Michael Chatfield, Laurence Dahners, And Peter Grant. so if any of you like me and waiting for a new book give them a try. the reason I as eta I’m getting my April urge again, but whether wait closer to book 11 published date.
Since I’m a fan of April and Laurence Dahners is one of my favorites as well, I think I’ll check out NC Read and Michael Chatfield. Peter Grant books don’t sound like my type though after reading the description.
Tony Corden’s Stork Tower books are good if you skip the D&D stats.
I love the authors you listed – another of my favourites (re-readable books) is Nathan Lowell. Just finished a re-read of April. I have a list of new books I am starting on this weekend – hope one of them is good! I’m like you – for the last year or so I have been re-reading rather than buying different books. Would love to find a new someone good to read!!
I found Chandler a couple weeks ago and have gone through all the Family Law and April books.
One of those I can’t believe I passed him by authors.
Great stories, great writing, nice and long too.
Looking forward to much more.
Laurence Dahners is writing the next Hyliss story but after that he will write another in the Ell series.
Have no contact with other authors.
Ann
Dahners is probably my favorite author.
For some reason I approved comments and WordPress changed them back – no idea why. I will check again tomorrow for sure and see that they ‘stuck’.
Mac
In the next Family Law books will we ever learn any more about the habitable worlds discovered the A class and A- Class?
In time. If I live long enough.
If anyone has read through his entire catalog and is looking for more Mackey style indie sci-fi, may I recommend the following:
Joel Shepherd – the Cassandra Kresnov series
Bruce Bretthauer – the Families War series (start with Firestar)
Mark G Brewer – start with Regan’s Reach
Gina Marie Wylie – start with Kinsella or The Far Side
E. William Brown – The Perilous Waif
K. M. O’Brien – The Sculpted Ship
K. B. Spangler – the Rachel Peng series.
And of course, anything by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.
These are some of my go-to rereads every few years, as are many of the authors y’all have mentioned.
(btw, I’m currently rereading Paper or Plastic. It’s like comfort food for the imagination.)
Have every single book you’ve written (paid permanent, not kindle unlimited) So I think I can classify myself as an admirer.
But why do I get the feeling you’ve had a bad personal experience and formed some unwarranted bigoted attitudes towards dogs, cats and southerners? Excepting Newfoundlands. All your characters do. It really kinda breaks me out of suspension of disbelief, especially for near term sci fi.
Fun Fact: Mississippi has more black elected office holders than any other state. Not per capita. In raw numbers.
Personally, I’ve witnessed 10X more_hateful, casual racism in NYC and Chicago than in Alabama.
Anyway – I’ll keep anticipating April & Lee’s next life chapters. And I try to keep Gordon’s calm attitude dealing with my daughters!
I guess because I lived down south in the early 60s. Things may be different now. The schools were still segregated and we lived in the poor whites area next to the colored – so I knew a few black kids. One informed me he wouldn’t be going to school because he had no shoes. Nobody cared if he stayed home. I poked my nose in that and got everybody mad at me. Will tell the story sometime.
Feel like telling that now. I took the kid up to country store and bought him shoes. His dad was fuming because it made him look bad. He always had money for beer and cigarettes but not shoes for his kid. My dad was mad because I stuck my nose in another family’s business.
The only one not angry at me was the kid’s uncle. I didn’t know who he was but I was walking past his house and he called for me to come up on the porch and talk to him. He was a little put off I called him sir, but once he figured out I wasn’t being smart it was OK. I just said – You are older than me. He asked about the shoes. I just said it was the right thing to do and if everybody was mad at me that wasn’t any new thing for me. He said – Well I want to do you a good turn. I’m going to show you something, and you don’t go run and show everybody else or there’s no point to knowing it. He took me to the woods where there was a clearing and drove a pointed 2×4 in the ground. He rubbed a little rosin on the end and stroked it with a piece of steel. It made an awful noise and the worms started crawling out of the ground all over. In about 20 minutes we had all the worms I could carry in a 5 gallon bucket. (with dirt to keep them from crushing each other). So he said that’s calling worms. Beat what I was doing digging them with a shovel.
I have just re-read your entire catalogue for the fifth time. I have purchased all of them so that I can read them at will. You are listed in my top five favorite authors and are on my buy as soon as released list. I’m eagerly waiting for the next installment of both April and Family Law.
I’m working on both – but remember, I’m retired and have a life. I just went to Costco and I’m going to UPS before I have any time to write this afternoon. I’m also running the older books through Grammarly and sending them to a young fellow to format for paper editions. It’s been tough getting a decent paperback. The first two seem to be sufficiently clean and readable now.
Ditto everything Colleen said except some of the earliest books I am at 7 times
Will we get to see the April series or the newest Family Law on Audible?
They asked for the first four. So far they have not shown any interest in FL #5 or the April series. I’d be happy to sell those rights. It still hasn’t earned out the $2k advance so maybe they are disappointed in the sales.
Gina Marie Wylie wrote a couple of excellent series too. One of her stand alones has continually earned a re-read: Symphony of Trees.