In this week’s episode, I take a look back at my SILENT ORDER science fiction series, and answer twelve of the most common questions from readers about the books.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 205 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June the 14th, 2024 and today we are doing a question and answer session on my Silent Order science fiction series. Before we get to that, we will have an update on my current writing progress and then Question of the Week.
My main project right now is Shield of Darkness, a sequel to Shield of Storms and the second book in the Shield War series. Progress has not been as quick as I would like, but there still has been progress and as of this recording, I am about 84,000 words into the rough draft. It really helped that I had a 10,000 word day on June 12th. That really propelled things forward. I’m not entirely sure how long the rough draft is going to be. I think it’s probably going to end up around 120,000 words, maybe 115,000 words. We’ll see when get there. But I’m still hoping to have it out in July, sometime after the 4th of July.
After that is done, my next project will be Half-Orc Paladin, the third book in the Rivah series, and I’m currently 24,000 words into that and I think that one will be around 75,000 words (give or take) once it’s done. I’m also 9,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, but that will come out later in the year.
In audiobook news, I’m pleased to report that the collection Tales of the Shield Knight, which contains sixteen stories from the Sevenfold Sword and the Dragontiarna series, is now out in audiobook, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills. You can get that at Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books at the moment, and should gradually be making its way onto the other audiobook stores as it gets through processing. Be sure to subscribe to my new release newsletter because sometimes I will give away individual audio short stories for free from that collection in my newsletter.
00:01:50 Question of the Week
Now let’s move on to Question of the Week. Our Question of the Week segment is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week’s question: if you read mystery novels, what was the first mystery novel you ever read? No, wrong answers obviously, and as you’d expect, we had quite a few different responses.
Justin says: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was 12. I had chicken pox and was confined to my room. I begged my father for something to read, and he handed me a massive book, The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Two days later, I asked for other books by him. I’m still not a fan of mysteries, but Doyle was a great author.
Our next comment is from Ray, who says: Hardy Boys, also Sherlock Holmes for school. As an adult, the first I recall by choice were the Father Blackie Mysteries by Andrew Greeley.
Our next comment is from Jake who says: can’t remember. It had to be back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. But I agree with you, it’s great to diversify in reading. Someone gifted me a copy of Water for Elephants. I would never have read that by choice, but I’m glad I did.
Our next comment is from Jeff, who says: Tom Swift books and Hound of the Baskervilles. Tom Swift was even science fiction-ish with their far-out inventions.
Our next comment is from Jonathan (not me), who says: the Hardy Boys Hunting for Hidden Gold. The reprinted Flashlight edition was my first mystery read for me by my mom when I was about 8. This would have also been my first mystery that I read independently. When I was 10 through 11, I read the original Hardy Boys While the Clock Ticked. I was too young to know about the different editions of novels until much later, but I was always dissatisfied with the Flashlight version because it lacked the ending that I remembered. It was years later that I discovered the history of the series, which led to me finding and purchasing all or most of the original novels.
Our next comment is from Becca, who says: Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys in early grade school. No idea which one, but I had quite a few of them. First adult mystery series was probably middle school and was The Alphabet Series by Sue Grafton and the Joe Grey series by Murphy. My mom really encouraged me to read pretty much anything and everything. Wish you would write more mystery books. They’re so great.
Thanks, Becca. I am glad you liked the mystery books, so I don’t think too many other people did, which is why I have not written more of them.
Our next comment is from Justin who says: first mystery novel was The Hardy Boys in grade school.
Michael says: not my first, but I really like the Pendergast series by Lincoln and Child. Worth the read if folks haven’t tried.
John says: The Three Investigators series by Alfred Hitchcock. I don’t know where I got the first one. My mom probably got it at a yard sale or something, but I was hooked. Was able to check out the others in the series for my school’s library. I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade.
Juana says: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Our next comment is from Ann-Marie, who says: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and The Boxcar Children.
Jeremiah says: Sherlock Holmes.
Andrew says: As a young’un in grade school, I read The Mystery of the Green Ghost. It has stuck with me all these years. As a little more mature reader, I got a hold of The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Quite entertaining indeed.
My own answer to this was I think it was Tell No One by Harlan Coben. This was way back in 2001 and I had a long car ride coming up. At the time I didn’t read anything except fantasy and science fiction, but I got Tell No One as a present and I didn’t have anything else to read while in the car. So I started reading Tell No One during the ride.
The book is about an ER physician whose wife was murdered eight years ago. Then one day out of the blue, the physician gets a message that could only have come from her. Suddenly people show up to kill the physician and he finds himself on the run from the agents of a sinister billionaire.
I was definitely hooked, and I’ve read mysteries and thrillers on and off since. I think this was good for me long term since I ended up a writer and it’s good for writers to read widely in different genres. You always tell what a science fiction novel, for example, was written by someone who has never heard anything but science fiction.
Additionally, when I wrote out the Question of the Week, I did not have Hardy Boys in mind because I was thinking of them as you know, books for children and I was thinking about adult books, but I did indeed read a bunch of The Hardy Boys books when I was a kid, but it was that was long enough going out that I can’t clearly recall the plots of any of them, I’m afraid.
00:06:04 Main Topic: Silent Order Question and Answer Time (Note: Some Spoilers for the series in this section)
Now on to our main topic of the week, Silent Order question and answer time. Why talk about this now, about a year after I finished the Silent Order science fiction series? Well, the reason for that is Silent Order Omnibus One had a very successful Bookbub feature deal at the end of May. Silent Order Omnibus One was briefly the number 2 free ebook on Amazon US and the number 1 free ebook on Amazon UK. So thanks for that, everyone.
As you can imagine, this resulted in a lot of new eyes on the series, which inspired many reader questions, which is funny because I’ve been getting most of the same questions about the series and its particular idiosyncrasies for about seven years now. So let’s have some answers below.
First, some basic facts about the series. I published the first five books in September and October of 2017. It ended up at about 14 books, and I published the 14th and final book in September of 2023. All books are available on all ebook platforms. I’ve dabbled with Kindle Unlimited for it in the past, but not anymore. It’s available wide and will remain so. There are also six tie-in short stories to the series that I’ve given away for free to my newsletter subscribers at various times.
Now, with the basic facts out of the way, let’s proceed to the most common questions from the last seven years of Silent Order.
Question #1: Why do the characters still use kinetic, chemically propelled firearms 100,000 years in the future? By this question, people are usually wondering why at times the characters in the Silent Order are using, you know, traditional guns that fire metal bullets as opposed to like blasters or lasers or plasma cannons or whatever.
And the answer is, not to be flippant, but why wouldn’t they? People forget that firearms technology has been used for military applications, at least in the West, for at least nearly 700 years. Cannons were used in the 100 Years War and the 100 Years War started in 1337. Firearms technology has been refined and improved considerably since then, and no doubt it will continue to receive refinements and improvements in the future. Additionally, chemically propelled firearms offer many advantages over more advanced weaponry like lasers, rail guns, blasters, or particle weapons, especially for handheld levels of weaponry.
A chemically propelled firearm doesn’t require electricity or a power source and can’t be disabled by an EMP. It’s also more durable and rugged than a more advanced weapon, which would almost certainly require delicate electronic components. In fact, some models of firearm can famously be exposed to harsh conditions and continue to function. There’s just no way you could do the same thing with a laser. Some devices, some machines are just the apex of their technological niche. Despite all the advanced weaponry available in the 21st century, soldiers still carry combat knives because in a situation where you need a knife, it is the best tool for the job. I suspect chemically propelled firearms dominate their niche in the same way.
Question #2: Why isn’t the technology in Silent Order as advanced as I think it should be?
Well, they do have faster than light travel, artificial gravity, inertial absorption, anti-gravity lifts, shields, plasma weaponry, and ion thrusters. You can’t exactly order any of that stuff off Amazon today. Medical technology is rather more advanced as well. The average human lifespan in Calaskar and other “developed” worlds at this time period is about 160 years due to advances in genetic engineering and better understanding of mitochondrial DNA. Cloned replacement limbs and organs are common medical procedures. When a replacement limb can’t be cloned, installing a cybernetic one is typically a one day medical procedure.
In the back story of the series, there are five very large Terran empires that rose and collapsed before the start of the series, which is about, as I’ve said, 100,000 years into the future. Those Terran empires each tended to have more advanced technology in certain areas than is common at the start of the series. One was a lot better at genetic engineering, another built super advanced sentient AI (more on that later) and so forth. When the particular empire fell or disintegrated into smaller successor states, there was some technological backsliding, and some of the more super advanced technology was lost.
Question #3: The protagonist Jack March has the same initials as the author, Jonathan Moeller. Was that deliberate?
Oh no, it wasn’t. One of the original inspirations for the series were the James Bond books, so I chose a name that was the opposite of James Bond. After all, March is kind of the opposite of Bond in the sense of movement versus stasis and stagnation. In the original books, James Bond was always a sort of self-destructive alcoholic who gets somewhat worse as the series goes along and he doesn’t have much in the way of character development.
By contrast, I wanted March to have much more character change and growth. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that gave Jack March the same initials as me until three or four years into writing the series. The obvious is only obvious in hindsight, alas. Occasionally people say March is an authorial self-insert, but I guarantee you that he is not. If he were, he’d be a cranky middle aged former IT worker who doesn’t like to go out very much.
Question #4: Why doesn’t March sleep with any of the beautiful women he meets in the first four books?
Because he didn’t want to. Like I said, he’s sort of the opposite of James Bond and doesn’t like unprofessionalism like that on the job. Also, by the time the series starts, he’s old enough that casual flings no longer interest him and ultimately, he would really rather be on his own. It isn’t until he meets a woman who truly understands him that this starts to change and the woman understands him because she hates the Final Consciousness just as much as he does.
Question #5: Why do the characters still use phones?
Well, they’re not “cellular telephones” in the way that we think of them. They’re more like personal handheld telecommunication and computing devices that are significantly more powerful than anything available today.
That said, words sometimes long outlast the original purpose. The word mile originally came from the Latin language and described the distance a Roman soldier could cover with 1,000 steps. There is no longer a Roman Empire or Roman legionaries, but the term remains in use. There’s a good chance that the word phone will outlast our current civilization and continue to refer to a telecommunications device just as miles still refers to a unit of distance, even though it doesn’t have anything to do with marching soldiers or the Roman Empire.
Additionally, phone was the simplest word available and using a sci-fi ish term like a mobile data pad or personal communicator or handheld computer just seemed a bit try hard. I used the metric system for distance in the series because the majority of Earth’s population uses it today, so I assume it will eventually win out over time by pure weight of numbers.
Question #6: Why does March work for repressive government like Calaskar?
Whether or not Caesar is repressive depends on one’s perspective. I expect someone from the 1850s or even the 1950s United States would find the Calaskaran government rather liberal and shockingly egalitarian. But many people from 2024 America would probably find it repressive. That said, I think Calaskar is better described as conformist.
If you don’t criticize the king or the official doctrines of the Royal Calaskaran church, you can say pretty much anything you want, and Calaskar doesn’t have anything like the social problems of the 21st century United States, though that is partly because dissidents are eventually encouraged to leave and seek their fortunes elsewhere. Some of Calaskar’s neighbors like Rustaril and the Falcon Republic were originally Calaskaran worlds that split off due to ideological differences.
Rustaril opted for a form of socialism that led to its stagnation and ongoing decline, while the Falcon Republic is more hyper-capitalistic and libertarian and therefore very unstable, albeit with a cloned army that steps in and takes over when things get out of hand. Calaskar claims that its government combines the best aspects of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, though opinions differ among the characters in the books whether or not this is actually true.
However, the series is mostly written from the perspective of Jack March, and he doesn’t much care about everything we just discussed in the previous paragraph. He primarily works for the Silent Order, which is a Calaskaran intelligence agency that answers only to its own leaders and the King. The ultimate mission of the Silent Order is to monitor the elite and upper classes of Calaskaran society, whether political, business, or entertainment elites. If they start acting in a destructive way that will harm Calaskar and civilization, the Silent Order either discredits them, sabotages their careers, or arranges an accident (depending on how severe the particular elite’s brand of corruption is).
Obviously, many people would have severe moral qualms about arranging the fatal extrajudicial accident of a corrupt government or judicial official. Since March’s own home world of Calixtus was betrayed to the Final Consciousness by its elite classes, he has no problem doing this kind of work. For March’s perspective, Calaskar opposes the Final Consciousness and has been the primary rival to the Final Consciousness for some time, which is good enough for him. The fact that life on Calaskar is vastly better than anywhere ruled by the Final Consciousness just reinforces his decision.
Question #7: Was this series inspired by the computer game Starfield?
I have to admit I LOLed at this question. I started writing Silent Order on New Year’s Eve in 2016 and the final book in the series came out in early September 2023. In fact, if I remember it, Starfield came out like two or three days after I published the final Silent Order book. So I can confidently say that the series wasn’t inspired by Starfield in any way.
That said, I would say that the video games which did help shape my thinking about the books were Wing Commander: Privateer, TIE Fighter, and Master of Orion 1 and 2. All those games were from the 1990s, of course, so I suppose I’m dating myself.
Question #8: What actually did inspire the Silent Order series?
The video games I mentioned above, for one. Also, the original James Bond books. When I started thinking about writing a science fiction series, I decided that I wanted to do a spy thriller, but in space. The Final Consciousness was sort of the idea of cybernetic space totalitarians. James Bond originally went up against SMERSH and then SPECTRE in the books, but March would go up against the covert agents of the sinister cybernetic Final Consciousness.
There are also Lovecraftian themes in the books, as is gradually revealed throughout the series, that the Final Consciousness is in fact controlled by cosmic horrors from another universe.
Believe it or not, the various malfunctions of ChatGPT also helped inspire some of the later books. I had established way back in Silent Order: Iron Hand that a true AI always goes homicidally insane. So when I actually did have to run an AI supercomputer character from one of the later books, I based its behavior on some ChatGPT and Bing Chat’s more hilarious public meltdowns, though if I had waited a little longer and based it on Google’s AI, the AI supercomputer character could have suggested that the protagonist add glue to their pizza cheese or perhaps eats are real small rocks a day for minerals.
The day I wrote this paragraph (which was June 10th, 2024), Apple announced they’re adding a bunch of AI stuff to both the iPad and iPhone, and no doubt more AI will soon reach meme status on the Internet. Needless to say, my opinion of generative AI in general is quite low.
Question #9: Have the covers for the series changed? They look different on Goodreads.
Not only have the covers changed over the last seven years, they have changed a lot. The covers went through five different iterations. At first I did them myself in GIMP and then I tried a couple different variations. During COVID I took a Photoshop class which I admit leveled up my cover design skills significantly, so I tried some character-based covers but they never had the results I was hoping to see in terms of sales.
Then in 2022, I saw a Penny Arcade comic that made a joke about how science fiction readers want to see book covers that show spaceships and planets in close proximity. And while this was a joke, I realized it was nonetheless true, so I redid the covers to the current look that features spaceships in close proximity to planets, and the series has sold the best overall with the new set of covers. Science fiction writers take heed: the readers want to see planets and spaceships in close proximity on their covers.
Question #10: Why aren’t there audiobooks for the series?
In all honesty, it would just be too expensive. At a rough back of the envelope calculation, I think it would take about $30,000 U.S. dollars to bring the entire series into audio, and it would take years to see that money back. Plus, I think the series would end up at about 85 hours long, give or take, and that’s like 2 full work weeks just to listen to the audiobook for proofing. So to sum up, it would cost too much and I don’t want to take on another project of that magnitude at this time.
Question #11: What is your favorite book in the series?
Silent Order: Eclipse Hand, for reasons unrelated to the plot. I read an article in 2017 saying that the iPad was a better productivity computer than a Linux desktop, and I thought that was just nonsense for a variety of reasons. So I wrote, edited, and did the entire cover on a Ubuntu Linux desktop for Silent Order: Eclipse Hand just to prove a point. I work less with Linux now than I did back in 2017, though given how bad Windows 11 has gotten with all the AI integration, I might go back to writing on a Linux desktop at some point. Even though it’s my favorite book for reasons other than plot, I do quite like the plot of Eclipse Hand as well. The basic idea was something that’s been knocking around inside my head for a while, so I was glad I was finally able to get to write it down.
And now our 12th and final question: Weren’t they originally only supposed to be nine books in the series? Why are there fourteen?
Yes, I had planned to stop at nine because the Silent Order books never sold quite as well as I had hoped. However, there were enough dangling plot threads, specifically the mystery around the Pulse weapon of the Final Consciousness, that I was persuaded to continue and bring the series to a more epic ending than it had in book nine.
I started working on book 10 in late 2019, but then COVID happened and derailed things for a while. At the end of 2021, I was able to pick it up again and in 2023 I decided would be my “summer of finishing things” and I pushed on to the final book in the Silent Order series. Hopefully it was a suitably epic ending.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who read through to the end of the series, encouraging me to continue with it. The years 2020 through 2023 were frustrating ones for a variety of reasons (and I’m sure everyone listened to this had their own frustrations in those years as well) and one of the ways I tried to reduce those frustrations was to put Silent Order on the side for a while, but I’m glad I persevered and continued on with the series, even if it took me a while.
Now that it is finished, I can look back on it with a sense of pride for all the hard work that went into it. But mostly what I feel when I look back at it is gratitude for all the readers who read the books and enjoyed them.
So that’s it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A remind you that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts (note: transcripts are for Episodes 140 to the present episode). If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.
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