Tag Archives: survival

Jul 13 2019

Trinity is Free for Three (days)

Beginning at midnight on July 14, the giant-sized internet seller of books and other sundries will be offering the eBook version of my science fiction novel, Trinity on Tylos, for free! I’ve seldom used this option, but as their Prime Day promotions will be going on, I thought I might get a few people to download it. If I’m really lucky, I might get another positive review, too. Anyway, here’s the book cover; just click for a link to the sale.

ToT_cover_final_webLG

Here’s an excerpt of my favorite review of the novel:

“TRINITY ON TYLOS… is instead a thought-provoking book that will challenge one’s beliefs about the importance of motherhood, duty, and sacrifice. At times, the choices made by Venice and even Allie are ones the reader will disagree with and perhaps even be angered by them. However, one of the trademarks of a well-written novel is its ability to inspire others to debate. TRINITY ON TYLOS accomplishes this and so much more. Pamela J. Dodd has truly demonstrated her gift as a writer with this stunning book.” —

May 5 2018

Some Science Behind My Science Fiction

Having just read an article in Popular Science online about what a”Generation Ship” might look like, I was gratified to see that some of the core concepts in my science fiction novel, Trinity on Tylos, are firmly rooted in science.

The article speculates about what challenges the multi-generation inhabitants of a colonizing venture (based on an extrapolation of current space technology) might face. Topics addressed include propulsion, medical issues, livestock, and robot workers.

In Trinity on Tylos, the alien captain of the Archeonite III has a big problem: his colony of survivors died out, but he has the ability to grow little Archeons from stored genetic material. He just needs some baby mamas, and my characters Venice Dylenski and Alathea Duke end up with the task. In the Popular Science article, We Could Move to Another Planet with a Spaceship Like This, the author mentions that “speculators say it’ll take 20,000 souls to start a healthy population on a new world. One space-­saving tip: Bring frozen embryos and people to diversify the gene pool upon arrival.” That’s right out of my novel, where Azareel and his android medical team design the embryos that Venice and Alathea gestate.

As in the Popular Science article, robots are probably going to be the grunt workers of the future. In my novel, the Archeons use robots (as they take the form of their makers, I call them androids) as workers. A limited but technologically proficient population would no doubt employ robotic workers, freeing the populace to supervise or take on  tasks that require a more creative mind.

Trinity on Tylos is a complex story, because it goes beyond being just a space opera and delves into human relationships, made more complicated by the limited number of people with whom the characters interact. Also, it is a story of surviving on a somewhat hostile planet, solving such issues as having enough water to irrigate crops. The Popular Science article mentions farming as one of the most necessary activities once the generation ship reaches a new planetary home. Indeed, when I wrote Trinity on Tylos, I remembered the words of William Bradford, a leader of the pilgrims who settled Massachusetts, who wrote “what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, fall [sic] of wild beasts and wild men—and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not.” Survival is not easy, and the Popular Science article, although very positive in outlook, does not ignore the difficulties that might face the future generations of humans whose journey began with some adventuresome ancestors.

Technological progress and science fiction often go hand in hand, because what writers dream up, engineers can (sometimes) make happen. However, the reverse is also true— when creating a science fiction story, there must be some science blended in with the fiction. Trinity on Tylos is science based fiction, and it is available for your Kindle reader or Kindle enabled device; just click on the cover art.

 

Dec 6 2017

Not with a Whimper: Producers

D. A. Boulter was one of the first authors I read when I first downloaded the Kindle app for my (now passed on to a grandchild) iPad2. Gosh, I loved the app, the book, and that iPad. Fast forward a few years, and I have quite a few ebooks, a newer iPad, and more time to read.  I recently purchased Not With A Whimper: Producers. Despite the odd title, this novel fits into the “universe” that I first explored when I read Courtesan by Boulter.

I was prepared to love this book, as I have generally liked most of the books I’ve read by the author, and the description seemed interesting. However, as I slogged through the early parts, I wasn’t so sure. Somewhere around the 50% read portion I got seriously interested, but in the interest of not spoiling it, I won’t say why. The rest of the book was a quick read.

The main character of this story is a not quite 19 year old Larry Clement, and in many ways this story reminds me of the coming of age yarns that were the foundation of Robert Heinlein’s science fiction writing. Larry is a very unhappy young man, but a fundamentally good person, as the story opens. His girl, Sandra, and his fellow students are not fleshed out too well, but the relationship with his father is a main focus, so dear old dad, aka Robert Clement, is also a well thought out character. While I think that Courtesan is among this author’s best works, it isn’t necessary that readers read it first, as this novel stands alone quite well. However, the stories do share some characters, so I enjoyed the connections.

When I last reviewed a story by Boulter, I commented that his works don’t have many reviews and seem to have few readers. That’s a shame, because this guy has plenty of stories in him, good ones, and in a time when there is such a dearth of new material for readers, he deserves more reviews and the readers that write them. Indeed, anyone who likes science fiction or simply a good story should check out D. A. Boulter’s $2.99 Kindle books. Honestly, that’s cheap reading— less than a decent hamburger!

Sep 13 2017

Irma’s aftermath

crashed Athens carI’ve been picking up limbs—wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load of sticks. Some of the sticks were dead limbs, with no leaves attached, and some of the limbs have some greenery still clinging to them. All of these limbs were torn down by the 45+ miles per hour gusts associated with Tropical Storm Irma. And, as I lost electricity for just over an hour, and phone and internet for just over a day, I was darned lucky.

Nearby towns seemed to have it worse, and I’m not sure why, other than the population density is greater in some areas, so there is more infrastructure to break. Of course, as a whole, northern Georgia, which I call home, got out lightly, because we were where folks from the coast evacuated “to” rather than “from.”

I usually have some emergency supplies on hand, including freeze dried meals such as Mountain House Biscuits and Gravy and Mountain House Noodles & Chicken, but I didn’t need any of them. Still, as a country bred woman, I do keep plenty of emergency supplies on hand, including lots of AmazonBasics AA Performance Alkaline Batteries along with my small radio, flashlights, and so forth. I charged up my 2 in1 Lipstick powerbank LED Flashlight too, but with only an hour of outage before the nice folks at Jackson Electric got things working again, I didn’t actually use it. Getting prepared for the storm, for me at least, simply meant a quick trip to the grocery store to be sure we had survival items such as pre-cooked popcorn (yum!) and some bread for the peanut butter I generally have on hand.

Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well. I’ll write some more soon, but there are still some limbs to add to my growing burn pile.

Jun 8 2015

Unbroken– the book (review and commentary)

Unbroken coverWhen I was younger, one of the genres of movies and television that was quite popular was stories from World War II. While I wasn’t alive for it, of course, many in my parents’ generation had fought or knew those who had. Indeed, on a wall in my house is a framed picture of my uncle, A.L. Dodd, Junior, who was killed a few weeks before the end of the war in Europe; he was in Germany, in the Ruhr valley, when he was shot by a German machine gunner. So, the war was quite real to us. We enjoyed the stories, because they were entertainment, but knew that the war had affected most everyone in America.

After seeing the film Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie, I was telling my sister about it, and she said, “Clearly, you don’t know the whole story. Read the book.” And, with lots of other reading and a bit of teaching, it was almost six months after hearing that advice before I got around to reading the book by Laura Hillenbrand. OMG, why did I wait so long? The movie is very good, but the book is great. Maybe I waited, in part, because I don’t usually like biographies.

As told by Hillenbrand, Louis Zamperini was quite a character, from his earliest days. His parents didn’t quite know what to do with him, and he might be described as a juvenile delinquent. His brother convinced the school authorities to allow Louie to get involved in sports, and Louie was gifted in running. So gifted, in fact, that he became an Olympic runner, and a very good one. He might have known even more fame as a track star, but World War II got in the way. After his plane crashes in the Pacific, Louie and two other Army Air Force survivors were adrift for a very long time. Then, on the brink of death, they were captured by the Japanese. Yes, Louie was still alive, but he faced incredible brutality.

One of my elderly friends is a survivor of a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines. She was interned there as a child, one of several children of a missionary who fled there from China, because the parents thought that being in a U.S. territory was safer for their children. The treatment she and other family members endured was brutal, and toward the end of the war, the prisoners were scheduled to be executed before the Japanese withdrew. She was saved because some American volunteers broke down the fence and escorted the POWs to safety. My friend, to this day, cannot understand Americans can embrace Japan as our friends and allies. To her, they were a barbaric enemy, who starved her family and killed far too many non-combatants.

Hillenbrand does explain the brutality, through Louie’s account, and accounts by other prisoners. But she reinforces the brutal nature of the Japanese POW camps with survival statistics. According to Hillenbrand, only 1% of American POWs held by the Germans or Italians (the European theater) died, but in Japan 37% died. She also goes into the cultural differences which led to the cruelty, not as an excuse, but to let readers know more about the “why” which must come to the mind of her readers.

(spoilers)

The film, Unbroken, closes with the end of the war. That is a good stopping point for a Hollywood film; the audience can go home knowing Louie made it out alive and was welcomed home by his loving family. But, as my sister noted, there is more to the story. The book has a subtitle Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption and it is appropriate. While I do not fault Jolie for leaving out the “redemption” part, the story is incomplete without Louie’s problems adjusting to “normal” life after the horrific experiences he had in Japan and how finding religion gave him the peace he desperately needed. The author continues to cover multiple story lines, including “Phil” the pilot to “the Bird” who was the most sadistic of the Japanese prison guards.

The entire story is important, and those who watch the movie get only the middle, so I encourage readers to tackle the book by Laura Hillenbrand. While it isn’t a quick read, it is certainly worth your time.