SFFSat 31/5/2014 - Black Ice part 7

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part seven of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton's effort to evade inevitable doom involved detonating a methane explosion against a giant tumbling boulder of ice...

The impact almost flung Anton off the crawlway: his fingers were agony as he fought to hang on. The laser went spinning away into oblivion. The blast tore at the ammonia boulder, flinging even its great mass a few metres sideways, directly into the path of the crawler. Liquid ammonia poured out of the fire onto the slithering ice, refreezing again almost immediately.

Anton watched, his eyes fixed upon the gigantic rock in the crawler's path, waiting for it to grind its bulk through the momentarily liquid ice onto the solid ground below, and bring the slide to a halt.

As the oxygen was consumed, the ravening fires dropped. The crawler was only a metre or two from the boulder. The gigantic block of ice was moving more slowly, and the crawler crunched against it with an unnerving clang, audible even through the thin atmosphere.

But the boulder had not stopped. Anton shivered in dismay – his plan hadn't worked. The boulder and the crawler were still sliding – and the drop-off was only twenty metres away.

Oops. Looks like Anton's done for. 

As always, comments welcomed!

SFFSat 24/5/2014 - Black Ice part 6

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part six of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton has a cunning plan...

    He could not stop the ice boulder sliding, that was clear. But a judicious push might just alter its course, and perhaps even its speed. Of course, pushing a hundred-tonne block of ice would not be that easy. This chunk was already just ahead of the crawler. He crawled warily to the left side of the ice, and used the laser to melt a hole in the lower edge. He leaned down, and shoved the cylinder into the ice, before gingerly opening the valve. A jet of pure oxygen tore out from the side of the boulder, turning the methane atmosphere into a highly explosive cocktail. 

   Anton ran back towards the crawler, and leaped with a little more grace back onto the walkway. The drop-off could be only seconds away: he had no time to judge it carefully. He aimed the laser, hung on tightly, and shot directly at the oxygen stream.

    The atmosphere detonated in an orange flower of blazing methane.

 

As always, comments welcomed!

Sorrel's creatures

 I like strange creatures. One of the things I enjoyed when writing Sorrel in Scarlet was creating the strange creatures that Sorrel encounters in the Chasm.

Grathks are the most straightforward brutes. They are savage lizard-birds almost six feet tall that attack viciously. Sorrel has faced grathks on the surface - but the Chasm versions are bigger and more deadly.


 




Scorturliqs are the largest horrors that Sorrel faces. Two hundred feet long, often used as mounts and as siege engines. They are almost mindless, but their size and power makes them terrifying.

The lloruk are serpent-people. Man-sized, golden-scaled, very intelligent and ancient. They were behind one of the greatest civilisations Sorrel's world has ever known, until it was destroyed in a savage, genocidal war with the elves. They are the central opponents in Sorrel in Scarlet - one of Sorrel's most terrifying discoveries is that they still exist in the Chasm.

And finally we have snarqs. Two headed, acid-spitting flying lizards, controlled by the lloruk and used as aerial weapons. They are a major threat in Sorrel in Scarlet. I'm currently in the final chapters of Sorrel in Silver, the final book in the trilogy, which I'm hoping to release in September. I've just finished writing a deadly aerial battle with snarqs - they are currently my favourite monsters...



The pictures for this blog post are the best representations I can do at the moment for Sorrel's creatures, mostly created in Poser. My hope is that the descriptions in the books do these four horrors more justice!

SFFSat 17/05/2014 Black Ice part 5

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part five of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton has scrambled outside.

He swung out onto the narrow walkway over the tracks, and swiftly scrambled towards the nose of the crawler, hanging on grimly as it bucked under him. 

The clouds of methane mist and fragments of ammonia ice churned around him, coating his visor, but could not hide the gigantic chunk of ice just left of the crawler. It was easily fifty metres across. Anton judged his angle, and clipped the suit's safety line to a loop on the crawler's shell. The boulder was sliding cleanly, its weight carrying it smoothly. Anton paused a second, gritted his teeth, and jumped from the crawler.

The crawler jolted just as he leaped: the clean landing he had planned turned into a panicked roll to avoid the jagged shards at the edge of the ice. If one cut through the suit, his body would freeze in moments – but the sudden cold agony he feared did not happen. The suit was tough. He managed to pull himself onto the sliding ammonia. He glanced towards the drop-off: from here, he could not see how long he had. He just hoped it would be enough.

 As always, comments welcomed!

SFFSat 10/5/2014 - Black Ice part 4

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part four of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton, in the crawler's turret, is trying to work out how to get out of this predicament...

Anton looked at the slide, trying to see any way to slow it. There was a lot of ice on the move, including a number of huge ammonia chunks the size of ring fragments.

Ring fragments.

Anton had spent a lot of time in the rings, jockeying chunks of ice just as large as that. Such boulders, even moving fast, did not scare him. He stared at the fragment tumbling only a few feet from the sliding crawler, wishing he could call on Emerald's computational powers. He didn't have time to run the numbers through the crawler's mindless computer – he would have to rely on instinct, judgment and perhaps just a miniscule fragment of luck. 

He jumped down into the body of the crawler, and donned the thermal excursion suit in a few moments. A standard exercise for ringpeople was getting into a suit in the shortest possible time; Anton suspected he had clipped the record. He punched the hatch open, and grabbed an oxygen cylinder and a welding laser.

 As always, comments welcomed!

SFFSat 3/5/14 Black Ice part 3

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part three of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan, and Anton is starting to panic...

Anton clambered up into the crawler's tiny, squat turret, and looked around. With the benefit of the additional height, he could see the narrow scar of the drop-off, even through the howling methane wind. He had maybe a minute. 

He glanced up the slope. There was still a considerable mass of permafrost cascading down behind the crawler. Anything to stop the crawler would have to stop the black ice, too. The comm laser could not melt away that much ammonia. 

He looked round wildly for any type of outcropping that he could try to get to. Nothing. He knew he should have stayed in space. He was a ringminer, not a groundhog repairman!

 As always, comments welcomed!