Category: Tyche’s Journey

Tyche’s Flight

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My latest book, Tyche’s Flight, is out! You can get it here: https://www.books2read.com/TychesFlight I’m somewhat in awe of this review from Alternate Realms Magazine: Parry’s gift is in taking a time-worn plot and characters, and refurbishing them into an engaging read. Unlike many Space Operas, the technological details in Tyche’s Flight are plausible, if not always possible, and the writing usually flows seamlessly so that it fades into the background, highlighting the ongoing turmoil. A colony world goes dark. Grace Gushiken is a grifter and a liar. Worse, she’s an esper, an abhorrent creation of the Old Empire. Grace keeps her blade sharp and her wits sharper. She’s on the run from the Republic’s justice. Nathan Chevell captains the free trader Tyche, an ex-war heavy lifter. He’s no pirate, but he’s no white knight either. An encounter with espers saw him discharged Read More …

The fate of us all

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Today’s #RichardWrites comes from Tyche’s Deceit. The Tyche has uncovered an alien nest … on the moon, yo. There’s a lot of bugs. I mean a lot of bugs. As the Tyche stalked across the hard black towards the moon, leaving mother Earth and the Torrington behind her, eyes looked out from the flight deck. The holo stage brought up hostile action, a storm of rocks leaving the moon’s crust. These were unlike those the Tyche had dodged back on Absalom Delta, dumb missiles thrown into the dark. These were guided, agile like fighter craft. They moved towards the Tyche, accelerating as they came, but without the telltale drive plumes of human craft. The Torrington appeared to take this in, and then the ship shivered and blinked away, an Endless Drive whisking her to safer waters. The aliens on the moon took in Read More …

Difficult Life Choices

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Today’s #RichardWrites features October Kohl, right after he’s jumped out of a perfectly good spacecraft (the Tyche) and landed in the middle of a warehouse that is on fire. Let me know what you think 🙂 It’s from the second book in Tyche’s Journey: Tyche’s Deceit. The side of the warehouse had been carved in with what looked like God’s own baseball bat, a nice straight line bored right through the middle. Plasma burn, looked like, or a couple of ‘em. Roof was off, hole in the side: not much of a warehouse anymore. He jogged into it anyway, carbine held low and ready, taking in the sights. There, one of the guys that looked like Abel, but with his arms cut off, which looked like Gracie had been through here and hadn’t been happy about the process. Next layer deep, there were Read More …

The Truth Never Hurt Nobody

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This week’s #RichardWrites brings us another snippet from Tyche’s Flight. Here, we have Nate and Grace, uh, I guess you could say, “Getting to know each other better.” It’s not all full sales over smooth seas when the Republic is on your heels. Usual disclaimers apply: first draft and all that. “Captain, I’m going to change your definition of ‘smooth.’” Grace let a little anger into her voice. Not a lot, but enough, just enough to salt the water, let it boil at a lower temperature. “This is about trust.” “You’re right—” “I haven’t finished,” she said. “Trust, it’s a two-way street. Where have I given you cause to think I can’t be trusted?” “There’s—” “That’s right,” she said, walking closer to him. Face to face. “Never. Here’s the thing. I’ve saved your ass twice now. Once, when a soldier was Read More …

Shore Leave

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Not everything in Tyche’s Journey is about death insects. Sometimes there’s a little R&R; time on a crust to unwind. When you’re the best goddamn Helm in the universe, shore leave needs to be a little more … special. This week’s #RichardWrites nets us a scene from Tyche’s Crown. Enjoy! When El woke, it was with a man’s warm arms around her. Warm, strong arms. Connected to a chest that, even in sleep, looked purpose-built. The smell of sweat and sex and after alcohol was around her, holding her tighter than his embrace. What the fuck was his name again? Johnson. Davison. Mendleson. Something-son. She was sure of it. El gave a lazy blink, taking in the room. Nice enough as far as these things went. Rented by the night rather than by the hour. Not attached to a bar — Read More …

A Wanted Woman

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With the release of Tyche’s Flight just around the corner, I thought I’d share the start of the book. You get to meet Grace for the first time, even though you probably already know the cut of jib already. I’d love to know what you think, so face your fears and drop me an email ? Grace had less than a day to live. Oh, sure. She might be able to stretch it to a day and a half. But what’s twelve hours against your lifetime? Not a lot. Her room at the hotel was burned. The only thing she had left was her stash with her sword and a few Republic coins for emergencies. She hadn’t expected to be on this particular crust for this long. She hadn’t expected to be here at all. When Grace got caught, she’d die. Simple Read More …

Never fuck with an Engineer

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This week’s #RichardWrites is a scene starring Hope Baedeker, ship’s Engineer of the Tyche. It’s from Tyche’s Deceit. The crew are on Earth because reasons, and Hope is alone in a very bad part of town. Add in some thugs, and you’ve got an easy mark. Right? Hope felt her arms grabbed by the two men behind her. Raccoon was laughing, enjoying her joke over a gullible child, and the man at her side was laughing along like this was the greatest show on Earth. The vibroblade came at Hope like a diving falcon, straight at her heart. A blow like that would have gone in, cutting through the shiny new rig. Reduced its value a lot, and coupled with the blood that would be everywhere — Hope’s blood — it would make it worth just a handful of coins. Read More …

When Good Drinking Goes Bad

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In today’s #RichardWrites, we’ve got Elspeth trying to track down Hope in a scene from Tyche’s Deceit. Hope is off doing … something important that I’m not going to tell you about because, you know, spoilers. El’s tracking her in the best way she knows how: spacer bars that serve hard liquor. Moses snapped his fingers. “Altman Razor.” El looked between Moses and the autobar. “That a drink?” “It’s a dude,” said Moses. “I mean, it might be a drink as well. But it’s a dude. Sells shit. Parts, machinery, that kind of thing.” “Sounds like the right kind of match,” said El. She twirled her empty glass, initially curious about how it got so empty, so fast. “Hell, Moses. My glass is empty.” “They do that,” said Moses. “One of the annoying things about the universe.” He shifted his Read More …

When you’re out of options

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I try and put my people into tricky situations. Not just the guns-and-lasers-and-swords situations, because that kind of goes without saying. No, the type where they’ve got to make a choice where the first path is shit, and the second path is also shit. I especially like it when the actors do it to each other. Here’s a piece of Tyche’s Crown, the third of the Tyche’s Journey trilogy. The story so far is that … spoilers, so I’ll just say that Kohl is not having a great time, and Nate and Grace need to rescue a couple of their friends from the clutches of evil scientists. Oh, it’ll be fun. “Hey,” said Nate, then, “Hey.” He moved across the ready room to grab her, and Grace slumped into his arms. “Grace? Are you okay? Grace?” “I’m … fine,” said Grace. “You Read More …

FTL

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Trying to create FTL was a tricky problem. How do you deal with humans and their concept of linear time? How do you deal with the pesky laws of physics? Well, like most of the things I do: I cheat. I’ve created two types of FTL for Tyche’s Journey — one using the the Alcubierre drive, the other using wormholes (because, reasons — the Guild owns wormhole tech, which is safer, but those on free traders still like to chart their own course…). The Tyche has an Alcubierre drive — in the future, they call them Endless Drives. Here’s what happens when a ship jumps. “Clear for jump,” he said. He felt the thrill. He’d jumped a hundred, a thousand times before, but it never got old. He’d been on a rollercoaster on some frontier world, an attraction with mag sleds and high G. Read More …