Dark Seas – Damon Alan's Author Page

I’ll be at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference on Sept 20-22.  I’ll get to pitch my book to an agent, see if I can pick one up.  I believe that will probably be the impetus to polish On the Shores of a Dark Sea off.  The funny thing is it’s all

In Chapter 4 Ensign Eris Dantora reports to Captain Dayson what she finds in the Oasis system as the Seventh Fleet drops out of FTL and approaches the newly discovered star. Oasis is a K4 orange dwarf, with two inner terrestrials, two large gas giants, a thin asteroid belt, and three more

This article is a good one, it covers the fact that NASA is working on a theory by Mexican physicist, Miguel Alcubierre. NYT FTL article I believe, one way or another, the universe is ours to move into, make our home, and expand what it means to be human, sentient, and alive.

I write a section in one chapter where one of the prime characters meets a local wagon train.  When I wrote it, the thought occurred to me that there is no metal in my society on Refuge.  The wooden wheels of a wagon, without a rim, would be hammered to splinters in

My family was asked by friends to go the local Renaissance Fair this weekend.  My wife originally wanted to go, I think, but I did not.  I suppose it’s sad that I thought, “That’s an entire day of writing down the drain!” But there are other reasons.  I don’t like crowds.  That’s

In the book a nuke is used.  I needed to nuke a small 3 kilometer wide valley.  The method is a deuterium-tritium capsule collapsed by a lithium ring with magnetism.  The amount of fuel could be variable, allowing the nuker to set the size of the detonation, I’m thinking.  I’m not sure

I am researching fire for my warward moon, alone in it’s inhabitibility so far above the galactic plane. Refuge has 1.5 times the pressure of Earth, but only 16% O2 compared to 21% on Earth.  It turns out that with reduced oxygen as a percentage, the reaction (fire) is just as active

Writer’s block is history.  I wrote Chapter 21 today, reaching 35,000 words.  The book is probably halfway done as far as story goes, and then there is the editing…. oh, the editing… It’s 3:07am.  I’m going to bed, where I will lay for an hour thinking about Chapter 22.  Then I will

When I made my art for the surface of Refuge, I added in birds without thinking.  Would birds be practical on a world with 1.16g?  Or would they become, in essence, all just chickens flapping nearly useless wings for a few dozen meters of pretend flying? I think the saving grace for

but writing isn’t the answer.  Today is one of those days, so I amused myself by creating a preliminary book cover and taking the advice of a person who should know and jazzing up the gas giant in the sky. So, unless some criticism arises that reaches into my heart and it