Writing with Mike Shepherd

by Mike Shepherd

Okay, you knew there had to be more problems left on Greenfeld. Vicky’s Dad had made too big a mess for it to be settled by him just walking back in and making everything go back to normal. Besides, I owed folks a royal wedding. It was just a happy convenience that England’s Prince Harry and Megan Markle also married the same summer this book came out. We know that Kris managed to duck out on her wedding, but Vicky was stuck with the whole big show. As I was writing the story, things kept coming out of the woodwork. I won't give any spoilers, but if you've read it, you know what I mean.

  These stories, at least two, maybe three books, all take place during the time Kris is "enjoying" her desk job, so there is no conflict between them and Emissary.

  Implacable

  Vicky Peterwald – Implacable

  Vicky Peterwald Series #5

  Publisher: KL & MM Books

  Date: July 1, 2018

  * * *

  Grand Duchess Victoria Peterwald wants her Empire back. If you're the one who's holding any part of it hostage, you really want to be somewhere else. Quick!

  Vicky has cleared Dresden of the so-called Security Specialists of the Bowlingame crime family. Every Redcoat is dead on that planet … and good riddance. Vicky thought she had killed that family twice: first when the Empress and her dad died at the Battle of Cuzco, then when she captured all the uncles and brothers who'd done their best to keep the government going.

  Still, the snake of that kleptocracy refuses to die! If Grand Duchess Vicky wants her Empire back, be she an autocrat or a constitutional monarch, she needs to root those snakes out of every hole they've crawled down. The only question is where to go next. While her army prepared for the invasion of Lublin, Vicky figured Oryol would only be a small police action. Yes, the planet had dropped off the net, but all they have are a regiment of Redcoats without tanks.

  What happens when a police force faces no resistance . . . and goes bad? Just how sick and depraved can men become when they are the law, and no one can stop them from satisfying their every vicious whim?

  Worse, what price will a Grand Duchess pay to put an end to that wretched hive of scum and villainy?

  With this story, Vicky's story arc takes a dark turn. She's facing an ugly mess. She holds high, low, and medium justice in her realm. Why shouldn't she be judge, jury and executioner of some very bad guy? She can do that, but where does she check her soul while she loses herself in vicious retribution?

  At the end of Dominator, Vicky's path has hit a crossroads. She can continue up into the light with Mannie, or she can take the lower, darker road. Unfortunately, she left her conscience flat footed on the ground behind her.

  I plan at least one more story from Vicky. I can't leave her standing on a knife's edge.

  Part VII

  The Jump Universe Series

  This is the series where we see Grandpa Ray and Granny Rita in their younger kick-butt selves.

  In First Casualty, we see the beginnings of a war that doesn’t end. In Price of Peace, we meet the Terrence Tordon, the man who becomes Kris’s Grandpa Trouble. They Also Serve sees Ray as an Ambassador of Humanity and the difficulties of keeping peace. To Do or Die sees Ray, Trouble, and Ruth join forces for inter-galactic peace at all costs.

  These are great reads written before Kris Longknife Mutineer. These were my early writing attempts at starships, space opera, and aliens in space. I didn’t know at the time they would provide so much story fodder for Kris.

  They can be read together, before Kris Longknife Mutineer, or separately, as their own story arc. Either way, they do set a foundation for the problems Kris faces within the United Society.

  First Casuality

  First Casualty

  Jump Universe Series Book #1

  Publisher: ACE

  Date: February 26, 2013

  * * *

  Asteroid miner Mary Rodrigo and freighter owner Mattim Abeeb are green draftees of the Society of Humanity, forced to fight for Earth—a planet they’ve never even seen.

  Major Ray Longknife and his lover, Senior Pilot Rita Nuu, are career soldiers, invested with the cause of the Unity Party—and its ambitious new president.

  These four soldiers on opposing sides of the battle are about to discover the true nature of this terrible war: a quest for profit—from the high command of both sides. What they will risk is nothing less than their lives. For although truth may be the first casualty of war, it’s not going to be the last…

  This is the book I had been dreaming of writing since I was ten years old and discovered my first Heinlein juvenile. Ginjer, my editor, suggested that the time travel story should be put aside for a while and asked if I could write military science fiction. Boy, could I! I had so much fun writing this one, and there were so many good characters, frequently on both sides of the battle line. I knew I'd see these folks again. I also got to have an officer turn to a chief and say, "Chief, fix that," when there was no way the officer knew how to do it.

  In a way, this is the beginning of the entire Longknife saga. However, it shows my writing skills way back in the late 1990's and I prefer for people to start with Kris first and then go back to the grandparents. However, if you want, enjoy the fun from here on in.

  The Price of Peace

  The Price of Peace

  Jump Universe Series Book #2

  Publisher: ACE

  Date: May 28, 2013

  Izzy Umboto is a hero of the conflict between the Society of Humanity and the Unity Party. Instead of retiring and living out her days quietly, she’s wrangled command of her very own warship. Unfortunately, that ship is the less-than-state-of-the-art Patton.

  Lieutenant Terrence Tordon, called “Trouble” by both his enemies and his friends, and even himself, is a career marine. The word “quit” isn’t in his vocabulary.

  Now Lieutenant Trouble and his troops have signed on with Commander Umboto, trading a higher paycheck for the promise of action.

  For all is not well in the galaxy. On the scattering of planets along the rim, remnant thugs of the Unity Party still hold power. In the shipping lanes of rim space, pirates roam freely.

  Umboto and Tordon will soon learn that enforcing the peace can be just as expensive as fighting the war—and the cost will be counted in human lives…

  This book has one of the most interesting histories.

  Working for Ace, I had a year to write a book. Back in these days, I figured I needed a year. After First Casualty, I wanted to write a ‘veteran home from the war’ book. For six months, I worked on something like They Also Serve. Meanwhile, there was a significant miscommunication between my editor, agent, and myself. Six months into my writing year, I discovered Ace didn't want a ‘veteran home from the war’ book, but more action and adventure.

  Oops.

  With only six months to write a book, I needed to get a new book concept to my agent in two days. I settled down on my futon and stared up at my bookshelves. Pirates were fun. I had a few things I wanted to say about slavery. Hmm. I also was stubborn enough that I didn't want to use any of the characters that I intended to use for They Also Serve. A census showed that I had Izzy and Trouble. Rita Longknife was also still handy. Okay, I had a plot and some characters.

  In thirty minutes, I had an e-mail headed to the east coast with the general outline of Price of Peace. During the course of it I also added a further challenge. Could I write a plausible scene where a man got raped by a woman? I think I pulled that off, but then I painted myself into a corner.

  I spent 30 years working in Federal Buildings. The Oklahoma City bombing really hit me hard. Suddenly, at the very end, I had a building mined for bombing and I was about to have a uniformed officer push the button. I just could not have Trouble do a terrorist act no matter how deserving the target was. So, I juggled the toss and got the button in the hands of a guy who was really pissed and had no qualms . . . or duty . . . to do it.

  They Also Serve

  They Also Serve

  Jump Universe Se
ries Book #3

  Publisher: ACE

  Date: August 27, 2013

  * * *

  Colonel Ray Longknife and Marine Captain Mary Rodrigo were once enemies in an interstellar war. Now they’re working together to keep the peace. But can they protect themselves from an enemy they can’t even see?

  When a bad space jump flings their starship thousands of light-years away from home, Longknife and Rodrigo make an amazing discovery: a planet inhabited by the descendants of a ship’s crew—lost three hundred years earlier.

  As acting ambassador, Longknife is eager to welcome the planet’s population back into the fold of humanity. But Rodrigo is suspicious. She senses that something is wrong under the planet’s veneer of peace and prosperity. And she’s right....

  As I said, I'd intended to write They Also Serve right after First Casualty. It was a good thing it got rejected. During the time I was writing Price of Peace, I was also reading. I discovered two things: the Irish government is divided into two parties. They separated over whether or not to accept the treaty offered to Ireland in the early 1920's and they're still divided. Now they’re divided for different reasons, but their basic roots go back to something long past.

  During this time, I also came across a map showing the homes of the people involved in the Salem witch trials. The people living to the west of their little village wanted to secede from Salem's central church and quit sending them their tithe. The people to the east of the village were closer to Salem and had no real desire to secede. Strange, all the people accused of witchcraft lived east. All the accusers lived west.

  These bits of history were stirring around in my mind as I wrote the book. Consequently, both of these two historical situations jacked up the tension you feel in They Also Serve. That, and a devilish curiosity about what would happen if a supercomputer went senile over one or two million years. No doubt, Nelly was coming alive in my back brain.

  To Do or Die

  To Do or Die

  Jump Universe Series #4

  Publisher: ACE

  Date: February 25, 2014

  Retired Colonel Ray Longknife and Marine Captain Terrence “Trouble” Tordon come to Savannah via different routes, but what they find is the same. One bully strongman is intent on keeping power no matter what the new rules are for peace. He’s got the population cowered by thugs, and tanks at the ready. He expects to win the coming elections handily.

  He doesn’t expect trouble. Or, in this case, Mrs. Trouble—aka Ruth Tordon—a Marine wife on a mission to find the drug lords that almost killed her and her husband and put them out of business—and she’s not about to be stopped by some barely-trained roughnecks.

  Abandoned by their strongman and desperate in defeat, the heavy armor get ready to roll into town over anybody in their way. But Ray Longknife, Trouble, and Ruth are standing in their way… and nothing is going to flatten them.

  There's a funny story about To Do or Die. I started writing it right after They Also Serve. I was about a third of the way through when the call came that Ace didn't want any more Mike Moscoe books. I put it aside and started on Kris Longknife - Mutineer by Mike Shepherd.

  However, when Mike Shepherd made the New York Time's extended best seller list, Ace decided to bring the first three books back into print. I mentioned that I would then self-publish the book they rejected ten years ago since Ace only wanted one book a year from me. Suddenly, they wanted to buy it. I said I'd finish it after I finished writing Vicky Peterwald – Target which, at the time, I was thinking of publishing myself.

  Within a matter of a day, I had a commitment from Ace to publish To Do or Die as well as a three-book contract for Vicky. It was a real delight to sell a book that had been rejected.

  Final thoughts:

  Going independent has been one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, and also one of the most satisfying. It means I can get more fun stories out to you readers, usually for less money. Unfortunately, it also means that my book doesn't go through seven or eight editors. I have several books in the middle of the Ace line that didn't get edited very carefully, either. However, after I hit the New York Times Bestseller list, I started getting some very good editing and I was fielding calls even after the bound galleys had been approved concerning some stuff that escaped attention through all the earlier edits.

  Editing is tough.

  Part VIII

  The Lost Millennium Trilogy

  Originally published with ACE by Mike Moscoe, I got the rights to these back and re-branded the covers in 2017 with KL & MM Books. For the first time, the prequel Lost Dawns, was released and published. These were originally printed as I was publishing my short stories and the characters were training me, although I didn’t know it at the time, for Kris Longknife.

  When I went independent, I re-did the covers to what you see now.

  Lost Dawns - Prequel Novella

  Lost Dawns - Prequel Novella

  The Lost Millennium Trilogy Book 0

  Publisher: KL & MM Books

  Date: September 27, 2016

  * * *

  From the Nebula Nominated and New York Times Best Selling Author comes the long-lost story of how Launa O’Brian and Jack Walking Bear met, got to know each other, hit and did not hit it off, and learned to train together.

  Here's the story that was referred to in the other books of the trilogy, but you've never had a chance to read before.

  Follow these two courageous troopers as they prepare for an insane mission even as the world around them descends into its own insanity.

  For three years, First Dawn kept getting rejection slips. Even when Poul and Karen Anderson suggested to me that I start the story with the action, I still argued I wanted to start it with selection and training. How dumb can a new writer get?

  After three years of rejection, and selling three more short stories, I sat down to think. I looked at the stories that sold. I looked at the ones that hadn't. There was a clear difference. If I started the story with action, it sold. If I started the story slow, it got rejections.

  A light dawned. Suddenly the wisdom of Poul and Karen hit me like a boulder. I cut the first two hundred pages, started with the time machine working, and, surprise, surprise, First Dawn sold the next time out.

  New writers, trust me, start the story where the action starts.

  However, save all that early wandering in the desert. I realized that if folks liked the action part of the story, they might be interested in those pages I cut early. I had the devil’s own time to find the 3-inch disk and something that could play it so I could retrieve those nearly-lost two hundred pages.

  First Dawn

  First Dawn

  The Lost Millennium Trilogy Book #1

  Publisher: KL & MM Books

  Date: March 9, 2018

  * * *

  How do you win a war lost 6,000 years before you were born? Those are the orders waiting Launa O'Brian, fresh out of West Point. They want her to help peaceful farmers win a war they're about to lose and beat back the Horse Raiders that destroyed them. The Army has a time machine. They even tested it once. It didn't work, but trust them, they fixed it.

  With the whole army to choose from, they've assigned her Captain Jack Walking Bear as a partner. As a captain, he outranks her. As a guy, he's got a lot of different ideas about how to run this show. But the President put Launa in charge, because his old anthropology professor says women spoke first back then and guys paid attention.

  So how come the first thing they see is a war band of horsemen who want to hit them over the head and steal everything they brought? Did the time machine blow it? Were the anthropologists overly optimistic?

  I'd just sold my first story to Stan Schmidt at Analog. My wife and I were at the beach and I stumbled across a fascinating book about the early European farmers. You have to understand, I grew up on a Navy base. We kids were taught always to take turns and never to fight. The fact that our dads were flying to support the at
omic bomb tests didn't impact our world. The idea of a peaceable kingdom wasn't so strange to me.

  At the time, I had a cold and couldn't sleep because of a congested head. Launa and Jack came alive in my head and I was off to the races. To a very great extent, those two wrote this book. They were heavily armed and dangerous, and I'm a wimp. I wrote what they told me to.

  Second Fire

  Second Fire

  The Lost Millennium Trilogy Book #2

  Publisher: KL & MM Books

  Date: March 9, 2018

  How do you win a battle lost 6,000 years before you were born? How do you make sure winning that battle doesn’t lose you the war?

  The 21st Century is dead, killed by a runaway designer plague. Only two people survived the century. 2nd Lieutenant Launa O’Brian and her sole subordinate, Captain Jack Walking Bear. Their mission: travel back 6,000 years and help a peaceful band of farmers fight off the horse raiders from the steppe and maybe, just maybe, turn human history from death and conquest to cooperation and construction.