Live Free or Die
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First printing, February 2010 Distributed by Simon & Schuster Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com) |
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-3332-3
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For Aunt Joan: &As always:
Acknowledgements The first acknowledgement is that this book is a total rip-off. For many years I have been a fan of webcomics. Previous readers who have googled Bun-bun know of my affection for Sluggy Freelance. Now look up Schlock Mercenary. www.schlockmercenary.com Go ahead. I'll wait. For a looong time. Because Schlock has been peacefully (not) trundling along under the pen of one Howard Tayler, bon vivant and man about Salt Lake City, since June of 2000. And unlike some webcomics (and some authors who shall remain nameless), Howard has been able to stay on focus and deliver consistently amazing stories Every. Single. Day. People talk about my output but I really don't have a clue how he does it. It's like voodoo. Sickness? Injury? Nothing has stopped Howard and I hope nothing does for a longer time. May he be given the gift of eternal life. But while I like Schlock and Tagon's Toughs, what really intrigued me as a writer was the first contact period which is only lightly touched upon. What would happen if an alien race suddenly trundled a gate to other worlds into our solar system? And Howard wasn't perfectly clear what happened in the immediate aftermath. Instant 'one-world'ness is, in my opinion, unlikely. As is that all the extraterrestrials would be friendly. The next thing I love about Schlock. Back in the day in SF, people were willing to think grand. Since we've had problems with getting off this mud ball, writers seem to think that we have to think small. Howard (and I) disagree. Space is mind-bogglingly huge and vast and neat and scary and neat and huge. The main character in this book is a person who, possibly because of his stature, thinks 'Cheops was insufficiently ambitious.' This is a book about grand vision. The hell with microsats. Give me vast fleets of roaring space-ships! Give me the vision to terraform worlds! Give me battles that make a human feel their tiny little cosmic insignificance and characters that shrug it off and go 'Yeah, but we created these engines of war so who is really larger?' And if I can't get that in near-earth, near-term SF from anybody else, well, damnit, I'll just have to write it myself! The last thing that I love about Schlock is that Howard isn't afraid to dive right into the science part of science fiction and dig hard. So you can expect a certain amount of science in this here science fiction. Get over it. This is not a book for people who love the 'other.' There are no 'original' concepts of how otherworldly aliens would be. One of the nice things about Schlock is that aliens are just people. Not particularly good or bad, not particularly great or menial, not particularly otherworldly. Just people. As are Howard's humans. They haven't changed themselves into something unrecognizable. They're just people doing their jobs. (In the case of Tagon's Toughs, killing beings and breaking things for as much money as they can squeeze.) And in this book and the others that I hope follow, that's what you're going to get. People being people and aliens being not so much different. Is this the prequel of Schlock? That's up to Howard. With his permission, I'm sort of playing about in his universe. And loving every minute of it. The second acknowledgement, very much as great as the first, is to the people that helped me with this novel. I believe, firmly, that if you're going to write science fiction, you should get your science right. Don't get me started on people who think they can write SF and don't know basic chemistry, physics or astronomy. (M. Night Shyamalan comes to mind.) Alas, even my own knowledge of all three is limited. I am not, as Robert Heinlein was, an engineer. Nor an astrophysicist like David Brin. Thus when I get big, crazy space ideas, I need help. Lots of help. In the Vorpal Blade books that is ably supplied by Dr. Travis Taylor, PhD. Alas, Doc has a very busy day job currently and his own projects. In this case, I had to refer to others for assistance. The most notable of the many people who gave input on this novel is assuredly Bullet Gibson and his lovely wife Belinda. Between the two of them they took a very rough manuscript and, without any support but thanks, fixed not only the many problems of mass, volume and velocity but my (numerous) grammatical errors. Any mistakes remain mine. But you should have seen what they had to work with! Enough. Let the insanity begin. Of all the warriors of the world
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Beginning a New Series by a New York Times Best-Selling Author. 