rlfj: Blog

Not sure why it happened, but we had major problems when Chapter 16 was uploaded. The timeline is as follows. First, I uploaded Chapter 16 and it worked fine. I read the story, and everything was in order. Five minutes later, I added Section headings, which is how I originally wrote the story. I then checked the Table of Contents and it all looked fine. However, it seems that adding the sections screwed everything up. Everybody focused on the problems with Chapters 15 & 16, but it was throughout the story. Chapter 2 was missing, other chapters were wrong - basically the whole thing was a mess!

I dumped it on Lazeez, the webmaster, and got the following response: “I checked the story. I found no duplicates on my end. I cleared the story's cache on the server. Please check and let me know if that fixed the issue.” That seemed to do the trick. Please check.

Fixing this was both heartwarming and a major nuisance. I had forty-plus responses, which is very heartening. However, I also try to respond to everybody, which meant I had to respond to forty-plus mentions of the problem! Thank you all!

I have heard from a number of readers that Chapter 15 & 16 are the same. I think something happened when I added section headings after uploading Chapter 16.

Refresh your cache. On my system, both in Edge and Firefox, it is reading correctly. Chapter 16 should start with a first line specifying 'Part 2 - War' and a second line specifying 'Chapter 16: It Begins' If you aren't seeing that, clear your cache and refresh.

Thanks!

My wife was babysitting for our youngest (34-year-old) daughter the other day and after she came back from shopping, our six-year-old granddaughter started brushing out her mother’s hair. “Mommy,” she said, “You have such shiny hair!” Our daughter has dark brown hair.

“You mean white hair?”

“No, silver.”

It was a great testament to our daughter’s self-control that our granddaughter is still alive.

A few typos in Chapters 14 and 15 were fixed. Thank you to my eagle-eyed readers. I try, but it amazes me when something still sneaks past my editors and me. Anyway, the second invasion has begun. Enjoy!

There are 29 chapters in Martian Justice, so Chapter 15 is the midpoint. So far, people seem to like it. We’ll just have to see. Enjoy!

I got several questions about the use of hydrogen in the story. Where is the oxygen needed for combustion? The hydrogen economy of WestHem, EastHem, and Mars is a combination of things. First, hydrogen is needed for the fusion reactors and engines of the period. As told in Greenies, fusion began to be used as an Earthly power source after petroleum was exhausted in World War III. Not sure why they needed to go to Jupiter for hydrogen since there is plenty of hydrogen on Earth, locked up in the form of water. Perhaps the fusion reactors need a special mix of deuterium or tritium, and the gas mines can separate and concentrate specific elements.

Hydrogen was also needed for combustion vehicles. This would include tanks and APCs, and air vehicles such as fighters, attack craft, Hummingbirds, Mosquitoes, etc. (Greenies, Chapter 3 - “Denver had once been one of the smoggiest cities in the nation but smog was now a thing of the distant past thanks to fusion power and hydrogen burning engines.”) Greenies also specifies that spacecraft engines are fusion powered as shown in Chapter 4 - “The WSS Mermaid, an Owl-Class, stealth attack ship…Her twin fusion engines were both at idle…”)

There was also a comment (a polite one and very well educated, no complaints from me) about my understanding of orbital mechanics as shown in the interception and capture of the tankers, basically that I had it all wrong. I read the complaint and smiled, and then said, “So be it!” I am channeling my inner Heinlein and having fun! If Captain Kirk can do it, so can I!

We’re about halfway through the story, so I turned voting on. I hope you like the story. Thanks, in advance. Enjoy!