As I mentioned in my last post, I will be starting a new serialized science fiction story in January 2016.  It’s called Nanotroopers, and will consist of 22 episodes.  Each episode will become available on various platforms (probably Smashwords) approximately every 2-3 weeks.  Each episode will be about 15-20,000 words.  Here’s the probable schedule of uploads:

Episode # and Title	Start	Upload	Comments
1   ‘Atomgrabbers’	12-28-15	1-18-16	2 parts
2   ‘Nog School’		2-8-16
3   ‘Deeno and Mighty Mite’		2-29-16
4   ’ANAD’		3-21-16
5   ‘Table Top Mountain’		4-11-16
6   ‘I, Lieutenant John Winger…’		5-2-16
7   ‘Hong Chui’		5-23-16
8   ‘Doc Frost’		6-13-16
9   ‘Demonios of Via Verde’		7-5-16
10   ‘The Big Bang’		7-25-16
11   ‘Engebbe’		8-15-16
12   ‘The Symbiosis Project’		9-5-16
13   ‘Small is All!’		9-26-16
14   ‘The Serengeti Factor’		10-17-16
15   ‘A Black Hole’		11-7-16
16   ‘ANAD on Ice’		11-29-16
17   ‘Lions Rock’		12-19-16
18   ‘Geoplanes’		1-9-17
19   ‘Mount Kipwezi’		1-30-17
20   ‘Doc II’		2-20-17
21   ‘Paryang Monastery		3-13-17
22   ‘Epilogue’		4-3-17

 

The intent with Nanotroopers, as with any serialized story, is for each episode to stand alone as a story, but also to mesh with the overall story arc so that some plot issues will continue from episode to episode and will only resolve over the length of the serial. 

So why a serial?  A number of reasons, actually.   First, my stories are available more often to readers.  There’s nothing more frustrating than finding an author or a story you like and not being able to find anything else by that author.  When I was a child, I enjoyed reading Tom Swift, Jr. books. While not exactly a serial, they did come at regular intervals of about one per every four to five months and the publisher would work the title of the next story into the last paragraphs of the one I was reading.  I was hooked.  So this is one way an author can hook his readers into reading more of his work.  If Charles Dickens can do it, so can I!

Second, this serialized story will serve, I hope, as an introduction to the broader world of my Tales of the Quantum Corps stories, all of which are ebooks now available at Smashwords.com, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and other fine ebook retailers.  The story environment is the same, the fictional world and the main characters are the same, but the stories are variants or offshoots of the existing Tales.  In effect, I’m coming at this fictional world from a different direction and I hope readers will enjoy these new stories, or enjoy having a different perspective on Johnny Winger and his nanotroopers. 

What is this story about?  Here’s a brief description:

You’ve just joined a UN agency called Quantum Corps.  Your buddy is a nanoscale robot named ANAD.  Once he’s commissioned, Lieutenant John Winger leads his beleaguered nanotroopers into combat, on battlefields across the globe and inside the world of atoms and molecules…but his troopers are robots the size of atoms.  How do you train and discipline soldiers like that?  In his first mission, Winger fights off an intelligent virus created by the Red Hammer cartel.  He has to learn new ways to command...and fast.

You can find out more about the world of Nanotroopers and backstory to Tales of the Quantum Corps by visiting my other blog at: http://qcorpstimes.blogspot.com. 

The main and primary continuing character to both of these series is a fellow named Johnny Winger.  In my next post at ‘The Word Shed’, I’ll shed a little light on this unusual fellow.  He’s from Colorado.  He likes being outside.  And he needs a little adventure in his life, something more than just shoveling hay on a ranch.  So, we’ll look at his background and personality and just why John Winger, at the age of 20, decided he wanted to apply to this UN agency called Quantum Corps. 

See you next week.

Phil B.