TERMINAL UPRISING, REVIEW

Terminal Uprising, available Feb 12th from all fine booksellers

Terminal Uprising, available Feb 12th from all fine booksellers


TLDR; Must Read, well worth it at thrice the price.


What would you do if you awoke from a coma in a hospital, and the Doctors’ had told you that you made yourself go insane before, and had mindlessly killed someone? What if the Doctors found you and took you in, fixed your mind, trained you, made you tougher, and gave you a job?

Would you feel guilty? Thankful?

What would you do if you found out 


(SPOILER FOR THE FIRST BOOK, TERMINAL ALLIANCE)


that in fact it was the Doctors themselves who made you this way, and that you didn’t ruin your own life, but that they did?

Jim C Hines’s protagonist, Marion ‘Mops’ Adamopoulos, (who spent twelve years gratefully working in a spaceship; not as a fighter pilot nor a dashing space captain, but as a janitor,) learns that her species’ alien saviors were actually the ones that had caused Humanity to become mindlessly feral and terrifying. This upsets her, because the aliens had remade much of humanity into their grateful foot soldiers. For years much of humanity was nothing more than enlisted grunts rebuilt to kill, die and serve. 

When something terrible happens that makes a portion of the human crew go feral ‘Mops’ is left in command, but other things happen and things go from worse to really bad. With little to no experience amongst her ragtag survivors, she is thrust into the role of rogue captain of an lawless alien ship.

Her former saviors can’t let the galaxy know what really happened to Humanity, so they are very eager to silence the entire crew to keep the universe unaware.

Well, I hate to say it but…

Mops fails, and her whole crew dies and the second book is about her life as a ghost in space…


…just kidding. But let me say this, in Book 1, the characters are well developed and thoroughly fleshed out, and people you root for. The ending is innovative, and a fine ending to the premise, but Book II Terminal UPRISING takes that premise and runs out the door with it. It includes action packed scenes, but also a shocking new secret, and characters that you can fall in love with all over again. 

Mops and her crew face a new challenge with new enemies and new allies, as Adamopoulos is forced to come up with inventive solutions to combat and logistical problems she was never trained for, to guard humanity’s greatest treasures from absolute destruction. 

And several of her solutions are hilarious. This is not a grim dark struggle, but Terminal Uprising has some good up and downs, and I was constantly surprised by funny scenes.

(All I will say about this is look out for the  ‘space whales.’)

In closing I just want to say that this book is better than the first, and if you liked Alliance, Uprising is an absolute must read. If you’re new, go pick up Book 1 AND 2 so that you don’t miss a beat of this smart, hilarious thrill ride. I cannot wait for book 3!

Terminal Alliance Review

TERMINAL ALLIANCE by Jim C Hines is one of those titles that lends itself to the idea of the small screen as a multi season TV show helmed by the folks who did The Expanse. TERMINAL ALLIANCE picks up at a fast clip, carefully setting the stage for the larger story behind the twist, all the while giving the reader enjoyable, relatable characters I couldn’t help but root for.

TA.jpg

 

These hapless out of place humans are way out of their depth, but how these reformed wild humans turned space janitors approach each problem left me howling with laughter. This is a strong start to what I hope is a long lasting series. I highly recommend it for you and anyone who enjoys rocketing and rolling sci fi.

Natives Killed in The USA and Canada in 2017

I started tracking names last year. This is this year's list, so far. It (like the list for the year before it) is incomplete for many reasons. Not all murders are reported, not every murder reported is listed as an Indigenous person's death, and of course I can't reliably track anything south of the USA or around the Indigenous world because I do not have access to accurate reporting data. This is a volunteer task, and one I hate doing. But as far as I can tell, no major media is tracking these murders, and people need to know. 

1. Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow, 28. Two Spirit woman

2. Jeanenne Fontaine, 29.

3. Ivan Wilson Drags Wolf 24.

4. Anthony Joseph Raine age 20 months.

5. Wendy Carlick, 51.

6. Sarah Macintosh, 53.

7. a 19 year old woman in Sagkeeng (family prefers to not publicize her name)

8. Jimmy Smith – Kramer

9. Zachary N. Bearheels

10. Pekelo Sanchez

CONVENIENCE

They came from mud. For one hundred thousand years they struggled. Crawling down from the trees, walking into the caves,  salvaging worms, creating tribes, learning fire. They learned to adapt to the weather, learned to pray, learned to dance. They spent their days devising language, tamingwolves and breeding dogs, making weapons, sewing clothes, making babies, building pyramids, roads,  massive earthen mounds and two thousand year old calendars. And they created fireworks and discovered mathematics and science and mastered agriculture and trade and civilization, which was, ostensibly an excuse for a invention called war, which was most truthfully defined as killing anything that threatened them.  

They even made it to space. They left their precious mother planet, and visited a nearby moon. That was as far as they made it as a species. 

They didn’t actually murder each other with nuclear weapons that could vaporize the planet’s surface, no, what did them in was the individual decision to prioritize comfort and convenience over survival, over living. They built machines to make everything more convenient. Travel, food, homes, clothing, even the weather could be controlled by machines! At least the weather inside their artificial caves! They made satellites that watched the weather, watched the earth’s temperatures, and her storms. They tested machines that measured the pollution their great Convenience Machines farted into the air for them, and soon generations of new children were born who had never looked to the horizon and not seen brown clogging up a sad blue sky. Then a brown sky. Then a black sky. In the end what undid them was famine, disease, over crowding, and all of it created by the run away storms and heat and brown skies their machines had conveniently made for them.  Horrific acid rains mixed with the brown smoggy sky and the whole planet’s worth of living creatures died in the mud of their conveniently created machines. 

Do not be silent

Fight now, in whatever ways you can. Speak. Call, Resist. Make Tyranny afraid to show its face in the streets, shout down every cowardly lie, face every snarling demon-hearted hater head on, and do not break. In time the historians will know whether our silence birthed their violence, or if we rose up and resisted, fought back. Do not let history ask where you were. When your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, and bonded-heart families are at risk, march, fight. Do not be silent. Rage. Scream. Do not be silent in the face of Lies.  Burn bright with truth, and the righteous anger that is your birthright, the urge to fight for and protect those you love, and those who cannot protect themselves. Scream your truths in the face of Lies. Rage and roar into the hate of their white eyes. Fight back big or small, so that when history asks where were you, you can answer, “I was in the middle of it all.” 

Save the human race. Now is the time, Here is the place.

Medical Fund update

Okay! I’m trying not to swamp everyone with constant updates, but here’s a teeny one! Stage one funding has raised $3270 for medical expenses, ADA housing rent and bills. WOW! Gang, I’m crying here. Two months ago I was freaking out about needing to pay for emergency surgeries, and now I’m getting donation notifications daily! You’re so awesome! 

I’ve bought a back brace to help me stay upright when walking, I’ve got a new proper sized cane, and I’ve ordered a back massager heatpad thing which hopefully will cut down on pain days. I’ve also paid down $2768 of the $5000 direct medical debt owed for my jaw surgery +follow-ups, and also used some for rent. 

So that’s the update! Thank you so much for donating, sharing, and offering good thoughts and prayers! You’re amazing, and I’m so grateful! Thank you!

Next steps if I hit the 5k goal will be stage 2 funding for possible leg/back surgery, and or dental visits. 

I have no idea why I threw this hospital scene from an anime in?

REVIEW: CLOUDBOUND

This review contains spoilers about the first book in the Boneverse Series, UPDRAFT. Go read that before you read the review here! 

Cloudbound is an adventurous tale that picks up a bit after the events in Updraft. We shift perspectives from Kirit, to Nat, who finds himself a rising voice in the post-Singer world. One of Cloudbound's greatest improvements over the series debut novel is that the pace picks up and Wilde dives right into many of the secrets from the first book, including what lies below the seemingly never ending clouds and the surface layers of Updrafts main players. 

This novel takes a darker turn as the after effects of upsetting the world order start making themselves more visible. In the wake of the collapse of a central institution, various groups maneuver to take control of the city, trying to use Heroes of the events in the first book as pawns set against each other. But if a Machiavellian plot seems a bit dry, worry not, Wilde upsets the balance early and often, forcing the reader onto a back heel with anticipation. Wilde adroitly lays out the book’s themes here organically, never missing a beat in every scene. Her characters breathe, live and suffer in their own ways in Cloudbound, struggling to survive in a fully detailed world that feels real and lived in, one that the reader is lucky to observe. And as the novel descends into the thick of things many questions from the first book are answered in mind blowing fashion, while many new questions are hinted at in a way that makes the reader pine for the third book.

Especially when you learn what’s below the clouds. Oh dear.  I won’t give anything away, but I will say that loose tongues ruin the most ardent of political ambitions. 

Cloudbound pulls no punches in the fantastic third act, and the world-building seamlessly grounds the story in a meaty realism. Wilde is easily a contender for the top 5 best SFF writers of our era, earning her place alongside NK Jemisin and Nnedi Okafor. I cannot wait for Horizon, the next book in the Cloudbound Series. 

Book Review: Fran Wilde's UPDRAFT

Imagine living in the air, flying as free as a peregrine. Now imagine the sky exploding into a bloody red maw, a vicious mouth rimmed with glass teeth. This is the world of Fran Wilde’s Bone Universe.

The series starts with the richly layered Updraft, where we discover a human society living far above the clouds, on tiers connected to large towers of living, growing bone. 

Click the book art to buy the book on Amazon

Click the book art to buy the book on Amazon

Kirit Densira is an aspiring sky trader, hoping to soar on the air currents like her city-renowned mother. She dreams of flying from tower to tower on wings of delicate silk, bringing fortune to her family and fame to her tower. There's just one problem with this plan.

The humans aren't alone in the skies. 

Cunning, invisible predators await them in the clouds, hidden to the eye and possessing mouths filled with with dagger sharp teeth. These creatures, called skymouths, are some of the more dangerous secrets lurking in the skies of Wilde's densely imagined and tightly written world. Another group shrouded in secrets is the city's protectors, the Singers, who possess extraordinary skills at sensing and protecting the city from skymouths. 

And after a frightening encounter, the Singers realize that Kirit posesses a rare power that they must have. So begins a wild (ahem) journey of being ripped from one's dreams and shoved into a mystery that will threaten the very city itself.

Wilde's word craft is elegant, yet wrapped with multiple plot points and twists. It's  a well paced thriller-action piece woven together with a deeper drama about a child's identity as she becomes a young woman whose abilities push her to go beyond the City's plans for her. The characters are living and breathing people with complex motives, all of which Wilde plays out like a master composer, building until the epic, climactic battle. Wilde's ability to humanize her protagonist as well as the villains really make you see the horrors these people face as they come to terms with Kirit's powers. When the twists come and the tables turn, expect to be cursing the betrayal as much as the characters themselves do.

What really made me happy on my read through was the way Wilde would tease out a subplot thread just enough to leave me thinking about it, as opposed to beating me over the head with it, and still tying up most of them before the end, in an organic fashion.

The few ties she left loose?

Well, that’s what sequels are for.... 

Indigenous/Natives killed in 2016 in US/CAN


As of today, 42 Natives have been murdered, 15 by police.
( Updated 11/11/16)

The genocide against the Native Nations did not happen "long ago."

It's happening now. Ongoing
#AmericanGenocideNow

Joanne Neepin
Loreal Tsingine
Marilyn Munroe
Bradley Errol Green
Charnelle Masakeyash
Delaine Copenace
Azraya Kokopenace
Diane Pootlas
Jocelyn George
Joseph Molinaro
Raymond Gassman
Vincent Nageak III
Sherrisa Homer
Patricia Kruger
Francis Clark
Mark Nelson
Verl Bedonie
Hubert Burns Jr
Jamie Lee Brave Heart
Joey Tiah English
Cyril Weenusk
Roylynn Rides Horse
Rex Vance Wilson
Renee Davis
Jayden Eric Redden
Gustav Christianson
Kristie Hart
Sherry Ann Wounded Foot
Samantha Burnette
Phillip M. High Bear Sr.
Carla Yellowbird
Deanna Desjarlais
Colten Boushie
Todd Little Bull
Ernest Worm
Alvin R. Silversmythe
Dylan Laboucan
Cory Grey
Kira Friedman
Te'Ca Clifford
Jacqueline Salyers
Herman Bean Jr

What am I doing?

Bit of a status update!

Tweeting too much. Not writing as much fiction as I’d like, though I’m still setting words to the page almost every day. If you count my tweets, I’m getting a pretty good word count.

I’m also really sick/ill/feeling the effects of my physical disabilities piling on. I’ve had this leg infection now for months, and I have a nasty cold/virus that I cannot kick. I recently had surgery for my jaw/teeth, which was not cheap, and has in essence turned me into a digital beggar due to my Medicaid being canceled and no longer covering the gap in my Medicare payments. It’s getting to the point where I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pay off my medical debt,  afford my suddenly really expensive meds, and pay my part of rent.  Eeek! All the more reason to crak the writing whip!

I’ve also been polishing the manuscripts for various things, since getting my novel Escape Light ready for the next #DVPIT pitching session. Aside from that project the novella Withering Earth proceeds slowly but surely, and the final book in the Space Opera Trilogy is teasing me with its percolation. So maybe I can get that going too!

On the published front, I have a story in the amazing Indigenous Queer Sci-fi Fantasy anthology Love Beyond Space And Time, which is an amazing collection of Indigenous/Native written queer stories with such luminaries as Dr. Darcie Little Badger, Daniel Heath Justice, Gwen Benway,  Nathan Adler, Richard Van Camp and Cherie Dimaline to name a few. It’s an awesome collection where I feel like the newbie amongst masters, but it was a fun story to write! Go pick it up!

I also have something coming out that’s… well. It’s pretty dangerous. Head over to Erica Friedman’s website for more details. I’ll talk about this next week!

As always, I am surrounded by amazing friends, allies and family, even though some of them are only over broadband. But thank you. Thank you all so much for pulling for me. For praying for me, for holding me up when i’m crying like a baby and wanting to give up, for donating to help pay for my medical needs, buying my work, leaving reviews, and generally just making me smile. I appreciate and love you all!

See you next week!

GO GET MY LATEST SHORT STORY IN THIS AMAZING INDIGENOUS SCI FI ANTHOLOGY!

Edited by Hope L. Nicholson, Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time is a collection of indigenous science fiction and urban fantasy focusing on LGBT and two-spirit characters. And my story, Imposter Syndrome is included, which is YAY! It’s the first published story I’ve had in six years, which coincides nicely with the birth of my amazing but attention-requiring kiddo! 

Imposter Syndrome is the short story of Aanji, a noncitizen artificial life-form who is desperate to escape a grim fate, using her human ancestors’ memories. Set several (hundred?) years after the events of Escape Light, it details one person’s attempt to reclaim her soul. It’s also very autobiographical in some spots, which is why I’m nervous and pleased as punch that the wonderful Hope L. Nicholson is publishing it, alongside amazing Indigenous authors like Doctor Darcie Little Badger, Daniel Heath Justice, Nathan Adler, Gwen Benaway, and Cherie Dimaline.

So if you like my work, make sure you preorder the book from Bedside Press, here. At just $10 it’s an amazing deal. It’s scheduled to be shipping from September 16th. I can’t wait for you to read it with me!

Natives get nothing for free. Nothing.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE GET NOTHING FOR FREE, WHATEVER WE GET IT IS PAID FOR IN BLOOD, MULTIGENERATIONAL STRUGGLES, AND SUFFERING. 

Estimates of Pre Contact North American population are 75-150 million Indigenous people. 525 years later there are only 6.4 million left . That's 68 million to 143.6 million people murdered. Not by accidental disease (it was planned) but by murder.  That's %95.6 of the total population of a people gone, with the remaining %4.4 survivors put into prisons, adopted away from families, and the survivors were  forbidden from practicing and maintaining their cultures. All so that the land could be "given" to Settlers. 

But we turned those prisons into the hearts of our cultures, we made the reservations our own, & we maintain our cultures. Our families are reuniting, our people keeping the histories and the sacred ways of our ancestors. Descendants of Settlers? We see you. 

We see your oilfields and mining operations and logging and city construction on the sacred land and bones of our people. We see you mocking our peoples and cultures as though we are long dead. We are not. We see the oil spills, the forest fires, the radiation leaks in the water. We see the inaction of your Environmental Profit Agency, the laws you write to make theft legal, the babies you've stolen. 525 years of Indigenous genocide and erasure, but we see you. We know your part in this. We see how you benefit from our deaths & erasure. Think long and hard on whose land you really sit on. Whose blood soaks the soil where your home is. Because we see you, & we remember. 

"That's all in the past! It has nothing to do with me!” you cry.

Wrong. 

We are still being murdered by Settlers and the State. In Canada, USA, and Mexico. The Dakota Access Pipeline HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH YOU. Lands are being destroyed, along with the peoples, & it has everything to do with you. It's where your food, gas, & homes come from. TODAY. And the colonizers and settlers stole an entire people, from tribes and clans and lives of their own, and treated them worse than tools. Millions of lives interrupted so people could be brutally made into nothing more than labor units. From free humans to slaves, And now the freed descendants of those Stolen People have to fear for their lives from the police—groups created to hunt them. Kids shot dead. Mothers murdered. Therapists shot, lunchroom workers killed. No, the genocide continues in Native & Black communities.

And. It. Has. Everything. To Do. With. You. 

If you live in the USA, Canada, Mexico. Indigenous & Black Genocides, ongoing, and they are for your benefit. 

The list of HORRIBLE, VULGAR, TERRIBLE THINGS I SAY WHEN SOMEONE UPSETS ME.

The list of HORRIBLE, VULGAR, TERRIBLE THINGS I SAY WHEN SOMEONE UPSETS ME.

Very very Not Safe For Work: 
by @WordGlass Mari

People asked me to collect these in a book with illustrations, As I am too sick to do that, here's the list as is, with a few new editions. If you like this and my other tweets and work, please consider donating at http://paypal.me/CyborgN8VMari 

THE LIST

Oh you disappointing little poop turtle. You whiny useless tiny barfcricket. Go chew a urinal cake, you pubestink. 

You fart-stalking dickpacket, You strained ass-wine, You vile bloodsnot, Hold your sewer tongue and find a dung cave you donkey whiffer!

Your complaint is bullshit and you are a glass of recycled mule piss. Launch yourself into the sun, dirtfucker. 

Hi, you're a dumptruck of flaming shitmaggots. Fuck entirely the hell off the earth & give yourself a cactus enema.  

Bitchy McWhinePants is the best you can do, you pus-spewing fistula? You're more disappointing than a drunk Santa

Aren't you the cool apathetic cock-wart for trying to comment on shit you know fuck all about?

Go chew a grenade, you sack of whining anuses. 

Haha what a pisshole. What a barking shit basket. What a cheese turd. You are hilarious, scumnuts.

It's okay to admit you're a marble-gumming toadfucker. 

You are so far wrong it's like you're trying to tie your shoes through your butthole. Just stop.

Fuck that and fuck you, pissmouth. Seriously close your tongue-hole, you're spilling urine everywhere. 

So again, you bullshitting sack of piss-fucking maggot magnets, get the fuck out. 

Tangling with terrible turdlets is so much more refreshing the work I normally do.

Staple your fingers to your anus and go self stimulate elsewhere, snailfucker. Your disingenuous vomit bores me.

Ask the proctologist who found your head, you fart cock. 

Well you are the most articulate witty sack of shit-covered duck penises ever to assume I give a flying fuck.

Why are you such a rectal vacuum? It's ok to just admit you're a turd-swamp.

Holy mice penises this thread exploded like a rabbit in a Viagra factory.

Or maybe it's god's way of saying you're a mouse-fucking vomit-box, you sentient rectum. 

Who ever called you that probably smells like stale skunk-farts and unwashed butt, and has  a truck of marbles shoved up their ass.

You’re a douche cannon. When you open your mouth douchebags just go shooting out everywhere.

 Your words sparkle with the same wisdom as emitted from a dying cow's ass, with twice the stink.

Listen,  you shitboxed piss ribbon, don't be such a fuck wall of assnozzles.

You ever wonder what a gnat-fart sounds like? It sounds like you, every time you open your mouth. Just endless high pitched peeping.

You’re like a tasty snickerdoodle, if they replaced all the doodle with cat-vomit.

Well aren’t you just a stack of puke pancakes soaked in shitfuck syrup and buttered with buttmuching ignorance?


I’ve seen pools of piss with better logic than you, poop-pony.

Oh go fuck a firehose up the nose, you vainglorious vomit-sack.

You are a rectal wart-goblin. See a proctologist and get your head fixed, buttface. 

Fuck you, you racist donkey-faced shit-yodeling fart-maggot.

Talking to you is like having sex. With a dental drill. Up the butt. While on fire. Listening to elevator music.  

Now staple your fingers together and eat a box of FuckOff Charms

You are a piss dribbling wrench-mouthed shitcock with your head so far up your ass you can kiss your prostate. Get the fuck out. My gods you are a privileged assboil,  you wheedling cock-slime, you fuckbarker, you shitpoodle. you cock-beetle, you fart-martini, you soggy crate of crap-covered yoyo-strings, you pusticled labial-wart,  you twirled poop twig. YOU UNDER CHEWED SHIT CARROT, YOU MISPUKED TATERTOT, YOU SNIVELLING BUCKET OF BUTTOCKS, YOU SMELLY FISHBANGER,  YOU DUCK-DICKED ASS BALL,  YOU SACK OF RECTAL SNOT.  YOU TREE SODOMIZER! YOU LEAF BANGING MONUMENT TO PARENTAL DISAPPOINTMENT! YOU SAND-CROTCHED FLEA FUCKER. YOU ENTITLED IGNORANT LITTLE  NOSEFUCK

FUCK OFF WITH YOUR SHITWHISTLING NONSENSE 

NATIVE DISPATCH NEWS: THE HORROR OF INVISIBILITY

How many Native Americans/ First Nations People/ Indigenous people do you personally know? Do you know how many Natives died this month? Not natural deaths, not “walking on,” but being murdered, or dying under suspicious circumstances? My answer by this writing, is at least 4, if not 6. Media attention is all over the horribly unjust killings of others this summer, but is relatively silent of the murders of Native people. 


oey Tiiah English Calgary, Alberta Canada
A Native woman, Joey English was dismembered, and yet the man caught for it was just granted bail. Joey Tiiah English was 25. 

Native man Cyril Weenusk was beaten to death last week while in Winnipeg Manitoba to help his dad with cancer treatments. There are no suspects. 

Jocelyn George Calgary, was arrested, and died the next day after one night in police custody. The 18 year old woman was a mother of 2.. 

Crow Agency Native Roylynn Rides Horse 28, of Montana was beaten and burned alive, dying much later in a hospital. 

Back in March ( 27 ) Loreal Tsingine was shot to death by police In Winslow Arizona. She was reportedly wielding a pair of scissors after being accused of shoplifting. Not guns. Scissors. 

There are over 2000 ( some reports estimate as many as 4000) Murdered or Missing Indigenous Women in Canada, many of whom vanished along one stretch of road informally called the Highway of Tears. 

Native Americans are the race/ethnicity with the highest number of people per million to be killed by police. (3.4 per million according to The Counted, a website that tracks People Killed by Police in the US.) So why is there virtually no news coverage of Native deaths? According to US Census Data for 2015, there are 4,500,000 Native Americans in the USA. Or as Siri puts it, statistically Natives just don’t exist.