From the Editor:
I'm 56 years old. Relatively healthy, all things considered, though I do feel old age creeping in. My mind isn't as sharp as it was ten years ago, maybe even five years ago. Injuries that I laughed at when I was younger, particularly my shoulder and neck, have come back to laugh at me every morning when I get out of bed. Sleep is harder, not only because of the physical but also the mental. lt's hard to lie down to a comforting rest when there are the voices of thousands of people that I have met and millions of memories vying for attention, those most important to my life especially.
I'm definitely on the walk out. Ten years, twenty, maybe thirty? None of that equals the fifty six I've lived, and what's important to me or holds my interest has shifted. Writing has become, instead of a joy with stories pushing their way out of my hands, more of a task or a chore that I have a really hard time sitting down to do. It's difficult to stay motivated to do so, but i have an obligation to the writers my company supports and my own fans. So I soldier on.
Most important is seeing the smile of a person whom I've come to love very deeply with all my heart. That, and however I can, continue to support my sons and my notstep-daughter, and the ones that they love, as best I can with the experience and resources that I have.
Maybe one of the things that has changed is that I'm not living a day to day life where I'm stuggling. I have a good job, decent income, and the wolves aren't baying at the door. Fights external to that, such as politics, have lost their passion. Instead contemplation of those that I love, and have loved, and the past and what comes in the far future is what motivates me now, and seeing things that I've never seen before, while I can.
Of course, I still pay the price for the mistakes I made in my life. Some of them grevious, and others are also paying that price, though I don't know what, without hindsight, I could have done differently. These are mistakes we all have made and things we would have done differently, but how can we know? I was raised by a good family, good parents, and completely unprepared for real life. In any case, I am, as always, the sum of my experiences and I hopefully have the luxury of rectifying some of them. For those whom I've wronged, or who have suffered at all from the consequences of my decisions, I am truly sorry and experience regret every day.
And, looking back, I've lived the best I could in everything I did and tried to do right by everyone I've loved, my neighbors and my country. In the end, it's all any of us can ever do. I hope that I did some good along the way.
I'm still here, and doing the best I can, and not going anywhere soon. But it's a definitely a different stage of life. BTW, one of my favorite books to write: FINALIST, 2017 DRAGON AWARDS, BEST MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION!
In space, when you lose the high ground, you lose the war. Eleven years before, General David Warren was the best and brightest, in charge of defending the Earth from an attacking fleet. Overmatched in battle, the Earth forces were devastated, and the enemy moved into the high ground and proceeded with orbital bombardment. Civilization fell, and then two years later, the enemy landed and the occupation began.
Now Warren lives with his sister and nephew, trying to farm the land while avoiding detection by the occupiers, the Invy. When two travelers show up at his doorstep, his carefully constructed life starts to unravel. Earth, and humanity, may be down, but not out. In the grand tradition of Ender's Game, Footfall, and War of the Worlds comes a tale of human struggle against immense odds.
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