The three novels were:
Book 1 - VIRUS 5: Asdrale Cimatir, later, Tabit
Book 2 - VIRUS 5: Bez Onquoade, later, Tau Ceti
Book 3 - VIRUS 5: Pedele Ta Asdrales, later, Earth
If I could go back and redo the whole Rome's Revolution series, I'd do it like this:
RR Book 1: Rebirth
RR Book 2: Resistance
RR Book 3: Redemption
RR Book 4: The Ark Lords
RR Book 5: Rome's Evolution
RR Book 6: The Milk Run
RR Book 7: The Vuduri Companion
Maybe I'll rebrand the whole thing some day. Kind of like how Star Wars was Star Wars until it became Star Wars, Episode 4, A New Hope. People still call it Star Wars though.
Entry 1-147: May 21, 2013
Rei's Resurrection
In the original "You are there" format of VIRUS 5, I wanted to give the reader the sights, sounds and smells of Rei's actual experience. However, this was delayed until Chapter 2. That is considered a no-no in action/adventure novels. You are supposed to meet the protagonist in the first paragraph and find out his (or her) dilemma right away. In the original book, you didn't know about it until Chapter 4. So once again, this chapter had to go.
If the little vignette about Silas Hiram was my best written piece, then this chapter was my second best. I spent a lot of time on it figuring people would judge my writing by the first few chapters. Luckily, the first three chapters will make their appearance in The Vuduri Companion whenever I get that done.
Anyway, I wrote this chapter from the third person perspective but so close to Rei's sensations that there is a lot of tell, not show. I presented Rei cold and immersed in a green, gloppy fluid as he was warmed up. Since he was only supposed to be frozen for three centuries max, I figured maybe the sarcophagus wouldn't work so well after 14 centuries. So I had the auto-defibrillator sensors malfunction and they tried to shock his heart back to life after it was already beating.
I figured that was a rather painful experience for Rei and he was lucky that it didn't kill him by stopping his heart. That would be ironic, huh?
Anyway, the current book Rome's Revolution does have a passing reference to this in the opening chapter. Here is the excerpt:
That plus the tender spot on his chest where the auto-defibrillator had burned him confirmed this was no dream.
But that's it. An entire chapter boiled down to one sentence. More tomorrow.
Entry 1-148: May 22, 2013
Dual Protagonists
This is an extreme no-no in the world of writing. You are supposed to have a single protagonist.
But Rome's Revolution is not about one person. Sure, Rei is sort of the hero but it is really his interaction with Rome that makes them special. Watching her literally reborn and grow into an autonomous human being, later mother, saver-of-the-universe and finally a true telepath is part of the strength of the novels.
Rei doesn't actually grow all that much. He was a little goofier in the beginning but he retained his sense of humor throughout. Meeting Rome and bonding with her gave him a little greater sense of urgency and he does grow into a man of action.
A fact only hinted at throughout the entire books is that while Rei was very smart and resourceful, even before he was frozen, when he used the bands with Rome, they actually unlocked portions of his brain. He started thinking faster, had greater insight and eventually learned to act quickly and decisively. The bands actually changed his brain physiologically, not just psychologically.
However, back to my original premise: I maintain that these books are not about Rei and not about Rome but about the Rei and Rome system. Two people, from different eras, different cultures, who throw their fortunes in together. The Rei and Rome system has the ingenuity and self-confidence to navigate their way around a future society. Just Rei or just Rome could not accomplish all that they did by themselves.
Rome says it out loud. She says they are their own samanda now. And several times I explicitly state they are one.
So I claim to you this book is not about dual protagonists. There is only one. It is the loving, dynamic couple called Rei and Rome. What do you think?
Entry 1-149: May 23, 2013
How to freeze human beings
The biggest problem about freezing human beings and sending them to the stars was not the freezing process. Anybody can freeze anything. It's just the thawing and preserving that is the tricky part.
I needed a viable way to send people to the stars and even at the impossible speeds I postulated, 1/20th the speed of light, it would still take Rei 240 years to get to Tau Ceti. This was at the core of my science fiction trilogy Rome's Revolution.
My research had revealed it was not the freezing process, per se, but rather the side effects of freezing that made it a problem. Water expands as it gets colder and occupies its highest volume at 4 degrees Celsius. That means that ordinary cells will burst when they freeze. So if you froze a human being while they were still alive, technically, they'd be alive the whole time. But when you thawed them out, they would die because their cells had burst.
So I invented this thing called the dehydration protocol. In a story in the upcoming The Vuduri Companion, you will learn about Sven Ausland, also known as the Ice Man, who survived for 17 years frozen solid and was thawed successfully. The only reason Sven survived was because he was severely dehydrated before he was frozen solid. The scientists behind the Ark program were smart enough to put the two items together and create the dehydration protocol which allowed humans to be frozen solid and reanimated years later and survive the process.
Entry 1-150: May 24, 2013
Freezing humans, part 2
I reduced the importance of this in the modern version of Rome's Revolution but there was a second component to freezing humans and thawing them that was crucial to their survival.
In a short story that will never see the light of day, I explored the ramifications of the experiments where they froze living human beings and thawed them five years later. Most died. The few remaining survivors were brain dead or close. The only person that survived reasonably well was the one person that had a fissured disk in their back.
The nucleus pulposus, the jelly-like substance that fills the inner portion of the vertebral disks, has been shown to express Tumor Necrosis Factor/Alpha when exposed to interstitial fluid. This substance is so toxic, so inflammatory, that it causes back pain all by itself. There are some that say that a substantial portion of back pain is chemical in nature only. And it can be treated medically with biologically active drugs like Embrel, Humira and the like.
So I took that little known fact and made it the basis of how humans could be frozen and thawed. Demoted in the current story, almost to the point of being invisible, I built the sarcophagi with tiny needles that extended upwards and punctured the backs of the soon-to-be-frozen colonists and allowed the Tumor Necrosis Factor/Alpha to ooze from the disks into the blood system.
The only overt evidence of this procedure was that Silas Hiram, Rei Beirak and the vast majority of the colonists aboard all of the Arks experienced back pain upon being reanimated.
OMCOM incorrectly assumes this was a by-product of the freezing process and produces the pills that a) turns Rei into a superhero and b) saves humanity from devolving into the Onsiras. But nonetheless, it is an integral part of the plot early on. Later, the pills that OMCOM produced become crucial.
Entry 1-151: May 25, 2013
Rei's unending disorientation
It is hard to imagine, being in that Rei was frozen for nearly 14 centuries, that from a subjective standpoint, it was only hours from when he was given t
he drugs that sedated him, being frozen and later thawed.
I agree that the process was painful but when Rei was thawed, although there was still a large amount of drugs in his system, subjectively, he was frozen just minutes (hours at most) from when he was re-awakened.
Why was he so disoriented when he was awakened then? Well, the drugs, of course. But secondly, he was expecting the Ark program to proceed according to plan. That meant the Captain and the pilot and co-pilot would be awakened first. They would guide the Ark II down to a soft landing on Tau Ceti and begin the reanimation process in an orderly fashion.
If nothing else is clear from this series, it should be that nothing ever goes according to plan. So while Rei was expecting to be reanimated by his compatriots, instead, he was reanimated by bipedal creatures, dressed all in white, who were most definitely not his crew.
Now Rei was a big fan of science fiction when he was growing up so naturally he assumed they were monsters or aliens who caused him to awaken. What he did not realize was that one of the "aliens" was Rome, the love of his life. She was chosen because a) she was the most expendable of the crew and b) she had the best language skills and could interpret Rei's reactions most cogently.
How Rome was selected to be the person reanimating Rei will be the subject of a short story in the upcoming anthology entitled The Vuduri Companion which should be out next spring.
Entry 1-152: May 26, 2013
Are these stories real?
I can't shake the thought that somehow these stories are real, they just haven't happened yet.
When I write, I throw a lot of baloney in there just to make the book thicker or the plot simpler. I postulated the Great Dying so I could cut back on the number of humans to a more manageable level. I postulated that each Ark was made up of different demographics because the mission planners didn't know what mix of people were required to survive and thrive on a new world.
The original Ark IV was made up of criminals, rapists, the scum of the Earth because the mission planners thought maybe that skill set would be the one that was needed to survive. They originally came back to Earth because there was no habitable world at 82 G. Eridani, their original target. Since they were criminals, they came back to Earth and were very mean. I didn't think anything of it other that it was a neat way for the Vuduri to judge Rei and hate him without ever having met him.
So, I finished Rome's Revolution and one day, out of the blue, it struck me that the mission planners, the Great Dying and the Ark Lords were all related. Voila, the entire plot of The Ark Lords snapped in place. I swapped the Ark V, Nu2 Lupi, with Ark IV and made the Ark V the mission to Chara. The book practically wrote itself.
At that point, I thought the series really was done and I was putting together what will eventually be The Vuduri Companion. I thought about what happened after Rei and Rome sent the Darwin people packing. It came to me that, hey, that would be a neat short story about the stragglers that were never caught. Then out of the blue, I remembered that I had cut out the little vignette about Sussen when I condensed the first three books into Rome's Revolution. Voila, the entire plot snapped into place and I had Rome's Evolution and the book practically wrote itself.
And what about Rome's bad dream that I made up for Part 2 eight years ago? This was the subject of an earlier post. It suddenly became the denouement for Rome's Evolution. What's with that?
So where do these ideas come from? Maybe these stories really are true, they just haven't happened yet.
Entry 1-153: May 27, 2013
Rome was too weird
When I first started VIRUS 5 which later became Rome's Revolution, I originally had a little story about Rome being selected for first contact. However, in this story, she was too Vuduri and was able to decouple her consciousness and send it out via the Overmind to a remote location.
I didn't like that and so I removed it. I wanted Rome to be more like a regular human, given her mixed background, who acted like a good Vuduri so she could fit in. She knew how to speak because of her father. She understood the concept of love even though she appeared to reject it.
In the original story, the Vuduri did not sleep. In the current version, they do. I like the idea that Rei and Rome could fashion a system that we could relate to. This meant after they used the bands, she was able to fall asleep. If I had kept in the little intro, she would not have.
I like Rome and I want her growth and development into a somewhat normal (to us) human being to be relatable.
Entry 1-154: May 28, 2013
Info-dump
While creating the world of the 35th century as the backdrop for Rome's Revolution, there was a tremendous amount of research and outlining to frame the story.
However, all of this information was in my head, not yours. So I had to figure out a way of getting the info to you fast without "show don't tell" which is a staple of good writing.
So, in keeping in line with the "you are there" concept of the original book, I had Rei wake up and not know where he was. He only knew he wasn't where he was supposed to be.
I had OMCOM fill him in on where he was, when it was and while Rei found it useful, it was really for you, the reader.
One reviewer told me it was a pretty clever way to get the info-dump that he needed.
I have had other opinions. My son told me he appreciated the fact that I used a different font for OMCOM because that let him skip over the words, any time OMCOM was speaking since it was always just info-dump time.
I foiled him, though. The new library OMCOM and Junior only speak in Times New Roman so he'll have to find another strategy.
Entry 1-155: May 29, 2013
Rei's real name
In a previous post, I asked the question: Are these stories real? Well, here is another fact that just snapped in place.
When I make up names for people, I usually have a purpose. For example, in the current version of Rome's Revolution, I introduced you to Captain Keller. His name was supposed to remind you of a killer. And the colonel in charge of Darwin was Colonel Slayton. Again, the word slay is embedded in his name.
I named the Vuduri after constellations. Pegus, Ursay, Canus, Signola were all patterned after the stars. I made the Deucadons twisted forms of regular names like Bukky, Steben, Triden and Melloy.
But what about Rome and Rei? Rome was always Rome, ever since I can remember. I guess now that I have a rule, you could say that Rome was named after the constellation Romulus. She used to have a last name, Sevenate (7-8, get it?), but after I saw Star Trek Voyager with 7 of 9 (which came 24 years after I wrote the original VIRUS 5 and invented the name), I dropped her last name and now no Vuduri have last names.
Rei was named after my father, Ray. But most people did not know that. A lot of people didn't even know how to pronounce Rei's name (pronounced Ray, not Rye). When I got to Rome's Evolution and I wanted to teach Rome about lying and beating lie detectors, I had to come up with his full name. It is Reinard which means Brave Counsel.
Once I came up with it, I was able to fold it into the Intermezzo about Rei's last day on Earth. I enjoyed writing that little story. I finally got to meet Rei's dad, Edward, who was named after my grandfather.
But...this is the point. It took me 40 years to learn Rei's full name. So where did it come from in the first place?
Entry 1-156: May 30, 2013
Who is Rome?
The other day, I mentioned that I liked Rome but who is she?
As the heroine of the book, I had to make her pretty and smart but she is not my type. She is Rei's type, of course. You can see that if you read the first Intermezzo in Rome's Evolution and got the connectio
n between Sally Reynolds and Rome.
I cannot say I had a clear vision of what she even looked like until I saw an episode of Smallville in 2002. The actress playing Lex Luthor's girlfriend Victoria Hardwick, is named Kelly Brook and when I saw her, I said that is Rome. Here is her picture: