http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/crystalrain/excerpt.htm
Just wanted to share this incredibly awesome book I finished a couple hours ago. It's by an author who I got to meet over the summer, and this is his first book. But don't let that keep you from reading it; it's one of the most gripping books I've read in a long time. Right up there with Wen Spencer, who won the John Cambell award a short while ago. Seriously, Tobias Buckell has got to be as good as Timothy Zahn, and possibly better than Kevin J. Anderson and Michael A. Stackpole.
Crystal Rain itself is unique as far as I'm concerned, though it's got elements that remind me of Pirates of the Caribbean (SFBP), Timothy Zahn's Cobras Two, and even the Pack in Wen Spencer's Ukiah series. Add in a pair of cultures, a protagonist without a memory (always fun stuff!), and spiffy, shiney technology.... I'm so glad he's writing another book!
So... I hope I don't sound like a sales person, but it's really awesome. Had he left any holes, this would definately be a candidate for fan fiction, but seeing as how it took me four books to feel ready for Pack fan fiction, that's not going to happen any time soon.
*sigh* Back to boring books now. Of Mice and Men is waiting for me to finish by the end of the weekend. Merg.
I'm starting to see that reading new books is only fun if someone else is reading them with you... No, reading good books is just more fun if someone reads them with you so you can chat about it. *evil grin* Jenn, Jena, get ready for some interesting reading. That's why you're not in AP English, right? (Hmmm, which is worse? Huck Finn or Mice and Men in the same amount of time?)
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
Page 7, section 2
"Why didn't that work?" Nick demanded, setting Julianne on a section of clear ceiling. He furiously glared at her, already placing the blame for the impending loss of his immense savings.
She busied herself by straightening her clothes to their proper positions while considering why the reset had failed to change the gravity. "Bill's programming must have taken precedence. But I'm not sure. We didn't talk while working on it."
"Of course not. You don't talk to anyone."
She crossed her arms and stared stright at him, as she hadn't done since becoming the ship's hermit. The pitch of her voice rose considerably. "Why should I?"
His jaw dropped in bewilderment. "Oh, come on! You're not still mad about that whole stealing from your entire family thing, are you? That was years ago!"
"My neice died because she couldn't afford her medicine after that!" she yelled, explaining what she had told none of the crew.
"Oh." He stood there, as shocked as if the quiet, diminutive mechanic had punched him in the stomach. All this time, he thought she had been mourning the loss of money. But now he considered how much he had cherished his family before he had discovered the attractiveness of being a con artist. "I didn't know," he whispered in the absence of an apology for his part of it.
She drew in a calming breath, desperately trying to keep her neice's face out of her mind's eye. Distraction always worked best for avoiding tears. "We're still on the ceiling," she resolutely stated.
"Right." Her admission still hung in his memory, the aftertaste of caster oil. He tried to think of what few solutions a common con artist might know. "What if we shut the power off?"
Julianne frowned and looked at him as if his face had turned nebula blue. "Do you want to risk flooding the ship with sewage when the electric containment stops?"
"No, what if we shut the gravity itself off?"
She mentally ran trhough a list of all the technology onboard that could possibly suffer from a lack of gravity, not least of which being any open containers in the refridgerator. She grimaced. "Well, we wouldn't be stuck on the ceiling anymore, but when we turn it back on, we'll go right back to where we are."
"You do know there are three Lawkeeper cruisers waiting for us out there, right?"
"Yes, but..." She bit her lips, thinking, though she didn't come up with anything. "I see your point."
***
Chrys felt only the slightest surprise as her weight seemed to evaporate, allowing her to float away from the ceiling outside the flgith deck with the slightest twitch of a muscle. Having watched the lethargic approach of the small Lawkeeper fleet for five minutes, she immediately pulled herself into the pilot's chair, strapped in, and prepared to leave. It had not escaped her attention that the ships had positioned themselves where she had only two escape routes, both thoroughly covered by the weapons.
Having participated in the government for a decade, Chyrs knew an often-overlooked aspect of Lawkeeper cruisers: the sides had only a sparse scattering of weapons. They might have appropriated an increase in the armament budget that had restricted the density of such weapons, had they had to deal with many hard-core criminals, but the conservative government had no reason to correct a mistake that was not deadly. The Mal'akhu's designers, however, had not missed a detail so important. (Chyrs's substantial threats had made sure of that.)
She aimed her relatively small yacht at a hangar bay that began to open in the sides of one of the larger vessels to let the Mal'akhu dock. Keeping the speed low, she moved her yacht into the may, a cavern that could easily have housed a pair of twenty-second century sports stadiums, built to hold millions of people.
The Mal'akhu straightened out to point at the far side of the ship, where a pair of thick doors blocked the passage all the way through.
A risingg chime blared from the radio; her failure to abide by general apprehension procedure, which involved setting down as near as possible to the entrance door most likely made the ship's commander especially nervous.
"Why didn't that work?" Nick demanded, setting Julianne on a section of clear ceiling. He furiously glared at her, already placing the blame for the impending loss of his immense savings.
She busied herself by straightening her clothes to their proper positions while considering why the reset had failed to change the gravity. "Bill's programming must have taken precedence. But I'm not sure. We didn't talk while working on it."
"Of course not. You don't talk to anyone."
She crossed her arms and stared stright at him, as she hadn't done since becoming the ship's hermit. The pitch of her voice rose considerably. "Why should I?"
His jaw dropped in bewilderment. "Oh, come on! You're not still mad about that whole stealing from your entire family thing, are you? That was years ago!"
"My neice died because she couldn't afford her medicine after that!" she yelled, explaining what she had told none of the crew.
"Oh." He stood there, as shocked as if the quiet, diminutive mechanic had punched him in the stomach. All this time, he thought she had been mourning the loss of money. But now he considered how much he had cherished his family before he had discovered the attractiveness of being a con artist. "I didn't know," he whispered in the absence of an apology for his part of it.
She drew in a calming breath, desperately trying to keep her neice's face out of her mind's eye. Distraction always worked best for avoiding tears. "We're still on the ceiling," she resolutely stated.
"Right." Her admission still hung in his memory, the aftertaste of caster oil. He tried to think of what few solutions a common con artist might know. "What if we shut the power off?"
Julianne frowned and looked at him as if his face had turned nebula blue. "Do you want to risk flooding the ship with sewage when the electric containment stops?"
"No, what if we shut the gravity itself off?"
She mentally ran trhough a list of all the technology onboard that could possibly suffer from a lack of gravity, not least of which being any open containers in the refridgerator. She grimaced. "Well, we wouldn't be stuck on the ceiling anymore, but when we turn it back on, we'll go right back to where we are."
"You do know there are three Lawkeeper cruisers waiting for us out there, right?"
"Yes, but..." She bit her lips, thinking, though she didn't come up with anything. "I see your point."
***
Chrys felt only the slightest surprise as her weight seemed to evaporate, allowing her to float away from the ceiling outside the flgith deck with the slightest twitch of a muscle. Having watched the lethargic approach of the small Lawkeeper fleet for five minutes, she immediately pulled herself into the pilot's chair, strapped in, and prepared to leave. It had not escaped her attention that the ships had positioned themselves where she had only two escape routes, both thoroughly covered by the weapons.
Having participated in the government for a decade, Chyrs knew an often-overlooked aspect of Lawkeeper cruisers: the sides had only a sparse scattering of weapons. They might have appropriated an increase in the armament budget that had restricted the density of such weapons, had they had to deal with many hard-core criminals, but the conservative government had no reason to correct a mistake that was not deadly. The Mal'akhu's designers, however, had not missed a detail so important. (Chyrs's substantial threats had made sure of that.)
She aimed her relatively small yacht at a hangar bay that began to open in the sides of one of the larger vessels to let the Mal'akhu dock. Keeping the speed low, she moved her yacht into the may, a cavern that could easily have housed a pair of twenty-second century sports stadiums, built to hold millions of people.
The Mal'akhu straightened out to point at the far side of the ship, where a pair of thick doors blocked the passage all the way through.
A risingg chime blared from the radio; her failure to abide by general apprehension procedure, which involved setting down as near as possible to the entrance door most likely made the ship's commander especially nervous.
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