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Star Spawn

The Star Spawn site is a work in progress, which means that I will be updating pages from time to time.

Note: To increase or decrease the size of the text on these pages, use your browser’s View - Text Size feature.

Site Links and Spoiler Alert!

Novel and character notes and histories contain many spoilers. If you don’t want to read the spoilers, stay away (if you can) from the pages dealing with the characters and individual novels. Later, after you’ve read the story, come back for the story behind the story.

The Novels, Short Stories, and More

Some of this material appeared on the original site.
Saga Novels - An updated list of all the novels in the Star Spawn saga.
The Novels - A complete list of my novels and their current status.
The Short Stories - My Shorts have nothing to do with dirty laundry.
Interesting Facts - Tidbits about Star Spawn that will eventually find their way to new pages on the site.
Drac Race and Timeline - The Dracs are the main race in the saga.
Bibliography - Some of the books which I use for background information.
Spam - Just a couple of notes about this problem.
Links and Contacts - Only one right now - how to contact me.
Upcoming Conventions - A list of upcoming Science Fiction conventions.

People, Places and Ships in the Stories

In the Stories

Terms and How Things Work

ADF Terms and Phrases
Common Terms and Phrases

Other Distractions

Notes on Writing
Artificial Intelligence

Why This Site

I put this site together because I didn’t want to subject you (as fans and friends) to the seemingly unending stream of internet crap. I’ve kept the code for this site as simple as I could so that you have control, not some internet page.

Mostly because I was having trouble keeping track of the myriad details surrounding the Star Spawn Saga, I chose WikidPad to create my notes. In addition to providing excellent cross reference capabilities (a little like having MS Notepad on steroids), I could also export it to html. As a result and because most of my notes are important to my readers as well, I decided to open this thing up for all of you to see.

Unfortunately, that also means there are many spoilers spread throughout these pages. I have given up trying to hide the spoilers so if you have come here looking for information about what you’ve read, you’re going to find a lot more than you might have wanted. In other words, there are spoilers all over the place on this site. Most of the characters, particularly James Matthews and Jules Ann Stollack undergo some pretty drastic changes, not so much in their personality, but in what is revealed about them over the course of the saga. The rest of the characters are a little more like you and me, so don’t expect any fantastic revelations about anyone other than those two. Well, aside from a bunch of them eventually getting married and having kids.

How do you use the site? That’s probably one of the best questions you can ask, and right now, I don’t have an answer. Perhaps by the time the stories are published, I’ll have revamped this thing again. But then, maybe not and I’ll have some ideas to share on how to get the most out of the site without having the story spoiled for you.

You may run into some strange coding from time to time as I become familiar with the Wiki way of doing things. As a result, you are likely to see some problems from time to time. Don’t worry, I’ll be spotting them, too, especially the way this software works.

Readers

I mention “my readers” in a number of places in this Wiki, and those of you perusing these pages may wonder who these folks are. They are close friends and associates with whom I’ve worked over the years. Some deserve special mention and others a lot of credit for what Star Spawn and my stories have become. Without them and their encouragement, none of this would exist and my life would not have been as interesting.

Now, and this is new (as of April 07, 2008). I do need new readers, but have some specific requirements. There is no pay involved, but if you are interested, send me an e-mail (the address is on the Links and Contacts page) and we'll talk.

The requirements is that you look at each assignment as that: an assignment to provide honest and complete (as much as you can make it) feedback on the stories. This includes grammer, syntax, things that bother you, things you like, and so on. If you have a word processor that provides the function (both MS Word and Open Office do), then text correction on the file will be appreciated.

The one thing I do not want - someone who simply wants to read the story in advance. I do expect and encourage my readers to give me meaningful feedback (even heavy criticism). Once a story is published, it is set in stone, so any criticism at that point becomes a non-sequitur (meaningless). And, I don’t shed tears over criticism -- I'm my own worst editor.

Site Update History

Watch this special area for current news and what is going on with the site and with my novels. Archived History
Last Update: January 03, 2009
January 03, 2009 - The big news regarding this site, of course, are the new home page and Julie's page you see before you enter the actual site and have access to these pages. Also, some of you may note that I've removed the publisher's portal.
January 03, 2009 - ConText was also a big success for me and it appears that the beginning of the first novel is now where it needs to be. However, no additional work toward getting any of the novels published will take place over the next year or so, since my wife and I are planning on serving a mission for our church.
January 03, 2009 - All of the stories will undergo a rewrite from where they are now. Most of them exhibit many of the problems I've noted in the first book and a deep pass will be used to correct that. Also, I'm now following the current publishing convention (as described in the Chicago Manual of Style) and so I am lower casing many words, including the names of planets and races. After all, we consider ourselves human, so why should I capitalize the word for the drac race?
January 03, 2009 - Pages continue to be updated from time to time and those updates may not be noted in this log.
September 16, 2008 - InConJunction was a big success for me as a participating panelist. We are getting ready to attend ConText in Columbus, which will be our last con for this year. On a personal note, I will be going on a hiatus for a year and upon return from that sabbatical, give my full attention to the stories. I expect the hiatus to start around the first of the 2009 and last for a full year, with the possibility of extending it to a full 18 months. More on this later.
July 01, 2008 - Updated a description for Nikki Olsen in preparation for the second drawing. I hope to include pages in the future that illustrate some of the characters in the stories.
June 17, 2008 - Updated a number of pages to include Karen Ann Hollingsworth (http://www.wrenditions.com/), an artist who will be doing artwork for the novels.
June 16, 2008 - Had a wonderful time at DucKon, resulting in some real progress for my writing. Follow the link to see my comments.
May 26, 2008 - Returned from a disappointing session at WisCon (follow the link to see my comments). During the conference I decided to disassemble the saga and break it into smaller groups of novels. Watch for the changes on The Novels page.
May 04, 2008 - Sat down with Chad and went over House on the Hill. We talked about a number of things, mostly involving future projects. Watch for a new tagalong novel associated with Julie somewhere in the The Final Battle time frame.
May 03, 2008 - Joined Critters Critique Group - while this will take away some of my time for writing, it will provide a decided source for getting new and old material critiqued. I will likely submit some of my older short fiction first.
May 03, 2008 - Added Notes on Writing section
April 14, 2008 - Added a section (complete with limited spoilers) as an overview of the Saga on the Background and FAQ page.
April 07, 2008 - OdysseyCon report added. Removed some pages and streamlined others.
March 30, 2008 - April 02, 2008 - Updated a number of pages associated with the novels. Updated rewrite information on The Novels page.
March 19, 2008 - Made MilleniCon report page and updated a number of pages on the site, Completed the time line on the Background and FAQ page. Moved convention reports to their own pages.
March 07, 2008 - Updated upcoming cons that I will be attending. Note: Check the Upcoming Conventions page periodically for updates. I will no longer note changes in this record.
February 26, 2008 - Registered for three upcoming Conventions.
February 26, 2008 - Waken will receive a complete rewrite.
February 26, 2008 - A short story is being written for the WisCon writers' workshop. It will be added to the short stories page after the con.
February 26, 2008 - Reordered this page to put the site links closer to the top.
February 19, 2008 - Cleaned out the Upcoming Conventions page to list only those on my calendar and provide a report on my attendance at my very first SF convention: Capricon 28.
February 16, 2008 - I decided to pull Waken from being in its finished status. A bit of very much welcomed and useful critiquing at Capricon and chatting with Jennifer Stevenson has led me to believe that I need to do some more work on the story (another pass, anyway), and to produce a "Selling Synopsis." Also, watch for another makeover for the site... at least, I'm thinking of doing one.
February 11, 2008 - Completed final work on Star Spawn: Waken.
February 01, 2008 - Added direct links to Rank in the ADF, Organization Charts, and The Short Stories pages to resolve a problem with some systems and relative links.
January 30, 2008 - Added a To Do page and Upcoming Conventions page.
January 28, 2008 - Created ADF Howler Crew page to list the crew and passengers of the ADF Howler. Renamed Elvenisle/Elvinisle to Elvnisle.
January 10, 2008 - Added notes and references while writing/editing The End of the Matter. Updated Copyright notice for 2008 at the bottom of the opening page.

WikidPad

Most of you should be familiar with the internet’s Wiki reference encyclopedia, Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org, Wikipad is an open source desktop version of the same thing, simplified, which means any special formatting like you find on the Wikipedia site doesn’t exist unless I add the code needed to make it so. And that gets back to my original mission statement for this site - to keep it simple.

There are two disadvantages to WikidPad: One is the autocreation of Wiki words from upper and lower alpha words (case mix). This makes some words, like acronyms, into Wikiwords. Two is that no Wikiword can have a non-alpha character, so anything that has an apostrophe, for instance, like the possessive in Cleric’s World, makes it impossible to use that word as a WikiWord (at least, as far as I can tell). This means that when I use a work with an apostrophe or number, I have to make provisions to avoid the conflict. The short of it is that it forces me to use misspellings in this document.

Since I’m using this thing, others might think of uses for it, too. So, you can get full details at http://www.jhorman.org/wikidPad. And, thanks to Bob L for suggesting the tool to me.

Tools

Each of the following links is more for me than anyone else. Just so you know what is going on, I’ve put some comments next to each link.
Character Link - This was my original notes on people, places, and things in the stories. As I build the character histories on their own pages, the entries in this link will disappear.
Symbol Page - Every so often, I need to code some special symbol. This is a link to those symbols.
To Do - What it says.

Copyright (applies to all pages on the Star Spawn Sites)

Characters, races, and all aspects relating to the Star Spawn Universe are the copyrighted © and trademarked ™ intellectual property of Thomas Nevin Huber and may not be used without written permission. Contributions by others are the copyrighted work of those contributors. Site pages are copyright © 2002-2008, the dates they were created or updated. All Rights Reserved. For more information, see Copyright.

Page created: April 9, 2007
Page updated: See Site Update History (above)