Last summer, I met up with one of my readers (I still can’t use the word ‘fan’ yet) and they told me that one of the things they loved about my novels was the depth of military realism I brought into the stories. I can honestly say that I never really planned that but after more than two decades of service in the Army I’m not surprised that the “realism” is there. Frankly, it’s never far from my mind and I’ve been retired for a little more than a year. Writing military science fiction is a perfect genre for me because I still think in military terms and I probably will until my dying day. To me, writing things like proper military radio conversations are easy. I understand rank structures and organizational hierarchies that leave most non-military folks dumbfounded. So, I wanted to share a couple of tips on writing military science fiction for this month’s “special sauce” theme.

Understanding rank and structure in a military organization is a critical point of military science fiction. Readers expect to see that you, as an author, have at least a basic understanding. Rank is fairly simple on its own. A private reports to a sergeant who reports to a lieutenant and so on and so on. That “reporting to” piece is where structure comes into play and things get more complicated. Describing that relationship would take much longer than 500 words, so I’ll simply tell you that the first key to realism in science fiction is research. There are a myriad of sources that you can tap to get the information you want. Simply searching military rank or organizational structure will get you started on that path. Remember that armies are different than navies. You can even go so far as to create your own military structure – that’s fine – but you have to make sure it passes this simple sanity check: roles and responsibilities.

Let me give you two classic examples. First, Star Trek. The captain of a ship is never going to be on an “away team” and take his officers, engineers, pilots, etc. with him. I’m not saying that the captain of a ship wouldn’t get down to the surface at some point, but he’s not going down immediately. No way. For Star Trek, though, this works because the ship’s captain (Janeway, Picard, Kirk) are the central character and it would be a boring universe if the captain did what captains do.

The second example is the movie Independence Day. Even at the end of the world scenario, the President of the United States and the “leader of the Free World” is not going to strap on a fighter jet. Maybe if he were the absolute last person on Earth, yes, but in that scenario there’s no way a President does that. For the movie, though, it works because we’re suspending disbelief all over the place.

My point is this – understand where your character sits in the grand scheme of things. At the start of your story, a private is not going to be a vehicle commander or a sergeant isn’t going to be in command of a ship. You can certainly take them to that point, if that’s your character’s arc, but negotiating them to that point means that you have to have an inherent understanding of those relationships. It’s an essential part of world building in military science fiction. As for the nuances of writing more realistic military scenes? There are a number of movies and books that do it well. The internet can be a great resources, too. However, I’m going to steer you in a different direction.

Chances are that you know someone who has served in the military. Ask for help. A simple conversation could give you more ideas and information than you could ever use. That conversation might also help that veteran in more ways than you can imagine. So, simply ask. Whatever you choose, take the time to get the details right. In military science fiction, that attention to detail sets you apart from other authors.

One of the most pivotal scenes in the movie (and novel) 2010 comes when Dr. Heywood Floyd, Dr. Walter Curnow, and Dr. Chandra discover the reason for the HAL 9000’s actions in 2001 aboard the USS Discovery. As the ship’s near-AI system monitor, HAL 9000 killed three crew members in hibernation and caused the death of astronaut Frank Poole before being disconnected by Commander Dave Bowman. The lingering question in the nine-year intermission was “Why?”

As it turns out, HAL 9000 received two sets of instructions and the logic between them did not compute. As a result, he was forced to interpret the results as best he could…and he learned to lie.

The concept of an artificially intelligent liar is one that’s been around a long time. I can think back to an 80s movie called D.A.R.Y.L. where a defense robot with an AI capability was built with a body of a young boy. I admit that seeing the kid wearing an orange high-altitude pressure suit and flying an SR-71 was really cool having been fairly young myself, but the scene that strikes me the most fro that film is DARYL learning to play baseball.

He’s a natural. He hits every pitch a mile and instantly becomes the star player and the coaches love him, but the kids don’t. Especially his best friend on the team. So, DARYL learns to lie and in the big game moment, the whole “bottom of the ninth and the score is tied” trope, DARYL strikes out.

HAL 9000 and DARYL both learned to lie in order to deal with complex human relationships. While HAL’s is extreme, DARYL’s is one that captivates us as the robot asks and answers the question “What does it mean to be human?” in a way that we can all understand. How many of us have had that big moment and failed? I’d venture to guess that we all have.

Now, there are other examples of artificially intelligent liars (CLU from Tron: Legacy) who lie to humans to get the humans to do something in particular and humans in those films are gullible enough to do it for them. Don’t get me wrong, I am a HUGE Tron fan, and the concept was great in Legacy, but would Sam really go to the arcade? Wouldn’t Alan just call the number? Anyway, I digress…

The artificially intelligent liar found its way into my own writing. When I sat down to write the original version of Sleeper Protocol, my plan for Mally (the artificially intelligent protocol) was to simply act as a benevolent character looking out for Kieran Roark as he tries to discover his identity. When the book stalled in Act Two, I knew that my chosen antagonist wasn’t doing enough to hamper Kieran’s development. The lightning bolt of realization that Mally could become the antagonist accelerated the re-development of the book and I pounded through a new, longer draft in less than two months. And guess what? Mally became the artificially intelligent liar and the story was better for it. I’m looking very forward to Vendetta Protocol‘s release later this year as Mally learns about what it really means to be human.

Lying is a just part of being human. Isn’t it?

Three years ago tomorrow, I enjoyed the best beer I’ve ever had. I’ve always liked finding a good beer and sampling them responsibly. One stands far and above the others.

In 2014, as Saint Patrick’s Day rolled ever closer, I was depressed and with great reason. In late February of that year, I contracted a necrotizing fasciitis – a skin eating infection – that nearly killed me. When I was discharged from the hospital at the end of February, I was a mess. Sitting in our basement on the reclining couch, I spent hours staring out the window. The couch was the only place I could sleep without being completely flat on my back – which was a “no-go” and despite all the things we’d done to finish the basement and make it part of our home, it wasn’t. I was in another world down there – visited by family several times a day as I alternately slept and pondered why I hadn’t died. I was starting to find myself in a bad place, and two things happened that both pulled me out of depression and set the course for my writing career.

They were completely unrelated.

The first I’ve written about one of them before. I owe a substantial part of my recovery to my friend Neil Clarke. Neil is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and the editor of the SFWA Bulletin. I met him on an airplane to San Antonio for WorldCon a few years back. He’s also my celebrity stalker – but that’s an entirely different story. Neil also survived a life threatening event a few years before my episode. So, one dreary March night, I did something I never dreamed I would have done. I wrote an email to Neil and asked him how he’d been able to come back from his massive heart attack. I needed some kind of touchstone to help light a path from where I was. In the months prior to my illness I’d written the first drafts of TWO novels in the space of about six months. My productivity levels had been amazing. Yet, sitting there on my ass with nothing to do but let my skin recover, I found I could barely watch TV or play video games much less write. So I emailed Neil.

And he wrote me back. His words, very simply, lit the tiny little flame that became my lantern out of depression. I saw Neil at WorldCon in Kansas City last year for the first time since my illness. We both held back tears. I am forever grateful to him for simply saying “it will be okay.”

As I recovered at home, I had a wonderful nurse named Paula who came by every day, and then every other day, and then a couple of days a week as things stabilized. I found out she was a retired Army nurse, and we got along swimmingly. On St. Patrick’s Day, I joked that I’d love to have a beer. I was on intravenous antibiotics at this point (2X per day) and they were very potent. Paula looked at me and winked – “I think you could split one today, as long as you get outside and walk.”

That day, I took my wife’s arm and walked to our mailbox and back. It’s only about 300 meters roundtrip, and it was hell, but we took it slow and I walked. When we got home, I texted my friend Scott and told him I’d walked outside and was feeling better. And I told him that Paula had said I could split a beer.

His response? “I’ll be right there.”

And he was – carrying a couple of bottles of Boulevard Brewing Company’s Double-Wide IPA. My wife got the glasses out and we poured it out and shared a beer – sitting on the very same couch where I’d doubted my very existence in late nights of little sleep. It was the best beer I’ve ever had in my life. From there, things came around quickly. Having been an active duty Army officer, I knew that when my medical situation hit the Army’s system there would be chaos, but it took more than a year for my infectious disease specialist to release me from treatment. I relapsed and spent another agonizing night in the hospital. I took antibiotics for more than eleven months. As I recovered, I was promoted a final time. I sold my debut novel to a very strong small press. Most importantly, I kept digging out and the light was just as bright as I remembered.

I came away from my experience valuing a lot of things, and friendship is right near the top. My writing buddy Amity Green came to my hospital room with other friends in tow and then showed up one day to sit on that basement couch and write with me. We really didn’t write much – crying a little was the order of the day. My writing group, Fiction Foundry, came to our house and crowded around me on the couch to do our critiques. My writing friends help to save my life, including a man I call my brother, James A. Owen.

James has a penchant for sending out positive memes and quotes on a daily (hourly sometimes!) basis. He sent one in particular that essentially slapped me in the face and said – “Get back to it.” I’ve included it below:


I’ve been fortunate to make a lot of friends in the writing world and every single one of them are a vibrant part of my life. We’re not alone on this writing journey and the more Tribe you can build, the better it will be.