Control: American Starfleet Interdiction…
I, Dalton Lewis, wrote a novel.
It’s free until midnight, Monday, March 18th.
Writing a novel is a feat that takes a decent amount of effort. I managed it. I worked hard for several months and created something that I’m proud of. I’ve written a bunch of novels, but it’s an accomplishment every time I manage it.
It’s the second American Starfleet Novel, but you don’t need to have read the first one to appreciate it. The first one is free until Monday night as well. They are both character-based sci-fi stories.
I created a space opera story based on World War II and the Allied shipping fleets fighting against U-boats. I thought that would make for an interesting and dynamic spaceship story. I had a blast reading through the history books, learning about the various people who heroically tried to deliver cargo to Europe — helping to save lives by delivering cargo to the fight against Nazi Germany.
Methods — various methods help me write a novel each time I write one. In this one I tried to keep it simple — I read good novels and emulated what worked about them.
People risked their lives to get supplies to Europe to help the British and the Russians against Nazi Germany in World War II, people who were civilians, people who didn’t receive medals. They risked their lives being crewmen on cargo supply ships that were slower than the U-boats hunting them and having very little ability to dodge torpedoes or survive a hit from a torpedo. People continued to volunteer to transport cargo from America to Europe to help with the war effort.
Conditions made life pretty terrible for both sides. They had to cut the mold off of the food before eating it — allegedly. Many of them worked crushing hours at demanding jobs, risking their lives on both sides of the fight.
And the German U-boat commanders — I tried to imagine what would cause a person trying to be a good man to help Nazi Germany — someone who doesn’t want to be a monster or kill countless innocents or gas civilians. I thought I created an interesting villain, someone who grew up hungry and desperate and poor and lashed out at the rich and corrupt people in other governments who mistreated his people. I liked that angle for a villain. The villains in the American Starfleet stories are enemy soldiers, not monsters trying to murder children or take slaves. I want to show that everyone has a perspective in war — except for the occasional person at the top of, say, Nazi Germany. Everyone else is a good person trying to fight for his or her side, and I wanted to express that without ruining the tension within the story.
I added a fundamental contradiction, though — the uberrans try to wipe out the humans. I wanted to create a story in which the audience might understand or sympathize with the Jewish people from World War II and feel a bit of that terrible experience of having someone try to wipe them out. I had the humans be the victims being gassed and killed in camps. I tried to include something about that to make the audience feel something — something about how bad the world can get.
Broken, scarred characters are a key to the American Starfleet books, and this one is no exception. Every character has a flashback to teen years in which a fundamental life experience is relived that alters one’s current personality. I wanted to continue this from the first book into this one. I felt one should evaluate how one’s teen years can affect the adult one turns into.
There are a lot of gay characters in the American Starfleet books. I did this because, over the course of my novels, I try to write about everyone. This series of books is the right time to write about gay and lesbian characters in many of the prominent roles in the stories. I tried to treat them the same as every other character — put them through the emotional wringer.
Overall — as always — I poured my heart and soul into making this a story about flawed people dealing with terrible tragedy. There’s attempted suicide, dead spouses, destroyed spaceships, murder, betrayal, twenty-five-year-old unsolved murders, enormous spaceship battles, fake people, and even a little love and caring.
Thanks, and take care, friends.
