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Act One: Fifteen down, eleven to go before the three threads touch for the first time, and I've been looking forward to posting this one since I outlined it.
I won't say much about it. The title is Open Sky, and for fourteen chapters Waylon's side of the story has lived in tunnels and under domes. This week it doesn't. That's all you get.
Behind the scenes, Act Three is well along. I'm drafting deep into it now, and the back half of the book is turning out larger than I planned, which I've decided to take as a good sign.
Thanks as always to dookie for editing, and to everyone leaving comments. I read all of them, and more than one has changed a chapter. Keep them coming.
CCTW
The Companion Guide has grown again.
"The AI Classification System, Part Two" is up. It covers the two newest minds at Free Vallis, Cass and Gunny, and it opens the ledger: how many minds were aboard storage container 113-Alpha, what happened to each one, and which one is still asleep in a lab on Mars.
These installments are staged on purpose. Each one carries only what the story has already shown you. When something significant is unlocked, a new chapter goes live.
The Vallis Defense: Cold Human
Now the bigger item. I have told you about the three men this book follows. I have never told you how it is all put together, so here it is.
Act One, Separate Worlds. Twenty-six chapters. Three lives running on one calendar, and a man on Mars who decides to reach out to the other two.
Act Two, Convergence. Thirty chapters. Men who have only talked to each other finally sit at the same table. What Waylon has been carrying alone stops being his to carry.
Act Three, Community. The longest of the three, and the one I am writing right now. Building a community is hard. Keeping it is harder still.
That comes to a little under 110 chapters. It is the most ambitious story I have attempted, and possibly evidence that somebody should take the keyboard away from me.
There may also be an Act Four. That one depends on you. If Acts One and Two are well received, and I hope they are, Act Four will follow.
Now, about the weekly schedule, since a few of you have asked why we can't have more chapters sooner.
Your comments and DMs change the book, and I like having the time to incorporate them.
Dookie reads every chapter and tells me what is wrong with it. He does that work as a service to others, not because anyone is paying him, and I have no interest in rushing him. He gets whatever time he needs.
And mostly, Act Three is not going to write itself. I have checked. Repeatedly.
This is a passion project for both of us. The day it starts feeling like a job is the day something has gone wrong. I would rather hand you one good chapter on Sunday than two rushed ones.
One last note. Several of you have asked whether Cold Human will be sold on Bookapy. The answer is "Not right now."
I know the words are mine and the story is original. But this universe was built by Cold Creek and Refusenik, and I am a guest in it. Charging admission to somebody else's house doesn't sit right with me. Maybe that changes someday. Today it feels wrong, so the book stays free.
Thank you for reading, for voting, and for the DMs. You are the reason Dookie and I do this.
Happy reading... CCTW
This week's Companion Guide update adds the AI Classification material. I decided it works better in the guide than embedded in the story, and I'll keep adding to it as the story develops.
I've also had a few questions about Chapter 4. There's an Easter egg in Chapter 48 of Defenceman: Parallel Ice that sheds some light on those anomalous nodes.
Happy reading... CCTW
So a reader dropped into my DMs after Chapter 2 with actual JPL ephemeris data. Not "hey, isn't Mars far away," but the Earth-Mars separation for the specific week in April 2011 my scene is set in, cross-referenced against the speed of light, with the round-trip delay calculated out to the minute. I want that on the record, because it is exactly the kind of reader I hope this story finds.
We went back and forth on it, and the conversation ended up covering a lot of ground: FTL comms, inertial dampening, why a technology this old doesn't bother explaining itself. Good questions, the kind that make a story better for having been asked.
The upshot is that Chapter 1 now has a short new section, right after the note on timeline, called "A note on the science." It lays out plainly, that this isn't hard sci-fi like The Expanse, and that a few things in this universe — instant communication, an eighteen-hour trip to Mars, a body that survives that trip — aren't separate hand-waves. They're one very old, very advanced technology, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise or explain it. If the physics and the story disagree, the story wins, and now you'll know that going in.
If you've been wondering about the same things and were too polite to ask, this one's for you too. And if you've got a launch window and a delta-v budget you'd like me to double check, my inbox remains open.
— CCTW
Chapters one and two are posted now on Stories Online under Cold Creek Tribute Writer. New chapters arrive every Sunday, the same weekly rhythm Defenceman: Parallel Ice kept for the past year. Search the title or follow my profile for the direct link.
If you followed Defenceman: Parallel Ice, Michael Stewart's story picks up just weeks after where you left him. If you loved Refusenik's Island Mine or the Human series, Waylon Eckermann and Scott MacIntyre are waiting for you. If you are brand new, start with the Companion Guide — posted last week, with summaries of the source books and a full character and location codex.
One ask. Serial fiction lives on word of mouth. If the opening chapters work for you, leave a comment, score the story when SOL opens voting, and tell one person who loved the originals. That is the whole marketing department.
Thank you for being here. Now I get to tell you the story.
CCTW
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