Jason Cordova's Website

My brain works weird.

I was in the kitchen making dinner (and mentally writing Darkling, the sequel to Wraithkin), and my brain started thinking about my short story in the upcoming FREEHOLD anthology (ed. by Michael Z. Williamson).

There’s a part in the story (Magnum Opus) where it is revealed that my main character is gay. No big deal, he just wanted to be written that way (the four rough drafts that got tossed can affirm this). It was when I was thinking about my character when it dawned on me that I had written two more gay characters in the past as well. The first one was in Corruptor (good luck figuring that one out) and the second is in Wraithkin. The first one wasn’t a huge character, but the second one was a very important part of Wraithkin and was a central figure in the story.

Then my brain took one of those weird turns and I started asking myself “Is that what made him an Imperfect?”

In the “Dominion of Man” series, an Imperfect is a citizen of the Dominion of Man who was born with a genetic imperfection, be it a predisposition to cancer or something more serious, like Down Syndrome or Parkinson’s.

My first thought when I was outlining this series was “Why don’t they abort?” I mean, it’s the simplest and easiest way to ensure that the gene pool stays “pure”, right? I thought about it and decided that because of history, aborting a child (in their eyes) is a horrific thing and not even thought about. I haven’t decided what that event was yet, but it was serious enough for people to not even consider it.

Okay, so no abortions. So how do they ensure that the gene pool stays pure?

Genetic testing came immediately to mind. I figured that they were technologically advanced enough to be able to find any genetic issues by the child’s 3rd birthday. A resulting positive test would result in chemical castration for boys or surgical sterilization for girls to ensure that they cannot have any kids. The parents are also retested for any signs of genetic mutation, as are any other siblings. If another child tests positive, everyone in the family is subjected to what the child went through. Cruel, horrifying, but effective. It’s also why the population of the Dominion is a measly 100 billion spread out across 38 worlds and space stations.

But that got me thinking…

When I got into an argument about homosexuality and sin and whatever with a minister and a lesbian, I was more or less a spectator as the sparks flew between the other two. The minister (First Baptist) was adamant that homosexuality is a sin (we were born (according to dogma), therefor we’re sinners to start, so what’s the big deal?) while the lesbian was pretty much denouncing religion as a bunch of hocus pocus. It finally boiled down to “choice” vs. “design”. That was when I put my two cents in.

“If it’s by design and you have no choice in the manner, and we’re a species who are designed to sin and procreate, wouldn’t homosexuality be a genetic flaw? If is a choice, by your terms wouldn’t that mean that choosing a religion and being gay are both a mental disability?”

Let’s just say that neither party was polite while they started in on me.

I used that lesson in Wraithkin. In that universe, where genetic purity and procreation are sacrament, homosexuality would be considered a genetic flaw and the individual would be removed from the genetic pool through the methods I mentioned earlier.

Horrific? Sure, definitely, without a doubt. Unfeasible? Welllll…..

We’re already creating designer babies, are obsessed with flawless physical bodies, and shun those who are different (be it socio or physio). Our world is already on this path if you look at it with a truly open mind and not let any preconceived notions of individuality or personal rights distort your thought process. Hell, I know I would love to have children who had no physical ailments and were a lot cuter than I.

(Note to self: must find half-Viking, half-Jamaican goddess for procreation purposes only)

***

I’m hunting for an agent (despite me stating previously that I never needed one. Turns out, I need one)

I’m going to be chronicling my search for it here and at the Mad Genius Club. It will be enlightening and probably stretch across 6-8 months (unless I get very lucky). In the meantime I’m gearing up for basketball season and finishing Darkling and the secret collab project. Meanwhile, the agent hunt has begun. I never wanted an agent but after waiting in a slush pile for almost 2 1/2 years I decided that I wanted to cut to the front of the line. The best way to do that is to have an agent.

So… there we go.

So I’m finally caught up at work and have some free time so I can update the dang site. Not that there is a lot too update, other than being forced to buy a new car. Yeah, I bought a new car because the old one got totaled.

No worries, no serious injuries, but damn it I wanted to save money right now!

Shiny and chrome

Ahem.

Got wind that the Freehold anthology coming out from Baen Books has been placed in the queue, which means anywhere from 12-18 months until release. Even though I’ve been published many times before, this is my official second “professional” sale. Doesn’t matter how much money the Kaiju books have made me because those evidently aren’t pro sales.

Who knew, right?

Still writing, but the pace has been increasing. The sacrifice I made to increase my production rate, though has been this site. So I have a legitimate excuse for not updating the site.

But I was told that if I needed more money that I should just write faster. I countered with the argument that I could get my supporters to pay me through a Patreon, like a monthly thing.

I was then reminded that I’m not that popular yet, so the amount from that might fuel my caffeine addiction. Might.

*sigh*

So LC29 is in the books and I for one had a blast. I got to meet more people (always fun) and talk with some of the biggest names in the field (always productive). I got to work out the details of a new project with coauthor Christopher L. Smith and watch an old friend and gaming buddy ink a book deal with Baen Books (he’s collaborating with John Ringo on a Black Tide Rising novel).

So to start…

The drive down to Chattanooga was intense for all the wrong reasons. There was a deluge of rain for most of the drive, and then there was one hell of a detour to get around a wreck that would have delayed me by about 4 hours. But in the end it was worth it because I was finally at LIBERTYCON!

I didn’t need to check in to the hotel because I was rooming with Gerry and Jasmine this year and they had beaten me down there by about 15 minutes. So I was able to throw my stuff into the train car, give both of them huge hugs (and scaring Gerry by hoisting him off the ground) and then running out to explore and see if I could run into any old friends.

I found Matt at registration with his head down and finalizing last-minute details (I heard registration ran well, as always, and now we know why — Matt gets there days early to prepare) and ran into Rich Groller, who is the Programming Director at LC as well as a writer who has been in a few of the same anthologies as me. He was able to get me my registration and swag bag early (perks of knowing Important People). From there I wandered around and bumped into more people I sorta remembered, and then got into contact with Doug Dandridge and Larry Southard for our annual Thursday pizza run. If you are ever in Chattanooga, go try Lupi’s Pizza Pies. They are amazing.

Dinner managed, we made it back to the hotel and ran into a few authors I kinda-sorta knew. Again, names escape me at the moment, but they were really nice people. I missed the Hoyt room party (partly because I thought I wasn’t invited for some reason) and found my way over to the Grill Sergeant’s room, where there was whiskey and drinks to be had.

Note: I typically dislike whiskey. Not my preferred drink. Bad incident when I was much younger and more foolish.

After bidding the Grill Sergeant adieu, we ran into John Ringo. We hung out with him for a bit out on his room balcony before calling it a night. We all were pooped and there was no reason whatsoever to kill ourselves before the con had even started.

Friday was a bit of a blur in the morning. We had breakfast in the hotel and I decided I wasn’t going to Range Day, since it was over an hour away. Instead I wandered around and found more people. Vonnage and Subdude got hugs, and there were plenty of “Crap, I forgot to email you!” going around but all in all, it was nice to catch up before the con officially started. Though opening ceremonies weren’t until 5 p.m., I had a panel at 3 p.m. More appropriately, I had a reading.

I hate readings. I don’t like the way my voice sounds. Plus, I was doing a “Four Horsemen of the Baen-ocalypse” reading with fellow newbie Baen authors Kacey Ezell, Christopher L. Smith, and Michael Massa. They all sound eloquent and have good readings voices while I always sound like I have sinus congestion and have snorted two lines of coke while playing with a helium tank.

I’m not kidding.

It went rather well and we even had John Ringo show up to the reading (more to steal Massa away; more on that later) and the people who attended had a lot of fun. I got to read one of my favorite verses from Kraken Mare, which was a scene that was mostly written by my co-author Chris. He, in turn, actually read from a short story coming out later this year in an anthology.

Once the reading was done I made my way over to the Consuite and began my usual food hunt. Unfortunately for me, most of what they had contained onions, and I hate being stuffy and congested, so dinner plans were made. Then it occurred to all of us that I had a 2 hour signing starting at 7 p.m. in the Author’s Alley and I wouldn’t be able to go and make it back in time. I had jerky for dinner with some gatorade (healthy, right?) and then grabbed my books and headed over to the Author’s Alley.

I’ll be absolutely honest here. I expected to sell maybe 5 to 7 books, which looked about what everyone else was selling. What I did not expect was to sell every single copy I had. It seemed that I always had someone in line wanting to buy a copy of Kraken Mare. I even managed to sell all of my copies of Murder World: Kaiju Dawn, and signed a few copies of Corruptor that people had purchased from inside the dealer’s room. I was completely cleaned out in a short order and walked out of there happy and shocked.

After that I was floating on Cloud 9 the rest of the night. I don’t even remember what room parties I hit that night except that I knew I was babbling like an idiot. In all the years I’ve been at Libertycon I have never sold out of all my books. It was an amazing feeling.

Saturday started off with a 10 a.m. panel (seriously, who the hell schedules me for panels before noon?) and Chris and I did our usual “drive the moderator nuts” shtick. Fortunately our publisher was the Moderator (or perhaps that should be “unfortunately”?) and she took it in stride. Alas, I didn’t have time to eat much (see also, 10 a.m. is too goram early for panels) and I had to rush over to the Bloodmobile to donate my blood again to the friendly neighborhood vampires blood bank.This year I did this thing called the ALYX donation which doubles the red cell donation while using less actual blood. Takes about 25 minutes instead of the usual 10 but hey, why not? Donated, got a t-shirt (woot!) and a cookie before heading back out to attend the Baen Traveling Road Show.

If you’ve ever wanted to score free Baen loot at a con, the Traveling Road Show is the best way to do it. They were handing out books galore there and it was neat to hear the authors talk about their covers for upcoming releases. I left early (nobody told me to stay) and found out later that they had all the Black Tide Rising authors come up and be recognized.

Damn it.

Later that night I attended the Baen Author dinner, which is always a tremendous honor. I had a panic attack while there though, since it was too crowded in a tiny little space. Thanks to Toni and the others who recognized what I was going through and gave me some space. I also have to thank Larry Correia for shifting the topic over to videogames, which allowed me to re-engage and not feel like a complete and utter reject. We geeked out on World of Tanks for over an hour and I casually mentioned to him that people would pay to watch him livestream his World of Tanks addiction. He didn’t really believe me until I told him that people paid me to stream my gaming. I told him that if I could make money, he could make a ton more.

Evil capitalism at its absolute best.

Hit up some room parties when I got back to the hotel, including the MoonDream Press release party for the latest anthology. Ended up over at John Ringo’s room again (seriously, it’s like I’m looking for someone and end up there, then I can never leave). Hung out for a bit before I decided to walk around some more before going to bed.

Sunday I found out that I had won two auction pieces. One was from Paul Bielaczyc and was an official Wheel of Time piece (The Prince of Ravens), and the other was a simple Oriental-style art piece (A Study in Shading) by a young new artist named Neko San (I know her real name but Neko San is her professional name, so I’ll go by that). I really enjoyed both pieces and now both are proudly mounted in the office. I also got to attend my final panel of the con: the Black Tide Rising roundtable.

Funny story: John Ringo pulled me aside and mentioned that he had not even read my story before the book was in print, so he had been a bit surprised when people were telling him how much that they enjoyed the Louvre story and the heist. He conferred with Gary Poole (the collaborator with John on this project) and was told that yes, Gary had indeed sent my story to John for approval.

I know John didn’t read it because the look on his face when I mentioned that Folsom Duncan was a character in the story was absolutely priceless…

Con wrapped up after this, though I did sign (what felt like) a few hundred copies of Black Tide Rising. A few times I signed on Chris Smith’s name just to screw with my buddy (you’re welcome!) but at the end my hand was cramping. Then it was on to Closing Ceremonies and then the Dead Dog Party.

However, before I went to the Dead Dog Party I was invited to go out to eat with Tedd “Speaker to Lab Animals” Roberts at a Brazilian steakhouse. I had never been before so I agreed.

Holy. Mother. Of. God. I don’t think I’ve had that much meat stuffed into me in my life. Doc and I were absolutely murder-facing the meat they were bringing by and shouting out our battle cries for more food once we tore apart the fleshy goodness. More than once did we get disgusted looks from people around the restaurant, who were appalled at out meat intake. PROTEIN, DAMN IT!

(BTW… meat sweats is a thing, and you should ask Larry just how pleasant they can be)

Monday morning we all woke up late and checked out of the hotel. I’m already missing my con family and can only feel that Heaven must be an eternal convention. Made it home late last night after picking up Odin from the dog sitter (the cats don’t need a cat sitter, just ask them) and lounged for a bit before going to bed. Received an invite to be a guest at two cons but I’m already committed for one on the same weekend so I declined, while the other is a local con here in town that is within walking distance of my house. I’m going to that one.

I miss you already, Libertycon. Best thing of all? Next year will be Libertycon XXX: The Dirty Thirty Edition. They have “Oh, John Ringo, No!” as their special 30th anniversary Literary guest and Kevin Hearne (Iron Druid!!!!) as their Literary Guest of Honor.

So stoked.

Black Tide Rising is chugging along well from what I hear, with almost resoundingly positive reviews across the board. I’m pleased by this, because this means there could be a second story about my merry little band of intrepid thieves in the future. I still have two stories left in their little arc that I’d like to tell but we shall see.

I have copies of Kraken Mare for sale, assuming I don’t sell out of them at Libertycon in two weeks. I think they’re going to be $13 each, and Chris and I both will be available to sign them. I only have 8 copies left at this time however, so it’ll be a “first come, first serve” sort of thing.

I’m still writing. Working on the two sequels to Wraithkin (Darkling and Deathlord) as well as other stuff (including the sooper sekrit prahjekt).

I also survived the flood. My house and work were in the midst of the massive flooding that hit West Virginia and Virginia last week, but fortunately my house was barely touched by it. My work, on the other hand, got hammered by the storm. Multiple trees, some upwards of 80 to 100 feet tall, were uprooted and our road got washed out a little bit. We were fortunate that nobody was hurt and the only thing that we had to worry about was losing power.

So yes, still alive. Yay Team Cordova!

Weird. I’ve been going to this con now for 10 years now and I still feel as though it were just yesterday I was getting the email from Uncle Timmy of Libertycon saying “So do I need to add a ‘Doctor’ to your name as well?”

Good times, and still my favorite con to attend. Anyway, here’s my schedule and some thoughts on them:

BLACK TIDE RISING IS OUT TODAY

Just thought you should know…

I really need to focus more on, uh, everything I have going on. Talk about a lot of projects! Between work and writing I almost have zero free time, so things like this and SBR get shuffled off to the side.

I wrote an article explaining why I broke my age-old rule about not writing a Zombie Apocalypse story over at Ragnarok Publications. The website is a little slow loading, so have some patience. I delve a little into explaining why I refused to write a zombie story for so long, and how I have now fully embraced the path of the rotted (right after finishing “Best Laid Plans” I wrote “The Dead of Babylon”, so there’s precedence). I enjoyed it, and now also have another publisher I want to work with on my radar.

I’m back involved with Boy Scouts again, which is fun. Helping the kids at work continue their paths to Eagle Scout reminds me of how hard it was, and how rewarding it can be if one takes the lessons to heart. Of course, the writer in me is vastly amused that I am in Troop 66…

Building a basketball schedule for a high school team is a lot harder than I anticipated. Lots of schools don’t want to deal with us (last season we were 21-8, and we’re returning 7 players from that team, including 3 starters, so I don’t blame them) and the teams that do want to play us are a bit overmatched by our size and speed. Still, it should be a lot of fun.

Working on the Sooper Sekrit Prahjekt still. It’s coming along, albeit at a speed that I’m not particularly pleased with. Part of it is my work schedule, which is a grueling one. The other part is that I want to be lazy when I get home from work. My lawn can testify to this, though my front garden is blooming nicely. I need to get some pics up next week.

I was informed yesterday that Captain America was really a Hydra agent all along, which means that Captain American was an undercover Nazi agent for 70+ years, proving once again that it only takes one publisher to destroy a series and tarnish the legacy of the hundreds before them. I don’t think I’ve been this irritated at an editor since 2009. Worst part is, Captain America: Civil War was a pretty damn good movie (not as good as Winter Soldier, alas) and they just nuked any and all goodwill they had from it on making Cap a double agent. LAZY STORYTELLING, PEOPLE. That’s all it is… lazy storytelling.

Picked up the e-Arc of Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge by Larry Correia and John Ringo last week. Fantastic book overall, with some minor issues that comes with all e-Arcs in general. Looking forward to MHM: Sinners, which will be out sometime this winter.

Don’t forget! Preorder your copy of Black Tide Rising over on Amazon. It’s on sale right now, and I would love to see this puppy hit the NYT bestseller list. C’mon, it has a little story for everyone in it. Humor, horror, actions, explosions, action, romance, sacrifice….. did I mention action?

I’ve been very, very bad about updating lately. I blame it on my awesome new job.

There’s a lot to cover, and not that much time, so I’ll try to give you the condensed “Jason’s Recent Life!!!” version of things.

Writing: Kraken Mare has done exceptionally well these past few months, hanging out in numbers that are high enough to make me rub my hands with glee (can’t help it, I’m greedy and like money for stuff I write). Working on another collab project right now (sooper sekrit prahjekt!). It is not a kaiju book. At least, not in the traditional sense. Best Laid Plans is coming out as part of the Black Tide Rising anthology on June 7, and then my other short story (for another Baen anthology) should be out next year. That story is titled Magnum Opus. Not sure what the title of the anthology is yet, though.Then I can get cracking on two books at once: Darkling, the sequel to Wraithkin, and the first Guderian novel with Christopher Smith, which takes place in the Kraken Mare universe (but isn’t a direct sequel).

Then I need to get back with Eric Brown and focus on the second book of the Murder World duology…  *sigh* It’s nice being able to complain about being a busy author.

Life: My job at the Boys Home of Virginia is awesome. I absolutely love what we do up there. It’s very fulfilling and, at the end of each shift, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. It’s a feeling I didn’t even get when I was teaching in Denver.

I also got a new puppy. No, I didn’t replace Sophie. But someone at church had a lab who was having puppies and needed them gone since she couldn’t afford them. I went over and looked at them, and was torn. They had a boy and a girl puppy. Both were adorable lab puppies with markings like a cow )I kid you not). So after some deliberation I decided to get the boy puppy. He is named Odin and he is fitting in fairly well in the house. He’s being crate trained, which he is taking to. He’s also almost housebroken already. I’ll start training him on basic commands in the coming weeks.

Not going to lie, that was extremely difficult. I only had Sophie for a little over two years before she died, but she was my first dog and I had the distinctly guilty feeling that I was betraying her by getting another dog so soon. It’s only been 6 months but, you know? It was rough. However, Odin is nothing like her, so I’ve only called him by her name like five or six times. That’s pretty good.

Conventions: Still attending Liberytcon this July. Extremely excited about the reading that I’m doing with my fellow Four Authors of the Baenocalypse. Long story, don’t ask. But I think I’m War. I wanted Famine. I thought it would be hilarious. Nobody else agreed with me. Oh well.