I'm finally publishing my novel "Immortelle".

Justin Swanton

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Some of you may remember it from ages back when I was submitting chapters in the critique section. I finally polished the thing and then submitted to every SF lit agency I could find, with predictable results. Then I forgot about it for a year or two, and finally decided that, heck, I'd put so much effort into it I might as well self-pub it for anyone interested.

I'll be posting a couple of chapters every few days on my website and the whole thing on Amazon (once my confirmation postcard arrives). There's a blog on the website so feel free to critique the novel if you have time on your hands and nothing else to do for the moment. I wanted the science to be rock hard and I challenge anyone to pick holes in it. The story is meant to be completely believable (at least the human space tech part). If anything doesn't gel I need to know!

And here's the blurb:

This was meant to be nothing more out of the ordinary than humanity's first manned mission to Mars. Almost routine. Just a heap of AV publicity and some words learnt by heart when I put my boot on Martian dirt.

That was a thousand lifetimes ago. They're dead. I'll be dead soon. Then everyone else will die. Cloe tells me to hope but I don't work on hope. I work on probabilities, and the one hope we have left, what can it do against twenty miles of rock?

Set in the near future, Immortelle follows the crew of the Terra Nova in their increasingly desperate attempts to save themselves and the human race from a massive rogue asteroid that will destroy all life on Earth.

immortelle cover brighter.jpg
 
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Fair play, and best of luck -looking forward to it.
I challenge anyone to pick holes in the tech
Def not the person for that but will see if my brother will take a look (he gets fussy about tech details) -makes me think of a fella called Gary Westfahl saying Tom Goodwin's 'The Cold Equation' was 'not worth (his) time. (because of) Very poor Engineering' (in the spacecraft design) ...ya can't please everyone!

Congratulations
 
Fair play, and best of luck -looking forward to it.

Def not the person for that but will see if my brother will take a look (he gets fussy about tech details) -makes me think of a fella called Gary Westfahl saying Tom Goodwin's 'The Cold Equation' was 'not worth (his) time. (because of) Very poor Engineering' (in the spacecraft design) ...ya can't please everyone!

Congratulations
Great. He can give his assessment of the Terra Nova, which incidentally is based on a real proposal for a Mars mission back in 2006.

BTW The Cold Equation is about that small ship where the pilot has to dump a stowaway passenger because there isn't enough fuel for both of them? I loved the short story as a kid but couldn't buy it later on - it would be routine to have a little extra fuel in case of a change in the entry path, say, and how much extra would a single human weigh compared to the weight of the ship?
 
Just posting to say I'm really enjoying this. Your attention to detail is remarkable, and makes the story believable. Love the bits where the crew discuss their options -pure SF.
Well done
 
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You should have told us! Ancient Battle Formations sounds really interesting. :)
Nah. That would have been tooting my own horn out of context. Ancient Battle Formations takes a deep dive into the primary sources. What I discovered was, in many cases, a spectacular pigs' breakfast of the translations, misrendering crucial terms like inter (which means 'within'- it's the root of the word 'internal' - and not 'between' as it is commonly translated). This has led to a hopeless misunderstanding of how things like Roman line relief worked, positing maniples spaced apart with maniple-wide gaps "between" them - a sure recipe for annihilation by a solid enemy line - rather than a continuous line of maniples with narrow gaps between the files "within" the maniples, through which the line in front could withdraw after which the files instantly closed the gaps to form a solid line.
 
And here's the blurb:

This was meant to be nothing more out of the ordinary than humanity's first manned mission to Mars. Almost routine. Just a heap of AV publicity and some words learnt by heart when I put my boot on Martian dirt.

That was a thousand lifetimes ago. They're dead. I'll be dead soon. Then everyone else will die. Cloe tells me to hope but I don't work on hope. I work on probabilities, and the one hope we have left, what can it do against twenty miles of rock?
The cover looks quite nice. It sounds rather like The Martian.

Just a bit of constructive (hopefully helpful, not annoying) criticism of the blurb (if it's an e-book, you could still massage it a little?).
How can man's first mission to Mars possibly be routine and nothing out of the ordinary? That doesn't sound right and would put me off.
Is it really a thousand lifetimes ago, or is that poetic license?
They're dead. Who's dead?

The blurb should say something about the book one's about to read, but not be too vague, perhaps?
Just a few thoughts.
 
Just another thought (thanks for 7&8, great stuff) -it might be worth adding something about the science if you're planning to ever change the blurb. It's fascinating and seems to slot naturally into the dialogue. No idea how you'd do it, but like you said above the science appears rock solid and for me that's what is giving Immortelle it's kick. (y)
 

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