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Month: November 2021

Review: Those Left Behind, by N. C. Scrimgeour

Review: Those Left Behind, by N. C. Scrimgeour

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Those Left Behind by N. C. Scrimgeour

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

Those Left Behind is a space-opera novel, the first in a planned trilogy.

The human world of New Pallas is on the brink of destruction due to internal strife, overpopulation, and environmental collapse. Its only hope lies in the hands of Alvera Renata, a revolutionary turned starship captain. She intends to command a state-of-the-art ship, the Ranger, on a desperate mission to find a new home for her people.

When Ranger flies through a “waystation” on the edge of the New Pallas system, Alvera and her crew find themselves amid a galaxy-wide civilization called the Coalition, governed by a loose alliance of humans and several other species. In theory, the Coalition could provide new homes for all New Pallas’s billions. In practice, the alliance has troubles of its own. Aggressive outsiders, the Idran-Var, threaten the peace. Even worse, there are signs that some completely unknown entity is preparing to attack the Coalition – a force which may have eradicated whole civilizations in the past.

At first, the Coalition cautiously welcomes Alvera’s mission. Then a shocking betrayal scatters her crew and threatens to end her mission before it can even begin.

The story that follows is told from multiple points of view: Alvera herself, the son of her worst enemy, a colonist girl with unusual skills, a deadly young woman who refuses to be a warrior, and a soldier who comes to suspect he is fighting the wrong war. As we follow these five characters, we get a tour of Coalition space and the sense of a terrible conflict that is about to begin.

Those Left Behind is very clearly the first novel in a series. This book sets up a complex, multi-threaded story, and it resolves very few of the conflicts it starts. Even so, the characters are clearly drawn and engaging, and I found myself compulsively turning pages to see what would happen to them next. I usually dislike ensemble stories told from multiple viewpoints, but N. C. Scrimgeour has the skill to make it work. Her prose style is very clean, too – I had a hard time finding any copy-editing or line-editing problems in the text. This is a very professional job.

If I had a concern about Those Left Behind, it’s that the setting and plot felt a little derivative. The author’s ad copy mentions that “fans of Mass Effect . . . will love this,” and she is not kidding in the slightest. If you’re acquainted with the Mass Effect universe, then a lot of elements of the setting and plot are going to feel familiar here. It’s not a matter of copying – the most I would say is that this story is strongly inspired by the world of the video game series. N. C. Scrimgeour has done a superb job of remixing and reworking familiar tropes, building a compelling story atop them.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Those Left Behind, and I’m going to be watching for the next book in the series. Very highly recommended if you enjoy high-octane space opera in the vein of the Mass Effect games.

Status Report (28 November 2021)

Status Report (28 November 2021)

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Well, we’re coming down to the end of the month of November, and I’m sorry to report that the honey and the biscuits are not coming out even. (Except at our Thanksgiving table, where we had a very fine feast.)

At the moment, new material adds up to about 9,000 words, most of it in the new Human Destiny story I’m working on. That’s looking as if it will come to novelette length before I’m finished with it. I also have one new chapter of The Sunlit Lands complete in first draft, and part of the next chapter. Nothing new on any other projects, alas.

In fact, that’s better than I managed in September or October, which tells me that I may have gotten the creative engine unstuck finally. It’s still not enough to reach my self-imposed threshold for a new release for my patrons. Therefore there will be no charged release for my patrons in November.

If I can keep up the current pace, however, a full release for my patrons seems very likely in December. More on that once I’ve got the decks cleared a bit and can plan for the coming month.

Status Report (20 November 2021)

Status Report (20 November 2021)

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The day job has been taking up a lot of my time and energy over the past few weeks – there’s a great stack of work I need to get knocked out at the office before it turns into a ghost town over the holidays. Still, this weekend and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday are promising plenty of time to get creative work done.

At the moment, I’m working to get a new Human Destiny short story put together. As with “Guanahani,” this story is set on the day when the Khedai Hegemony launches its overt invasion of Earth. In this case, the story is set on Mars, where a small outpost has been struggling to survive in isolation, ever since everything went to pot back on the home world. When the aliens arrive, they give the Martian colonists a fateful choice to make . . .

I’ve also been working on new chapters of The Sunlit Lands. That’s moving too slowly for my taste, but I may have two or three new chapters finished by the end of November.

At the moment, my plan for my patrons is to release those new chapters of The Sunlit Lands and the new short story as a charged release by the end of November. That’s conditional on the new material adding up to at least 12,000-15,000 words. I may also finish polishing up a minor version update of the Human Destiny sourcebook – that will be a free patron reward if I can get to a good milestone with it.

I’ve also been reviewing yet another creative project, something I worked on several years ago and then dropped. Another fantasy novel, in this case, but more strictly historical fantasy. It’s an alternate-timeline setting, in which Classical Greece ends up developing along very different lines than in our history. I find I actually have quite a lot of notes, and a very healthy opening already written for a novel. More about that if I decide to bring it up off the back burner.

I also owe the world at least one book review before the end of the month. A few good candidates in my TBR stack, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Planning for November 2021

Planning for November 2021

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I seem to be in a long-term slump when it comes to creative effort. For a couple of months now, progress has been slow and rather scattered on all of my outstanding projects – I’ve made some progress in several areas, but no one item has moved forward enough to generate a significant milestone. Neither have I generated any new content in a big enough block to justify issuing a charged release for my patrons. About the only real milestone I hit was to publish this month’s book review.

Hard to say what’s behind this. It’s probably some mix of needing to spend most of my creative spoons on my day job, getting distracted by day-to-day concerns, and some mild dysphoria that’s making it hard to focus. The upshot is that October, like September, was something of a wash.

Yet hope springs eternal, and part of my creative discipline involves at least taking stock and laying out a plan at the beginning of each month. So here’s the plan for November.

Not much change from last month, except that I think I’m going to move a new Human Destiny short story up on the priority list – I have a concept that seems to be pushing its way to the front of my mind. Also with respect to Human Destiny, I’ve been doing a lot of research and prep work to develop a timeline for the terraforming of Mars – I think several stories in that setting will eventually be tied to that piece of it. I might push that subproject forward this month.

  • Top Priority (“this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful”)
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few new chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Human Destiny: Research and produce a timeline for the terraforming of Mars in this universe.
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
  • Second Priority (“work on this as time permits”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
  • Back Burner (“work on this only if everything else gets blocked”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release. This work may involve updating all of the worked examples, and making mathematical notation more consistent.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller.

If I can produce enough new prose between The Sunlit Lands and a Human Destiny story, that will likely be a charged release for my patrons this month. If some of the Second Priority material makes progress, I’ll likely post that to my blog and share it with my patrons for free as well. I also have a couple of good candidates for book reviews for the month of November.