Category: On Writing

Pew! Pew!

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I was invited to participate in Pew! Pew! 4: Bad versus Worse. This is a level of awesome I hadn’t anticipated. Pew! is a humorous anthology series where the greats of indie sci-fi (everyone else on the cover except me) rub shoulders with the newbies (me). You can get it here: https://www.books2read.com/Consensus This volume is a 50/50 mix of heroes and villains. My story, Consensus, is about a huge asshole named Austin (that’s not why he’s an asshole) who goes on a not-quite-heroes journey to start a new megacorp. I would dig it if you could check it out and let me know what you think  Blurb for Consensus: Decisions shouldn’t be hard. As a lead researcher for Reed Interactive, Austin Ainley created The Decider. It’s tech that can nudge people towards making the right choices. Despite his brilliance, Reed threw Read More …

Tyche’s Deceit

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My latest book, Tyche’s Deceit, is out! You can get it here: https://www.books2read.com/TychesDeceit The enemy is already here. After the encounter with the merciless Ezeroc on Absalom Delta, Grace Gushiken and Nathan Chevell make a run for home. They have a new mission: to warn humanity. Aliens are real. And they are already among us. The crew of the free trader Tyche are hunted by men in black, fearsome fighters who share the Ezeroc’s powers. When the Tyche lands on Earth the ship’s placed on lockdown. Her crew are scattered and on the run. Without their ship or friends, Grace and Nate have no escape. The Republic and its military have been corrupted to the core by the Ezeroc. Humanity’s homeworld is at risk. As hope dwindles, Grace and Nate receive an offer they can’t refuse from an unlikely source. The Read More …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Meet Hope Baedeker

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Got another piece of Tyche’s Flight for you today. In last week’s piece you saw a glimmer of Hope; this week, you get full and unfiltered Hope. She’s the Tyche’s Engineer, and she’s the best there is — even with the price on her head. Yeah yeah, first draft, but let me know what you think. “Nate—” “Captain.” “Nate, you said two weeks—” “I said a week, maybe two—” “It’s been two days!” She jerked an angry arm at the exposed machinery on one of the fusion drives, the cowl stacked up against the opposite wall. Wires. Pipes. A little smoke — now where the hell was that coming from, that wasn’t supposed to happen — and above it all, the status panel. Not enough lights green, too many red. “I took her apart because I had two weeks!” “A week!” “It’s been two days!” Read More …

Meet Elspeth Roussel

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Today’s #RichardWrites is a slice of Tyche’s Flight. This is the first time you meet the Tyche’s Helm, Elspeth Roussel. Best starship pilot you’ve ever met, and she’ll tell you that straight. You know the music: first draft, but let me know what you think. Elspeth Roussel sat in the Helm’s chair — her chair — on the Tyche’s bridge. It wasn’t much of a bridge, not like what she was used to from her days flying frigates for the Empire, but the captain had given her a paying job and didn’t mind that she’d flown for the losing side. And she was still Helm of something. Even a small lifter like the Tyche. She reached out a hand to the console in front of her, kept clean despite the age of it. “My good girl,” she said. “What was that?” Hope’s voice came Read More …

How we turn one car into a city block’s worth of destruction

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Today’s #RichardWrites is from Tyche’s Deceit, they second book in the Tyche’s Journey trilogy. I’m experimenting with points-of-view and types of exposition; it’s a little bit new, so I’d be interested in what you think 🙂 The two air cars screamed over the streets, engines burning hard. Citizens would have been looking up, wondering what was going on. Looking at what would cause a disturbance like this in their boring, safe lives in the very heart of the Republic. The lead car would have wobbled a little, the trained eye picking up a disturbance in the port thruster. Just a little noise in the burn, a bubble in the feed. Nothing serious under normal situations, something that might be rectified with ten minutes of maintenance by a skilled Engineer. The situation wasn’t normal, and there was no time for maintenance. The pilot Read More …