I’ve never done this before, and I may cancel this thread if it goes bad, but on another thread, Evil (interesting handle there) said he’d love to discuss Furious, but didn’t want to spoil it. Feel free to talk here about the book. I may or may not comment about speculation about where it’s going. As I said in Daring, I was breaking the series. It would never be the same. I don’t think Furious is anywhere close to in a rut.
Mike
Loved the culture and drama in the Musashi scenes! The end was very nice…As I was towards the end of the book, I kept saying come on – just a bit more, just one more chapter (reading on a iPhone with Kindle reader…can’t really tell how much more easily at the very end).
The ending certainly opens up a lot of potential dynamics at home besides out there…
Sorry we didn’t get a bit more on what’s going on in a certain relative’s mind who seems to have flipped and was that person behind the new attempts…
Scott
Hi, Scott,
Yep, I had a ball doing the Musashi scenes. And the bakes sales to buy a boat for Kris.
As you may have spotted, Kris gave a charge to the good Inspector and sent him out to work with Trouble and Brother. That will be the novella for next year. I’ve never done a police procedural. I won’t be able to get you in his View Point, but we can at least force him to talk to us, something Kris never could.
And as for the ending surprise. Yep, there’s gonna be a lot of fun in Defender. Lots of battles. Lots of family stuff. Some of it not even in the same scene. (g)
Bought it, read it, loved it!
Furious was a good change of pace and, like Scott, I loved the Musashi scenes. And I wondered when she was going to show up.
Tim
loved it come on next year
Defender AND Novella! Woo Hoo!
Just finished Furious. Wow, just awesome. I, too, could not put it down. And that ending; I knew something big was going to happen when Nelly announced they’d never looked over the records and that the bird-people were ‘returning’ to space, but that was quite a finish indeed. Can’t wait to see what this new Wasp can do with Kris and company, too. May I say, excellent work, Mike! Looking forward to next year!
I’m just glad Kris and Jack finally blew off some steam. And Al is a jackass up there with Ray. I am so glad Ruth is alive, because sombody needs to go at these two with a frying pan. Also Wasp 2.0, very nice.
There’s been this thing bugging me, how are your ships layed out? Internally I mean. Assuming these ships are built long ways and only use thrust based gravity there essentially built like hotels, and acceleration coutches are essentially lay-z-boys. A 40 floor walkup. Untill they get there neutronium laminate deckplating.
Who is Mother MacCreedy?
Hi, Evil,
Yes, the ships are just like they’ve always been, decks stacked on top of decks. They accelerate or flip ship and decelerate at 1 or more gee with down being down. Now, those damn Hellburners create a problem. We put them at the exact center of gravity of the three corvettes and then launched them when the ships were adrift. No up or down. I never did figure of we launched them up or down, I know we didn’t launch them forward or aft. and no. No neutronium laminated deck plating.
Does this pass muster?
Mike
By the way. I’m taking a pasting at Amazon. Anyone willing to outweigh a pair of 3′s.
Mike i’m from Australia but i can only get audio or paper back no kindle
Mike, i have the same issue as Jason. I can’t even see the Kindle ebook in Amazon unless I search using Google and follow the link, but then i has the message ‘Not currently available’. From the last book I thought that they were going to be accessible in all countries?
I think the Amazon rating has to do with the change in pace from previous books. All prevous books were choas and insanity with the only means of survival to charge ahead and fight it out. AKA nonstop action novels. This book was different, slower. For me as a long time reader of epic scifi action series that was ok, because sometimes you need to slow down and do the ground work to set up the next story arc. Which is what I saw furious as, a conjoining novel. Which unfortunatly means its sales will probably be lower. Its ratings by people who just want a quick bang of excitment will sufer, and disapointment will set in.
But I know the next several novels are already on contract by the publisher so there will be more Kris in the future. I know that there’s a war to be fought and family to be sorted out, and humanity to be railled to the banner, so lots of excitment is to come. Which means that I’ll get to read about it sometime over the next few years.
cheers,
LOVED the book.
HATE that we have to wait a year to find out more (or I assume we do).
Hi all.
For those of you having a problem getting the e-book, I posted on the no spoiler thread what I know and an apology. check there.
Furious might be a change of pace but I thought it great!
Kris has created something of a liason in Musashi, and a safe haven. she is still at risk most other places. How does she command a US ship “in exile” in Musashi Empire?
The Neutrons in a Neutron star are bound by gravity. besides turning anything approaching it to a pile of neutrons, shreading all conceivable atomic or molecular bonds, to nip off a chunk and hold it, you would have to maintain similar gravity which would collapse the missle and Vulcan both. If you could counter the grav envelope, you could provide artificial grav and counter acceleration. These Missles don’t stretch Science, they contradict it. Besides that, how would one accelerate that much mass at the rates described? Wish a better cocept had been developed.
Speculation 1: Rita has remarried, Ray has not. Does King Ray go ape over her disloyalty, having pined away, himself?
Speculation 2: Rita was on the planet or in orbit when it was saved? Will Chris be accused now of using gov property to benefit a family member?
Bought the audiobook, great story.
I must admit I expected Kris to find the lost ship and her great-grand mother sooner or later, but had not expected it to be with the Bird-people – hopefully that family-connection won’t cause Krist too much problems later. And she has other relatives there? Hopefully that will inspire Kris and Jack…
The Musashi scenes and the differences in culture – and attitude – were interesting.
I absolutely love Nelly and the way she’s evolving… learning that she is also ambitious and one of her desires is to “swing the whip” over a large number of well-network-connected super-computers, was great – and should probably wiorry Kris. And more kids? Great!
The leading up to and attack on Longknife-Tower – not to mention the investigators following one step behind – was exciting. How bad has Grandpa Al really gone?
Keep up the great work – and if you can publish the next book before schedule (like tomorrow), please do!
Furious felt like a filler book or something that was ghost written. I have loved all the previous books in the series, but the last one was a huge disappointment. Slow paced, boring, character development you just cant believe… I could accept this book being a part of the series if it had been released as a companion novella with the next “real” installment.
Furious was great. So was welcome home go away. As a vietnam vet, I know what it is like to come home and no one to want you arround to remind them.
I am looking forward to defender and the others.
Furious was fantastic! Loved the idea of a fan club. A question that I’m sure you won’t answer but here it goes. Have the Base ship aliens met a race with tech similar to the Iteeche ? Reason I ask is it would explain the reason they were spreading their fire.
I’ve been expecting Grandma Rita to turn up, somewhere, ever since Kris met her first Iteeche (in Undaunted?)… I’m glad to finally see her!
But what a cliff hanger … to leave us waiting another entire year to see just how the reunion(s) work out?
Please DO keep the good stories (in whatever lengths/WordCounts) coming…
I dunno steve, there lack of armor on there ships and there weapons loadout give me a “kill it, kill it with fire!” Mentality. There laser capability alone sounds enough to passify a planet, nukes rocks and sarin spray tell a diffrent story.
Hi, all,
I’m sorry to have been gone for a while, but this weekend I was Guest of Honor at Orycon and they kept me rather busy.
Evil and Steve, I’m afraid you, and Kris, will have to keep guessing for a while. Now that the collision has occurred, there will be a lot of reactions from both side. Not all of it good, as Kris experienced in Furious. However, the lack of armor seems to say they ain’t been in a good fight in a long while. But then, it’s been 80 years since we fought the Iteeche. Swords get rusty.
Yep, Jerry, I waved Granny Rita under your nose in Undaunted to remind folks about her disappearance. I have to admit that I didn’t expect to find her with the bird people. I was as surprised as anyone (Yeah, like) when Nelly finally got time to do a recheck and found out about the “return.” I knew Granny was out there somewhere, and putting her with the bird folks suddenly provided all kinds of problems. Do you think Granny will be happy to pack up and move back in with Ray? Or will she and all of the colonials who were saved by the birds insist on fighting side by side and dying with the birds.
Stupid question. She was a Longknife once. Of course she’ll do the courageous and stupid thing.
You’re really going to love Defender. I’ll keep you up to date on its cover and phases as it moves through production.
Oh, Koppe,
I missed your comments on the first scan through. As you may have noticed, people grow and change in my universe. That includes Nelly. Yes, there are dangerous threads in that gal. What will happen? I don’t know. Stay tuned.
Some folks really want to know about how sour Grampa Al has gone. Remember, Kris gave the Senior Chief Inspector a charge to look under some rocks and find out. At the end of Furious, you know he found something. The novella for 2013 will be the inspector’s pursuit of Grampa Al and how he cracked Grampa Al’s circle of security. I suspect that the inspector will be allowed to be a fly on the wall as Prime Minister Billy Longknife has a talk with his dad about how the power to tax is the power to destroy.
Please note, if you go back to the end if Defiant, yah, book 3, Al was not happy that 6 battleships could have pulverized his secure world. That was your first hint that he was going bad. It just took until something big showed up for it to really go south.
This conversation took place on Facebook, but I have permission to move it over here. It says a lot about why I love Furious.
A reader wrote:
With everything that happened in Daring, the events of Furious served as a great way to show Kris at her most vulnerable and for her to realize that even though she is one of “those damn Longknifes”, that there are people who love and respect her regardless for everything she’s able to do even in the name of seemingly impossible odds and for being able to make the kind of tough decisions that others might not have been able to make if they were in her position.
Because of all that, a lot of what she was able to do in the previous books managed to pay off in a really big way for her towards the end of Furious.
I answered:
Amen, Mike, you really read the book I wrote.
This was the book where we took everything away from Kris Longknife, and dropped her bare ass naked on an iceberg.
All she had were her friends and those that respected her. And it was enough for one hell of a lot.
Everyone one from Penny and Abby risking their life to come to her. The captain who came back from the dead to get her. Grampa and Gramma Trouble who risked a big chunk of their legend. Colonel Hancock who couldn’t help but dive right in. A Senior Chief Agent who just had to know why and, in the end, a young woman who risked all the condemnation of her society to see that the message her government wanted hidden came into the light.
Yep, Kris had a lot of help from her friends this book. But then, she deserved it all.
Hi mike
I really really like the longknife series “BUT” the way you ended this book just about killed me!!! I sat there thinking no he didn’t, no he didn’t, yes he did #@%$^ that is JUST WRONG. To bring in Rita at the end is almost unforgiveable, what a teaser. OK 12 months to get my blood pressure down and wait.:]
Hi, Darry,
Yes, I’m a nasty,evil, horrible man. So. Where would you have ended Furious? With them headed out to the unknown. Nope. To vague. After the verdict. Nope, too much fun with Nelly and the new Wasp yet to come. Yep Granny Rita is just right. You know all those who died, died for something. And now you know they died for something even bigger. But just how big. That will take 120,000 words next book.
But you’re right. That is about the most evil ending I’ve ever come up with. And I laughed and cackled for a week after I wrote it. Daring had a nasty ending for Kris. Furious has a nasty ending for the reader. I think we’re about even.
Mike the only a little bit evil.
I really liked Furious. I know there wasn’t a ton of space fighting, but I thought there was still plenty of action. I loved the chase, staying one step ahead of the Inspector, and I did like the action in Musashi. I found that I read this book just as fast as all the other, I am not disappointed in the least. Well, I am disappointed that it will take a year before I get to find out what happens (but I am glad the bird people are okay).
I got the book yesterday, and I finished it today, I just HAD to know what happened.
I agree, throwing Granny Rita at us at the end is very evil! I would sic Nelly on you if I had her
Is there any chance that your publisher will put out Defender early? Maybe allow us to buy an EARC ( electronic advanced readers copy) of it? One thing, how many dual secondary turrents did Wasp get? Were 6 twin turrents for both ships or 6 between the 2?
A little bit evil is exactly what you are, Mike. I hope you’re in good health, because, Neil Gaiman’s sentiments notwithstanding, I want this story told to its conclusion, and the money to buy copies of everything you write from now on it is already set aside.
On a technical note, the NellyNet small caps stuff is not cRaZY in Furious, and I’m glad about that. You SO-a-gun. You evil man. You cliff-hanger-teller.
Its 5:00 AM and just finished Furious in a single sit down like I do all your books. The novelltas are a good idea. Gives us a touch and not having to wait a whole year. It is a shame the publishers treats your material as filler material for their publishing schedule. Keep plugging and you will get there.
Steve, I believe is was 5 twins per ship.
Hello Mike,
I just finished the Kris Longknife books you’ve put out so far. Great stuff–thank you for writing these.
I found several spots in Furious very moving, and thought it was an excellent book. And, I was expecting for the bird people to end up as villains or somesuch, so your ending was rather kind, really. I’m glad; Kris deserved a small break.
Looking forward to the next book!
Rachel
I just wondered about the AWOL situation. Was that resolved with Kris granting her own vacation? It seems like she’s beyond vacation now and has, essentially, changed her assigned posting. Ray or the other powers that be really wanted to keep her out of the way and seemed to have arranged a nearly perfect prison for her. Will there be fallout for her self-reassignment, i.e. a court martial in the next book, or is that just going to be swept under the rug because she managed to pull their chesnuts out of the fire again?
Also, any thoughts about getting Nelly a body, so she can participate in more than a virtual capacity? Didn’t she express some fear awhile back about her fate being tied completely to Kris’s, the walking bullseye?
Mike, your reply to Darry reminded me of Jim Butcher’s tweet the day his Harry Dresden book “Changes” came out. “Dear reader: MWOO HAH HAH HAH HAAAAAAHHHH! That is all.
”
All of you horrible evil awful authors and the places you stop books. Eeeeeeevil. But count me in the legions of people who want Rita to come back and administer a maternal spanking to Al. The butthead.
Hello Mike,
I would just like to echo the sentiments above. An excellent book in this series, and a seriously evil ending. I was disappointed that the next book wasn’t available to continue the story. GRRR… Okay, I will be patient.
Is there any chance that the novellas get bundled and released in paper format for those of us who prefer that format over the electronic one?
Thanks for creating such a diverse universe!
I just finished reading Furious and found it to be entertaining and enjoyable to read, and I’m very much looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
But right on the last page there was something that didn’t make much sense to me:
The older woman eyed the screen. “Princess Longknife, you say. Does that mean Ray somehow got himself a crown?”
Why would Rita instantly assume that it’s Ray that got himself a crown? It could be Ray, or Alex, possibly a half-sibling of Alex, a kid of Alex or his potential half-siblings, and so on.
I just feel that this isn’t the first thing that someone who, after many decades of isolation from the rest of humanity and only having heard the statement, “I am Princess Kristine Longknife, commanding the United Society explorer ship Wasp,” would say.
Anyway…
Something else that I’ve been thinking about since reading the last few chapters (and going back through some of the previous books and checking on places where SmartMetal has been mentioned) is that given the amount of SM that’s available now and what Nelly has been able to do with it in the past, it seems to be very much underutilized.
Just a small amount could be used to form a skinsuit like the spider silk body suits, but with better protection properties and much faster/easier to put on or take off.
Add more SM (and possible as required some functional modules if they can’t be formed from SM) and you could have a fully functional space suit.
Add more SM and (and modules / weapons) and you have powered combat armour.
Add even more and you might have a shuttle / space fighter that contains the pilot as in integral part, controlling it over a mind interface (instead of sitting inside in an open space and pushing buttons on a console).
Have it enter atmosphere and transform into an air breathing air superiority fighter.
Go lower and transform into a ground attack craft.
Change into a VTOL configuration and land, then transform into a combat mech.
Separate into a normal powered combat armour and a cube of excess SM protecting the modules/weapons/fuel/reaction mass that are specific to the fighter/mech configuration.
Or go further and change into a minimal skinsuit, leaving the excess SM and modules/weapons behind that are specific to the powered combat armour.
Later on, when done on the planet, merge back with the cube of SM, do a VTOL launch, turn into an air breathing plane (to achieve maximum height and speed with minimum fuel/reaction mass use), then into a space fighter, and finally merge back into the Wasp, leaving the excess SM and modules behind and appearing on the inside in a simple SM skin suit.
Given everything that we’ve seen about SM and what Nelly could do with it all of the above should be possible and practical. Not necessarily cheap, but there seems to be a large amount of SM already in the new Wasp, and if serial production of such a ship class is started, the cost of the new type of SM should go down.
Also, a SM-based, powered high-gee suit, controlled by a Nelly type computer with a direct mind interface to the wearer could possibly provide the same high-gee support as the “eggs” while retaining full mobility.
Throsten,
You raise very good points and I personally would love to see what Mike would do your ideas. But I work in theater and so I know how much work goes into even the simplest of special effects. Which makes me think that there might be a large power draw or controlling large amounts of SM requires enough computation that it takes a dedicated supercomputer to control it. In the book in never mention how many and what size the computers were when they were shrinking or seperating the ship. But quick question does anywhere in the books does it mention WHEN SM was developed? Because if it was a fairly recent invention, those “mad” sciencists may not have had time to come up with your ideas yet. Or it may be like it was in Daring during the refueling pas and requires a team of supercomputers to move around.
As I said before I would love to see what would happen with this new type of SM.
Dear Mike, I don’t know when I have enjoyed a series more! I can hardly wait for the next adventure. Do you brainstorm your characters with anyone? Don’t mind those critics they don’t know what they are talking about. I liked the diiferent pace of Furious and the inclusion of the Japanese culture. Will we see the Musasahi princess come into the picture?
I can only imagine how difficult it is to keep at a story and bring all the pieces together. As a retired elementary school teacher who tried to guide my students into simple story writing I greatly admire your creativity and determination to put your ideas on paper!! I did a lesson where after we studied the Solar System we extended the lessons to include their ideas of traveling to a new planet. The had to plan their trip ,what kind of space ship, who would go, what they would need for their journey and finally what they discovered on their new planet. Then ,they had to write a report to the President and give him an evaluation on whether we should colonize the new planet. I usually was included in the team as the cook. They even made their own rockets out of water bottles . Not up to Kris’s level of action but for a group of third graders they did pretty goodl
Just got done rereading the whole series and was struck by something. In Mutineer reason for silence on what happened in Paris system was to protect reputation of navy. Didn’t want fact of 19 trators getting out. But seams to me that the fact that junior officers stopped the traitors cold should have equalled out. But this was a massive failure by naval intelligence, any public investagation would almost surely lead to the head of NI being canned. Did Admiral Crossenshield arrange the coverup to save his ass?
Re: Bobbie Kirkland, November 21, 2012 — A body for Nelly and her kids.
I like the idea of an independently-mobile Nelly. With implanted short-range transceivers instead of Nelly herself hanging around her shoulders, Nelly herself could still be the voice in Kris’ head and have all the current capability (particularly audible snide comments). This would allow Nelly to be in a good, solid smart metal container on the Wasp, sturdy enough to survive a reactor decontainment.
I’ve always had a problem with her being light enough to be worn. The smarter she gets, the heavier she becomes. By keeping her onboard, she could have any number of Motiles, from a small RC runabout, eye-in-the-sky plane dropping nanos to spy on the bad guys, any as-needed smart metal contraption, a humaniform motile accompanying Kris on a sortie . . . the possibilities are endless — and entertaining.
I am really thrilled to see that the society of humanity books are being rereleased. I love the Kris Longnife series and the twist in the tail of Rita’s Return.
I also want to mention for fellow readers from australia who want the kindle version google tarots and taradiddles and you’ll find the answer on how to take an e-holiday. There is also an australian kindle users thread on amazon with lots of good tips.