Hi, Mission 51 family!

I need your help! My work in the hospital is keeping me from making personal contact. 12-hour shifts plus 45-minute commutes does not leave much time left in the day.

Well, folks...this has been a rough week. We were holding on to third place pretty soundly all weekend, until a new dark horse showed up and blasted past us. We’re more or less keeping pace, but it’s been a rough road, and as of right now we’re back down to fourth place, by three pre-orders.

Less than four days are left in this contest, and we need to make every one of them count. People are going to be fighting tooth and claw over that third place position. I plan to get it, but I’m going to need all the help we can rally.

So it’s time to bring out the incentives.

You know the awesome character portraits I’ve been sharing lately? I drew those (except for the Shakespeare one, that was my amazingly talented sister.) In case you missed them, you can check them out here, here, and here, or just look at the new one below. Pretty cool, right? Well, if you like them, you’ll like this incentive:

From now until the end of the contest, anyone who successfully refers a new reader can have a personal portrait drawn by me, for free. I’ll do it in charcoal (like the ones featured so far) or pencil, your choice. I’ll do a portrait of you if you like, or your kid or girlfriend or whatever if you’d rather have that. If you’re a fellow writer who would like to have someone draw a portrait of one of your characters, I’ll happily do that. I’ll draw you as a cyborg, I’ll draw you as an elf, I’ll draw you as a mutant bullfrog if that’s what strikes your fancy. If you want two or three portraits and you can refer two or three people, they’re yours. The only conditions required for eligibility are as follows:

1. You must have ordered Proteus.
2. You must have referred someone else who successfully ordered Proteus
   
3. You take responsibility for coming to me to ask about getting your reward. You have to opt in for this.
   

I can’t guarantee a time frame for fulfilling those commissions, other than "by the end of the summer." I’ll start working on them as soon as the contest wraps and do them on a first-come first-served basis.

I can’t promise they’ll be works of art, but I can promise they’ll be works from the heart. I take great pride in my work, just like our ship’s new head scientist, Dr. Elizabeth Marshall.
(Am I killing it with these segues or what?

Elizabeth Marshall

Dr. Elizabeth Marshall was one of the brightest and most promising members of her generation on The Somnambule. A third-generation crewman, Marshall was born and raised by parents who were themselves born and raised on the ship. Like everyone else born during the first 75 years of The Somnambule’s flight, Elizabeth knew her fate and function from birth. From the beginning, her education was keyed toward developing a skillset in her that would fill a necessary role among her crewmates. In her case, early childhood dispositional assessments led to her being trained as a medical specialist

While some children born on The Somnambule rebelled against their pre-determined roles in the ship’s hierarchy, or simply took to them with the smallest possible amount of enthusiasm, Elizabeth fully embraced her assigned profession from the very beginning. Learning about the inner workings of the human body fascinated her. She became especially interested in the field of applied cybernetics, and the various ways in which electronics could be used to improve the functionality of the human body.

Her interests and her dedication to learning quickly made her a favorite pupil of head scientist Marion Krieg, herself a brilliant cyberneticist. She worked closely with Krieg from adolescence to adulthood, and by the time Marshall had finished the ship’s most sophisticated medical education programs, it had become clear that Krieg was grooming her as a successor.

Elizabeth was involved in the development of Krieg’s new quantum cortical implant, though she did not volunteer to be implanted with one. Krieg claimed the implant could give its user the ability to view future events, and while Elizabeth did not actually believe this to be possible, she did believe the implant had the potential to significantly improve its user’s mental sharpness and processing speed. The first human test subjects made a compelling case for Krieg’s claims, but Elizabeth remained skeptical that they could actually see the future.

That is, until Krieg claimed to have perfected the implant. Wishing to be implanted with the new device herself, Krieg was unwilling to entrust the delicate operation with anyone but Marshall. Reluctantly, Dr. Marshal agreed, and implanted the new quantum computer into Krieg’s brain.

Immediately upon completion of the procedure, Krieg’s demeanor changed. She claimed to have seen terrible things in the mission’s future; a horrific cataclysm at journey’s end. She tried to convince the crew that the mission must be aborted at all costs, and began amassing a significant following among the crew.

When Krieg attempted to convince Marshall to join her resistance faction, Marshal refused. As much as she’d respected Krieg most of her life, she believed the woman had begun to finally grow senile in her old age, and suspected that something may have gone wrong with her operation. Beyond that, Marshall held on to the values that had been instilled in her as a child; her greatest calling in life was to preserve the mission and the lives of the colonists the ship carried. She would not play a part in mutiny.

Mutiny came, nonetheless. When Krieg made a play for taking over the ship, Marshall remained loyal to the captain and the ship’s mission. When Krieg’s initial attempt at an uprising failed and her rebels were pushed back to the lower decks, Marshall took Krieg’s place as the ship’s head scientist.

Krieg’s rebellion against The Somnambule’s mission felt like a personal betrayal to Marshall. The woman she’d looked up to as a mentor her entire life had betrayed the most important purpose any member of the crew could have. As heartbroken as Marshal was about Krieg’s uprising, she was determined to put all her skills to work in preserving the mission, the precious lives of the ship’s colonists, and the final defeat of Krieg’s insurrection.

Important update on the status of Mission 51 and the Nerdist Sci-Fi Contest.

We remain in 1st place, where we have been since day one, thanks to so many wonderful supporters. Thank you all so very much!

The contest is now in the final 5 days and our lead has significantly diminished. The contestants in 2nd through 5th place are all in a position to possibly take the lead. Needless to say, it is crucially important for us to keep pressing on with pre-orders if we hope to stay in the top three and win a coveted publishing contract with Inkshares!

Mission 51 now has 324 official followers. That’s amazing! Of those, 139 of you have helped with a pre-order. That means that 185 are still on the sidelines. If you are contemplating a pre-order at some point, this is the time! Your pre-order can truly make the difference between placing in the top three or not. Please, do not delay!

Again, I want to thank everyone for your support so far. If there is anyone in your life who you think would enjoy Mission 51, please pass on the link, or better yet, consider buying them a pre-order as a gift. Here is how you do it: Just sign out of your Inkshares login, then click the pre-order link, and enter your loved one’s email address when prompted for an email. You can then use your own credit card to check out. Every unique email counts towards the contest.

Five more days! Let’s do this!! :D

Peace and love, everyone!

Ferd 👽

https://www.inkshares.com/books/mission-51

So some stuff been’s going. 

I know, I know, it’s been a while, and I’m sorry for that. Life has gotten in the way more than I’d like lately. However, progress has been steadily creeping forward on all fronts (at least, as far as this little* book is concerned, I can’t quite say the same for my personal life). Final editing and proof reading / story content is moving smoothly, and I really do believe that this story is something special. I can’t wait for it to finally get into reader’s hands, and hopefully that illustrious moment isn’t too far off. 

Another cool tidbit, I have another artist on board. Vanessa Gillings has joined The Children of the Forest, bringing her expertise to bear with some truly wonderful work (a small preview of which can bee seen below!). In the coming days, I’ll be overseeing a massive overhaul of the book’s main page, bringing all content up to date, with new artwork, official synopsis, and even more, so if you’ve been following along, or haven’t really taken a chance to check out the book’s page yet, now’s a great time to catch up on The Children of the Forest ~ 

Greetings followers of Crow’s Gambit! I’ve wanted to talk about this topic for several weeks and with the contest ending soon now is probably a good time. The topic is how I selected the book description of “The Day the Earth Stood Still in a Tom Clancy setting.” I’ll admit it was a tough decision and I’m still not completely satisfied with it. So let’s break it down.

Were there any runner up descriptions? Yes, War of the Worlds. Not the Tom Cruise remake but the 1953 classic. Aliens with technology far in advance of ours wipe aside our defenses in days. That kind of sounds like the Sylph. Except the Sylph never came down in landers and haven’t (as yet) tried to wipe out mankind.

Ok, we want advanced unstoppable aliens who really don’t care about us. How about The Day the Earth Stood Still? Not the Keanu Reeves remake but the 1951 classic. Klaatu comes to Earth and basically says they don’t care what we do to ourselves but if we try to spread our violence off the planet we’re done for. Ok, THAT sounds much more like the Sylph…except the Sylph haven’t even bothered to send a messenger down.

There’s something else about that movie that always struck a chord with me. After the saucer lands in D.C. everyone kind of goes about their business. I mean they just leave it sitting there with a couple guards on it. Proof of alien life in the universe but after the initial encounter everyone just goes home to take care of their lives. This is a lot like the world of Crow’s Gambit. Humans know they aren’t alone and they are outgunned technologically. A net of alien spheres surrounds the planet but after a time everyone gets on with their lives and just accepts it as the new reality. Except for a few people like Cassie and Darrow. 

And Tom Clancy? That one was a given. Besides political intrigue and competing personal agendas Tom Clancy novels are always steeped in advanced, if not exotic, science and technology. Clancy described himself as a storyteller, not a writer. Really that’s what I’d like to be. A storyteller. I’m trying to entertain you with a good story.

I can’t do this without you though. We are close to the end and locked in a back and forth for 3rd place. Don’t just share the book link…call a friend and ask them to Pre-Order. Don’t just click Like on this post…write a Recommendation on the book’s page. We can do this!

PT

June 19, 2017

Hello everyone, I hope you’re all well! Time for another update on things going on in the Shadow King world and beyond.