Glynn is currently writing the sequel to To Stand Defiant, the next book in the Dakotan Confederacy series, which is set within the Castle Federation universe. Here are seven more questions he recently answered about his work in progress. Click here to read part 1. Click here to read part two, and click here to read part 3.
Q: How are weddings celebrated in your WIP world?
That’s…a big question given the scale of the setting of the Castle Federation books. Between the assorted star-nations, there are about twelve hundred major star systems and roughly 1.5 trillion human beings in the 28th Century. So weddings are celebrated at least twelve hundred and probably more like twelve million different ways. But at the heart: people swear oaths to each other in the presence of family and friends.
The example in the book is James Tecumseh’s own wedding to Abey Todacheeney, a small ceremony of about a dozen participants…surrounded by bodyguards, in a hand-built plaza in the shade of the largest and holiest tree on the planet. After processions through the surrounding city attended by tens of thousands of well-wishers.
He is, after all, The Admiral of the Confederacy Navy and SHE is the head of the planetary government!
The ceremony itself is conducted by the President of the Dakotan Interstellar Confederacy and takes about fifteen minutes. Just getting in to the ceremony site through the surrounding park takes them more than fifteen minutes!
Do natural calamities play a role in your story?
Not really. This particular series is very much about a massive human-made calamity and the recovery from it (and what it did to the apparently monolithic superpower it was aimed at).
Q: How would you describe your story?
Unbroken Faith is James Tecumseh struggling with the fact that the nation he served is dead, but it’s member star systems and ideals are still alive. It’s about what the end of the collapse and the beginning of stabilization of a fallen empire looks like from the inside at the moment. It’s about what faith those successor states can still have in their shared ideals – and in each other. And it’s about standing for those ideals.
Q: How do you feel about killing characters?
It’s a necessary part of the business. I mostly write military science fiction, and I have to agree with a comment made by David Weber in an interview a long time ago (paraphrased, I can’t find the exact quote): “If you are writing military fiction where there are no consequences, no costs, and none of the “good guys” die, you aren’t writing military fiction. You are writing military pornography.”
Q: How does your MC feel about marriage?
Well, James Tecumseh figured he was married to the Navy for most of his life. Then he met Abey Todacheeney. In the initial chaos, she was planning to seduce him to have some level of control if he went warlord with the local fleet. By the time she succeeded, she knew that wasn’t going to be a problem.
JT still isn’t entirely sure how he feels about marriage in general, but he is MARRIED now and figures that was the right call.
Q: Is there a corruption arc in your story? If not, speak about any other arc.
I’m not sure I would necessarily describe it as a corruption arc so much as a window into the mind of someone who has already fallen. We spend a lot of time in the head of Imperator James Calvin Walkingstick. At no point is the story justifying what he has done and who he has become. But that only means his internal monologue and staff discussions are working OVERTIME to justify it to HIM.
Q: What’s your setting: urban, rural, natural, something else?
We’re in space, maaaaan.In this series, activities take place either aboard starships, on space stations, or (occasionally) in the halls of power, which tend to be in cities.I mean, one of said cities is intentionally half trees, but I think it still counts as urban for this…
And a bonus question not specifically about the WIP…
Q: What kinds of character arcs do you like writing?
Not my usual perspective. Hrm.
Most of my characters would understand the whole Captain America concept of “No. YOU move.” This is rarely an entirely good thing and learning the find the right level of compromise is key.
The arcs I enjoy the most, though, are the fluffy parts, to be honest. The soft personal moments amidst the chaos and the violence. See Henry and Sylvia taking three books to work it out.
Unbroken Faith, the next book in the Dakotan Confederacy is coming November 2023.
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