The Veil War

Kids, I just wanted everyone to know that Chapter 16 is inbound, scheduled for arrival for tomorrow. I would have posted today – even early this morning – had I not had a modest moment of inspiration that led me to rearrange and edit what I had prepared for you.

It’s funny, but I now have a little Ian Healy who sits in my head and keeps asking, “Does this advance the story?” I have no earthly idea what the real Ian Healy sounds like, but I can tell you that the one in my head is whiny and annoying. Sometimes he has a bit of a lisp, and his voice is a bit twee and high pitched. However, he is nearly always right, the bastard.

And after I post Chapter 16, I finish work and head for the hills to shoot at lots of defenseless water bottles, paper targets and other innocent, inanimate objects. There will likely be a fair amount of alcohol consumption and bacon eating. Note well, I will make every effort to pursue these activities consecutively, not concurrently. Which reminds me, a few weeks back I attended (as an observer) a training class run by F2S Consulting on the proper use of carbines. I have witnessed an epic amount of bad training in my life. A fair bit of mediocre training. The occasional good instruction. I can count on the fingers of no hands the number of times that I’ve seen as good a trainer as Jack from F2S. I admit that I know next to nothing about the use of weaponry in combat by way of personal experience. But there is a smell to competence, and Jack smells like heaven.

If you are ever interested in learning to shoot, to shoot better – F2S is the place to go. Jack taught some of the best in the world to shoot better, I’m sure he can help you. You can find his webpage here; and I can assure you that as soon as I can pry loose the cash, I will be taking his classes.

WordPress added a few features to its stats engine a while back. One of the nicer features is being able to see where people are coming from. Granted, this isn’t exactly rocket science; I’ve had this feature on self hosted sites for over a decade. For example, today we’ve already had visitors from most of the nicer Anglophone nations, Romania, and South Korea.

Sadly, the country stats don’t go back to the beginning. But here’s the top contenders for the most recent period:

Country	Views
United States	2,376
Australia	293
Canada	242
United Kingdom	175
Mexico	59
Romania	47
Bosnia and Herzegovina	25
Hong Kong	23
Austria	12
France	11
South Africa	9
Germany	9
New Zealand	8
Brazil	8
India	8

The UK is really slacking, being outpaced by three former colonies.

So, welcome everyone, no matter where you’re from. Drop a comment and let us know where you’re from. The person furthest from my current location wins 50 internet points.

The chapter is done!

But not ready to post. Since regaining human-level intelligence and energy levels, I’ve been rushing madly to catch up on all everything I didn’t do when I was besieged by microbes and shit. Among those things, of course, is the story.

I detected some issues I wanted to correct in this chapter; and after hand wringing, eye-wiggling, and soul searching, I’ve fixed them. But I haven’t yet proofed the words, and that will have to wait til tomorrow.

My apologies for this little dry spell.

My epic struggle with trillions of viruses continues. I thought I was better for a moment, but that was merely strategic misdirection on the part of the viral hordes. The Veil War chapter you were expecting will go up tomorrow. I apologize for the delay.

Little bastards hate me.

In the meantime, check out these cool articles about technology, drones and cyber warfare. Look, over there, shiny!

• This one’s from a few years back, but Scott Locklin is fun. The Myth of Technological Progress. Read his site, too. Great pieces on zeppelins and battleships in there.
• John Arquilla with Cyberwar Is Already Upon Us.
• I Love You, Killer Robots – Slate on UPenn’s quadrotor drones. Check out all the videos. Also Boston Dynamics (of Big Dog fame) with the Cheetah, Darpa’s fastest running drone yet.
• The best source on Drone warfare is John Robb. Just start scrolling down. Also, Daniel Suarez’ next book is about drones. I already pre-ordered mine – his books Daemon and Freedom(tm) are fantastic. Doesn’t come out until July, which sucks mightily. Drones will be in the second Veil War novel. Oh yes.
• Put on your thinking cap – brain stimulation for enhanced intelligence. Want one.
• I’d also recommend West Hunter, the blog for Harpending and Cochran, HBD theorists and cool cats. I have enjoyed their thinking very much indeed, and it informs how I’ve created the goblins and other humanoid monsters.
• Speaking of things that have informed my thinking, Bruce Charlton has been a stimulator of thinking in regards to the outlook and mindset of the Crusaders in the story, and you’ll be seeing more of that as the story moves on. Look for posts on mysticism and magic, and Orthodoxy.

Just thought I’d let all you crazy cats know what’s up. So far, I have:

• Completed a thorough edit and partial rewrite of chapters 1-8. Thought that might be needed right away (reason: secret) but turned out not to be. Still, it would have needed to be done at some point regardless, so no loss.
• Completed the rewrite occasioned by Ian’s comment, all the way up to where the changes merge back into the normal flow – round about chapter 14. All those chapters are ready to post.
• Rewrote half of the bonus story. A-10 pilot Chris “Paco” Croninger has had his adventures moved about 70 miles East, and the new adventures make a lot more sense as a result of the changes. Also, nastier. I’ve  figured out how Paco will figure in the story as it evolves, and it’s going to be fun. For me, not him.
• Wrote 15,000 new words about Gordon Black and his family escaping from just south of the Veil in Virginia.

Tomorrow, I plan to finish Captain Lewis’ big battle. Exciting stuff, I tell you. Peril! Danger! Magic! M1A1 Abrams! Crunchies! Tonight before bed, I’m rereading everything from Chapter 14 on to get my head back in what’s happening and taking notes. After the battle, only a bit more and then that part of the story is complete. Friday and Saturday, I’m going to write as much as I possibly can back with Gordon. If I can clear 30k words by Saturday evening, I will count myself a happy writerman. Then booze, whippets, and hookers to celebrate.

With a bit of hard work and family-ignoring, I estimate that I can have the whole novel complete as draft manuscript by April-ish. Hard to believe, I started writing this thing only last Fall.

Some random news-type items:

• Thanks to a grant from the Christian W. Stauffer Foundation for the Advancement of Arts and Stuff, I am spending a week off from work writing. And not just writing, mind you; writing in splendid isolation. I iz happy.
• As a result of the above item, there will be no Really Big Idea post tomorrow. That will resume next week.
• Also as a result of the first item, there won’t be much posting at all. But fear not, Veil War Thursday and Chapter 12 will proceed as normal.
• One of the things that I am working on is a rewrite of chapters 1 – 8, if you have any last minute suggestions, please comment on this post or send me an email.

Just a small note that may be of interest – we crossed the 10,000 unique page views line sometime yesterday. Thanks, to all of you.

Next stop: 10 million.

Being a reactionary monarchist extropian libertarian, I find it hard to become exercised about politics beyond the normal human revulsion at witnessing the venal pandering to the vulgar.

Nevertheless, I rouse myself from my apathy because the SOPA/PIPA acts being considered by the US Congress will screw with my plans should they be enacted. I plan to make a living from the internet. Or at least, make money on the internet. To have to check every outgoing link for infringing material or risk having my own site shut down is a staggeringly retarded imposition.

The world is not perfect. But the internet is pretty cool, all told. If you are a U.S. citizen, tell your congressfucker to wise up, and protect my future. And yours, of course.

You can get more information on the issue in these places:

EFF

Technical Examination of SOPA

Wiki and Wiki

Google

Discussion of SOPA that includes the phrase, “Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison”.

Representative lookup here.