The Human Legion

January 16, 2015

Don’t buy my book!

As I come across exciting new releases and special offers on space opera and military sci-fi books that I’m interested in, I’ll occasionally post the news here. It’s not going to be an everyday thing, and it’s not an affiliate advertising thing where I get commission; I just think that if you enjoyed the Human Legion books, you might also enjoy occasional updates on books by great authors such as Marko Kloos, Christopher Nutall, and Phillip Richards (to name just a few). All that’s still true, but I’m going to first of all mention a book that was put on pre-release last night. It’s called Total Conflict and is an anthology of 18 short stories about conflict, nearly all of them being military science fiction. It’s written mainly by British science fiction authors, and features some well-known writers such as […]

January 14, 2015

Human Legion Story Arc and Book Lengths

Since the Human Legion books were launched a few weeks ago, a few people have commented on book lengths. Some have said the first book is too long, others the second book too short. Book length is very important to get right, and I am doing something unusual in not setting all books to the same length. So I’m going to spend a few moments to explain why they are the lengths they are and, more importantly, to set expectations to Human Legion readers about what to expect for the remaining books in the series. Actually, I’ve finished the first draft of this post and realize I’ve spent more than a few moments, so first of all here’s the summary. The first book, Marine Cadet, is 140,000 words long and is a double-length opener to the series. The second and […]

January 8, 2015

A series on small support craft

Shuttle craft are commonplace in science fiction, so much so that it’s easy to let them be generic boxes. A notable exception, I always thought, was the Lambda-class shuttle from Star Wars (where the bad buys get the coolest ships). In the first two Human Legion books, we see three types of shuttlecraft, though not in great detail. They come center stage in the third book. So in celebration of the smaller craft, I’ve started a series today exploring them in a little more detail. The first installment is here. Further ahead there will be a HumanLegion.com exclusive short story coming soon written from the perspective of the Trogs, which makes for an interesting set of pronouns because the Trogs don’t have males and females as we do. It’s set on the Troggie homeworld. I hope you enjoy it.

January 3, 2015

A space opera book launch… with Lego!

I am proud and excited to announce that Indigo Squad, the second book in the Human Legion series, is working its way through Amazon’s servers to be available from the Kindle Store within the next 12 hours. It will initially be available as a Kindle book, with a paperback to follow a few days later. The initial price will be 99 cents, or the equivalent in local currency, and I will keep it there for at least a week before raising the price. My intention is to follow this pattern with the other books, to give humanlegion.com subscribers the chance to get each new book at the bargain price. My son is very excited. He’s been spending Christmas vacation dreaming up Lego constructions, and to help me celebrate the launch of Indigo Squad he’s recreated a scene from the book in Lego. He’s built a […]

December 31, 2014

Happy New Year… and thanks!

Happy New Year! I hope 2015 brings success and satisfaction for everyone reading this. In the closing hours of 2014, I also want to thank everyone’s support in making, reading, and, yes, buying the first Human Legion book. I’ve just checked the Amazon charts and still can’t quite believe the book is ends the year as the #1 bestselling space marine book in the US and #1 bestselling military science fiction book in Australia. The second book, Indigo Squad, will be available to pre-order very soon, and I’m planning the third book to come out around Easter time. Here’s to 2015. It’s going to be an exciting place to be.

December 30, 2014

Space dogfights, what is down in a spacecraft, and upside-down moonwalking

I received some very interesting comments today from Hans. Thanks, Hans 🙂 So that I could share more easily with everyone, I’ve put them into this post. Let’s have some debate! First up we have space dogfighting. Here’s Hans: IMHO I think that banking in space only makes you an easy target. Turn 90 degrees and accelerate hard to change direction takes time, fuel and is too slow (while you’ll keep going forward ’cause you didn’t stop). As I conceive a ship, it has thrusters all around its construction so you can roll, pitch, yaw but most important you can go up and down. As I see a space battle, if you want to shake someone at your six, you turn 180 degrees, go up or down, pitch, fire at your pursuer, and brake hard (afterburner) so you can […]

December 25, 2014

Happy Christmas

Unfortunately for the characters in The Human Legion books, they don’t celebrate Christmas. Luckily for me, I do, so here’s wishing you a Happy Christmas and a most excellent New Year.

December 17, 2014

On getting around inside spacecraft

The bridge of the Starship Enterprise. CIC in Babylon 5. The Millennium Falcon’s gun blister that Luke uses to shoot down pursuing TIE fighters in Star Wars. And while we’re at it: Flash Gordon’s fizzing cigar tube rocket ship, the TARDIS control room, the entirety of Battlestar Galactica. These locations have been the backdrop to some perfect moments of science fictional movies and TV, but that’s not all that connects them. There’s something so fundamental that it affects every single aspect of the set layout, of the way the characters move… So basic that it’s easy to forget. Gravity. All the locations have an up and a down. Not only that but down is always pointing in the same direction, no matter the direction in which the engines are thrusting. Now think of real footage of astronauts in orbit. Skylab, […]

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