I've put the finishing touches on my new Swarm Cycle story, The Assassin, and have uploaded the first chapter for posting on March 13. I'm very excited about this story as it takes a very different (and non-canon) look at the Confederacy and its AIs.
I read a comment recently that said fan fiction comes in three varieties: "Sometimes fanfic is a love letter to canon; sometimes it's a polite disagreement; sometimes it's 95 things canon did wrong nailed to a door." I think the same can be said about a shared universe like Thinking Horndog's Swarm Cycle. The Assassin doesn't really fit any of those three categories exclusively. It's more like a nudge in the direction I think it should or is likely to go.
Several Swarm authors have engaged me on everything from the shape and origin of planetary militias to the division between Darjee and Tuull AIs to the deterioration of the sponsor/concubine/dependent society. When I looked at the process, for example, of female concubines having a child every two years or so, I thought immediately that a household with four concubines could have 28 dependents (or more with multiple births) under the age of fourteen at a time. All the time! At what point does the population of a planet go from 10,000 to 80,000 to 640,000 to 5.4 million? That geometric progression suggests only fourteen years until there is roughly a 7:1 ratio of children to adults. And at what point do concubines simply get tired of always being pregnant or suckling and just lie down and die? Given potential lifespans of 200 years and fertility for over a hundred, how is any mother going to keep track of who her fifty children are or where? Or the 350 grandchildren?
So, having ranted about my dystopian view of the future, I wrote a story that included the concubines simply overwhelming the sponsors. Roughly the first half of the book is completely consistent with the current Swarm canon. The rest of the book isn't contrary to the canon, but is beyond where the 300 or so stories in the current canon stop. So, it projects fifty years into the future of the cycle.
When I write something 'in the future,' it creates, of necessity, a history in its wake. I didn't want to tie the future of the Swarm Cycle to my view of what happens next, so I've voluntarily listed the story as non-canon. That means I'm not tying all other authors to my view of the future. I'm consistent with the canon up to the point where it peters out at the moment. Then, it's no holds barred as I paint a bleaker (but not hopeless) version of the future of the Confederacy in the next fifty years.
Am I writing anything else? Thank you for asking!
I struggled in the first couple of months of 2021 as I had heart problems again and underwent an ablation and cardioversion two weeks ago. The difference has been remarkable! I've been able to focus again. I spent a good bit of the first two months of this year re-reading the entire Florida Friends series by Dual Writer. Try it. You'll like it. Now I'm writing again.
I'm working on a sequel to Wayzgoose's A Place at the Table, currently titled A Place Among Peers. Not terribly far along yet, but I'm happy to be making progress. And I'm working on a sequel to aroslav's Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain. I'm happy to finally be making progress on both of these. My Tier 3 patrons on Patreon are reading these two stories as they develop. They pay the big bucks to read my mistakes. I'm sure both books will go through a massive rewrite before I release them here on SOL. http://www.patreon.com/aroslav
I started and abandoned two other books near the end of last year as the effects of being in atrial fibrillation disrupted my ability to concentrate. Perhaps when I get these two finished, I'll go back and look at the others to see if they can be resurrected.
During this period, I've also edited/proofread four manuscripts for other authors! I have seriously benefited from the volunteer time of other editors on SOL, so in addition to my professional editing, I've tried to give back a bit to the community.
So, there you have the life and times of aroslav. Still alive and kicking!