The first episode of Nanotroopers debuts in about a month.  This episode, called “Atomgrabbers,” will be uploaded to www. smashwords.com on January 18, 2016.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Here’s a general plot outline of this episode:

Johnny Winger’s mother has died in a car crash.  His father is injured but survives.   Medbots save him and help him recover. Winger is intrigued by the capabilities of the medbots.   A hospital tech mentions that Quantum Corps uses the same technology. To get away from ranch life and seek adventure, he resolves to apply and join Quantum Corps.  But to be accepted, he has to pass a qualifying test.  However, the test turns into something much harder than anyone expects. 

From the outline, you can see that this is how Johnny Winger begins life as a trooper with Quantum Corps.  This is where it all begins. 

For technical and background details on my series Tales of the Quantum Corps, visit my other blog at http://qcorpstimes.blogspot.com.  For details on other books in this series, visit my website at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt or you can learn about other books by me by visiting www.smashwords.com, www.bn.com, Apple iBooks or other fine ebook retailers.

Now that I’ve gotten that shameless promotion out of the way, I want to talk briefly about motivations: Johnny Winger’s and mine.

Why would a nice kid like Johnny get mixed up with some semi-secret UN agency called Quantum Corps?  Two reasons.  First: he’s tired of running a failing ranch in Pueblo, Colorado and nursing his depressed father along after the terrible car crash death of his mother.  Second: he’s learned that he has some special abilities that Quantum Corps values.  When his Dad was recovering in a hospital from that same crash, surgeons used nanoscale medical robots to help repair Jamison Winger and assist in his recovery.  Spending so much time at the hospital, Johnny talked with the technicians a lot about this new technology and it was from one of them that he learned of Quantum Corps and that the Corps was using the same technology, for different reasons.  Johnny was intrigued and one of the techs let him play with these medbots on an artificial human body used for training.  That’s how Johnny found out he had a real aptitude, a real knack, for manipulating and maneuvering these little bitty devices.  Learning of Quantum Corps and their interest in people with such aptitude, Johnny put two and two together and decided to apply.

That’s when the fun begins for Johnny Winger.

As to my own motivations, I have several.  One is that I’ve long been intrigued with the backstory and world that is depicted in Tales of the Quantum Corps.  Commanding a small but elite special forces unit to engage enemies and threats emanating from the world of atoms and molecules appealed to my sense of intrigue and curiosity and I wanted to write out my ideas of how this could come to pass.  I have a sense that such a development may be closer than we think.  Plus there’s a pretty nasty group of enemies that Johnny and the Quantum Corps will have to confront in the process, namely an Asian criminal cartel known as Red Hammer.  More on them later.

And to complicate matters even more, this Red Hammer cartel has been in contact with an extraterrestrial race for some time and has learned how to access some of their technical archives and develop tools and techniques to further their criminal designs.  Think about that: a criminal cartel with the technology of an alien race at their disposal.

Gives me the shivers.

A second motivation for me, as a writer, is to go beyond the already existing stories of Tales of the Quantum Corps and explore this imaginary world I’ve created from other perspectives.  Nanotroopers will draw on many of the same events, people, conflicts and technology as Tales but the stories will be different.  The writing platform of a serialized story allows me to put out stories at a faster rate and gives you, the reader, a chance through this blog, to react, critique, vent or otherwise let me know what you think.  In fact, I’m secretly hoping, through this and related venues to gain some insight from my readers in such a way that I can adapt the story arc of Nanotroopers to what readers are saying and wanting to see.  In other words, this is a way for you to affect and co-create with me the kind of stories you want to read. 

So, Nanotroopers is a sort of experiment with my readers and I hope you won’t be shy about letting me know what you like and dislike.  Posting your thoughts on this blog is one way to do that.

So, look for Nanotroopers, Episode 1, “Atomgrabbers” on January 18, 2016 at www.smashwords.com.

The Word Shed will take a two-week hiatus for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  The next post will provide more background on either or both of my two main projects, The Farpool and Nanotroopers.  Plus, I’ll have some news about a new project in the coming year, a non-fiction inspirational story called Partly in Heaven.  More on all this, starting January 4, 2016.

Ya’ll have a great holiday and I’ll see you in the new year.

Phil B.