Just For Fun: My Favorite Moments Part 1

 

I have often been asked what my favorite events, lines, or moments in my own books are. These favorites tend to shift some depending on my mood, and it's certainly hard in many cases to choose just ONE such for any given work. So I thought it might be interesting to describe and talk about up to three from any given work.

Paradigms Lost: The first, and probably still my favorite of all, comes at the climax of the section titled "Lawyers, Ghouls, and Mummies", that ends with the simple line:

 

Verne Domingo had come calling.

 

Despite the fact that I wrote that line, I still get a chill down my spine when I read it. I wrote it originally with a thunderstorm outside, and I suspect that added to the emotional attachment I have to that scene; I can see Verne striding slowly and implacably through the tempest, casually ignoring every effort Carmichael's men make to stop him, and then pausing just long enough for both Jason and Carmichael to recognize who has come.

The second is from "Photo Finish", when the werewolf Shirrith is fighting Verne, and Jason comes into the room:

 

Verne Domingo looked back at me… Twice.

Two Vernes were locked together, straining against each other. They were identical, down to the tears on their clothing. The damn thing could even emulate clothing? That really sucks. There was simply no way to tell them apart; their curses sounded the same, and both were calling each other "Shirrith." One was faking… but which?

I could have kicked myself. How stupid can you get? I raised the gun and fired twice.

 

I just really liked this subversion of a classic dilemma, where the shapechanger tries to confuse the third party, make them uncertain as to which of them is the real friend. I grin whenever I reach this point in the book.

The third is also one that just amuses me every time, from the section Mirror Image:

 

Lying on the ground before me was a dead man.

"Oh, for crissakes," I heard myself say. "I'm on vacation, dammit!"

 

This isn't to say I don't like and fondly remember the real climactic moments of the novel, such as Virigar's transformation  – I do indeed – but these moments tend to recall themselves to me even more frequently.

Diamonds Are Forever: As this is a short novel indeed, I'll only pick one, despite the fact that there are several possibilities. In this case, I choose the moment when the direction of everything changes:

 

     Finally, the Nome King leaned forward on his scepter and spoke.

“So, you are the people who speak in the air!”

 

Until this point, the book's mystery seems more a matter of solving the problem of speaking to the Nomes, a strange and very alien species whose behavior has made little sense to the Slade family. Without warning, the book takes an abrupt turn; if they can talk to the Nomes, the whole problem may be something entirely different than they thought – as, of course, turns out to be the case.

 

Boundary: I can't even think of this book without grinning at the first line, so it's my number one choice:

 

"Dear God, I'm going to die," said Joe Buckley.

 

This is of course a reference to the common Baen tradition of killing Joe Buckley in various books, and of course a nod to the fact that in this case Joe's wrong; he's only going to almost die a number of times.

My second is the tense and painful sequence in which A.J. Baker almost gets himself killed being a hero. I tried very hard to write that section to get across the lethally claustrophobic conditions a fire causes, and really emphasize the dangers that A.J. put himself through. This was an important section to show that no matter how arrogant or wiseass A.J. seemed to be, when occasion demanded it he would do what was right, and damn the consequences.

Third is Joe Buckley's Crowning Moment of Awesome. After the crash of John Carter, Joe's crash seat has been accidentally ejected from the ship and is lying on the surface of Mars:

 

     The figure moved. Joe raised an arm slowly and waved. Then said, shakily but firmly:

"By the authority vested in me as a representative of the Ares Project and the first human being to set foot on Mars, I claim all the rights and privileges pertaining thereunto for the Project."

"Gah!" said Madeline.

 

Maddie can't, after all, be faulted for that reaction; By making that statement, Joe's just forced a direct consideration of the idea of whether an explorer can lay claim to a planet, something Maddie had thought was a subject safely dead and buried.

Threshold: Sequel to Boundary, this is the only one of the series that actually features interpersonal conflict of the physical sort (unless you count A.J.'s five-second humiliation at Maddie's hands). This did allow for a few moments of real awesome, in my view, and certainly there are scenes I re-read for the sheer enjoyment of them. The first is the scene in which you find out why you do not piss off a technological wizard who works with nanotechnological devices: A.J. Baker's rescue of his wife Helen:

 

     A.J.’s expression had been impassive. Then it all of a sudden shifted, into a broad grin that somehow had very little humor in it. Even in the small screen, it gave Helen an involuntarily chill. "What I understand is that I don’t think I have ever heard anyone manage to be more completely wrong more often in a single speech, even our current president."

One of the larger screens over the nearest research station flickered, causing all of them to jump, and abruptly A.J.’s face, twice life-size, was glaring at the three; even Modofori couldn’t restrain a slight gasp. "I do know exactly where you are, and it will take me precisely three more minutes to get there. You will find you cannot go anywhere else. I will not assist you in obtaining any information, you are not getting to the Hunin, I’m giving you exactly zero access to anything except a jail cell, you wouldn’t be capable of telling whether or not I was inventing anything if I told you I was doing it ahead of time, and most importantly"—his voice dropped to a low tone that still somehow carried with it a snarl—" you cannot, and will not, touch Helen, because I am in control of this situation, and you will do precisely as I instruct, or else I promise…" and suddenly he smiled with just a touch of actual humor as he quoted, "...'You will know pain… and you will know fear… and then you will die.'"

 

He subsequently demonstrates how very true his statements are … as he has manipulated the nanotech Faerie Dust that Helen had in her wedding ring into infiltrating the kidnapper's bodies.

The second of my favorite moments in this novel comes when Richard Fitzgerald – really the only undeniably Bad Guy in the series – is trying to escape the wreck of Odin in the remaining functional shuttle Munin, and suddenly he and his team come under utterly unexpected fire:

 

     Richard stared down incredulously at the shadowed doorway, searching for some sort of weapon—a crowbar, a hammer, something. Four shots, three dead? Even he would have had a hard time pulling that one off. Who in the name of…

An involuntary chill went down his spine as the figure in the doorway moved into view. Looking directly at him, golden eyes gleaming cold as dead men's treasure, General Hohenheim raised his pistol.

 

The General became one of my favorite characters in the series.

Madeline Fathom gets her own moment of awesome in this book as well, when she manages to land Nebula Storm on Europa, against all odds, using nothing but jury-rigged systems to bring a ship never meant to land to a safe, if, spectacular, landing:

 

     Two and a half meters per second now, dropping, just a brisk walk—but there was no more room. Broadside on, the Nebula Storm smashed irresistibly into the immovable bulwark of steel-hard ice, sending a blast of steam, ice dust, and boulders of crystalline water spurting into the black sky of Europa. The cloud settled, unnaturally fast with no atmosphere to keep the dust suspended, and all was still. For a few seconds, no one said anything, as Horst gave his full attention to bringing Munin to ground as close as possible to the crashed Nebula Storm. Only when he felt the huge lander settle with crushing solidity onto the ice did he speak. "Nebula Storm! Jackie, Helen, A.J.—are you all right?"

For a moment there was no answer, and he thought his heart might just stop. But then the voice of Madeline Fathom answered, as calm and collected as though she were sitting back on Earth. "Munin, this is Nebula Storm. That probably looked worse than it was.

 

Portal: the third in the Boundary series, Portal leaves our heroes marooned on Europa and having to figure out how to get themselves out of the trouble they've gotten into, as the nearest help is something like half a billion kilometers away at best!

My first scene is from early in the book, a Moment of Heartwarming combined with awesome when Nicholas Glendale discovers not as much is lost as he thought:

 

The screen lit up and his heart seemed to stop for a moment.

 

Then it gave a great leap and he felt a laugh of joy and relief rising as the golden-haired (if somewhat bedraggled) woman on the screen smiled at him.

 

"Hello, Nicholas," said Madeline Fathom. "I'm using the secure Ceres relay for this because I'm sure you'll want to decide what to do – and what you want us to do – very much in private.

 

"A warm hello from all of us here on sunny Europa."

 

Then Madeline Fathom gets in on the action again, when a Europa-quake threatens to kill everyone, including her husband; with Joe about to drop away into a freezing kilometers-deep ocean, she manages to react in just the right way, finding a way to put a line through part of the rover and keep it from sinking into the abyss. (Not quoting the whole thing – that's a long sequence of action)

And General Hohenheim gets one more – with other people involved – when his survival is finally revealed and he gets to bring home the guilt of what happened to Odin and Nebula Storm to the right man:

 

     "I am General Alberich Hohenheim, formerly commander of the European Union vessel Odin," he said, "now in joint command of the vessel Mjölnir."

 

His harsh tone softened a bit. "I must first apologize to my family and my friends, who have suffered much at my supposed loss. I can only say I hope you will understand once all is explained."

 

Goswin finally grasped the truth, the only possible explanation: that he had been tricked. A lie. A fabrication maintained for months… and all with only one possible goal.

 

"What happened to Odin and Nebula Storm," Hohenheim continued, "was no accident. It was a disaster caused by the actions of one man, making use of illegal and covert weaponry placed upon Odin…"

 

That takes us through several of my books. The next section will take a look into the others, including the universe of Grand Central Arena!