Year: 2015

Progress Notes: “Substrate Wars,” Book 2
Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

I spent the holidays visiting my mother in her memory care facility in Kansas City, and various family obligations have kept me from working on the new book until about now. I’ve finished a bare outline but it’s a long way from fleshed out; and I haven’t decided how to deal with the usual problem of recapping the first book so the second can stand on its own. It’s obvious who the villains will be for book 2, but after that my crystal ball gets hazy — I will have to sketch out the next few in the series to properly detail this one.

So it will take me about 3-4 months if all goes well. Hope you guys can wait that long!

New Reviews: “Red Queen: The Substrate Wars”

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The Kindle version is available on Amazon here, at only $2.99, while the trade paperback is available here at around $13.

The next two Amazon reviews:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced, well plotted read. December 28, 2014
By John D. Mcdonald
Good, well paced story. Reminded me of Heinlein’s “juveniles” in the pacing, dialogue, etc; and I mean that in a good sense. Young people (and some not so young) faced with making choices that have far-reaching consequences. An intriguing scientific development which can affect the whole human race forces the protagonists to grow up. I am looking forward to the continuation of the series.
4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed but fun December 30, 2014
By RichM

I really enjoyed this book, but a warning for the hard science people – you may not like some of the cavalier treatment conservation of mass and energy gets.

Another nitpick I have is the old story of 1) discover a technology on Monday 2) debug the technology on Tuesday and 3) deploy the technology on Wednesday. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

In spite of this I gave it 4 stars, because who doesn’t enjoy giving it to the man?

I would share this reviewer’s concerns if the violations of standard conservation of mass and energy weren’t explained in two ways: explicitly, by Steve Duong (who shares the unease), and implicitly by the “world as simulation” thread of the story, which should leave the reader wondering if the story is taking place in a simulation itself. It’s pointed out that just such violations of physical laws would be expected on the margins of a less-than-perfect simulation, and there’s no reason to believe the physics-as-computation-on-substrate of what we think of reality is free of such flaws.

As for the normal pace of development of a technology, I’m asking the reader to believe Steve Duong is one of those rare geniuses who can do in a week what might take a team of scientists a year. While such people are rare, they do exist; and the story must move fast and so can’t stop to do more than hint at the long process of development in normal teams.