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Downloads

I've made my first novel, Ventus, available as a free download, as well as excerpts from two of the Virga books.  I am looking forward to putting up a number of short stories in the near future.

Complete novel:  Ventus

 

To celebrate the August, 2007 publication of Queen of Candesce, I decided to re-release my first novel as an eBook. You can download it from this page. Ventus was first published by Tor Books in 2000, and and you can still buy it; to everyone who would just like to sample my work, I hope you enjoy this version.

I've released this book under a Creative Commons license, which means you can read it and distribute it freely, but not make derivative works or sell it.

Book Excerpts:  Sun of Suns and Pirate Sun

I've made large tracts of these two Virga books available.  If you want to find out what the Virga universe is all about, you can check it out here:

Major Foresight Project:  Crisis in Zefra

In spring 2005, the Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada (that is to say, the army) hired me to write a dramatized future military scenario.  The book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, was set in a mythical African city-state, about 20 years in the future, and concerned a group of Canadian peacekeepers who are trying to ready the city for its first democratic vote while fighting an insurgency.  The project ran to 27,000 words and was published by the army as a bound paperback book.

If you'd like to read Crisis in Zefra, you can download it in PDF form.

Short Stories

I'll be adding new stories here periodically.  First of all, you can try my Aurora-award nominated short story "Hopscotch."  The year this was nominated, another of my stories was also nominated:  "The Toy Mill," which I wrote with David Nickle.  "The Toy Mill" won the award; but I've always been fond of "Hopscotch."  Here it is, in its entirety excerpted from my collection The Engine of Recall.

Personal tools

Cat out of bag

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...Yes, the Canadian army has hired me to write a sequel to Crisis in Zefra

The Halifax Chronicle Herald has an article about the military's new future-oriented analysis, and how I'm going to be writing a novelization of the material, just as I did for Crisis in Zefra several years ago.  Public reaction seems to range from supportive and admiring to derisive and outraged (as in, 'they can't even tell what they're doing next week, how are they going to look thirty years into the future?')  

Apart from the fact that I'm getting paid to do this, I think it's a good idea for other reasons:

Most businesses and governments only look ahead a few months, Mr. Schroeder said.

"That’s like painting your windshield black and driving out on the highway, as far as I’m concerned. You need to be able to look as far ahead as you can, even if it’s foggy and you can’t quite make things out."

In other words, foresight is responsible management every area of endeavour.  And don't forget, it was the difference between planning for the last war and planning for the next that led the French to build the Maginot line, and the Germans to develop the Blitzkrieg.

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Update: this project will go up for tender

Posted by Karl Schroeder at Oct 26, 2009 07:57 AM
I spoke too soon. The Zefra sequel will go up for tender once it's given the final green light. That means that any Canadian writer or specialist can bid for it. I will be bidding myself, of course, but it's good of the army to ensure there's a level playing field--as a taxpayer myself, I appreciate this form of transparency.
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The Virga Series

(Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce are combined in Cities of the Air)



Available in Trade paperback May 5, 2012:


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