Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Where The Action Is

The Corpus Christi slowed its enormous bulk to a groaning stop some 1,200 meters from the flank of the derelict ship. Displacing 435,000 metric tons, the Christi was a lot of ship to move in any given direction and when the main anti-matter drive engines idled down its magnetic field and the boat shuddered to a complete stop, Uri Haad sent out a couple of drones and waited for the images to resolve on his console. So far, the derelict had told him nothing. In his years of service Haad had come across some strange sights out in the Belt. Generally, after almost six hundred years of manned exploration, of the 17,000 systems explored and cataloged, only eleven harbored any kind of life at all. Out here most of the planets—the ones orbiting the double- and triple-sun systems in the direction of Orion—were gas giants with hard radiation-scorched moonlets. Back towards Alnitak, the triple star system that represented the end of the Belt, and the Flame Nebula beyond there were thousands of worlds that could have supported human existence, but none did. The small rocky planets were constantly buffeted by the harsh solar winds that scoured them clean of all life, stripped away their atmospheres and rendered them quite useless. Only one other planet in the Elber system played host to a rudimentary form of animal life and surely that life was not sophisticated enough to put together a ship capable of reaching star gap distances. This had to be something else, he thought, something from the Fringes, something very old, but, then again, something very new. Maybe something coming under human scrutiny for the first time.
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Excerpt from The Belt Loop.



False-color image taken from detail of "History Repeats Itself" © 1991 R. Jones

Things are indeed strange out in The Belt Loop where binary star systems are the norm and small yellow dwarfs lose millions of tons of mass to their bloated blue-giant companions. It is out here that the action of my next novel takes place, out here over 800 lightyears from mother Earth, out here where death comes at you before you know it.

Look for The Belt Loop in the Kindle store around Labor Day, 2011. Keep track of my progress here; all comments are welcomed.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Book Review

A tight, well written detective story with a futuristic twist, July 18, 2011
This review is from: The Hand Is Quicker (Kindle Edition)
This is the second detective based story I have read in the last few days and it sure didn't disappoint. I've never visited Las Vegas though I have travelled through Reno and I could easily imagine it turning into the world created by R B Jones. The case is a classic and convoluted tale that keeps you guessing and desperate to keep reading. Without spoiling the plot let's just say it has action, excitement and enough twists to make you want to read it again. Great book and I will definitely be keeping an eye on the author in the future.


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Thanks Michael! It's gratifying to know that the story and all of the intricate plot twists are appreciated by my readers.

The space-opera novel (The Belt Loop) is progressing apace, still on target for Labor Day. Cover illustrations by Christopher Jones are being developed in that far-off colony of Maryland.

By the way, the third Danny DeVille novel--working title: The GOD Machine--is also in production. My huge research staff (me) is hard at work developing realistic scenarios and pulling together all of the loose ends. This high-Earth-orbit thriller should be ready to publish around the first of the year.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Back in the day. . .

When I was a lad back in the 1950's, I often dreamed of flying to the stars. That dream was bolstered by watching every type of sci-fi movie that I could find. Some of my favorites? Forbidden Planet, War Of The Worlds, This Island Earth, Earth vs The Flying Saucers, Gog, Invaders From Mars, Angry Red Planet. . . the list is quite long.

Around the time of my eighth birthday, I got a library card and every Tuesday I would run down the street to the waiting Bookmobile to get my alloted armful of books. I was into Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Knutter, and the like and would devour books like they were Necco Wafers.

So the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Fifty plus years later, I still read a lot of books. Science Fiction, Legal Drama, Murder Mysteries, High-Tech Thrillers, Spy Novels, Military Adventures, Police Procedurals, you name it. My reading list is also speckled with a good assortment of hard science and physics books from Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene and others.

Yesterday marked the 42nd anniversary of the historic first Moon landing. Today marked the end of the NASA Space Shuttle flights. My whole life has been spent wondering about the origins of life, the nature of the universe and now I have the gratifying knowledge that I was around to see Man's first feeble attempts to leave the planet of his birth and reach out into the void.


Instantly, after deciding to write a series of space opera novels, I looked toward Orion, my favorite constellation. Easily discernable in this photo is Bernard's Loop, a 300 lightyear-wide bubble of expanding gas thought to be the remnant of a massive multi-stellar explosion some 2 million years ago. This area of space is the background of my stories and, just as always, I'm certain that once Man actually explores this region of the Milky Way, the truths found there will easily outstrip the fantasies. Nature is more creative than we give Her credit for.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Belt Loop - Sneak Peek

    Washoe touched controls on his console. “Ahh, sir, at present course it would be headed directly for Sol. Looks like the ship was headed for Earth, captain.”
    Earth! The Corpus Christi was roughly 810 light years from Earth patrolling the void between Alnitak and Mintaka, two huge suns that were almost 100,000 times more luminous than our Sun. Yet here was a vessel, if Mister Washoe was reading the algorithms correctly, heading right for the dim star that birthed the Human race. Captain Haad shook his head. Was such a thing actually possible?
    “Double check your figures, Mister Washoe,” Haad said.
    “Astrogation confirmed, sir. At her present speed and course, she would have made Earth in, ahh, six point six billion years.”
    Thin laughter rippled across the bridge. “Good thing we came along, captain,” Ensign Hoge said.
    “Should I alert all commands, sir?” from Nono Gant.
    Haad had to laugh out loud. “That’s going to be the highlight of my Threat Assessment Report: incoming alien warship at the speed of snail. Power up the defensive shields, the planet is in peril. . .”
    Finally some of the edge came off the blade and the bridge was relaxed again. Haad considered what he had just been told. The alien ship was on a course that would have taken it into the home system but was moving so slowly that more than likely the Sun would probably not even be there when she arrived. Kick this can down the road? Not on your life. As long as that ship was capable of moving, as long as she showed any kind of life at all, a potential threat existed. Even now, with Yorn’s team probing the inside of the derelict, they could accidentally trigger some kind of defense mechanism, some kind of intruder alert protocol that would bring the worm out of its hibernation. Maybe even activate some version of a star drive engine that would be powerful enough to burn it out of the confining Higgs Field and propel it on its original course. As unlikely as those scenarios seemed, Haad had to put the bantering on pause and get his crew back on mission. Slow or not, the worm was still active.



The above excerpt is from "The Belt Loop" and the completed novel should be ready to download as a Kindle eBook before Labor Day, 2011. Filled with high adventure and alien mysteries, follow Captain Uri Haad and his crew on the Colonial Navy Ship Corpus Christi as she plies the void within one of the most interesting places in this arm of the Milky Way.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

What I Do When I'm Writing

My creative environment is important; my "office" or "man cave" is important. I surround myself with the necessary tools I need when writing: the computer (of course), printer, reference books, and lots of music. My creative space is surrounded by CDs and usually I put on a mix of music to write by.

Some of my favorites? Old-school jazz (Grover Washington, Jr., Gato Barbieri, Peter White, David Sanborn and the like); old-school R&B (Marvin Gaye, The Miracles, The Impressions, Eddie Kendricks, The Temptations, etc.); space music (Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek, Alien, ET, etc.); and miscellaneous moving music to keep me interested in what I'm doing (James Bond themes, soundtracks, etc.).

My favorite music to write by: Enigma. Hands down. I find that the thumping rhythms and chants are often reminiscent of space-opera themes and sometimes, not conciously, I find myself writing to a tempo, a back-beat on the keyboard, a soaring melody that often corresponds to the action I'm depicting. My full-immersion mode is complete with noise-canceling headphones to keep my mind on the task at hand.



Needless to say, I'm sort of compulsive when it comes to the tunes. I have a few (ha!) to choose from and on any given day, writing or drawing, the back-beat is present in the cave.

The first part of "The Belt Loop" is finished, 5 more parts to go.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Progress Report

Back in December of 1999 I was driving I-70 from Las Vegas to Denver and saw a very bright Orion rising over the eastern horizon. It filled my windshield for a few minutes, and I waited for a lull in the traffic and doused my headlights. This portion of "Road Trip" needs no explanation:


This image (taken with my six-zillion megapixel organic-ocular imaging system: my eyes) is what I saw. I started this drawing a few months later and it still is unfinished.

But wait, there's more! Now that I am writing a new sci-fi novel, working title "The Belt Loop" I think it is time to finish this drawing. The book will take place in the Orion "belt" (between the two outer stars of the belt -- the middle one is a huge blue giant some 500+ light years further out than the other two) and it is about 10,000 words deep so far. Pure space opera with social implications and a lot of action.

Look for it this fall.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Eye

Developing a style is important in art as well as writing. I have been creating a style of black and white pen and ink drawings for the last forty years. Dark images, full of detail, thought-provoking things from my imagination.

Isn't that exactly what I've been doing in my writing? I would like to think so. The gushing rush to judge my own work is down to a slow-moving stream in the great river of imagination. I feel no safe harbor is at hand. So I plan to sail on, get more detailed, darker, and hope the next book will find a niche of its own. That is the goal, that is the plan.

As this old piece of artwork attests, I have much to do. Compared to my latest artistic efforts, this piece is a little thin on detail, a little light on the thought-provoking thread. But, as with all things that age well, it stands the test of time and lets me know that I am still on the right track. As with the art, the writing will get better, and the light behind my eyes will burn bright again.


The Eye: © 1973 R. Jones