Category: Space Opera

Where Did That Come From? Mr. Darcy, Destroyer of Worlds

Posted on Posted in Jane Austen, Mel Dunay, Pride & Planetoids, Space Opera, Star Wars, The Stars By Degrees, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , 5 Comments

(Thank you, unknown internet person, for creating this meme. It makes the job of explaining the origins of my latest novel so much easier.)

Well, let’s start with the fact that I am a GenXer, who grew up with a limited selection of movies available to me, and more often than not the only thing my siblings and I all felt like watching was the 1977 Star Wars. For some reason, I was very amused to discover that Grand Moff Tarkin had once been an energetic middle-aged man who killed the Hound of the Baskervilles twice and Count Dracula over and over again. It tickled me even more to discover that he had once played Mr. Darcy in a now-lost BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, roughly a quarter of a century before Star Wars. I asked myself: “What if Darcy went around destroying planets?” And a surprising amount of Pride & Planetoids grew out of that single question. 

Continue reading “Where Did That Come From? Mr. Darcy, Destroyer of Worlds” →

Ten Years Ago Today…

Posted on Posted in Art, Covers, Fantasy, Hunter Healer King, Jaiya, Marketing, Marrying A Monster, Mel Dunay, Midjourney, Publishing Plans, science-fiction, Space Opera, Star Wars, Tia Baden, Weird Science, Writing3 Comments

I put a short story with a lousy cover up on Amazon. A couple of months later, I took it down again. It was October of that year before I published my first novel. and now, well…

I would lying if I said I’d found fame or fortune doing this. But it’s been a fun adventure and I plan to keep on with it.

Notebooks

Posted on Posted in ai, Art, bookbinding, Cool Books, Covers, Jane Austen, LLMs, Mel Dunay, Space Opera, Star Wars, Weird Science, WritingLeave a comment

Having gone on at great length about my AI secretaries, I guess I should show you the…more analogue side of my writing process: notebooks. (Disclaimer: I do not use fountain pens and cannot vouch for whether any of these are good for fountain pens.)

I don’t generally “journal” in the conventional sense of writing about my day or my feelings or whatever. (Although this year I’m trying to do gratitude journaling as a Lenten resolution.) I do write up todos to myself, when I am really concerned, or notes after doctor’s visit, or notes when comparison shopping for major purposes. But mostly, I take notes on stories I’m thinking about writing. I collect a lot of cool notebooks, and I also make my own, with varying degrees of success. Below the cut, a couple of examples, with excerpts from the writing process that produced Pride & Planetoids.

Continue reading “Notebooks” →

Spring Book Sale

Posted on Posted in Cheap Books, Cool Books, Cool Websites, Fantasy, Hunter Healer King, Marketing, Mel Dunay, Space Opera, Steampunk, Weird Science8 Comments

It’s time for the latest Book Sale hosted by Hans G. Schantz, where indie authors from across genres join together to offer great stories at great prices. 

I’m glad to be participating once again. This event has always been a great opportunity for readers and writers to connect through their shared love of good books, without all the noise. 

My contribution this quarter is Undead Flight, the second book in my Hunter Hunter Trilogy. It’s a gaslamp fantasy where our horse-loving heroine faces vampires and zombies ON AN AIRSHIP, while sorting out her feelings for a certain sharp-dressed monster hunter.  It continues on from the first book in the trilogy in terms of the setting and the leads’ dynamic, but stands on its own as a story. 

You can find it, and many others, at the sale here. 

As always, I’m thankful for everyone who stops by, whether to browse, buy, or spread the word. Every bit of attention helps keep indie pub going. 

Happy reading! 

Pride and Planetoids: First Draft Complete

Posted on Posted in ai, Jane Austen, Space Opera, Star Wars, Weird Science, World Building, Writing2 Comments

This is the official title of the space regency, first draft just completed at 58,000 words. I had the basic idea for this a long time ago. I skimmed down a list of lost Jane Austen tv adaptations. I spotted a name I knew very well, from a couple of non-Austen contexts, in the cast for the 1952 Pride and Prejudice. And I thought to myself: “What if Mr. Darcy went around exploding planets?” But I only started brainstorming the idea somewhere in the past three years or so. I started writing it sometime in late 2024, around the time I wrapped up Undead Flight. It continued as a background project in 2025, while I was writing Dragon’s Teeth. It picked up speed when I finished that book.

Pride and Planetoids has been a guinea pig for many of my experiments in using AI, including playing with the trial periods of Sudowrite and Novelcrafter. It will soon be a guinea pig for some automations I built to help with revisions. The actual prose and storyline are human creations, as with my other works.

Weird Wednesday: The Role of Religion in My Science Fiction and Fantasy

Posted on Posted in Fantasy, history, Jaiya, Marrying A Monster, Mel Dunay, Myth, Space Opera, Star Wars, Steampunk, tolkien, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , 4 Comments

(Adapted from a comment made elsewhere.)

Religion is not at the foreground of the stories I tend to tell, but it is in the background, part of the “vibe,” so to speak. I tend to stick to versions of a specific cosmogony (Creator+quasi angels+quasi devils), partly because it reflects my own Catholic beliefs, but also frankly because my world-building energy is limited, and most of the time, I’d rather spend it elsewhere.

Continue reading “Weird Wednesday: The Role of Religion in My Science Fiction and Fantasy” →

State of the Author, 4Q2025

Posted on Posted in ai, Art, Dictation, Editing, Fantasy, Jane Austen, LLMs, Marketing, Mel Dunay, Midjourney, Music, Mystery, Myth, Publishing Plans, Space Opera, Star Wars, Steampunk, videos, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

It’s been roughly three months since the last State of the Author, so here’s where I’m at:

Continue reading “State of the Author, 4Q2025” →

Midjourney Monday: The Longbourn Ballroom

Posted on Posted in ai, Art, Jane Austen, LLMs, Mel Dunay, Midjourney, Space Opera, Star Wars, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , 3 Comments

Longbourn’s ballroom was the site of most of the asteroid’s streaming videos, and Mrs. Bennet had insisted on giving it a more regular shape than most of Longbourne’s interior spaces. The space was an immense rectangle with gleaming white marble floors and columns that reflected the purple and gold lights. The far wall was decorated with a pattern of hexagonal screens set in gold frames, which continued across the ceiling. The main video feeds played out on the screens on the far wall, the more minor ones being relegated to a merely decorative role on the ceiling.

State of the Author, 3Q2025

Posted on Posted in ai, Art, Editing, Fantasy, Gladiator, Health, history, Jaiya, Jane Austen, LLMs, Mel Dunay, Midjourney, Mystery, Myth, Oldblood Series, Publishing Plans, Space Opera, Star Wars, Steampunk, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , Leave a comment

This really should have been “State of the Author, Mid-Year,” but I was dealing with health issues for most of June (nothing serious, just distracting) and then July was kind of busy at work, so here we are…

Continue reading “State of the Author, 3Q2025” →

Friday Fragments: Lizzie is Embarrassed

Posted on Posted in Editing, Jane Austen, Space Opera, WritingTagged Leave a comment

After writing this, I decided it was more appropriate for Elizabeth to be angry at Darcy for mentioning her parents’ foulup (in not formally inviting his people to a ball already) at this particular point than for her to be angry at her parents’ for committing it, so I cut it.

Elizabeth felt her cheeks grow hot at her parents’ negligence in not sending messages to the Marcher before now. Her father at least had the excuse of his geophysical work, which could not be fully delegated to software programs and drones, but Longbourn’s social calendar was her mother’s responsibility and this was possibly the best chance the four and twenty families of Longbourn would ever have to meet potential spouses from elsewhere.