Tyche’s Fury

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My original working title for Tyche’s Fury was, “Kohl’s Bad Day.” It all starts with a bad idea over saki. But hell. No epic story started with a salad, amirite? Someone wants to hire October Kohl. First mistake. Trypso is a below average world filled with below average people. October Kohl wants off the crust and away from the wannabe Yakuza there. When the crime syndicate contacts Kohl with an opportunity to be free of both them and Trypso, Kohl jumps at the opportunity. The job’s easy money: deliver a package to another planet. Get paid. Then grab a beer. When a rival gang gets his scent, Kohl must make an unlikely alliance with the captain of an ex-war heavy lifter. If they can’t get along, everyone’s dead for sure. If they manage not to kill each other, the prize is Read More …

WTAF, Another One?

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You got it. Pew! Pew! – A Fistful of Pews is out. You might remember my story Consensus appeared in Pew! Pew! 4. And you know what? Those suckers wanted me back for number 5. My story in PP5 is The Chadd, about Chad Foradel and Saveria Complex. You might remember Chad from Tyche’s Deceit (and Tyche’s Crown), a minor support act who is rescued from [SPOILERS] and ends up heading up the [SPOILERS]. Well, The Chadd takes place after Tyche’s Crown (and before the upcoming Tyche’s Demons…). Chad’s on a mission, and on that mission he meets the young pirate, Saveria Complex. Both Chad and Saveria return in Tyche’s Demons. If you want to find out how they met? Here’s your answer. A scream for help across the hard black, then silence. That was the start of Chad Forradel’s bad day. One minute he was checking out a planet of Read More …

Failures of the Year

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Much as it pains me to admit it, I’m not perfect. Realizing this about the age of 35 came as a huge shock. Since then, I’ve spent time ‘looking back’ and ‘getting laser focused’ on what I did wrong (or, to be nice to myself, what I might have done better). Below are my collection of thoughts for the 2017 calendar year. Laugh, cry, or ignore. And always, ever onward. Health I left the Death Star in January 2017, with a litany of health issues. My goal during 2017 was to get my shit straight. Sort out my body to become a new Adonis. Meditate daily to settle my head. Turns out, no. While I’ve got my health back to what most people would call “pretty fit,” it’s not where I thought I’d get to. A variety of challenges caused Read More …

Tyche’s Hope

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Half-way there! Tyche’s Hope ships your way today. Get it while the getting’s good. The ad said Job of a Lifetime! Triton Station is Hope’s new home. At twenty-two years old and already Guild Engineer First Class, she is asked to breathe life into the broken spans of Triton’s shipyards. The fall of the Empire brought opportunity for the underground. Triton is home to thousands, organized crime eating the space city like a cancer. They’ve snared Hope’s wife in their net. Hope must get Reiko free. But the cost of Reiko’s freedom might be everything Hope has worked so hard for. As the hungry and the powerful close in for the kill, Hope must find a way out. If she doesn’t, she’ll lose Reiko for good. Tyche’s Hope is the third novella in Richard Parry’s gripping Tyche Origins pentalogy. If you Read More …

Your Hidden Superpowers

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We’ve all got ’em. Before we get stuck in, I want to share this outstanding video from Will Smith. I’m tired. Mostly, I’m tired about trying to understand what I should be angry about these days. There’s someone, somewhere, right now, who wants me to be angry about a particular thing. Friends, I’m just about done. There’s only so much rage my heart can hold, and it passed the safe levels a year or more ago. Now we’ve set the tone … One of the things that grinds my gears is the concept of absolutes. Red vs. blue. East vs. west. Left vs. right, cats vs. dogs, whatever. The way I see it? There’s far more things we have in common than not, but the current skein of the media, your Facebook feed, or even dinner party conversations is about taking sides. Read More …

Delilah: Part Two

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If you haven’t seen Delilah yet, start at the beginning. “What you’re trying to work out,” said Delilah, “is whether whatever file you have on me is accurate. It’ll say some shit about how I’m deep insurgency load out from Metatech. It might talk about how I can shoot laser beams from my eyes. No? Well that was on the spec sheet for the last job some fools wanted me for. Seriously, who has that tech? The power drain alone makes it unfeasible. You want to know the extent of my training. Can I walk into a situation out gunned, a simple sidearm at my hip, and walk out with the cash bonus.” “We haven’t agreed on a cash bonus,” said Scott. “Scott?” said Delilah. “If you draw down on me, and there is not cash on the table as an Read More …

The New Chic

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If I may, I’d like to skip some of my usual flavor to showcase some other people. I know. Weird for you? Weird for me too. These particular humans were of a smaller size than what I’m used to. I had the great honor and privilege of being asked by Maungaraki School to speak to a room of their junior writers. When I was a kid, I was one of the lippy ones. I spent too much time being kicked out of math class for taking the wrong line of inquiry, if you get me. I was curious, but in a narrow lane. I met these people yesterday, full to the brim with questions about everything. Some of the ideas for stories they had? They’ll blow your mind. Kids who are spies. A new take on epic fantasy that would make Read More …

Tyche’s Chosen

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The second Tyche Origins story, Tyche’s Chosen, is out today! Much excite. The smell of charred circuitry wasn’t a perfume Elspeth Roussel liked to wear. Helm of the Empire destroyer Nostradamus, El is the best at what she does. No one flies the big ships like she can. But Empire starships are dying in the hard black, the upstart Republic hammering them apart through sheer force of numbers. When the Nostradamus is sent on a suicide mission to destroy Republic shipyards, El’s courage under fire is tested. She needs to come up with a plan to save her ship, despite her captain’s desire to go down in a blaze of glory. If she manages victory, they might live to see another day. If she doesn’t, the Republic will climb closer to victory on the corpses of the Nostradamus’ crew. Tyche’s Chosen is Read More …

Five Cyberpunk Shows to Die For

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A little extreme? We’ll see. Back when I was trying to work out what spun my wheels in fiction, I discovered this little book called Neuromancer. It was by this William Gibson dude, who I had never heard of, and my library’s copy has such a worn cover it screamed to be read. Gibson, I was told at the time, had no tech background. He’d made this whole storybook universe that was plausible because he wasn’t shackled to the beliefs us tech junkies held. And, here we are many years on, coming up with [A|V]R virtualities. Who would have known? Dunno if the story is true, but it’s a neat one, so feel free to spread it around. The genre was this thing called cyberpunk. Never heard of it before, but I was hooked: a high tech future but with our same Read More …

Something Wicked

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I’ve started work on Tyche’s Demons, the first of the Tyche’s Progeny series. Here’s a real, real, like fucking real rough start. First draft, usual caveats apply: this is brain to page, and the brain is based on a fifty-million year old design. Be kind. Something Wicked Five minutes. That’s all it took from we’re having a good time to we’re going to die, horribly. El entered the bridge, swagger dialed up to eleven, and gave her second a practiced glare. “Price. Report.” “Captain on the bridge.” Price, for his part no stranger to the Captain of the Skyguard wanting a little bridge time, stood from the command couch and slipped sideways into Tactical. “Captain Roussel, sir. We’re about to jump into Paloma. Still nothing on scan.” Not that nothing on scan was a surprise. The Troy floated in the hard black, somewhere Read More …