Sortmind Blog – Michael D. Smith

Top of the Hour

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Michael D. SmithSeptember 12, 2014

Consider that the top of the hour is the same everywhere: 10:00 AM in Dallas, 4:00 PM in London, 11:00 PM in Beijing, 12:00 AM tomorrow in Tokyo …

There may be some renegade time zone somewhere whose inhabitants insist that it’s really x:45 at the above times, but the fact is that the clock hits the top of the hour simultaneously all over the world.

And so it must be that billions of people have someone they need to meet, somewhere they need to be, something that must be completed, some obligation to fulfill, some ordeal to endure, some pleasure to look forward to, at the top of each hour.

In other words, there are billions of human psychic collisions taking place every time :59 gives way to :00.

So when someone comes up to you at 11:53 AM demanding extra snappy service because she’s on a tight schedule (and you’re thinking, yeah, me too, lady, I have lunch in seven minutes and your hassle is probably going to wreck everything), you probably shouldn’t remind her that she needs to get in line as there are 3,233,844,208 people who ALSO, at this exact moment, have something dire coming up at the top of the hour. It will just increase her stress to realize that not only is she not Number One, but also that the entire planet is reeling with the shared anxiety of hitting the target of Whatever Seems to Be a Matter of Life and Death at :00.

Characters in novels rarely seem to exhibit this time concern. Sometimes they do have to watch the clock to catch a plane or defuse a time bomb, but all that is just the demands of the plot. In most cases the characters seem to have infinite amounts of time as they go about acting out the events of the story, and for that matter they don’t seem to worry much about their bank account, their car’s transmission, or their hissing, water-wasting toilet unless for some reason those concerns form part of the plot. A novelist has to filter out these details for the sake of getting a sane number of pages written, but might want to consider that, as does any other person on Earth, these characters have a thousand mini-crises running through their heads every day–and way too many of them are coming together at the top of the hour.

Character-Driven Boasting

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Michael D. SmithDecember 20, 2016

I need to keep reminding myself about characters. Because I almost fell into this trap working on the notes for the sixth Jack Commer novel, Commer of the Rebellion. Boy, I really was straining for a dazzling plot, but it was just months of frustrating mush until some characters stepped forward to remind me why I wanted this novel in the first place.

Thus the following is a note to myself, not intended as hoary advice from some pro to the novice:

Characters are everything as you should know by now. You lose sight of what’s real whenever you’re trying to figure out how to make the plot work. Trying to force your characters into some enthralling plot designed to wow the reader is a disaster. The problem is that the mind-blowing plot, reduced to a one-sentence elevator pitch, is ideal for marketing purposes. In fact, I’ve bought novels on the basis of the fascinating one-sentence blurb only to gag at the artlessness of characterization within the book.

Never tout your own fiction as “character driven” or as part of some “new literary science fiction” trend–we’ve heard that one for decades anyway. Don’t even write a review of someone else’s book in that regard. If you have to say that, you’re just trying to hoodwink people into believing you’re some master of characterization, or your reviewed author is. Make your fiction demonstrate that your characters are primary; let the potential reader determine what these characters are from a sample chapter or (as must sometime regrettably happen) from your marketing. As for reviews, if an author does a particularly great job with his or her characters, you can certainly praise that skill without resorting to vapid cheerleading.

And in any case, who’s really a “master of characterization” when starting a new novel? It’s all an experiment, it’s exploration of the unknown, and you can’t tell in advance what these inner archetypes will say or how well you’ll be able to take the dictation.

Yes, I’ve been guilty of saying “My novels are character-driven.” I think almost everyone pays lip service to this concept. And while I’ve understood deep down that characters are primary, I’ve all too frequently tried to first create a plot that would ideally mix characters into some high energy event matrix “the way I want them to.” But that’s not giving them free enough rein. Concerns about the plot, including the ending before you’ve gotten there, inhibit the flow of the raw people investigation any novel demands.

Bottom line: you shouldn’t have to say that your characters have depth. They just better self-evidently flow or else you don’t have a novel. The challenge is not how you can finagle some entertaining characters, because there’s no standard classroom method, no tricks for gussying them up so you can fool yourself and your reader. Characters are totally dependent on how honest you are with yourself. Boasting about your characters is simply authorial anxiety, of which there’s a lot floating around.

Try to Give Something Back as Well (or, The Martian Marauders on Sale through Sept. 2)

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Michael D. SmithJuly 11, 2020

Writers are told to self-promote everywhere but it’s beginning to seem as if folks are pulling into your driveway at 3 AM and blowing their horn

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

then charging off to blare some other victim down the street.

At least they should bring some donuts when they do that.

So my concept of donuts is tossing in several decorative images of characters from The Martian Marauders as I sneak across the concept that its eBook (Kindle) format is on sale for $2.99 at Amazon through September 2nd.

The Martian Marauders, which has a very strange history in my writing life, deals with the horrors of a Final War in 2033, the resulting evacuation of Earth, an unexpected conflict with native Martian terrorists, and whether eldest brother Jack of four Commer brothers is really fit to lead the United System Space Force. I’ve recently drawn some fifty characters, both major and minor, from the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series. Rendering these characters, including some minor ones, has actually pushed the series in new directions.

For instance, spurred by what needs to happen when Jack and Amav’s insolent, ego-tripping son Jonathan James runs off with Suzette Borman, a minor character in Book 5 and the wife of a United System senator, I’m now working on Book 6, with working title Commer of the Rebellion. Much of the novel didn’t jell until I’d drawn Suzette, a fortyish, hard-bitten co-owner of a nightclub who’s been rejuvenated to look nineteen. I also happened to notice this time that I couldn’t feel much focus for starting the novel until I gave it a working title; “JC6” is really kind of boring.

The existing books in the series, published (or soon to be) by Double Dragon Publishing, are:

1. The Martian Marauders (2012)
After the evacuation of the Earth’s population to Mars, Typhoon I Captain Jack Commer fights native Martians led by their traitorous new human Emperor.

2. Jack Commer, Supreme Commander (2012)
Newly-promoted Jack Commer brings poor negotiating skills to the war with the fascist Alpha Centaurian Empire.

3. Nonprofit Chronowar (2013)
Jack’s younger brother Joe time travels from 2036 to lecture complacent nonprofit ladies about the coming destruction of the planet.

4. Collapse and Delusion (forthcoming)
Jack and his wife Amav journey to the paradise planet Andertwin for a painful visit with their reclusive son Jonathan James, author of a bestselling novel about the collapse of the Centaurian empire.

5. The Wounded Frontier (forthcoming)
Jack pushes for exploration far beyond Sol in the untested Typhoon V when a star thirty-four light years away abruptly vanishes, leaving the infrared signature of a Dyson sphere apparently built within one week.

More Jack Commer Character Images

Mandy Frederick, Empress of the Martians

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Michael D. SmithJuly 11, 2020

The Wounded Frontier, Book Five of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander science fiction series, has been accepted for publication by Double Dragon Publishing. Since she first appeared in Book Three, 2013’s Nonprofit Chronowar, Mandy has progressed far from her original position as secretary to a Texas plastic surgeon.

From The Wounded Frontier:

Now Empress Mandy stood up from her Supercommittee seat as if to challenge anyone to question her right to name her husband Council President. She wore a tight emerald Empress robe and Laurie was startled to note, as Mandy stood in the backlight of powerful yellow globes, that the robe was fully transparent, outlining her slender nude torso and her long naked muscular legs. Laurie heard a gasp from Senator Borman down the line as everyone in the room realized that Empress Mandy was giving everyone in the chamber the dark suggestive outlines of nipples, belly button, and pubis.

Okay, so Mandy was shockingly lovely even in her mid-seventies. She was a petite brown-eyed beauty with a delicate heart-shaped face, rejuvenated to look anywhere between twenty-five and forty. She could see why Draka might have simply followed a command to marry her. Mandy was another one of those where rejuvenation had taken so well that there wasn’t a line on her face. Yet the light surging through that transparent robe signaled thousands of years of Martian maturity.

Laurie had had little contact with Mandy Frederick over the years, but considered her funny, dazzling, and super sharp, her outradiance a controlled fusion of aesthetics, philosophy, politics, and hard-won experience. And while everyone knew she was a full Martian, somehow her human beauty made you forget about the inner Empress warrior goddess–to your peril. Mandy’s current radiance was like lava spewing from what everyone had supposed was a dormant volcano.

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Writable Novel Notes

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Michael D. SmithJune 27, 2019

Cribbed and slightly expanded from a 2013 blog post, where it got lost in the middle. But as I start looking over my notes for a sixth Jack Commer novel, all this rumination applies anew!

Notes for a novel have to be writable. There has to be a concrete situation, there have to be concrete characters and a concrete stage for them to act upon. I often start novels by collecting miscellaneous notes I’ve accumulated over “the past psychologically meaningful unit of time.” Then I sort them, whacking them down and resorting as further ideas come into play, and toss in essays, journal entries, and recent dreams. Sometimes this process sparks imaginative leaps that produce writable scenarios. But maddeningly, this method seems to fail at least half the time, and frequently leaves me with the delusion that I now have notes for a new novel, when in reality I just have a bunch of semi-interesting ideas which don’t have novel legs.

“Writable” implies a high level of desire to get on with the actual composition of the novel. If I don’t feel an immediate urge to jump onto the book, my notes are probably vague obligations about stuff I think I ought to write.

But at least I’ve become more aware of the pitfall of such abstract notes. By the time I’m deep into a novel I usually distrust the notes for the future chapters, and if I’m writing well, I immediately see which notes are workable and which are just fluff I’ve been attached to for some reason. Again and again I’m forcefully reminded that characters and their motivations move the story and invite eager writing. Ideas by themselves do not.

I’ve also noticed a semi-amusing tendency for my notes for a Part I to be ninety percent writable to ten percent abstract ideas, and notes for the final Part V to be ten percent writable to ninety percent abstract ideas. Notes for chapter 1: “Harold rides a nuclear-powered motorcycle across the Mercurian desert, vowing revenge against the aliens who attacked his solar panel farm.” Notes for chapter 40: “Warring factions of all planets come together.”

I’m not alone here. I could cite several recent long science fiction novels that began brilliantly but wound up lost in bloated abstraction, even as the author kept straining to render his or her ideas into “novel plot” and “novel dialog.”

from “Perpetual Starlit Night in Twisted Tails VII,” which discusses how my short story “Perpetual Starlit Night” originally aimed to be a long, unwritable novel.

Joe Commer from The Martian Marauders, or, Wiping the Blackboard Clean

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Michael D. SmithJuly 11, 2020

Marooned on dead planet Earth, writhing in fever dreams, Joe is dying from the aftereffects of a Martian ice ray along with his brother Jack. From The Martian Marauders:

FORGET THAT! FORGET THAT! IT’S BEEN SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN THAT JACK COMMER FELL APART AND FAILED MISERABLY! COMMER IS IN FACT A TRAITOR TO THE HUMAN RACE! THAT’S CORRECT, A TREASONABLE TRAITOR! WE SHALL NEVER FEEL SORRY FOR HIM OR HIS BROTHER!

Huey? Huey damn VESPERTINE? But then again, that’s just like you with your total, cynical CRAP! You weren’t there, after all, what do you know? Jack never snapped! It was just that he was way overstressed by the whole day before Mercury! Doesn’t anyone understand the pressures that go with command responsibility?

JACK COMMER FAILED TO UNDERSTAND HIMSELF. FAILED TO HANDLE THE PRESSURES. HIS BROTHER JOE JOINS HIM IN TOTAL, IRREDEEMABLE DEFEAT.

We’re not dead yet, you jerk! We’re both still breathing, both still here–this ice isn’t such a big deal, Jack and I can handle it!

YES, EVEN AS HE WAITS FOR THE END JOE COMMER UNDERSTANDS THAT THE ICE IS SOMEHOW A PRESERVING FORCE. FOR INSTANCE, EVEN THOUGH HE HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO MOVE TO GET FOOD OUT OF THE ESCAPE CRAFT SINCE DAY TWO, JOE FEELS NO HUNGER AT ALL. HE FEELS NO URGE TO URINATE OR DEFECATE, HE FEELS NEITHER COLD NOR HOT, IN FACT, HE FEELS NO BODILY DISCOMFORT AT ALL.

Oh, so it’s the end, now, Huey, is it? Are you gonna preside over my death now? Get outa my head! I tried to be your friend, I tried to make things right, even after you and Jack fell out, even after he said he never wanted to see you again–

ONE HAS TO ASSUME THAT IT’S THE SAME FOR JACK. JACK COMMER MIGHT BE IN A COMA, BUT HE MUST BE DYING PEACEFULLY, AS JOE IS. THE MARTIAN ICE RAY GUARANTEES A SLOW DEATH, BUT LET’S JUST SAY IT HAS PROVIDED SOME ADVANTAGES.

Yeah, name one, you jerk! And bring back General Scott! HE knows what’s going on!

THIS IS SCOTT. PROBABLY THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGE IS THAT JOE GETS TO LIE RIGHT HERE AND THINK, JUST THINK, FOR DAYS! THINK ABOUT HIS ENTIRE LIFE. HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE EVER GIVEN THREE DAYS AT THE END OF THEIR LIVES TO JUST THINK? SURE, IT’S FRUSTRATING NOT TO BE ABLE TO MOVE, BUT WHAT DOES THAT MATTER? ISN’T EVERYTHING FOR THE MIND?

Well … well, sir, I’d say … well, if you put it that way, I guess I agree, sir …

JOE COMMER GETS TO REVIEW EVERYTHING, AND ISN’T IT OBVIOUS THAT WHEN HE FINALLY FINISHES REVIEWING IT ALL, HE’LL SHUT DOWN? AND WON’T THAT BE ALL RIGHT? IN FACT, WON’T IT BE FUN TO SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN, ONCE HE’S REVIEWED EVERYTHING? ONCE HE BECOMES A COMPLETE HUMAN BEING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE?

Wow … wow … yes, sir, I’ll get right on it, sir! The review! The review of everything, sir! And may I just say in parting, sir, that it’s been a honor serving under you, sir?

THIS IS T. JASPER MARKTHOLOMEW, CUTTING TO THE CHASE! THERE WILL BE NO SUCH CALM APPRAISAL OF JOE COMMER’S WORTHLESS LITTLE LIFE! HASN’T MR. COMMER BEEN EVEN A LITTLE SUSPICIOUS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THESE HALLUCINATORY DREAMS? FOOL! DOESN’T HE KNOW THAT THEY’RE SIMPLY A CLEANSING AGENT? THAT THEY’RE HERE TO WIPE JOE COMMER’S BLACKBOARD CLEAN? JOE’S OWN PRECIOUS BLACKBOARD WITH HIS OWN PRIVATE SET OF PSYCHO-PHYSICAL EQUATIONS, THE EQUATIONS THAT HAVE DEFINED HIS LITTLE LIFE? THE FEVER DREAMS WIPE ALL THAT CLEAN!

No, no, bring back Scott, I liked what he was saying, that was MY OWN LIFE we were talking about, after all!

THE HUEY VESPERTINE REPORT CONTINUES! THE ESSENTIAL EQUATIONS HAVE ALWAYS REVOLVED AROUND THE PEOPLE IN JOE’S LIFE, AND WHETHER OR NOT HE’S SCREWED THEM OVER!

Aw, crap, Huey, you oughta talk, you turned your back on the USSF, on–hell, on the whole human race!

CONSIDER THE TANGLED THICKET OF ENERGIES RELATING TO THE FOUR COMMER BROTHERS AND THEIR FATHER! IT PROBABLY CAN’T BE NAVIGATED BEFORE SYSTEM SHUTDOWN! FOR WE SUSPECT IT ALL GOES TOO DEEP TO BE DEALT WITH IN THIS LIFETIME. PERHAPS IN A COMING LIFETIME JOE WILL DEAL WITH–

I don’t believe this! Don’t give me this coming lifetimes crap!

THE NEED FOR COMING LIFETIMES COMES FROM THE TANGLED DESTINIES THAT DEMAND RESOLUTION, NO MATTER HOW MANY EONS IT TAKES. CONSIDER THE WOMEN JOE COMMER OWES SO MUCH TO, AND ALL OF WHOM HE’S WRONGED ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. DID HE REALLY COME UNGLUED DURING THE HORRORS OF THE FINAL WAR AND THE EVACUATION? THE LAST SIX WOMEN CAME DURING THAT TIME, AFTER ALL. DID THEY SOMEHOW RELATE TO THE BREAKDOWN OF HUMAN EXISTENCE? HUMANITY ITSELF HAVING ITS BLACKBOARD WIPED CLEAN?

THIS IS GENERAL JOHN J. DOUGLAS, THE ALIEN HUNTER, TAKING OVER THIS LINE OF INQUIRY!

Oh, no!

OH, YES, YAH BAHSTAD! AS I HAPPEN TO BE AN EXPERT ON THESE MATTERS, IT’S MY DUTY TO INFORM YOU OF YOUR SERIOUS SEXUAL TRANSGRESSIONS!

Me? You’re accusing me–?

YES, CERTAINLY, JOE! YOU DON’T MIND IF I CALL YOU JOE, DO YOU, JOE? BECAUSE WE MIGHT AS WELL GET UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL IF WE’RE GOING TO DISCUSS THE SHAME OF YOUR SEXUALITY!

Shame–? Of–? You jerk! Get out of my head! You’re just a fever dream!

More about the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

The first book in the series, The Martian Marauders, is available in eBook and paperback format from Double Dragon Publishing, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online retailers.

Justification, or, Flush These Notes Out of My System Before They Wreck a Novel!

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Michael D. SmithJune 12, 2015

“Some guy at the bus stop disrespected me, so I blew his head off.” I could load this post up with a thousand examples, but let’s make it short and let that one serve.

I’ve been struck by the appalling notion that from the beginning of time people have come up with reasons for anything they take into their heads to do. Anything can be justified, articulately or not, in terms of logic, need, or desire. Let your mind wander over the hundreds of thousands of justifications you’ve used and which you’ve encountered. Innocent excuses for trivial daily impulses up through monstrous, utterly insane rationalizations for the worst possible horrors.

Justification implies deceit, betrayal, power hunger, control, manipulation, self-delusion. Is it built upon fear, fear which seems to demand some “reasonable drastic action”? Or do people zone out into a temporary psychopath mode in order to get things done without resorting to consulting a conscience? I have a feeling we have few true genuine psychopaths and that fear must be the prime motivator.

Why would we feel a need to “rationally justify” every action to ourselves, to an audience of one, or to the world in general? Yet somehow it seems natural to want to do so–either before the fact, after it, or both. It’s as if some inner lawyer comes to the fore to offer up a self-defined “law” that will, with its impeccable logic, convince others of the righteousness of the action in question. Even if someone decides to offer no explanation except “I felt like it,” or “I enjoy offing people,” that becomes a simplified legalistic assertion of a right.

Does positive, non-manipulative action require such justification? It seems not to. An explanation may be given, but the tone is one of creative urge rather than self-serving excuses:

“We need to build a regional airport here …”
“We could establish orbiting colonies at these Lagrange points …”
“I want to write a novel about…”

Even if some manipulators signed onto the airport project and were satisfied with their own reasons for plundering what they could out of it, the overall thrust of creation behind such a venture doesn’t seem to require justification. Maybe a lot of technical, financial, and political planning, but not self-serving, fear-loaded excuses.

In addition to just boggling at this justification concept, I’m looking at it as a way to assist in looking at characters and their motivations. In a novel somehow all this self-serving paranoia becomes “understandable.”

I don’t know–is there ever a way out of fooling ourselves? What if we meditate long enough?

Again–flushing some notes out of my system before they wind up marring some novel! A decent number of such ideas are rattling around for future posts. You don’t want your hero standing up at a cocktail party declaiming this sort of stuff!

Lt. Lee Borman from Jack Commer, Supreme Commander

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Michael D. SmithJuly 11, 2020

“But can’t you see, Jack, that’s your whole problem, man,” Borman cried, clearly agitated at Jack swinging the shattergun. “You’ve always been so repressed around women that you’ve let this Amav take over your sense of self-esteem. If you’d only actualize your potential, Jack, and learn to recognize those parts of yourself which–”

“So you’ve sobered up pretty fast, Lieutenant,” Jack mocked. “Back to your self-help clichés now, I see.” Unbelievably, Borman had recently gotten a publisher’s contract for a self-help book for men called The Sexual Conquest of Your Inner Mount Everest. To the entire crew’s chagrin he’d printed paper copies for everyone. Jack had read part of one chapter entitled “Finding your F-Spot” and had thrown the thick manuscript away.

That a chunky fighter veteran of the Alpha Centauri conflict was writing self-help books on the subject of male sexuality was beyond the comprehension of any of the crew, and it had only come out haltingly, over a period of months, that the other five members of the Typhoon II admitted that they’d thrown their manuscripts away unread. But Borman had become more and more egotistical about his book as the mission got closer to launch date. He’d even given copies to Amav and the three Martians. Amav never said a word. Dar had briefly commented: “You humans are one million years behind us.”

“Okay, Jack–just–okay,” Borman swallowed. “We all have our hang-ups. I know I did, once. But I learned, Jack. I went inside myself, I took the dare, and I climbed my own Mount Everest! I’m here today to tell you that if you’d only climb your own–”

“Getting sorta nervous, Lee baby?” Jack sneered. “You’re kinda thinking that old Jack boy’s just crazy enough to turn you into a pile of broken glass? Huh? Well, Lee baby, maybe I am just that crazy. Maybe I am …” It was so exciting to hold a gun on the criminal Borman! To feel his finger caressing the trigger, with more and more pressure! For once everyone would know–know that Jack would express himself! Fully and finally express himself! God, it would feel so good, such a sweet release of all the hate and tension and anger and fear!

More about the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series

The second book in the series, Jack Commer, Supreme Commander, is available in eBook and paperback format from Double Dragon Publishing, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online retailers.

Sinner’s Opera by Linda Nightingale (or, I Can’t Believe I’ve Read a Vampire Novel!)

Posted on June 4, 2014 by Michael D. SmithSeptember 2, 2014

I found Sinner’s Opera a psychologically astute page-turner. The characters from the protagonist vampire Morgan D’Arcy and his love Isabeau down to minor supporting cast all work well, propelling the reader through a mesmerizing plot with twists up to the end. I find myself looking forward to a sequel.

Since I’ve never read anything in the vampire romance genre before, I approached Sinner’s Opera in terms of human emotions and motivations. The reader can’t help but feel sympathetic towards the male half of the romantic pair, Lord Morgan D’Arcy, who’s been a vampire since the 1600’s, though Morgan also strikes me as a good depiction of a manipulative psychopath. Nevertheless Morgan has some heartfelt desire to know real love and empathy–all on his own terms, of course.

The various vampire laws and vampire powers in this novel work excellently, integrating into the characters’ development and never becoming mere plot devices. The vampires may initially strike the reader as being inordinately powerful, yet they require these attributes in the face of other inherent shortcomings, like destruction by sunlight or the need to replenish life energies through murder. Teleportation or the ability to rise from mortal wounds seem natural, integrated facets of the vampires, and the casual arrogance with which they wield these powers strikes me as similar to how a nineteenth century British colonial administrator, imbued with centuries of imperial power, might feel towards the natives he feels he benevolently rules. This metaphor is not too far from how Morgan views the object of his love, the genius geneticist Isabeau Gervase. While Morgan feels deep passion for Isabeau, he’s genuinely surprised to find that she has her own view of their relationship. It’s amazing how he can manipulate her and keep her in the dark, how he can mold and control her in the name of his own concept of love. His desire to father a child with her involves keeping it a secret from her–as well as from fellow vampires who’ll punish him for transgressing vampire law.

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Who is Jack Commer, Supreme Commander?

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Michael D. SmithJuly 11, 2020

With the shocking suicide of the Typhoon I, the most powerful military spaceship ever built, the four Commer brothers are reduced to two. After the horrors of the Final War, the evacuation of Earth, and an unexpected conflict with native Martian terrorists, is eldest brother Jack really fit to lead the United System Space Force? Yet despite stress bordering on hysteria he always seems to come up with the proper solution. Shy with women but easy with command as opposed to his passionate, guilt-ridden brother Joe, when promoted to Supreme Commander Jack passes over numerous ambitious admirals and holds onto power for decades with the newest rejuvenation technology. But has he ever really recovered from the responsibility of overseeing forty years of futile time war with the Alpha Centaurians?

from Book One, The Martian Marauders:

“Did you find all that in the Martians’ minds as well?” Jack snapped.

“Yeah, Jack, I had to look, after all …”

“Yeah, you had to look.” Of course his brother would have taken the opportunity to explore all the back corridors of the Martian mind while Jack hung at the vent and contemplated the complexities of Martian language and Amplified Thought. In fact, it was probably because Joe was so intent on Martian sexual practice that he’d knocked the stupid grating onto the Council floor in the first place. Damn it all! It was just like Joe.

His younger brother dated scores of girls in all the colonies, on the barren asteroids and the surviving moons of the major planets. Joe knew all about girls, and women, and the difference between them. And he’d sit in the copilot seat on those Typhoon missions and crack insipid off-color jokes for hours. The old adage, “Those who talk about it, don’t do it,” apparently didn’t apply to Joe. He talked and did, and talked and did. Occasionally he’d get semi-seriously caught up in an affair at some outpost–Lucia from Ganymede was the last big one Jack recalled–and be moody and silent for a few weeks, but soon he’d shrug it off, contact one of his numerous girlfriends, and the putrid sex jokes would crank up again.

Was Joe one hundred percent devoted to duty? It wasn’t just the sex talk that bothered him–every once in a while Joe would burst out with some enormous emotion that embarrassed every crewman on board, like declaring the Earth was a death trip and he was glad to have left it behind. Sure, sometimes it turned out that Joe had broken a lot of buried tension with that sort of wild remark–McNarri once said Joe was the unofficial spokesman for the group’s emotions. But what the hell did that mean? In any case, how could Joe indulge in all these emotions and sexual escapades and still focus on the job of copiloting the most deadly spaceship ever made?

Sure, men had feelings. But wallowing in them like that? All that talk about women’s breasts and asses and clitorises, those crude jibes about every female body he saw?

Jack didn’t talk. And he didn’t do. He never had. Well, at least he wasn’t a virgin anymore–that curse had followed him up through last year, at age twenty-nine. The cleaning lady at USSF HQ on Titan … blowsy, big-boobed, and drunk, she’d followed him to his room, asking what he might need …

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