Quite early this morning wrapped it up.
I’m spending the day with my wife and letting it get out of my head for a day. Then a quick read through and it goes to the beta readers.
Paper books still coming.
Now I’ll go back and do another April book and perhaps finish up ‘Outcast’ when I need breaks away from April #6.
I know I’m a broken record, but I want to beg for Conspiracy Theory. I know the muse strikes as it pleases, but if you have a choice?
I like it too. It’s one I go work on when I get cross eyed on the main story. Have you got it figured out yet which way it’s going? : )
After the ruckus dies down, say chapter 6 or 7, the old man is gonna wind working for the secret space company.
Uh gee, I meant wind up working for them.
I had some thoughts about what might happen in the rest of the book. Probably not as good as what you’re doing, but here goes. Turns out the folks running the company have good reason to be secretive. They’re not from around here, and they managed by some misadventure to render their landing craft unrepairable. Now they are stuck trying cobble up something with our inferior technology to get them back to the starship they left stealthed in high orbit. Maybe the old fella even turns out useful enough to get a ride to civilization.
Very good guess but not quite. Just different enough you should write that one up yourself. Although it reminds me of a story I read long ago in which an alien craft crashes in water and asks people for aid. They want us to make them a part that is fabricated of tungsten and we can’t make. The humans involved consider the properties of the ally requested and ask if an alloy of gold wouldn’t do? They are told yes, but of course raising the money to make such a thing is difficult. When they finally have the part cast and crated up they charter a boat to drop the part off into the depths where the alien ship is. The boat captain insists he see in the crate before pushing it overboard as he suspects they are disposing of a body. When he sees a big metal casting he’s sure they are nuts. Great story.
Read something similar in Analog. But in that one, it was just the shape that was important, not the alloy. They wound up doing a lost foam casting, and everyone lived happily ever after.
That is very good news, but the 64000 dollar question is when can we get our hands on it?
A month at least. Beta readers and copy editing ya know.