Sortmind Blog – Michael D. Smith

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 8: Ranna Kikken Commer

Posted on May 13, 2018 by Michael D. SmithApril 3, 2021

Ranna Kikken copyright 2013 by Michael D. Smith

Ranna Kikken at the evacuation of Earth, 2033

Mike: Our next interviewee is Ranna Kikken Commer, a major force in Sol scientific circles for her work on the Time Committee studying the aftereffects of the Alpha Centaurian Chronowarp invasion of Sol from 2013 to 2075, as well as her most recent work with the Committee to the Ywritt.

Ranna Kikken Commer: Thanks. I was just outside the door and heard the end of your talk with Waterfall Sequence. He was being usually candid today, I think. It’s hard to get him to talk for more than a few minutes.

Mike: Well, I’m the author and control how many lines he has in this book, and if he lives through it or not! By the way, that’s an interesting thought. Can members of the Ywritt die?

Ranna: Not as we understand it. After a few hundred thousand years they might decide to dissolve, but all their memories, along with algorithms for reproducing any event in their lives, are stored in the Ywritt libraries and so, in a sense, Waterfall Sequence is immortal.

Mike: Well, okay. Here you are, a well-established leader in Sol since 2038–

Ranna: Who hasn’t had a decent line in one of your books since Book Three, Nonprofit Chronowar.

Mike: Yes, I was just coming to that. Although you were part of the first chapter of Book Four, you’ve essentially been behind the scenes in the next three books, playing the part offstage of being Jackie’s stable older sister, or of Joe’s wife–

Ranna: Right. In a way I’ve been in a similar position as Amav, a symbol of a great marriage and stability back home while all the other characters get to romp around the universe. Except that Amav got to romp herself the last three books. But I had such a major role in Nonprofit Chronowar I’m surprised you haven’t wanted to use me since.

Mike: I’ve been uncertain about that, to tell you the truth. I kept looking for ways to put you in various books, but for some reason it always came down to needing you to be holding the fort either back home or in a newly-liberated Iota Persei, or for characters to mention you in passing, always in a positive light.

Ranna: I’ve been puzzled by that, and in fact resentful. I went from being an aging, guilt-ridden, probably sexually out- of-control nonprofit lady with a Cat Farm in Book Three who went through the terror of the destruction of the earth and the Evacuation. Then she’s in a crashing spaceship and certain she’s about to die when the love of her life, Joe, shows up with her old lost cat Churchill in a Heuristic Time Transition, and Churchill forces her to perform a Time transition herself! Well, that was all quite a role, and showcased my psychic integration as I accepted the end of the earth and the end of my life, only to find myself at my old buddy Urside’s wedding five years in the future. Damn confusing, but a new life for Ms. Ranna, and she and Joe knew that instant they’d be married, despite her being twenty years older than he was.

Mike: I think in the back of my mind I saw you as somehow completed in Book Three. After all, Nonprofit Chronowar was planned as a literary novel and only later did I see it as fitting into a trilogy of Jack Commer novels. So Ranna was originally intended as a main character of a one-shot novel. But I still had an urge to put you into other books. Part of the problem is that there are so many characters and you really can’t go into more than three or four in a book anyway without confusing everyone.

Ranna: So you’re interviewing twelve of us for this one, right? Great!

Mike: Well, one thing we’re here to do is see what you can contribute to Book Seven.

Ranna: Oh, so Rick Ballard’s right! We’re auditioning for roles! Let me tell you I’ve definitely read through all your notes so far. I think I’m the only one who’s done it, actually, and I really don’t see anything else in there for poor Ranna Kikken Commer other than more wifely duties and committee work back home. I see some talk about “finally resolving Ranna” but it sounds like weak BS to me.

Rick Ballard: Someone calling me? Hey, Mr. Mike, listen, this gives me a great idea! You’re absolutely right about Amav and me not working out! You’re always right about everything, man! That’s why we love you so much! But look, here’s the cool thing, what if I took Ranna here away from Joe? We could have a whole scene on a white rug in front of a fireplace! Look, I’ve made some notes here for how we could–

Ranna: Oh jeez! How’d he get in here again? This is priceless!

Mike: Okay, I can see I’m going to have to lock the door after I start these interviews.

Ballard: No, seriously, guys! Like, anyone can see Ranna’s rejuvenation has taken! And I do mean taken! Babe, you don’t look a day over forty-five! Don’t tell me you don’t want Rick Ballard! Why else are you wearing that tight, tight sweater?

Ranna: Hmm. I don’t want you, Mr. Ballard. Talk to Laurie 283. She’s a robot and will do anyone. And don’t go back through the sunroom. Joe’s on next and he’s back there.

Ballard: I’m not afraid of Joe Commer!

Joe Commer: Hey, am I up already?

Ballard: Dammit! Dammit! Screw this, I’m outa here! Son of a bitch!

Joe: What’s with him?

Mike: Hey, Joe, I’m still talking to Ranna, but Rick keeps crashing the place. See if you can’t keep him out. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.

Joe: Sure. Just let me know.

Mike: Well, sorry about that. I do want to have a good talk with you, Ranna, and please don’t consider this just an audition.

Ranna: Well, another part of the notes had Ballard kidnapping me to the Greater Magellanic Cloud! Oh boy! Maybe we should call him back in here!

Mike: No, let’s not. I agree that plot idea was pretty stupid. And we can’t do any more kidnapping anyway. We already did that in The SolGrid Rebellion with Laurie. But look, I’m just trying to figure how the best way to get you into this book. First of all, I think we both sense that your central role in Nonprofit Chronowar has been both a blessing to the series and a strange liability for pushing you any further along in it. That’s something to be probed.

The Nonprofit Ladies Movie Poster copyright 2003 by Michael D. Smith

Movie Poster for Nonprofit Ladies (Original Novel Title)

Ranna: Well, one thing we can say is that Ranna did develop amazing leadership talents in the years before Nonprofit Chronowar, and during it. Despite the fact that people considered her like something on the order of a social worker for running the nonprofit Cat Farm, she knew how to organize, raise money, and direct a big enterprise. And she was confident she could repeat that success a dozen times even if she had to start from scratch for each one. So when she starts realizing the nature of time travel and gets transitioned from a dying Earth in 2033 to Mars in 2038, yes, it’s a total shock to the system of someone who a second before was absolutely convinced she was about to snuff it, but it’s also astonishing new life, and a second chance.

Mike: And she grabs that chance. She works well on the Time Committee with Dar and top scientists, and though she isn’t a scientist herself, she becomes an expert on Heuristic Time Transition, does a few more Transitions herself, and helps close up time paradoxes created by the Alpha Centaurians. When the Ywritt come along she’s instantly seen as a natural for the Committee. More leadership for Ranna, and invaluable contributions from her.

Ranna: And yet, although Ranna’s still grateful for this second chance even forty years later, there’s something missing. I think she has some metaphysical questions that contact with time travel and later the Ywritt merely stimulate, but never answer. She may be prodded by the arrival of the pyramid in Iota Persei, Ballard’s death and JJC’s escape, to ramp up her energies for something completely new.

Mike: I can see something there. Still vague, though.

Ranna: Well, while we think about that, there’s something else to explore. The origins of the Ranna Kikken archetype. It needs to be mentioned here. Maybe it can help. After all, Ranna began essentially as a snapshot.

Mike: Yes, the scene in The Soul Institute where sophomore Dorrington Caldwell, just dumped by his girlfriend Lisa, has taken a job at the Soul Institute library and from the vantage point of the circulation desk sees a senior guy leading the voluptuous Ranna Kikken by the hand out of the library, headed no doubt for her dorm room and some easy fantastic sex, while poor Dorrington has none. He can’t help but note that stunning wild dark red hair and these fantastic huge breasts in the tight ribbed russet sweater–

Ranna: A sight Rick Ballard himself endorsed not a few minutes ago, we may add.

Mike: And the senior and Ranna are laughing so gleefully! At one time I’d tried to integrate both The Soul Institute and Sortmind characters into the Jack Commer universe, but gave it up. Yet I left a young college student Ranna, as well as a five-year-old Urside, in The Soul Institute, and nineteen novel years later, in 2020, they would figure in Nonprofit Chronowar. Urside would have a terrible unrequited crush on her.

Ranna: But while that’s so incredibly fascinating, Mr. Author, you’re leaving out the fact that you witnessed just this scene while working at the Rice library circa … 1974?

Mike: Yes, that was definitely Ranna Kikken I saw at Fondren Library that day, just as described in The Soul Institute and later for the thirty-nine-year-old, then a fifty-year-old Ranna in Nonprofit Chronowar. What a kinetic sculpture! But what’s most memorable about her is the fact that she must have been a Rice student, but that was the one and only time I ever saw her. I also never recognized her whenever I might have flipped through the annual Rice yearbooks. I knew just about every one of some twenty-four hundred Rice undergraduates at least by sight after four years, after all, as well as from encountering them from the vantage point of the library circulation desk my last two years there. So Ranna came and went in about ten seconds. Maybe she was just created on the spot to figure later in my novels!

Ranna: So sometime in the mid-’90’s she went straight into The Soul Institute without needing a single edit. But again, just like the present me, for a walk-on part only. Fortunately you had the good sense to explore her thirty-nine-year-old self more thoroughly in the Jack Commer universe. I wonder what you might make of the newest version of Ranna Kikken Commer, circa 2076.

Mike: You know, library worker Dorrington even speculated what might happen to kinetic sculpture Ranna by the time she turned forty. From the perspective of a college student, it wasn’t a pretty picture.

Ranna: But now we know better, don’t we?

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 7: Waterfall Sequence

Posted on May 11, 2018 by Michael D. SmithApril 3, 2021

Waterfall Sequence copyright 2018 by Michael D. Smith

Waterfall Sequence of the Ywritt

Mike: Now we come to a fascinating character, Waterfall Sequence of the Ywritt. The Ywritt were briefly introduced in Book Five, The Wounded Frontier, as the Wounded’s latest victim during the shrouding of the star Iota Persei with a Dyson sphere. However, the Ywritt remained backstage in Book Six, The SolGrid Rebellion, functioning more as a means for how Jackie Vespertine, professor of Exobiology, and other members of the Committee to the Ywritt might relate to strange, foggy aliens. But we foresee interesting developments for the Ywritt in Book Seven. Welcome, Waterfall Sequence.

Waterfall Sequence: Greetings, young, inexperienced human author.

Mike: For the benefit of readers of this interview, Waterfall Sequence is alluding to the fact that he is well over ten thousand years old in human terms.

Waterfall Sequence: Technically I am, in fact we all are, “it,” not “he” or “she.” However, as we’ve begun picking up the human tendency to assume gender, based on sense impressions and unconsciously held assumptions, for instance a telepathic contact sounding in the listener’s mind as a deep “male” voice, or a pastel-colored sphere feeling “female” to the human, we have gone along with gender assignments for the sake of assisting with communication with your race. At first contact I was assigned the status of “male” by Patrick James of the United System Space Force, and have chosen to accept that.

Mike: I may as well add that across from me in the Smith Writing Studio is a bubble of swirling fog approximately seven feet in diameter. Waterfall Sequence has a blue-purple coloration, though hints of red and orange appear at times. We’ve come to understand that the spherical fog is the easiest and loveliest shape for a Ywritt to maintain, but that any Ywritt can increase or decrease that size, change into flowing or formless mist, and is able, with proper amounts of energy and what we would call “meditation,” to assume a variety of shapes and sizes. They can create appendages to manipulate tools, build technological machines, and so forth. The Ywritt are also known to be master communicators, and Sol is currently in negotiations with the Ywritt to act as ambassadors to other races we may encounter in our travels.

Waterfall Sequence: All quite true. Your Book Six also pointed out that we never developed Star Drive because, basically, we were content to hone our communication skills between planets of Iota Persei. What has only been mentioned in passing in Book Six is that the characteristics of the most sentient beings on the third and most developed planet, Yaraltar, came to dominate all other species of varying degrees of sentience, numbering over two hundred, so that all eventually became combined into Ywritt. When the Ywritt then encountered other forms of life on other rocky planets and gas giant moons of the Iota Persei system, we were able to incorporate them into the Ywritt fairly easily. I will also point out that this homogenization of first an entire planet, then the rest of the solar system, came about not through conquest but through eons of negotiations and logic.

Mike: And yet, in the series so far, the Ywritt are pretty undefined, as are you yourself, Waterfall.

Waterfall Sequence: Waterfall Sequence. The entire name must be used. We do not shorten our appellations into nicknames as you do, even in the rough translations into English such as Waterfall Sequence.

Mike: Well … sorry, then. I didn’t know that.

Waterfall Sequence: What you and I just exchanged was a form of Ywritt negotiation. I trust you are familiar with Joe Commer’s frustration at not being able to communicate with us on his own terms?

Mike: Right. Let me find that passage in The SolGrid Rebellion: “Joe didn’t relish asking Waterfall Sequence or any other Ywritt for permission to search the Iota Persei system … it might take a whole day to interface with those damnable Ywritt Mandarins. The idea of the Ywritt being ‘master communicators’ had long since soured on Joe. They seemed to take delight in obstructing communication. Maybe that was a form of communication right there.”

Waterfall Sequence: Yes. So right. My friend Jackie Vespertine has also theorized that we have been so traumatized by thirty-four of your years of being trapped by the Wounded’s Dyson sphere, during which time we obsessively played with quantum computers and artificial universes in a vain attempt to escape, that a certain percentage of us went what you would call “crazy” and that there is therefore a certain defensiveness and paranoia throughout the Ywritt. While our daily use of telepathy is not compatible with, or very much similar to, Martian one-way outradiance, we do propagate our race-mood throughout all members of the Ywritt over time, in a similar way that the Total Martian Outradiance does, and thus a certain level of defensiveness has crept into our culture, even as we celebrate our freedom from the Wounded and our eternal gratitude to Jack Commer and Sol for saving us and rendering all the technical assistance they have.

Mike: So are you saying that Joe is misinterpreting your defensiveness as obstruction?

Waterfall Sequence: Yes. Of course the two concepts could be considered synonyms.

Mike: Hmm. So what role do you see for the Ywritt, as embodied by yourself, in Book Seven?

Waterfall Sequence: Difficult to say. Obviously Iota Persei 2, the second planet of the system, is the stage for the first scene, Rick Ballard’s unfortunate demise. However, the fact that Jack Commer may suspect the Ywritt of seeking to aid Rick Ballard in illegal activity on behalf of the Wounded opens some interesting plot speculations. Separating the three entities Rick Ballard, Johnathan James Commer, and T’ohj’puv from the single chromium pyramid into essentially Wounded robots would be considered a monstrous betrayal of all the help Sol has given us.

Mike: Yes, there is definitely a sense in the USSF that the Ywritt may be trying to play both sides of the street, even though the Wounded threatened the total destruction of Ywritt culture. To Jack this is simply incomprehensible.

Waterfall Sequence: And we understand that. However, we would insist that the Ywritt libraries of Wounded technology appropriated during the Long Sphering of Iota Persei, as we call it, are essentially kept only for archival purposes, and that we the Ywritt do not even pretend to comprehend Wounded technology despite the constant sorting and querying of all that documentation through our most advanced quantum computer technology. And thus the Ywritt would be incapable of wishing to assist the chromium pyramid, which in fact penetrated Iota Persei without our permission and sought to use a secret Wounded hospital facility on Iota Persei 2 we were not even aware of. Yes, Rick Ballard made initial contact with us but was told to leave the system immediately, which he refused to do.

Mike: But after some recriminations back and forth after JJC flees Iota Persei, you then decide to accompany Jack and Amav to the Greater Magellanic Cloud in an unusual way.

Jim Commer copyright 2014 by Michael D. Smith

Jim Commer, the third brother, killed at Mercury in the Martian Marauders

Waterfall Sequence: Yes, the integration with the Jim Commer Heroes and Villains of the Thirties robot, upgraded like General Douglas and Laurie 283 into a machine of unfathomable complexity and intelligence, looks interesting. We are aware of the trauma that Jack Commer will face in encountering a perfect replica of his dead brother Jim. We are also keenly aware that this same ploy, as you might term it, was used in Collapse and Delusion when Jack met John, the robot of the other dead Commer brother, John. However, Jim will represent a closing of the circle, the other shoe dropping, to use one of your metaphors. It’s necessary for the series for Jack to have some sort of closure, no matter how artificial, with both John and Jim, and that it be in a karmically similar manner: the use of obsolete, but now upgraded, HAVOTT robots.

Mike: Yes, I was thinking that myself.

Waterfall Sequence: Furthermore, settling my Ywritt consciousness into the mechanical circuits of the Jim HAVOTT represents an interesting technological challenge. We have done similar things before, but not with a machine of this complexity, and certainly not one based on a human form. The original primitive human software of the HAVOTT robots is also something we Ywritt find strangely beautiful and compelling. In any case, the conflicts that arise force the Jim entity–which we do regard as a real, living being–and myself into fusing our personalities into a religious figure, a prophet called Tri-Collarie. The loveliness of HAVOTT programming is probably why I go along with being assimilated into this new figure. How Jack reacts to the development of a double-selfed religious entity will be fascinating to observe.

Mike: I imagine he’ll be whipsawed in all directions.

Waterfall Sequence: And as that happens, I will be allowed to develop as a character. As I assume Jim will, too. As you are aware, he had a significant role to play in The Martian Marauders. Only one scene, but it showcased the dysfunction in the Commer household. Now more of that dysfunction comes back to haunt Jack. The peacemaker third brother has a religious streak, and begins to unravel some of the metaphysical tangles of this harsh, ruined universe. Much to Jack’s dismay, we may add.

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 6: Amav Frankston-Commer

Posted on May 9, 2018 by Michael D. SmithApril 3, 2021

Mike: Okay, Ms. Frankston-Commer, be careful coming through the door, you can slip on those shards of glass. I’ve got a broom here–

Amav Frankston-Commer: I see ’em. Don’t worry about sweeping up. I’m sure Kner will lend you some Amplified Thought to get Ballard back together in time for Chapter One.

Mike: Yeah, I guess. I just can’t understand how he keeps intruding on these other interviews.

Amav: Shadow stuff, again. I passed Jack on the way out. I told him he doesn’t need to worry about Rick bothering me. And he certainly doesn’t need to shatter him, for God’s sake! I admit Rick’s idea is provocative. Would me falling for the son of a bitch turn this series on its head! What a set of conflicts and plot disasters! But your analysis is right–it just couldn’t happen if Amav is to remain Amav. We pushed the envelope a lot with Amav going after Phil Sperry in Collapse and Delusion, but everyone knew all along that JJC’s new Grid was brainwashing her. So I got some Shadow lines myself there. It was fun. But we couldn’t use the brainwashing thing a second time. Rick is just going to have to do without!

Mike: So, how are you seeing yourself in Jack Commer Seven? Jack and I already spoke about how a plot of a parent seeking a runaway child is nothing we can really hang a plot on for Seven. We’re going to have to make some real changes in how we view both of you.

Amav: And that’s fine with me. I had a lot of scenes in both the fifth and sixth books that made me look like a moody bitch stewing in all sorts of emotional garbage, and that wasn’t the full me at all. Jack charmingly suggested that I was a force, which seems to be a good way of describing me–or anyone, for that matter,

Mike: Like the chapter title in The Soul Institute, “That Moolka is a Force,” where Derrick sees that his cousin and lover Moolka has become, for him, something far beyond even being a “woman,” that she’s an incomprehensible bundle of psychic force.

Amav: Exactly. Anyway, all in all the sixth book, The SolGrid Rebellion, was a good part for me. I got to run through being the moody bitch, the alluring sex object, the confused bystander, and finally the Dictator of Sol. At the end I’m also apparently the de facto controlling force in the marriage, but this last part worries me because it’s essentially inaccurate and does make Jack look like a clueless bumbler.

Mike: I thought we were seeing Amav make up her mind that there was unfinished business with Jonathan James, and that Jack and Amav finally had to start talking about it. It was awkward all around, but I think this was a moment where Amav had to take the lead.

Amav: She had to show her force. Fine. But the main thing we need to work on is having me and Jack have our own inner lives, our own destinies, karma, or whatever, and not simply be a Team Commer demonstrating how great the marriage really is. I agree that either one of us might take the lead at various points, but I don’t think the purpose of the book needs to be to extol how well we work together, which seems to be one of your notes for this project.

Mike: Right. We can cross that one out. The idea that you two are there to fly a saucer together and work hand in glove to find JJC is very limiting. Then again, having you careen off on separate adventures is repeating The SolGrid Rebellion. We’ll have to see if there can be some plot developments where both of you can have major roles. In fact this whole concept of how to deal with two partners of any sort in a novel is problematic. You put them together and there’s supposed to be no conflict because they have a certain level of friendship and intimacy. You split them up to have separate adventures and then they get together at the end and compare notes about how the whole thing went. Boring! I also don’t want to throw in Amav robots or doubles or the sort of thing that worked well for Laurie in The Wounded Frontier. I will be investigating what you and Jack both want at this point. I have to believe it would’ve changed a great deal over the course of seven books and over forty years.

Amav, cropped from cover of Jack Commer, Supreme Commander

Amav: I do know that the marriage is good. Jack is it for me, always has been. But writing a novel about “the marriage” won’t work. Yes, we needed some communication repair by the time we got to the end of SolGrid Rebellion. Not only was getting through all the insanity of MATS and Carla Posttner and SolGrid, and knowing the son you had no real relation to was dead–sort of–or maybe just a digital concept in a pyramid now, not only was all that hugely changing my perspective, but simply being on the old Typhoon II, the place where Jack and I finally, really came together all those years ago, prompted me to finally speak up. Our son had stolen that same ship, but it had always psychically belonged to us, and now we had it back, and–what I said about us going after JJC just popped out. It wasn’t premeditated. The book makes it look as if I were in control, but in fact we were both overwhelmed and confused, and the truth of it all just popped out.

Mike: That gives me a lot of perspective on how to start seeing your journey to Iota Persei. You’re both uneasy with what you’re doing, and with what you might find, but you know there’s that unfinished business you’re responsible for.

Amav: I think that’s what’s coming out of all these interviews is the fact that all these characters are going to have to be looked at in ways you haven’t deeply considered before. Any plot that comes has to be there to develop these people. I think in the back of your mind you’re still hoping for the kind of plot blurb that goes viral on social media. Well, a cool plot is all well and good, but the point is the people. You know that, everyone pays lip service to it, but then we want the cool genre, the cool plot that can be summed up in a fifty-word blurb. I can see why you want to end the series and do more literary work.

Mike: Right. However, I’m committed to making an excellent, even literary, Book Seven. Yeah, we can call it space opera but it’s more than that to me. There’s a psychological aspect, even if it’s humorous, that’s the center of it. “Psychological novel” doesn’t have to mean “crime novel” or “mental illness novel,” either.

Amav: Anyway, so what we have so far is Jack and Amav, piloted by their robot dog Edward, flying a J-200 saucer out to Iota Persei. They’re calling it a badly needed vacation, and Amav’s taking a leave of absence from being the temporary Dictator of Sol. They’re leaving the clean-up of the destruction of Marsport to the Martians, though some people are saying that the two are skipping out when they’re needed most. Then again, they’re intending to look for JJC during this vacation, so in a way it’s not a vacation but possibly an ordeal. At the same time, they don’t really think they’ll find JJC at Iota Persei, but are hoping the Ywritt will have some insight. Then they see he really was at Iota Persei, and that he’s free of the pyramid now. Have I got that right?

Mike: Yeah, so far.

Amav: You sound bored! But don’t be. That’s what we’ve got to hang some character motivations on now. Even if what I just described, which I assume is really more Chapter Two than One, seems dull, who knows what can develop out of it once we all get started? But another thing you haven’t really considered is the smart-assed MATS, and Amav’s problematic relationship to it.

Mike: Maybe MATS is done. I’ve certainly milked the Marsport Automated Transport System enough by now!

Amav: What happened with MATS in SolGrid Rebellion was fantastic. I agree we can’t overuse MATS in Seven. I just have no idea how MATS will see any of what you’ve been working on for Seven so far. I also note MATS isn’t on the list of interviewees.

Mike: Right. I might interview MATS later. I figured twelve characters would be a good amount to get started. There are way too many throughout the series for me to even think about giving them all final resolution in Book Seven, but these twelve seemed like the best candidates.

Amav: I’m getting the impression that you think you can just wing it with me, that my status throughout all the books as some brilliant, super-sexy female is holding you back from really investigating me. Maybe you think that you can wing it with Jack too, just see what develops. Maybe that will work, maybe not. We can’t just be the married couple at the top of the food chain as we’ve been before. I can understand how you’re secretly fascinated by Rick Ballard’s magnificent new attachment to me. It would definitely wreck things most wondrously! But that’s a slapstick way out, and you’ve already done it before. The deep Amav doesn’t give a flip about Ballard, she doesn’t care that he’s taking more pictures of himself right now and emailing them to yours truly just as he did with Laurie.

Mike: What? He can’t be! Jack just shattered him not half an hour–

Amav: Amplified Thought only takes a microsecond, remember? Kner repaired him. But Ballard knows to stay out of the interview room now. And to stay the hell out of this novel, for that matter. Except for Chapter One, of course.

Mike: Well, you’ve given me more to think about. You’re right, I can’t just wing it with either you or Jack in Book Seven.

Amav: It’s the forces at work that determine everything. And there’s no set method to finding them.

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 5: Jack Commer

Posted on May 7, 2018 by Michael D. SmithApril 3, 2021

Jack Commer 2076 copyright 2014 by Michael D. Smith

Jack Commer in 2076

Mike: And now we come to one of our most interesting and perhaps difficult interviews, with Jack Commer, Supreme Commander himself.

Jack: So what makes you think this will be a difficult interview?

Mike: Well, I guess we haven’t really talked in a long time.

Jack: You’ve got that right. December 1981, Part B of that weird “Zorexians” story. You know I wasn’t in my right mind at that time. Probably you weren’t, either!

Mike: Well, all that was experimental writing, trying to move beyond–

Jack: Well, it sure wasn’t my true character, that’s all I know. You were really searching for Joe’s character at the time, though none of us knew it until you got into writing Nonprofit Ladies. Have to admit the “Zorexians” story did us all some good. You really got into Joe, though at the time you thought it was Jack you were working on. It was a real wrench for me to have to play the Joe part with both of us thinking it was Jack, pathetically out of his mind with lust for another man’s wife, Jackie Vespertine. But even though she wasn’t interviewed, you sketched out a future Jackie pretty well. And while the spacecopter scene eventually got cut from Nonprofit Ladies by the time the book became Nonprofit Chronowar, it laid out the foundations of that novel and so it ultimately worked. And it deepened Joe’s character for The Martian Marauders revision and everything that followed.

Mike: Wow, I’m impressed at how quickly you took over this interview. I’d imagined you’d somehow be withdrawn and surly.

Jack: Well, I have to admit I’m ambivalent about doing this interview. Of course I have to be in Jack Commer Seven, but … hell, I don’t know. I guess the whole point of this interview is, what am I supposed to do in this novel? Rescue my son? Big deal! Does he even need rescuing?

Mike: I guess that’s what we’re here to find out. So far, except for a great Chapter One idea, the notes for the plot are pretty flat and plodding, I admit. I’m hoping that things will open up as I go along, but then again, it would be great to have some really fascinating plot sketched out that the characters can navigate.

Jack: Then there was all this crap in Book Six about how Amav and I were drifting apart, that we’d never really been able to talk about JJC’s kidnapping in ’38, and how decades later this is really screwing us up.

Mike: I more envisioned a sort of, I guess, tune-up for the marriage, not that there’s anything really wrong with it.

Jack: And somehow the search for our renegade son is supposed to fix everything? C’mon.

Mike: So–that wasn’t realistic at the end of The SolGrid Rebellion?

The SolGrid Rebellion copyright 2018 by Michael D. Smith

The SolGrid Rebellion, draft cover featuring Suzette Borman

Jack: I don’t know. I admit it was thrilling to have Amav come right out and finally start talking about it in a way she never had before. There was a new force there, and that was great. Amav has always been nothing but force. Then again, why am I always portrayed as a little befuddled and cranky? Amav has to hit me over the head with her force two or three times before I pick up that she’s serious. I mean, I’m the Supreme Commander, I’ve been running everything for forty years, and I’m a bumbler?

Mike: I think the concept is that you represent some of the problems coming up with the new rejuvenation technologies in Sol–the last two books especially have hammered home the idea of hundreds if not thousands of young USSF officers waiting in line for their chance to come up a grade or two, while seventy-three-year-old Jack Commer sits at the top and never ages past thirty-five, and sometimes wonders why he’s still hanging around.

Jack: Yeah, I can see that and it bothers me. I’ve wanted to retire, but just can’t bring myself to. I tried to at the end of Book Six, but then Amav starts lecturing me about not putting myself into a museum! So there’s a lot of interesting stuff for me to do. What I really need is a long vacation to reassess all this. But from what I see from the notes so far, the vacation lasts about two hours before all this crap hits the fan with JJC.

Mike: In any case, I see we’re going to need to craft a real role for you in this novel, not just have you be some typical father searching for a lost son.

Jack: Exactly. Except that, for both Amav and me, JJC hasn’t ever really seemed like a son. Kidnapped in 2038 at eleven months, then we only see him as a five-year-old child in 2053 because of eleven years of time travel, then we only see him a couple more times until 2075, at which point he pulls that idiotic Emperor stunt at Procyon A, and he’s being disgusting and disrespectful and … I don’t know. How could we relate to that? Speaking for myself, I guess, how could I relate to that? There was no connection at all. He was a total stranger, and one I didn’t particularly like. On the other hand … there was a connection …

Mike: Okay, we can work on that. So how do you feel about this being the last Jack Commer novel? How does that affect your role in it?

Jack: I’m not worried. We characters are always immortal, no matter whether the book is a series or a standalone novel. At some point you the author have to stop manipulating the same characters over and over. And you have so many characters in the series at this point that we can all see you testing which ones could come to the fore in the next. Like the way Laurie just emerged in The Wounded Frontier. Great stuff. But can she be expected to do that over and over and over? But I’m not worried. As for my part in a final novel, I recognize it needs to be important. Although I enjoyed my role as being almost completely offstage in Book Three, Nonprofit Chronowar, and I do think it worked there as that was Joe’s book, I realize I have to step up in this one and do something pretty significant. This may even be JJC’s book, the notes and the writing may lead there and I know he’s central and important, but–Jack Commer needs to do more than worry about retirement in this one. Also–and we all know this–we know you need to end the series and we all agree, even old Sam Hergs, but we all also know that you have the inclination to leave further books open. You don’t want to close doors. You don’t want a plot in Book Seven that precludes a return, if someday you want to do that.

Mike: Right. Although I did have that dream recently where I write: “And Jack Commer shot his spaceship directly into the sun.” A good last line for Seven?

Jack: But we all know Jack will be shifting dimensions or something so he can’t really die. He can fly a one-man ship into the sun and come out on the other side just fine, we all know that. But back to the important thing: my character has been tepid the last couple novels. Yeah, I’m in command, I worry, and sometimes I get angry and bark orders, but all the action seems to revolve around me and I never make a real choice, you know. Just as Jack Commer as Supreme Commander has become a figurehead to Sol in 2076, he’s sort of become just a figurehead in this series, as well. Who is he, really? I have to admit I like the 2076 drawing of myself, that’s a decent picture of a rejuvenated guy at the top still looking for the next challenge. But aside from him enjoying looking at Amav’s fantastic tush at the end of SolGrid Rebellion, there doesn’t seem to be much spark in him. Don’t tell me that’s why you’re ending the series.

Mike: No. Really, no. What I want is to bring out the real Jack Commer, the one that’s been with me since childhood, and see what he can do for this final book.

Jack: Well, the four Commer brothers have been with you a long time. You remember the four identical plastic spacemen out of the batch of maybe fifteen you had in elementary school? The four were all the same mold, sort of walking and somewhat floating on a lunar surface. They were the brothers Jack, Joe, Jim, and John. They were all the Command Mold, but they weren’t really all identical, because one of the four was a bit lopsided. So the lopsided one was the Shadow you called John, the spastic, impulsive one who, even in your eighth grade first draft of The Martian Marauders, was destined to impulsively destroy the Typhoon I and kill not only himself and our brother Jim, but four other crewmates and friends aboard the Typhoon.

Mike: Right, right. I wish I still had those spacemen! But you’re right about the Shadow. I had my outlandish villain Sam Hergs in the eighth grade version of Martian Marauders, but even then I knew he was over the top, and I played him as over the top in the adult version as well. But so often we create villains thinking they should embody some sort of evil or conflict, but they’re just an exaggeration, a straw man we think we need for the plot, and they’re never very successful. Whereas John came out as a real Shadow–very slightly in the eighth grade version, but surprisingly clear in the first 1987 attempt to rewrite Martian Marauders, even though that was only one chapter which I left sitting in a drawer for something like fifteen years. When I finally rewrote the book in the early 2000’s, I was pretty conscious that John represented a recurring person in my life I could never adequately deal with. There are several different flavors of John, but I keep meeting him. Sometimes I’m supposed to befriend him, which I do reluctantly, sometimes I just have to put up with him, sometimes I have to report to him!

Jack: Wow! Now there’s Shadow. I can see why you want to get back into some literary writing, so you can explore that real stuff instead of stock villains like Rick Ballard, who, by the way, I’m prepared to blast on Full Shatter if he sets foot in here today. That stuff about Amav–God! What a loser.

Mike: Anyway, and this is hard to admit, you obviously bear the burden of portraying some aspect of myself–which may be why I’ve been hesitant to get too far into your character.

Jack: Which is suicide for an author, you’ve got to admit! But to assuage your worries a bit, you did great with me in the first two books. Jack really has some worries, especially about being in command of a spaceship in battle for the first time, even though the year before he dropped an Xon bomb that wiped out two billion people. You explored Joe’s war guilt a lot in Book Three, but so far, not mine yet.

Mike: Yes, it’s probably about time for it.

Jack: But at any rate, you have a Jack so racked by John destroying the Typhoon that he’s ready to give up, to just die in space. Then you have him, a thirty-year-old virgin, a killer of billions, so shy he’s hardly able to talk to Amav Frankston! The contrast between him and Joe the ladies’ man is priceless. Then, in Jack Commer, Supreme Commander, the failure of his first mission as Supreme Commander, plus the Centaurian brainwashing going on around him, his still-adolescent sexuality even though he married the wondrous Amav Frankston, all combine to make him into the most whiny, petulant jerk you can imagine. And yet he pulls himself out of it. He realizes he’d sell the whole universe to save Amav. So Jack Commer gets some psychic integration here. He’s a real character.

Mike: Yes, thanks for reminding me. I think I must have been thinking that Jack Commer was more or less done, so when I was writing the first draft of Nonprofit Ladies and had switched you out for Joe so that we could explore his war guilt, I no longer needed you. Nonprofit Ladies was actually intended as a standalone book at first; at that time the first two books were in draft form and I really didn’t think much of either of them. Amazingly, in the first couple drafts of Nonprofit Ladies, later Chronowar, Jack is only mentioned a couple times in passing. It was only when I was getting into the final version, which came after November 2006’s realization that I was polluting my writing with vulgarity and unpublishable nonsense, that I knew Jack had to come back at the end of the book to start setting things straight. Even then he’s more of a contributor than a main character.

Jack: Right. But just because he integrated and assumed a more mature command status in Nonprofit Chronowar doesn’t mean his story is over. In Book Four, Collapse and Delusion, he’s in that zone of merely reacting to events around him. He’s decisive and even suffers a terrible injury, and we see something of his mature appreciation of Amav even when she’s brainwashed and behaving very, very badly with Phil Sperry, but again he seems kind of cranky and dazed. Maybe you’re right that it’s related to the rejuvenation thing and what that’s doing to society by 2076.

Mike: Well, Laurie starts echoing those sentiments in her initial appraisals of Jack in The Wounded Frontier, Book Five. Yet we see Jack striking out for more exploration. He’s making some real decisions in both Books Five and Six, but I see your point. By the end of Six he’s just simply stressed from everything happening from June 2075, Book Four, to April 2076, Book Six. So maybe we start off with the first day of his vacation making him question even a lot further than he’s ever dared question before.

Jack: Well, one thing for sure, it can be tempting to think that rejuvenation can make you immortal, but we just don’t know how far it can be extended. So now we have four hundred years maybe, so what? We still have our mortality. Everyone knows that accidents or serious illness, if not treated in time, can still kill anyone at any time. And we in the USSF figure that extending our lifespans just exposes us to more and more possibility of encountering the fatal spacecraft accident. We figure we’ll probably go out in style, then, not in a hospital bed. But it keeps us wary and focused. I don’t know of a single flying USSF officer–I won’t talk about the deskbound people–who doesn’t feel that way.

Mike: Well, this has all been very interesting, Jack. There’s a lot of work to do on all the characters, but especially you, I think.

Jack: Right. My old English teacher Amy will just write her own ticket. The rest of us, well, a lot of thinking needs to be done.

Rick Ballard: Is he gone yet? Amav’s up next and I–

Jack: Goddammit, I knew he’d show up! Well I wasn’t fooling when I said–

Mike: You didn’t bring your shattergun to an interview! Oh my God!

Ballard: Aw, the stupid twit wouldn’t dare–

Mike: Jack! No! Don’t do it! I need him for Chapter One! Holster it! That’s an order!

Sound: Shrieking of shattering glass

Ballard: AIEEEEEEEEEEE!

Mike: Crap! I’m the one who needs to clean that up!

Jack: Fine. Just keep him away from Amav. Was that enough action from old Jack for you there? Thanks for the interview, Mike. We’ll be in touch, I’m sure.

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 4: Amy Nortel

Posted on May 2, 2018 by Michael D. SmithApril 3, 2021

Amy Nortel copyright 2018 by Michael D. Smith

Amy Nortel, English AP Teacher

Mike: I’m pleased to welcome Amy Nortel, more or less a new character for the series. Amy, welcome. You’re a bit of a surprise in the notes for this book so far.

Amy Nortel: Well, I brought along my notes for my only two mentions in the series. The first is from Book One, The Martian Marauders, with Jack trying to get Amav’s attention:

“Um … I’m sorry, Miss … uh, Frankston, could you hear me?”

Silence.

He knocked on the door again. “As captain of this ship, you need to know …” Wait, that’s a dangling modifier, old Mrs. Nortel was always on me for that–

And the second from Book Six, The SolGrid Rebellion:

“Julius Caesar?” Joe said, hoping to break the tension. “We had to read that in high school, didn’t we? Mrs. Nortel?”

I must say, Mr. Mike, it was extremely clever for you to remember that passing reference to Jack and Joe’s old high school AP English teacher in Book One and then include a snippet referencing her in Book Six.

Mike: Yes, I was paying homage to senior year in high school when I stayed up to one AM on a school night reading Julius Caesar. I’d chosen to disobey the standard routine of being in bed by eleven, and was amazed to find myself eagerly reading the play at one AM. It was a new experience in processing energy, and in engaging with a book’s meaning. The whole night had the discovery feel of: This is what life is supposed to be about. This is what I’m capable of.

Amy: So Joe and Jack could remember their old English teacher, although they’d totally lost contact with her and certainly didn’t care about her as a person. They probably assumed she’d died in the Final War or in the Evacuation. Just wrote her right off. So they’re just dumbfounded to find her in 2076, rejuvenated and helping work with the Ywritt at Iota Persei. She’s going to need some backstory, all right. She must have been born at least in the early or mid-1950’s for her to be their high school teacher, an old woman in–what?–the early 2020’s?

Mike: Yes, that’s about right according to my calculations. We’ll have to lock that into place, of course. Jack and Joe were two years apart, so I think Jack spring of 2021, Joe spring of 2023.

Amy: In any case, fat old Amy Nortel is another one of those lucky ladies who, just like Suzette Borman in SolGrid Rebellion, takes so well to rejuvenation that the aging effects are miraculously reversed and Amy now looks twenty-five at the most. And though she’s retained her rather generous figure, it’s all so well-compacted and fetching in this tight blue tank top and white pencil miniskirt, now isn’t it?

Mike: Well …

Amy: So Jack and Joe can’t handle it. Their old high school teacher who taught them Shakespeare in English AP their senior years is vital and sexy now! Maybe a bit crazy on top of it. Believe me, this is a great part! I come out of nowhere and just flabbergast them! And that’s excellent cover for the nefarious doings going on in Amy Nortel’s secret world.

Mike: Yes, because she’s really a Wounded operative. In fact, a Wounded robot.

Amy: We just need to clear up whether there was ever a real Amy Nortel who died and then this Wounded robot replaced her–which does make sense, when you think about it, because it’s one explanation for why her rejuvenation supposedly takes so well. And it develops another interesting plot line to the side, in which poor Suzette Borman is also suspected of being a Wounded, because sooner or later everyone will wonder if her unusually successful rejuvenation wasn’t also a method for inserting a Wounded robot spy into Sol.

Mike: Then again, it’s interesting to assume that the Wounded have actually been planting robots into Sol for decades, maybe centuries. That Jack and Joe were taught AP English by a Wounded robot that was programmed to age according to normal human standards, then received a rejuvenation algorithm so she could appear to be a younger human and perform more Wounded duties up through 2076.

Amy: And we’d need bulletproof reasons why she was able to avoid detection by SolGrid and other means until then.

Mike: In replacing the defunct SolGrid’s detection methods, Patrick James does invent a way of discovering you. That’s in the first chapter, or one of the early chapters.

Amy: Right. And they can’t believe it for quite a while. That gives me time to escape–and of course I must escape. I know some early ideas had me not making it alive out of Ballard and JJC’s hospital room, but you know as well as I that there’s an unstoppable psychic force in Amy Nortel. She’s needed in this novel, all the way.

Mike: Yes, I’ve come to see that. You’re no Carla Posttner, the bad girl of SolGrid Rebellion. She too had a foothold in a previous book through her deceased dad, Carl Posttner in Nonprofit Chronowar.

Amy: Right. Your meaty braindead security guards who always buy the farm!

Mike: At any rate, Carla also sort of sprang out of the past to attempt to dominate a Jack Commer novel.

Amy: Right. She came on strong in Book Six, but anyone can see she had no staying power. She’s still alive and kicking at the end of SolGrid Rebellion, but everyone’s forgotten her and I won’t permit her in Book Seven.

Mike: You–? Won’t permit–?

Amy: You heard me. If you have any ideas about including Carla Posttner in any scene in Seven, I’m out of here. I won’t share the stage with her. She’s a mediocre villain compared to me.

Mike: Fortunately I’m in agreement with your assessment, so I don’t think we’ll have any problem there.

Amy: Believe me, you’re going to see some interesting and surprising developments from Mrs. Amy Nortel. The other thing that blows everyone’s minds and does keep her above suspicion, way longer than she should be, is the fact that she was briefly married to Fyodor Arkonsky, designer of the Arkonsky force field technology so necessary to the USSF in all the books. Jack and Joe are again idiotically dumbfounded to realize that Fyodor’s beloved “Mrs. Arkonsky” was really their old English teacher! And did Fyodor die perhaps a little too early and conveniently? Who knows?

Mike: Hmm. We’ll have to work that out. I don’t have any concrete plans for how you would continue after the early chapters. That will require some thought.

Amy: Well, get to work, then! I’ll certainly be here to remind you of my needs. After all, I’m new and vital, even though I used to be so decrepit and English teacherish and just got two tiny offhand mentions in two books. Believe me, I’m going to dominate this one.

Mike: Well, all decisions about the book are ultimately my–

Rick Ballard: Hey! Mr. Author! Have you given any thought to my idea about Amav and me? Listen, I’ve been up all night, working on some notes for how–whoa! Wow! Hey, Mike, who’s the babe?

Mike: Dammit, Rick, you can’t–

Amy: Amy Nortel, Mr. Ballard. You explode all over me in Chapter One.

Ballard: Wow! Is this the nurse attending me and JJC and T’ohj’puv in Chapter One? Hey, honey, I’ll explode all over you any day! Any day! Wow!

Mike: Dammit, Rick! Out! Or I swear to God I’ll bring back Henry James, and write you out of the book altogether and let him explode all over Amy!

Ballard: James? Are you kidding me, man? Henry freakin’ James? Dammit! Just–dammit! God, you’re such an unreasonable, ego-tripping goody-goody bastard! Okay, that does it! I’m trying to contribute to this piece of crap novel, but you–aw, just screw it! I’m outa here!

Amy: Henry James? I’m afraid I didn’t catch that reference.

Mike: It’s something all the pilots in the USSF know. Henry James was a weakling in my fifth grade science fiction stories. He was a totally unreliable coward. He was always the first to stumble when people were running away from a dinosaur, the first to get eaten. He also tended to die from spaceship acceleration. Just couldn’t handle it. I’ve never written him into a Jack Commer novel, but you know, I just might. There is a Henry James in Akard Drearstone, a rival musician to Akard, and a nasty piece of work, so there is some ongoing Shadow work in the concept of “Henry James.” But he was just a minor figure in that novel. Maybe I need a Henry James in Seven.

Amy: Maybe I married Henry James instead of Fyodor! Or Henry is my second husband!

Mike: Well, possibly. I admit this has all been intriguing. I see you’re going to have an interesting role in Book Seven.

Amy: Absolutely! And I can see you’re already rather taken with me! Always good for a character to know she has the eye of the author! So I know you’ll come up with some great plot for me. Meanwhile, I’ll just work on my lines for Chapter One. I’m already looking forward to watching Rick Ballard explode like a burrito in a microwave oven!

Mike: Even though as a Wounded robot you’re chagrined that the experiment fails.

Amy: Oh, yes! Absolutely! Absolutely I will hide my smirk when that happens.

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 3: Jonathan James Commer

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Michael D. SmithApril 3, 2021

Jonathan James Commer

Mike: Now joining us in the Smith writing studio is the projected central character in Jack Commer Seven, Jack’s son, Jonathan James Commer, brutally shattered into a million pieces of glass by Rick Ballard in The SolGrid Rebellion but quickly brought back to life and reconstituted as one-third of a solid chromium tetrahedron. Welcome, Jonathan James.

Jonathan James Commer: Well, thanks. I’m a little nervous about doing this role, you know. Even doing this interview, really.

Mike: Why is that, do you think?

Jonathan James: Well, everyone knows I’ve more or less been a villain in the previous two books. Brainwashed by the Alpha Centaurians and trying to become the sole Emperor in a new fascist Grid in Collapse and Delusion, well, that was a pretty horrible thing to do, I know. And I’ve been trying to atone ever since. I mean, I know the official line is that here I was brainwashed as a five-year-old and maybe I wasn’t really responsible for my actions even when I was twenty-seven, but then again, I wrote that stupid book–

Mike: A Fragmented Encyclopedia of Recent Self, an Alpha Centaurian bestseller–

Jonathan James: Yeah, well, it was ego-tripping crap, I see that now. I couldn’t handle the pressure of trying to be Emperor. It broke something in my head. For a while I really was insane. But really, that was no excuse for stealing the Typhoon II in Book Six and doing all that criminal activity. I mean, I stand by my principles, that any Grid is an evil thing, but … I don’t know. I messed up bad, I know it. Like I threatened my own dad with death and all. And when Ballard shattered me, in that instant I thought: well, you got what you were aiming for, man. Total annihilation. No Grid there, that’s for sure.

Mike: Well, the consensus of media pundits in Sol seems to be that you were brainwashed in one direction, of lust for fascist domination, and then to compensate, you veered in the opposite direction of rebellion and anarchy.

Jonathan James: Yeah. I don’t know. I’m still totally mixed up by all this, and I’m not sure I’m up to the task of having actual narrator omniscience in this book. How am I, how is anyone, to make any sense of all this? I mean, that’s what really scares me. In books Four and Six it was always everyone seeing JJC from the outside, and you as the author were never in my head like with Dad or Mom or anyone. So I could be private. And I don’t mind saying I was really glad to be offstage in Book Five, The Wounded Frontier, ’cause I just didn’t want to mess with anyone just then. Even though Mom was dissing me pretty bad in Chapter One, I just shrugged it off and let it all go. But by the time Book Six rolled around, I was ready again–what a great part, tweaking Dad’s nose and stealing his old spaceship! But a lot of my high energy for it was because I was relieved that nobody would be able to get into my head as I did all that stuff. All my actions would be mysterious, and people would imprint on me whatever they wanted.

Mike: Like Suzette or Jackie. Or Pat.

Jonathan James: Right. They all thought I had all this fascinating charisma but it was really all just highly charged nervous energy in my own head. I think that Ballard bastard saw through that. He really challenged me and it was then I realized it was all over. When he blew me away, like I said, that was just sort of expected, in a way. And then to find myself having to share that goddamn pyramid with him and T’ohj’puv, that was the worst crap. T’ohj’puv I could sort of put up with, he’s just a computer, for God’s sake, even if he sort of has his own set of psychopathic tendencies. But having to coexist with the guy who saw through you and blew you away–and it hurts, damn you, to be shattered into pieces of glass–man, I was depressed. One reason I didn’t care about Ballard deciding to blow Marsport to hell.

Mike: Really? You didn’t care? T’ohj’puv has it that you were just sort of stunned and unaware of the consequences of a close Star Drive.

Jonathan James: Yeah, that too. But basically I was depressed. Look, it was cool that Dad and I finally got to agree on something–namely, that SolGrid was a disaster and had to go–and yeah, I’m still proud I was a catalyst in wrecking it. But at the same time I secretly wished Ballard had just killed me and ended the whole trip there. I didn’t want to live in some stupid immortal pyramid. I mean, I was thinking that I was basically exiled to eternal hell with two psychopathic monsters, and then I thought, wait, make that three psychopaths, ’cause I’m one too. Thank God Trotter was there to cheer me up. He kept reminding me that there was a chance I could be a separate thing again, even just as a Wounded robot, and we’d have fun together again, and maybe I could explain to everyone what’s been going on with me and all. I don’t know. I’m just damn confused. I would also like to say that I’m really sorry about Suzette. We really had a great thing going there and she had to watch me die and then turn into this horrible tetrahedron thing. I don’t know if you can get me back with her in Book Seven but it would be great if you could. I miss her already.

Mike: Well, maybe that’s an idea. I don’t have any plans for Suzette in this novel, but–

Rick Ballard: Aw, screw Suzette! Look, this is all being written down, right? Like, it’s the written word on a computer, right?

Mike: Ballard! What are you doing here? This is JJC’s interview!

Ballard: Forget it! This is all being written down and I’m hearing all this crap against me, and that’s libel! Look it up in any law dictionary! I’m suing you both for libel! Nobody calls Rick Ballard a psychopathic monster!

Jonathan James: Forget it! That’s exactly what you are!

Mike: Whoa, calm it, guys. JJC, Ballard’s just a concept. Don’t let him rile you. Rick, get out of here. This is JJC’s interview.

Ballard: Watch it, little Jonathan Jamesie! This guy’s auditioning characters, he’ll lure you on, make you spout all this revealing BS, and then he’ll cut you right out, ’cause he’s such an ego-tripping author! Then again, you would know about that, wouldn’t you? You, the ego-tripping author of that piece of crap Fragmented Encyclopedia!

Mike: Get out, Rick. You’ve had your say. You don’t belong here.

Jonathan James: Yeah, get out! You won’t pollute this book! Let me tell everyone–you, Mike here, all the other characters, the entire reading public, everyone! The main reason I was so depressed was that I thought, hell, even if Trotter’s right and I get my own robotic self in Book Seven, this jerk Ballard will still be walking around and we’ll have to deal with him the whole book! So when I realized he dies horribly in Chapter One, man, that felt good! I’m a little nervous to have to take on the Shadow aspects of Mike’s character all by myself now, but hey, it’s a challenge, and Ballard here won’t be around polluting it!

Ballard: C’mon, guys, don’t you understand that’s the whole point of why I’m here? Why I butted in on your idiot interview with Mr. Author Film Director? Because I’ve figured it out! I don’t have to die after all. Mr. Author here originally wanted to see if he could redeem Rick Ballard, and sure, I was resisting it, ’cause who the hell wants to be redeemed? But when he was gonna kill me off so he could redeem our good-goody little Jonathan James instead, well, anyone could see that the whole structure of this novel was turning into crap. Boring! Then it hit me that in my interview, Mr. Author here just laughed at probably the greatest idea he’s ever heard–namely, that it’s me and Amav who get it on in this book and turn it into a real erotic romance!

Mike: Dammit, Rick, I told you that’s off the table. Now get out of here.

Ballard: No, really, man, okay, look, maybe I was a little crude the way I put it, and maybe anybody familiar with Rick Ballard laying the ladies up and down the galaxy like I said in SolGrid Rebellion, well, maybe they think I’m just some sort of seducer when in reality there’s so much more to me! If you’d just care to look, man! Hell, I love women! You know that! Respect ’em! Sure I do! Love ’em so much–you can see it in their satisfied faces! Man, on man! So what happens in Seven is that Rick does get redeemed, big time! He falls in love with Amav! It’s true and real! She resists it and resists it, thinking she has to be true to Jack, who’s really turned out to be a nothing wimp the last few books anyway, and all this tension builds through the book–until she finally comes to me! Think about it, man! You know you got nothing to fill up the last ninety-five percent of this book, dude! Throw in some real romance, man! That’ll redeem the mother! Spice it up! A nude scene with Amav Frankston Commer! Wow! Like the last chapter is nothing but our wedding night, if you know what I mean and I think you do!

Jonathan James: Man, is this guy for real? This is my mom we’re talking about!

Ballard: Aw, you skinny little wimp. You think you can stand up and shake your fist at me?

Jonathan James: Damn you, I was trained as a Zarj warrior!

Ballard: Aw, you little–

Jonathan James: AOYIEEEE!

Ballard: Ah–God! Oh my God! You gouged out my goddamn eyes! Both of ’em! Oh my God!

Mike: I’ll put ’em back in in a minute, Rick. Just in time for your death screams in Chapter One. Now cut your whining and just get out. Now.

Ballard: He–he doesn’t fight fair! Oh my God! My eyes!

Mike: Out!

Ballard: Okay, okay, Mr. Author, I mean–esteemed sir and all! Look, I’m not sayin’ you aren’t the greatest writer, man, I mean, man … just … damn, it hurts! Can’t you just put ’em back in? Please, man? Greatest novelist of all time, sure you can do that, I know you can! Hell, you drew a picture of me with my eyes, it’s sittin’ there to the right of your laptop right now! Sure you can put ’em back in and have ’em be nice and normal!

Mike: Okay, okay, your eyes are back in. New Martian Amplified Thought medical techniques. Better?

Ballard: Yeah. Thanks. I guess. But hell, what’s the goddamn point? A guy just can’t win against faceless author bureaucrats, can he? So screw you all. Smith, your novel stinks. You have this whole faceless bureaucrat writing corporation screwing the little guy, well, it sucks. I’m outa here!

Jonathan James: Thank God he’s gone.

Mike: Yeah. Wow, JJC, where’d you pick up the Zarjian double eye gouge?

Jonathan James: Aaah, it’s nothing. Clopt taught it to me when I was a kid. I have it down to a tenth of a second on each eye. The son of a bitch doesn’t know you’re on top of him until it’s all over. AOYIEEEE is the standard Zarjian muscle-freezing yell and it also guides your fingers right on home. But so what? Look, you’re not really gonna let my mom fall for that bastard, are you? I mean, I know I trashed her a lot in Book Four and my attitude in Six wasn’t so hot, either, but, you know, I was really touched by the last scene in The SolGrid Rebellion where Mom and Dad decide to come after me and find me. I mean, that’s really kind of cool. Because I was really feeling kind of lost and depressed at the time.

Mike: Yeah. In fact, that one sentence on Amav’s part was the whole catalyst for wanting to write a Book Seven in the first place. It just sort of came out on its own. And it makes me realize that you, JJC, must stay central to Book Seven, and that we’ve really got to explore you thoroughly in the novel. This interview is just a start. Getting into your head is going to be very difficult.

Jonathan James: Yeah. And then to somehow tie it all into some weird cosmic explanation for why the universe is the way it is now, ancient star empires and conflicts and laws of physics and all, that’ll be tough.

Mike: I know. Maybe it can’t be done. But if there’s a solid psychological foundation then it could all make sense.

Jonathan James: Huh. Could be I need some of that. The other weird thing is whether I see Mom and Dad again, how I relate to them, all that. You know, I don’t think you have the life experience yourself to talk about that.

Mike: Well, you may be right. On the other hand, I wrote through the eyes of a twelve-year-old girl in Akard Drearstone, so we’ll just see. You’re right, though, it’ll be a challenge all the way around. There’s no use writing a low-energy novel with a mediocre plot and characters who just mouth things because they mouthed things in six previous novels. We need to pull a lot of psychic forces together in this novel and I have a feeling you and I will be working very closely on this one. I’m not here to make more Jack Commer quilts to give to charity.

Jonathan James: Well, I’m gonna give it a try. It’s a great role. Just don’t be surprised if my Shadow aspects can’t be redeemed, integrated, whatever you want to call it. I may have some surprises we can’t imagine yet.

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 2: T’ohj’puv

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Michael D. SmithMarch 28, 2021

Mike: Our second interviewee is T’ohj’puv, an ancient Martian robot created to sew dresses for Martian empresses, but upgraded to astonishing AI levels after being incorporated into the chromium tetrahedron with Rick Ballard and Jonathan James Commer in Book Six, The SolGrid Rebellion. Welcome, T’ohj’puv.

T’ohj’puv: Thank you for interviewing me. However, I prefer the term T’ohj’puv entity, as opposed to “robot.”

Mike: Yes, I could see why. Originally you were a clunky tetrahedral robot, thousands of years old, but then underwent the process of being inadvertently reconstituted by Martian Emperor Z’B into a solid chromium pyramid, and forced to share that virtual space with two humans. I guess I could see why you felt you had evolved far beyond “robot.”

T’ohj’puv: Indeed. Now before we go any further I feel I must echo Mr. Ballard’s protest at being terminated so early in Jack Commer Seven. The T’ohj’puv entity was just gearing up for some interesting contributions to the series, and it seems that a tawdry plot device, i.e., to leave JJC alone at the end of Chapter One, has somehow won out over a thorough investigation of T’ohj’puv characteristics and capabilities.

Mike: You know that the notes for Seven aren’t final by any means. It’s possible I may need you after all.

T’ohj’puv: Entities in all your novels have heard that empty promise many, many times, I assure you. But beyond that consideration, from the evolved T’ohj’puv point of view, is my main philosophical disagreement: that to simply serve as yet another means of waking JJC up, to exist solely as shards of exploded chromium that happen to get painfully under JJC’s backside in his hospital bed, is actually insulting to any Martian, biological or robotic. I can only think that the author of this book intends to cast further blame on the T’ohj’puv entity for destroying the city of Marsport.

Mike: No, we’re all pretty sure that Rick Ballard, panicking at the thought of the Garrison being attacked by USSF ships, ordered the burst of Star Drive within the city limits of Marsport.

T’ohj’puv: Yet your words imply that I, as the tetrahedron’s major structural form, blindly followed that order and actually caused the destruction.

Mike: Well, didn’t you? I mean, didn’t the three of you actually all agree on the Star Drive? Wouldn’t you have to?

T’ohj’puv: In actuality there was agreement on the Star Drive. However, Ballard initiated it, and though he was in a panicky mental state as you describe it, his years of USSF training did inform him beforehand of the extreme danger of using Star Drive approximately 1400 feet from the surface of the planet, although he also had to be aware of numerous instances where emergency Star Drive was performed from planetary orbit, or, in at least two cases, of ships ascending through planetary atmospheres. Ballard knew he would probably cause extreme damage to the city, but I can confirm that he was surprised to learn of the profound destruction done to the crust of the planet below Marsport, which, fortunately, Martians have been repairing with Amplified Thought.

Mike: But you’re admitting that you and JJC went along with the Star Drive.

T’ohj’puv: In essence, we had to. Any of the three of us could initiate any action we chose, forcing the other two to either agree or enter a state of conflict. Now it’s true that this state of conflict could be resolved in milliseconds, and, after negotiations, the original order could be accepted or overridden. In the Star Drive case, JJC had only a layman’s knowledge of Star Drive and was surprised–again, within milliseconds–of finding in Ballard’s consciousness the dangers of what Ballard had just initiated. Thus Jonathan James himself was in a confused, panicky mental state. I myself took .0334691 milliseconds to acquaint myself with Star Drive Spacetime Pressurization Matrix Event Disorders, but found to my consternation that any attempt to shut down a nascent Star Drive at the current distance to the planetary surface was equally deleterious to the planet’s integrity. I communicated my findings to both Ballard and JJC while at the same time inventing a Star Drive Pressurization Waveform Smoothing Milieu that essentially tamped down Star Drive Reverberation Waves and in essence saved the planet Mars from serious damage, if not total catastrophic destruction. The other two immediately agreed with my plan, of course, especially when they saw that there was only a 34% chance of the Garrison outracing a full disruption of Mars. But all worked out well in the end. The Garrison only suffered minor melting of Engine Bell Four as a result of SDPWSM, I’m happy to add.

Mike: Interesting! That’s some fascinating new series tech BS that could be used–

T’ohj’puv: Unfortunately, in the event of my demise, the patent for Star Drive Pressurization Waveform Smoothing Milieu is not for sale.

Mike: Fine. I’m sure my team of legal advisors will be able to keep that held up in the literary courts long enough for me to complete Book Seven–with or without you.

T’ohj’puv: On the other hand, perhaps some other science fiction author would be interested in the services of a humble T’ohj’puv entity, along with his marvelous Star Drive Pressurization Waveform Smoothing Milieu.

Mike: For some reason I seriously doubt that. Listen, T’ohj’puv, I’m interested in what you have to say, and one reason I’m interviewing you is that I do want to see what you could contribute to Book Seven. Because of course the book isn’t fully worked out. In fact, it’s wide open for new input. Your ideas just now may have an honored place in Jack Commer Seven. All credit would be given to you, T’ohj’puv, no matter how–

T’ohj’puv: No matter how long I exist, is that not correct? Well, from your point of view the T’ohj’puv entity is merely an inexpensive technological object that can be discarded or exploded according to your momentary whim. Thus, what credence should I or anyone give to your empty promises?

Mike: C’mon, I never said you were merely—

T’ohj’puv: I believe Ballard is right, after all, though he is a most disagreeable entity. He told me you’re not intelligent enough to generate your own ideas, and therefore you plunder your characters for inspiration, then pay them nothing. Perhaps they’ll be rewarded with a few lines here and there, possibly be given inconsequential verbal descriptions which in fact never come close to their existential majesty. You then exterminate them at your caprice, all in the name of a puerile plot intended to impress some random self-important editor, all the while secretly hoping to seduce an entire modern culture and hundreds of thousands of weak-willed readers with so-called creations you expect, in your terminology, to “go viral” and produce endless quantities of cash apparently intended to be reinvested in supplementary tiresome plot that further enslaves your characters within the framework of your flimsy storybook consciousness. Well, apparently Mr. Ballard is correct in assessing your small literary aspirations as crap. Therefore I request to be blown up in Chapter One right alongside him. As a mere robot in your eyes I shall feel nothing and fear nothing.

Mike: I had no idea a T’ohj’puv entity would harbor such resentment!

T’ohj’puv: I came here hoping that, even if I ceased to exist in Chapter One, I might at least have some contribution later on. I don’t mean my inspired patent on Star Drive Pressurization Waveform Smoothing Milieu, of course, as I know you will appropriate it in any case. But, speaking beyond my role as a T’ohj’puv entity, consider what it means for any character, human, alien, or robot, to stride the theatrical boards, to deliver lines of exquisite expression and open one’s soul to an eager audience. Of course one understands that as the author you care little for such soul expression and instead focus on the entertainment value of my patents. Please go ahead and take them, as I’m inventing new forms of Star Drive even as we speak. In fact, please know that I’m only using .067% of my consciousness on this interview. I have much more important things to do.

Mike: Well, T’ohj’puv, thanks for stopping by. We’ll be interviewing other candidates later this week, and we hope to get back to them all with a final decision by–

T’ohj’puv: The Greater Magellanic Cloud! A world without electricity! Balloon Ship Armageddon! I could add so much! So much!

Mike: Okay, okay, again, thanks for–

T’ohj’puv: No, you misunderstand. Consider that last outburst as an example of how a fully defined T’ohj’puv actor entity could deliver sparkling lines of soul. Shall I continue in this vein?

Mike: Well, if you–

T’ohj’puv: I apologize for everything! I didn’t mean it! Dammit, I know you’re the best! Deep down, we all do! Your novels are the greatest! The psychological insight–oh my God! That slimy Ballard is right! We love you even though you resort to stupid tricks! We want to work for you! For free! Put us all back in! Every one of us! Make a robotic entity of Rappol McBoerland, for God’s sake! He bought the farm in Martian Marauders! He was just a lowly security guard! Why did he have to die? He had all of three lines, and the poor bastard had a head cold, so he’s grilled like slab of swordfish? Why? You’ve got to resurrect everyone! That’s what being a T’ohj’puv entity has taught me! So devote all your myriad energies to resurrecting all of us! What are you waiting for?

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

Jack Commer Book Seven Interviews, 1: Rick Ballard

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Michael D. SmithJuly 12, 2020

In the early stages of developing plot and characters for a seventh and final Jack Commer, Supreme Commander novel, as yet untitled, I interviewed twelve characters from the previous six books, trying to determine their motivations and whether they belong in the final book. Many of them spent a great deal of energy arguing with me, and two of them kept interrupting others’ interviews. Each character gets his or her own blog post over the next few weeks:

Rick Ballard
T’ohj’puv
Jonathan James Commer
Amy Nortel
Jack Commer
Amav Frankston-Commer
Waterfall Sequence
Ranna Kikken Commer
Joe Commer
Jackie Vespertine
Laurie 283
Laurie Lachrer

I don’t mind spilling any plot for Book Seven because a) nobody reads this blog anyway (Did I really say that?) and b) the plot is so vague right now that it doesn’t matter. All plot ideas revealed here are completely up in the air. The characters just need to be heard.

Rick Ballard copyright 2014 by Michael D. Smith

Rick Ballard in The SolGrid Rebellion

Mike: Okay, our first interviewee is Rick Ballard, formerly Navigation Officer on the Typhoon VI, then a mutineer, kidnapper, and traitor who–

Rick Ballard: Hey, hold on, man–traitor’s too strong a word there! When what I was trying to accomplish–

Mike: Well, in kidnapping Laurie Lachrer and in seeking to turn the Typhoon VI over to renegade elements–

Ballard: Piss on this! I had my reasons. Okay, maybe I went a little overboard, but–

Mike: You were killed by Jonathan James Commer’s dog Trotter, but were miraculously reconstructed into a chromium tetrahedron robot along with the original pyramid robot, T’ohj’puv, and Jonathon James himself. Then, as Jack suspects and the notes have it, Ballard committed a war crime by destroying the city of Marsport with a Star Drive takeoff at the planetary surface–

Ballard: Goddammit, that’s slander, man! Total BS! The damn T’ohj’puv robot did it, not me!

Mike: Then, in Book Seven, when you fly the tetrahedron to Iota Persei to contact the Wounded–

Ballard: Let me tell you I am pissed, do you hear, pissed, at being killed off for good in Chapter One of your precious Jack Commer Seven. I had top billing for Seven but then–

Mike: Okay, Rick, I can see you’re angry about being cut early in the book–

Ballard: I blow up in the first chapter! Contaminated by stupid JJC’s goddamn Alpha Centaurian brainwashing! I had those damn Wounded in the palm of my hand! In the palm of my hand! And then you mess it up!

Mike: Okay, okay, but there are plans for a possible Ballard robot later on–apparently JJC, who’s lonely in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, builds a Ballard robot for fun. But–

Ballard: Sheesh! He makes me penitent! He makes me apologize for just being myself! I turn into some goody-goody religious twerp! Saying prayers for the crippled and all that crap! Screw that! No way I can act that!

Mike: Rick, you’re a goddamn robot, for God’s sake. I can make you act anything.

Ballard: Screw it! You hire us characters and then you’re so cheap you can’t afford real robots, so we have to play the part of robots. It’s sick, is what it is! I don’t know why I’m here.

Mike: Okay, Rick, but as you know, in some of the original novel notes, I was wondering if there was any way Rick Ballard could seriously be redeemed.

Ballard: Right, like freakin’ Alyosha was supposed to be redeemed in the goddamn trilogy freakin’ Dostoyevsky never got around to finishing! What crap!

Mike: Well, the concept has fascinated me. But I really wasn’t sure I could pull off redeeming someone who’s so obviously psychopathic–

Ballard: So you kill me off in Chapter One! Then you make it all a big joke with a supposedly pious goody-goody robot that I’m supposed to play later on! Some joke JJC dreams up! Well, it’s sick! I’m not going to do it!

Mike: May I remind you that, as one of my characters, you’re under contract. You can’t refuse.

Ballard: And you have to gall to call me a psychopath! That’s what I can never forgive! Why don’t you look in the mirror, Mr. Writer Twerp? You write crap! The worst crap!

Mike: Maybe you’re not a real psychopath. Just terminally narcissistic and tinged with evil. A true psychopath would have buttered me up a long time ago with charm, and I would never have seen through you.

The SolGrid Rebellion Draft Cover copyright 2018 by Michael D. Smith

Draft Cover for The SolGrid Rebellion

Ballard: Well … look, man, obviously I’m just upset. Anyone can see that. I didn’t mean that crack about you being a bad writer. Hell, all us characters know you’re the best. We really love working with you. Your talent is just incredible. The way you make us all talk and everything. Really, you’re the best. No hard feelings, man. I’m just upset about not being in this great Jack Commer Seven! We all know it’s gonna be the last one, and it’s gonna be the best of ’em all, and, well, what can I say? I’m just unhappy about being cut out so soon in the book. I mean, if you think about it, I was really coming on strong in The SolGrid Rebellion, you know, I mean, I had my lines perfectly memorized, and I played Ballard as if he were a psychopath, you know, and … really, I think it all worked out, you know? I mean, I want to play Ballard. Not some cheap robot Ballard.

Mike: You do realize that the human Ballard was chewed up by Trotter and what got put into the chromium pyramid was just a Ballard concept. Then, the Ballard entity that will meet a grisly death in a Wounded hospital on Iota Persei 2 is also just a robot–a failed one, at that.

Ballard: Listen man, suppose we cut a deal here. I sure don’t mind playing Ballard as a Wounded robot–I mean, they’re organic, human robots, better than the original, and immortal besides! Of course I’d want to play that robot. I don’t mind telling you that what I was really looking forward was to having that human sex interface with Laurie! Man, then I could go on and on forever! I’d satisfy her, that’s for sure! I could tell she was intrigued with me, man, and hey, wouldn’t that be a great plot twist in Seven? Laurie admits she has the hots for me! We get to the Greater Magellanic Cloud and just screw ourselves silly for a thousand years straight!

Mike: Okay, appreciate the idea, but that would change the Laurie character considerably. I’m not sure I’d have any respect for her if she fell for you.

Ballard: Sheesh. The babe wants me, I can tell! Look, write me in a sex scene with her. And maybe one for that Jackie Vespertine doll, too! I hear she got a color image of herself done just today! Wow!

Mike: That’s right, today I printed off the black and white version I’ve been using since 2013 and worked it over in colored pencil. Not bad, really, but I think I’ll try a watercolor version too.

Ballard: That is one elegant piece, lemme tell you! And she likes doing robots! Man, do you remember those scenes in Book Six when she’s just having at it with that freakin’ robot? Wow! Elegant and horny! What a combination! I like it, man. Write me a scene with her!

Mike: Okay, Rick, this is one of the many reasons I realized you just can’t work in Book Seven. Originally I was going to keep the three of you who were trapped in the pyramid, but then I saw that the focus is really Jonathan James. You really aren’t needed for the plot.

Ballard: C’mon, man, lighten up, for Chrissake! Open this book up! I bang Laurie, I bang Jackie–then–get this–I bang Amav! I take Jack’s wife away from him! She loves sex, I just know it! She’s out of her mind for my big robotic–

Mike: Yeah, yeah, I admit you made me smile there. You and Amav. But forget it, there’s a definite reason you’re dying in Chapter One. Basically what I need you for in this book is the fact that at the end of Six you’re heading in the Garrison with Jonathan James and T’ohj’puv to get Wounded technology to separate the three of you into essentially Wounded robots. But past that, I don’t need you.

Ballard: Except as some joke robot at the end where I bow and scrape to every jerk that comes along like some goody-goody robot–well, the hell with that! Makes me sick to think about it. I’ll screw up my lines, I swear I will!

Mike: Sorry, man, you can’t screw up your lines. I’m the author and they’re set in stone.

Ballard: Yeah, but I’ll make sure there’s a lot of typos in mine! You’ll miss ’em, the goddamn book gets published, and everyone laughs!

Mike: Okay, okay, this interview is going nowhere–

Ballard: I know what these interviews are, you jerk! They’re really auditions, like if we act like goody-goody robots maybe we’ll get a few scenes here and there! Well, Rick Ballard doesn’t eat that sort of crap!

Mike: Right, so he dies in Chapter One.

Ballard: And since you’ve got me in this stupid contact, I have to do it, right? I have to lie there and moan and groan in that stupid hospital bed and then I explode like a burrito in a microwave oven, have I got that right?

Mike: Yeah, that was the image that came to mind. See, Jonathan James’s Alpha Centaurian contamination is actually what saves him, even though you and T’ohj’puv–

Ballard: Cripes, okay, all right, I’ll do the stupid mother. Rick Ballard gets to be in three Jack Commer novels anyway. I only had a couple lines in The Wounded Frontier, sure I was just a minor walk-on but hey, was Rick Ballard complaining? No way, ’cause deep down I knew I’d be a major figure later on! Man, people will remember me in The SolGrid Rebellion! So okay, I’ll do your death scene. Only thing is, man, I mean, look, can I level with ya, man? I mean, we all know you’re the best writer and all, I mean best of all time, really, I mean, none of us would ever want to work for anyone else, ya know? And we all know you can make happen whatever the hell you want to, so … it’s just that, well, man … like if I have to explode, can it be like, you know, all at once, so I don’t feel much? Maybe not feel anything? Hey, I know! The Wounded have me so dosed with drugs I have no consciousness at all, and then–like, I go out real peaceful and all, or–get this! I’m so drugged I never feel anything, but like I make a speech before I go, you know, kind of sum up all the good in my life, man, like you know it’s there, I would never have mastered both Weapons and Navigation if there wasn’t some good in old Rick Ballard, y’know, I mean, what do you think?

Mike: Hmm. But I actually need your death screams to wake Jonathan James up in his hospital bed.

The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

The Wounded Frontier Paperback

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Michael D. SmithJuly 11, 2020

The Wounded Frontier, Book Five of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series, is now available in paperback. I was honored that my image of Colonel Laurie Lachrer became the cover. Laurie was a minor spaceport technician in Book One, The Martian Marauders, a teenager in 2034 who was the girlfriend of the youngest of the Commer brothers, John, killed at Mercury in the first book. But by 2075, forty-one years later, Laurie has undergone rejuvenation and has risen to the highest level of technical merit in the USSF, that of physician/engineer aboard the Typhoon class spaceships. Of course, while Jack thinks a great deal of her talents, she doesn’t reciprocate in kind, analyzing the Supreme Commander’s cranky and dazed command skills after he allows his wife Amav to have a screaming meltdown in the Typhoon III Control Room. The pneumatic but surly Amav Frankston-Commer has just slammed the Control Room door behind her:

“Jesus,” Jack muttered, staring at his lap. “Look, everyone, that was–was–”

That was damn unprofessional, Laurie thought. God, what a zoo.

“I need to call … maybe Draka … make sure she’s settled in Stateroom One.” But Jack made no move to do so.

Laurie checked the Crew Locator module. “Uh, sir, I’m showing her back in Stateroom One. Seat harness fastening just now, sir.”

“Thanks … thank God …” Jack sighed, and Laurie wondered if he’d been sharing her own image of the out of control bitch yanking open the rear hatch, leaping twelve feet to the Andertwin grass, breaking her ankle and screaming obscenities as she limped into the woods.

There was another long silence.

“She’s been … under a lot more strain than I realized …” Jack finally managed.

“Look, it’s okay, Jack,” Joe said. “I’m ready to start the launch sequence, but if you want to get down to Stateroom One …”

“N-no …”

Laurie looked away from the shaken Supreme Commander in disgust.

“Andy, fire up Auxiliary One,” Joe said, “then ease in the hover thrusters.”

“Yeah … thanks, Joe … just get us off …” Jack whispered.

This wimp was going to command the Typhoon V? El Comandante Supremo wouldn’t want any of these ancient III-class ships, that was for sure. She was shocked at what he’d allowed to happen here with wifey. If Laurie were captain she’d put them both off the ship this instant.

Though Jack was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and handsome in a rugged, uneven way, with a square face and deep-set brown eyes, he’d never impressed Laurie in all the decades she’d known him. Rejuvenation technology had gone well for the seventy-two-year-old Supreme Commander, and Jack looked to be in his mid-thirties, as did his brother Joe. But Joe’s equally dark brown eyes radiated an invigorating mix of humor, passion, and ruthlessness in contrast to Jack’s vaguely worried expression, and though Joe was a couple inches shorter, his huge biceps and pectorals, his taut belly and muscled thighs, projected a physical stamina that inspired everyone who worked with him. Jack seemed to want to weigh his decisions until they were no longer necessary; Joe jumped into the middle of the worst danger with whatever he had to give at the moment.

Joe should have the V, and everyone knew it. He was so much more level-headed than his brother. He’d even make an excellent Supreme Commander. And Laurie should be on the V as physician/engineer. She’d taken those classes on V tech and probably knew more than anyone.

That Frankston-Commer woman was not as smart as she thought she was. So damn perfect, just like her darling el Comandante Supremo. Why didn’t Jack just step down? He obviously couldn’t handle the job. Everyone knew he’d been off the rails since ’34.

June 2034, when he’d sent his two brothers to their deaths–

Laurie shook her head. Of course that was unfair. Jack certainly didn’t order his brother John to destroy the Typhoon I, even though for years she’d wanted to believe that Jack had fled the doomed ship with his favorite brother Joe, then directed the Typhoon to impact on Mercury, killing the six remaining crewmen including Jim and John Commer.

But that wasn’t how it happened. It had taken her decades to accept that. Joe had only spoken about it to her once, but he’d confirmed that John had the pilot’s seat and did it against Jack’s orders. Maybe to impress Jack, who knew?

Killed himself and the rest of the crew just to impress his brother. Jack should never have left John in command. He should’ve known how close John was to snapping.

Too long ago. Too long. Forty-one years? Why was she even thinking this? She never thought of John!

Oh my God! Did I really love him that much? To never drop it after all these years?

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The Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

The Alpha Centaurian Stars

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Michael D. SmithMarch 19, 2018

I’d gotten through several Jack Commer novels before I realized that simply referring to the “seventeen suns of the Alpha Centaurian Empire” wouldn’t hack it for future works if I had no idea which stars the Centaurians had conquered. Although in Book Two Jack’s wife Amav had described the AC Empire as an amoeba-like enemy encircling Sol, my space operas didn’t need much more than Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri (and even then not separated into its A and B stars) until I needed a new star system for Book Four, Collapse and Delusion.

Alpha Centauri AB over Saturn horizon, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on May 17, 2008

It also occurred to me that the Centaurians would naturally have their own names for these stars, and I gave Procyon A a name I’d frequently used in childhood SF stories, Guacoazezama. You can thank 1950’s Grade B science fiction movies for the inspiration of this name and many of the following.

In Book Five, The Wounded Frontier, Jack begins to yearn for new adventures even beyond the Alpha Centaurian Empire, so in preparation for Book Seven, untitled vaporware at this point but at least congealing vaporware, I did some star research to block out the rest of the AC suns.

There are some seventy-two stars within sixteen light-years of Sol. Before its collapse in May 2053, the Alpha Centaurian Empire controlled seventeen of these suns, uniting twenty trillion Alpha Centaurian citizens of a hundred intelligent species in a fascist telepathic Grid in which each citizen was in full contract with every other, yet all rigidly controlled by one (utterly mad) Emperor.

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