Category: Serial

Prisoners (WIP)

On By Matt FraserIn Alpha Reads, Serial, Work in ProgressLeave a comment

(The Silence of Ancient Light, continued…)

🚀

The trip back to the main levels of the community, and from there to Jaci’s chamber, proved in Anna’s mind that some emotions transcended species. She certainly had experienced moments that felt more immediately dangerous, but traveling among and thru the angry Kwakitl, especially along the narrow cliffside path with its sheer drop to the lagoon, ranked as one of the more uncomfortable in recent memory. None of the waist-height avians nudged or in any way touched any of the humans, but their lidded gaze and their silence spoke volumes.

Read more at

Prisoners

(1,394 words; 5 min 34 sec reading time)

🚀

When we left our heroes (a month ago!), they had joined in with a community celebration for the Kwakitl who had taken them in, but things ended badly, and they were now held in some suspicion. Read on to find out what the avians do next with our hapless human visitors!

Also, this scene (and the next!) were written while out sailing. Turns out I’m rather productive when at sea! So, the next scene is already written, and it won’t be so long before it’s posted.

header image credit: Pixabay under Pexels License

Cliff Divers (WIP)

On By Matt FraserIn Alpha Reads, Serial, Work in ProgressLeave a comment

(The Silence of Ancient Light, continued…

… at long last!)

🚀

After the meal, the humans bade goodnight to Li-Estl, and Jaci led the women back to his chamber. It was a small, circular room, rough-hewn and low overhead, and lantern-lit like the others they had been in. A pallet of cushions lay on the smooth floor, with a low table and a woven basket beside the pallet. Neatly folded in a pile beside the basket lay the two e-suits retrieved from the boat.

“Welcome to my humble abode. It’s not much, I know, but it’s home, or at least it has been for these past weeks.”

Laxmi looked askance at the single pallet, then at Jaci with a cocked eyebrow. He laughed and reached into the basket, pulling out more cushions.

“Never fear, Laxmi, you won’t be sleeping on cold, hard stone.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. I was worried about you sleeping on cold, hard stone, not us. However, I see you’re equipped to host visitors.”

Read more at

Cliff Divers

(1,765 words; 7 min 3 sec reading time)

🚀

I know, I know, it has been almost exactly eight months since I last published a (written) scene from the novel. In the interim, I’ve published a few blog posts, I’ve tried my hand at a couple (pre-emptive) audio versions of early scenes (there will be more, for those of you who enjoy that!), but all of that is not the same as new material that continues the story.

So here it is. Eight months have passed since our intrepid explorers sat down with their alien host for a meal. You’d think they’d already be hungry again! But for them, it has been mere moments. They need a place to sleep, and they’ve already heard that tomorrow will be a big day for the Kwakitl community.

And there’s still the mystery of that object in space approaching orbit…

header image credit: user:1980supra / pixabay.com under Pixabay License

Approach on Audio

On By Matt FraserIn Podcasts, Serial3 Comments

The audio version of episode 2 is up! So, for those of you who want to get straight into it, here you go:

And of course you can read along as you listen at Approach.

I have incorporated a slight upgrade to my technique compared to episode 1. I recorded the first episode at 44.1 KHz in 16-bit, which is equivalent to CD quality, whereas for this episode I recorded in 24-bit. I wonder if you can hear the difference?

Now, to be clear, 16-bit vs 24-bit has no actual meaning for an mp3 file, which is what these both are. As far as the mp3 that you are listening to is concerned, it has a sample rate of that same 44.1 KHz, and a bit rate of 128 Kbps. However, the original file, before editing and mastering, is not an mp3, but an uncompressed wav file, and wav files don’t have bit rates, they have bit depths. The bit depth is an indication of the total loudness possible for each sample (44,100 of them per second). Does 24-bit mean that it can go louder than 16-bit? These amps go to 11! Perhaps, but that’s not really the point. What it really means is that it can go quieter before hitting the theoretical noise floor. With greater dynamic range, the audio is less likely to clip or distort at the loudest levels, and less likely to get lost in hiss and static at the softest.

Now, at this point my recording setup is simply not advanced enough for this to realistically make a difference. Every piece in the chain introduces its own little bit of noise, and all of it adds up to the actual noise floor, i.e. the amount of disorganized sound that exists before any actual audio content is laid down on top of it. Without a much more professional setup, I probably cannot achieve a noise floor as low as the theoretical 16-bit limit. And, of course, that’s all before adding in room tone, which is the basic level of ambient sound the microphone picks up in an otherwise quiet room (and also the way in which the room colors the narrator’s voice when he or she is speaking).

So, in all likelihood, you won’t be able to hear a difference in the 16-bit vs 24-bit recording. Still, it’s one less source of possible noise adding to that floor which I’ve hopefully removed from the production chain.

Ok, all of that is probably a bit too geeky and technical, and I freely admit that I am not an expert with it. I do have a bit of a background from long ago with audio engineering stuff, in the sense that I spent a year as sound man for a local band playing gigs around the San Francisco Bay Area, but that was in the 1980s, which were practically the dark ages when it comes to digital audio. Almost everything we did then was pure analog, so I’m learning anew how to make things sound proper in a digital age.

If there’s interest (let me know!), I’m happy to go further into technical details about the recording, editing, and mastering processes and equipment. I have some more upgrades planned in the near future, as well, though perhaps the biggest upgrade still remains working on my narration technique.

header image credit: user:Tumisu / pixabay.com

Chapter 7 and ‘Cafeteria’ (WIP)

On By Matt FraserIn Alpha Reads, Serial, Work in ProgressLeave a comment

(The Silence of Ancient Light, continued)

🚀

Li-Estl led the three humans back down darkened stairs to the crude lift, locking doors behind her as they went. Descending the vertical cliff face, Anna looked out across the dual-moon-lit ocean, the myriad of stars reflected below as shining above, and lifted her gaze skyward. She searched for that one faint moving star, the one she briefly saw from the observatory, but it had passed on from her view.

Once back at the main residential level of the cliff community, they passed through rocky corridors dimly lit by the occasional oil lantern, seeing few other Kwakitl along the way. Anna expected Li-Estl to lead them back to her schoolroom, but instead they followed a different path. More stairs and twisting hallways challenged Anna’s sense of direction, but she felt they were heading much deeper into the interior of the mountain. After about fifteen minutes of this, she noticed a gradual increase in ambient noise level, and ahead the corridor appeared more brightly lit. The noise, she came to understand, was the sound of many Kwakitl voices, all talking at once, and moments later they came to its source.

The corridor opened into the largest chamber they had seen yet, and it was filled with dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, Kwakitl, seated in circular clusters around low tables. Smoky lantern light lit the chamber, and the smell of frying fish and salty kelp pervaded the air. Anna’s stomach rumbled, and she realized in all the excitement she had conveniently ignored how hungry she had become. Even the cooking kelp smelled good to her now.

“We eat,” Li-Estl told them through Jaci’s translator, “then I show where you sleep. Tomorrow, much more talk, yes? Also, tomorrow big day. But now, eat.”

Read more at

Cafeteria

(2,057 words; 8 min 13 sec reading time)

🚀

Some enterprising regular readers have already found this latest scene available online a full twenty-four hours earlier than this announcement post, so if there’s a lesson here, it’s… check back often! Ok, I might have placed a hint or two on Twitter.

More dropped hints in this scene, a bit of mounting mystery and tension. If you’re eager for what happens next, all I can say is, enjoy the slow burn!

Is it really another spacecraft, another starship, arriving in orbit over Kepler 62f? And if so, who is it? Could it be rescue for our marooned astronauts? Did Earth send a second mission only a few months after the first?

Or is it someone else?

Many questions to ponder over fried fish and stewed kelp.

This scene also marks the beginning of Chapter 7, as you will note from the website menu, or from the overview page for the novel. It also marks another 2,000-word scene in a string of them. Am I getting wordier? It’s still not the longest scene, and the overall average remains just above 1,500, so I think we’re good there.

Here’s a question for you to ponder. What is it that Anna could observe from the ground that makes her think the arriving object is on a path for orbital insertion? Think on that, and comment below. Otherwise, until next time!

header image credit: Michael L Hiraeth / pixabay.com via Pixabay License

Telescope (WIP)

On By Matt FraserIn Alpha Reads, Serial, Work in Progress, Writing Process2 Comments

(The Silence of Ancient Light, continued)

🚀

The ship was not huge in the telescope view, but her shape stood out clearly. Anna could see the double ring structure of the Alcubierre drive, one ring forward and one aft, both tethered to the central fuselage much like the orbital ring was to the planet. She could almost, but not quite, make out the blister of the observatory on the nose of the ship, and the bay windows of the cockpit just above. She could see the hangar doors from which she had launched the shuttle, open wide in the belly of the larger ship, awaiting the return of the smaller craft, a return which now would never come. That shuttle lay smashed and abandoned in the lagoon of a forbidden island.

A sense of loss and of longing came over Anna, and her vision blurred a little. She wiped the moisture from her eyes, upset at her own emotional reaction when she knew she needed to remain laser-focused on survival, dedicated to the task of getting her crew and herself back to that starship, more than forty-one thousand kilometers away, no matter how close the telescope made her seem.

Read more at

Telescope

(2,000 words; 8 min reading time)

🚀

Did I say last week that this chapter was a little slower? Well, it’s not slower anymore. We’re going to end the chapter on a cliffhanger, one that makes it obvious that the tension is about to ramp right back up again as we head into Chapter 7. Of course, you’ll have to go read the scene to see what I mean!

Seriously, it will take just 8 minutes of your Sunday afternoon. Go read it!

Are you done yet? Because I want to discuss what you just read! What do you think the ending of the scene signifies?

You may have noticed a few devices I’ve been using all along to ratchet up the narrative tension. Almost from the beginning, there has been a time lock, a deadline by which Anna and her crew need to figure out their own rescue, and in this scene I gently remind the reader that this deadline is approaching. Many stories use either a time lock or an option lock to introduce tension, but in SoAL I’ve opted to do both. As the scenes progress, our heroes have their choices gradually narrowed down to fewer and fewer options, and there are plenty of hints that later there will be fewer options still. Remember how many space suits they have with them? Hmm, yeah, future problem brewing there.

If you were Anna, what would you do next?

header image credit: user:Free-Photos / pixabay.com under Pixabay License