Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three Read online

Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three

  Michael Brachman

  Copyright 2016 by Michael Brachman

  TALES OF THE VUDURI: YEAR THREE

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2016 by Michael Brachman

  Cover art copyright © 2016 by Bruce Brachman

  V3.01.0002

  Also by Michael Brachman

  The Rome’s Revolution Series

  Rome’s Revolution

  The Ark Lords

  Rome’s Evolution

  The Vuduri Knights Series

  The Milk Run

  *The Vuduri Knight

  The Vuduri Universe Series

  Tales of the Vuduri: Year One

  Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two

  Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three

  *The Vuduri Companion

  (*not yet in publication)

  Dedication

  Just like last year, it’s difficult to come up with a new dedication when the same people behind Tales of the Vuduri: Year One and Year Two are the very same people that helped me produce this volume, Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three. My wife, Denise, deserves a special thank you for understanding I have to write the blog posts. Her patience is boundless. I am going for a self-imposed record of five continuous years which means every week I have to put in the time to craft the entries. Denise graciously allows me the time to do so.

  And, as always, I want to thank my immeasurably talented brother Bruce. He is my go-to guy when it comes to the world of the Vuduri. Not only is he my editor and artist and the inspiration behind MINIMCOM, but he is also fiercely protective of the Vuduri culture and characters. He is always receptive to me bouncing ideas off his head, even when he doesn’t have the time. In addition, Bruce creates the amazing covers, the astounding book trailers and makes my writing so much better. Bruce, none of this would exist without you.

  Finally, as always, I would like to thank my heroes, Rome and Rei, their children and all the living, breathing denizens of the 35th century. They have supplied me with an endless amount of material about a future not yet born.

  Introduction

 

  Looking back, when I started writing my Tales of the Vuduri blog in December of 2012, maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea. It is now 2016 and I am well over 1100 entries so I suppose you could say I am all in. I have set a personal goal of continuously blogging for five years and I am 60% of the way through. Do I regret it? No, not really. Practicing my craft isn’t such a horrible thing and a lot of times I get so engrossed in a topic that three, four, five or six articles will fall out of it.

  As with the prior two volumes, the material that served as background for the Rome’s Revolution series continuously provides me with a map of what to write about and the blog is an awesome place to present some of that material. So much back-story, deleted scenes, character motivation, it all falls out of just following the novels. I have completed Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three and I am not even finished commenting on my first sci-fi novel, Rome’s Revolution. I suspect I will finish up that particular book fairly soon and only then can I get into the background of the second book in the trilogy entitled The Ark Lords. I suppose the final book, Rome’s Evolution, will have to wait until Year Five!

  This past year was also one where I learned a hard lesson. I got hit with an image copyright infringement tussle and it ended up costing me money. I like to spice up the articles by decorating them with funny or meaningful pictures. In my naiveté, I just grabbed them from the Internet as long as there was no copyright right in front of my face. Since I wasn’t charging anybody any money for the blog or these books, I figured no one was being harmed. Boy was I wrong! Turns out, you can’t do that. So now I use an exhaustive set of protocols to make sure the images I present are safe and copyright-free. I mostly use my own photographs and drawings but if I take any images from other source, I make sure that I have the right to repost them. I wrote a whole blog article about it last March so you can see what I go through now to make sure that none of my images infringe upon anyone’s rights.

  On a happier note, as with the prior two years, I continually learn about the 35th century by writing the posts. This year, I finally finished my next novel entitled The Milk Run and this blog has helped me work out a lot of the ideas incorporated in that book. I also recorded my first audiobook. Originally, I was going to pay someone to record Rome’s Revolution but my Indiegogo campaign fell woefully short. However, I did raise enough money to buy a really great microphone and last summer, I threw myself into the project. It took me four months to record The Milk Run but by the time I was done, I had an eight-hour, fairly professional audiobook which is now available on Audible.com.

  This year, I will be releasing The Vuduri Companion which will be a series of short stories and novelettes which didn’t really fit anywhere else. It will even include the original versions of VIRUS 5 and Rome’s Revolution written way back in 1973. It will also contain an original short story entitled The Immortals which will be the springboard for a new trilogy starring Rome and Rei. I don’t have much by the way of detail regarding the various plots but I have complete faith that my heroes will provide me with what I need when I need it. They haven’t failed me yet.

  To produce so many blog articles, I still follow the discipline learned in that first year. I write no less than seven blog articles on Saturday or Sunday and then post one each day over the course of the next week. Sometimes, if I know I am going to be away the following weekend, I’ll write 14 articles. That’s a lot to pump out at one time! Now that we’ve come to the end of Year Three, I’ve taken the latest 366 articles and bound them together in this volume for your reading pleasure.

  Many times, when writing articles for the blog, these stories or ideas launched me on a tangent, sometimes a week or two at a time but I always returned to the story. I’m actually excited about reaching the end of my VIRUS 5 review and finally getting to The Ark Lords and Rome’s Evolution. As I have mentioned numerous times, in many ways, Rome’s Revolution wrote itself. The next books needed a lot more input. I’m looking forward to sharing that process with you.

  As with the previous two volumes, it is not necessary that you have read the Rome’s Revolution series or even either of the first two Tales of the Vuduri but it couldn’t hurt. There are often references within the articles to events and characters that inhabit those books. But just like last year, there are also some amazing new scientific facts and amusing articles that transcend the original trilogy. And also like last year, there’s been a lot happening in the world of science over the last 12 months that has a bearing on the series and the projected world of the 35th century. I try to incorporate those discoveries as I go.

  Here is a partial list of what you’ll find in these entries:

  How Rei became such a good swimmer

  My very first published article entitled Ion My Love

  Why we say goofy things like “rule of thumb”

  Asking the question, are we, ourselves, somebody’s simulation?

  The evolution of the web sites and audiobook

  Holidays on other worlds

  What I would do if the aliens come tomorrow

  The complete 5-star review of The Milk Run from Risingshadow.net

  A whole series on sustainability including:

  Artificial leaves

  Creating fuel from air

  Tesla’s Powerwall and how it will change the Earth

  The Immortal Jellyfish

  How I was able to take a simple mispronunciation of a single word and turn it into a 90,000 word novel

  The secret history of my first motorcycle

  The original death of the Stareate
r named Balathunazar

  OMCOM’s mutations as told from the perspective of a VIRUS unit

  All about our trip to Hawaii 10 years ago and how it completely influenced the set design for Rome’s Revolution and the world of Deucado

  Why Rome was really picked to accompany Rei

  How the Ice-Saberoo ended up looking the way it does

  Discourses on computer ethics, character development and more

  How my molecular sequencer is really just the ultimate 3D printer

  And not last and not least, more amusing images. Legal this time!

  It is up to you to judge but I hope I have continued to improve as a blogger. As with the previous volumes, you will find occasional hypertext links but of course they are not functional within an e-book or paperback. When the sole purpose of a link was to take you somewhere else, I added an underline to the link. As with the prior two Tales of the Vuduri, the entries are exactly as they appeared on Goodreads although I do fix typos when I find them.

  Feel free to jump in anywhere. You don’t need to read the articles in any particular order although the general flow would follow that of the second half of Rome’s Revolution. And as always, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

  Entry 3-001: December 27, 2014

 

  These stories are true

  Every time I tell you about the world of Rome's Revolution, I claim to you that these stories are true, they just haven't happened yet.

  For example, I wrote a story called "Acceleration" over 10 years ago about a guy who is on his way to his lawyer's office when he gets sucked up into space and accelerates until he hits the speed of light. He gets stretched out so thin that eventually, he ceases to be a person and becomes a point of view. Who knew that I would need this story for Aason's trip to Heaven in the upcoming novel, The Milk Run which I wrote this past year.

  Even within that book, I threw in stuff that I needed to make the plot move along but didn't really have a justification for it. For example, I needed Aason to plan a trip to the equator of Ay'den, the world of the K'val, to find living crystals to build a capsule to return the god named Molokai back to his home.

  So I gave Sh'ev's father the task of having spearheaded an expedition to that place 200 years earlier. I had no reason. I just needed it for the plot.

  Well, in the shower the other day (it always happens in the shower), I realized that Molokai had commanded Oush B'trev, Sh'ev's father, to lead that expedition because he knew that some day soon he would need the raw materials.

  So you, the reader, will consume the book, come across this description and say yeah, it makes perfect sense when the reality is, had you read this section two weeks ago, you'd scratch your head and say, well this is a little convenient.

  So where do these ideas come from if they aren't true? Downright spooky!

  Entry 3-002: December 28, 2014

 

  Happy Two Year!

  Can you believe it? It has been two years since I started this blog. Tales of the Vuduri has now amassed 731 posts and I'm still going strong. I missed three posts in Year One. I did not miss a single post in Year Two!

  I am right in the middle of compiling the past year's posts into a new volume entitled Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two. I have the intro written and I'm working my way backwards from December 2014. I'm just about done October and I'll try and fold in September by the end of the weekend.

  My brother Bruce has already finished the cover for the book and it is even better than last year. Here's the cover:

  Bruce added a new ring around I-cimaci and introduced some new starships. I love the one in the upper right hand corner. Also, if you look at the starport in the lower right hand corner, you'll see some ships docked.

  I have finally finished the complete draft of The Milk Run and it is the hands of six readers. It's a race and hopefully somebody will get back to me soon.

  I was going to publish Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two first then The Milk Run when it was ready. Bruce talked me into getting TOTV:Y2 ready but put it on the shelf until The Milk Run gets published. That way, people who read this new compilation and see references to The Milk Run will be able to buy it.

  Entry 3-003: December 29, 2014

 

  Drifting toward the younger

  I'm thinking now that the freedom from responsibility that we afford our children from their teenage years into their twenties might be a purely modern phenomenon. Kids are getting married later and generally having more fun longer. I think the days of people graduating high school and embarking on a career have, to some degree, gone by the wayside. I also think those who attend college also delay embarking upon marriage, careers and so on. Of course, this could just be a passing phase or a skewed observation.

  As I have been writing about the world of Rome's Revolution, it occurs to me that the above is simply a luxury that comes with having an advanced and affluent society. In the boondocks or in my case outlying colony worlds, it just seems like the youth of my stories are growing up faster and taking on responsibility sooner that their Earthly counterparts.

  Is this a sociological principle or just something that my brain has made up? In my world of the 35th century, it seems like by the age of 25, you are already established in the life you will live. There is no room and certainly no time for searching or finding yourself.

  The two main characters of my next novel, The Milk Run are aged 16 and 21. By age 16, Lupe Bierak has already become pretty much her own woman and Aason Bierak has already met the girl who he will eventually marry. In the historical chapters of The Ark Lords, Jack Henry was already running his mother's farm at 15 and was the leader of the rebellion by age 25. I don't know. If these stories are true, as I have maintained, does this mean that society will drive back toward the younger? I guess we'll find out.

  Entry 3-004: December 30, 2014

 

  A Trip to the Moon

  In 1902, Georges Méliès released the very first science fiction movie called Le Voyage dans la lune or a Trip to the Moon. Everyone has seen the images from this classic and while it might seem silly today, there is a point for me showing this to you:

  The reason I bring this up is because this image served as an inspiration to me in one of the opening scenes of the upcoming novel The Milk Run.

  As you may recall, at the end of Part 1 of Rome's Revolution, OMCOM, the starbase computer, had completed his transformation into Planet OMCOM. If you didn't know he was a living computer, you would think that Planet OMCOM was just a brilliant all-white planet. But when Aason Bierak arrives there, OMCOM moves his entire geography around to form a face. Here is that scene:

  “Look in front of you,” Junior replied.

  Out of the cockpit window, Aason could see the formerly homogeneous surface of Planet OMCOM changing. Junior rotated the large central display to its fully upright position and routed in his video feed. Junior’s forward camera showed minuscule pieces of the planet that had broken free and were now approaching the starship like a tiny cloud. Other portions of the surface began flowing to the north, creating a series of huge mountain ranges while still other sections began flowing to the south and west creating valleys and more mountains until a huge face appeared within its bulk like a comical Man in the Moon. However, instead of OMCOM’s regular bullet-shaped head with slits where the eyes and mouth would be, this head was rounded and expressive.

  Planet OMCOM’s titanic lips started moving. “We will find your sister,” said the living computer, his voice issuing from Junior’s grille. “However, I must make some changes to Junior’s airframe to prepare you for your search.”

  This scene was my tribute to Georges Méliès and his ground-breaking entry into the long history of amazing science fiction films.

  Entry 3-005: December 31, 2014

 

  The world is crazy

  Even though Rome's Revolution takes place in the 35th century, I have tried very
hard to make sure that each advancement in science, physiology, physics and so on are built upon the foundation laid earlier in the series.

  This is the essence of science fiction and what distinguishes it from fantasy. You can say or have the characters do anything you want as long as it cannot be dis-proven. Fantasy requires no such rules. You can literally wave your hands and say this is so because it is magic and that's the way this magical realm works.

  However, even with all the painstaking work I put in to get us to a certain point, if you look at the state of things in the absence of how you got there, it is indistinguishable from fantasy. Even our 21st century hero, Rei Bierak, sees this. Consider this scene that takes place right after he discovers that OMCOM has modified his genetics and given him sonar-vision:

  The reality of the situation was that while OMCOM had enhanced Rei’s sensory apparatus, he had done nothing for Rei’s cardiovascular or muscular heartiness. It wasn’t too long until Rei was forced to slow down and suck in some deep breaths as the lactic acid built up in his muscles. After taking a moment to compose himself, he found that even at a normal speed, he made enough noise that he could “see” his path as clearly as during the day.

  “Vroggon Chrosd ta Jasus,” he said out loud, knowing all the while that MINIMCOM could hear him, “I’ve got a super-computer for a compass, bat vision and a cell phone in my head. That OMCOM is crazy too, you know.”

  “I would not call him crazy,” MINIMCOM replied. “Creative, perhaps.”

  “Still,” Rei said. “How does he even think of such things?” Rei’s slower pace caused less noise which made the scene in front him less clear. Nonetheless, he was able to rock his head back and forth and received a sensation very similar to looking around with his eyes. Finally, he spoke again. “So MINIMCOM, tell me. How about the enclave? How far do I have to go?”