sequel or prequel?

kbus888 wrote:=2014-01-16=
Hi Guys

?? Is there anyone here that would like a sequel to Apocalypse Troll ??

Just ask'n

R
.

iranuke wrote:

kbus888 wrote:=2014-01-16=
Hi Guys

?? Is there anyone here that would like a sequel to Apocalypse Troll ??

Just ask'n

R
.

Just answering, YES!

iranuke wrote:

kbus888 wrote:=2014-01-16=
Hi Guys

?? Is there anyone here that would like a sequel to Apocalypse Troll ??

Just ask'n

R
.

Just answering, YES!

runsforcelery wrote:

biochem wrote:I tend to prefer a sequel. With a prequel I already know how it is going to turn out, but with a sequel there are so many possibilities.

Actually, there are plans for both. Heck, there are plans for 2 sequels to In Fury Born, for that matter. Oh, and also at least 1 sequel and a couple of "in the midst of things" prequels for The Excalibur Option. Ummmm, and now that I think about it, there are the two Dahak sequels I have plotted out. . . .

The problem, of course, being that there is only one of me, I am mortal, and I am also a father with 3 children between the ages of 11 & 12m plus a wife who is going to have her 4th spinal surgery in 18 months on February 7th.

Oh, and I have a few other books I'm committed to write, too.

Currently working on Cauldron. I've also got about 12,000 words on the next Safehold (working title Hell's Foundations Quiver), which will undoubtedly be followed by the sequel to either Freedom from the Shadows or A Rising Thunder. We also have the next Honorverse companion in the works; Tim Zahn, Tom Pope, and I will be looking at the sequel to Call to Duty; and Joelle Presby and I are probably about 66% through with the third Multiverse book. Oh, and Baen and I are about to contract for a 5-volume fantasy series which will take the war between Norfressa and Kontovar to a conclusions.

Sides that, nothing much.

Henry Brown wrote:

iranuke wrote:You know, I've wondered why they never thought of using the same technique as Milla used on Dick. You take a terminally ill patient and give them a shot at immortality. Milla and Dick donate blood once every 6 weeks, one unit of blood is about 1/2 liter so every 6 weeks you have about 500 doses for the terminally ill. Within a fairly short time, you would have a fairly large population of Thuselas, enough to dose all terminally ill.

Lets play with the numbers. With a world population of 7 billion, that means that about 100 million die each year. Dosing say 50 million (got to account for accidents) with a 1 in 1000 success ratio would yield 50,000 Thuselas. Not a very rapid increase, but it would have plot possibilities.

And then Milla and Dick would get hit by a class action lawsuit from the families of the people the Thusela transfusion did not work on. Suddenly our cool, military oriented sci-fi novel transforms into a Grisham book.

Henry Brown wrote:
iranuke wrote:
You know, I've wondered why they never thought of using the same technique as Milla used on Dick. You take a terminally ill patient and give them a shot at immortality. Milla and Dick donate blood once every 6 weeks, one unit of blood is about 1/2 liter so every 6 weeks you have about 500 doses for the terminally ill. Within a fairly short time, you would have a fairly large population of Thuselas, enough to dose all terminally ill.

Lets play with the numbers. With a world population of 7 billion, that means that about 100 million die each year. Dosing say 50 million (got to account for accidents) with a 1 in 1000 success ratio would yield 50,000 Thuselas. Not a very rapid increase, but it would have plot possibilities.


And then Milla and Dick would get hit by a class action lawsuit from the families of the people the Thusela transfusion did not work on. Suddenly our cool, military oriented sci-fi novel transforms into a Grisham book.

I think there's another way. Leonovna's symbiote was...errrm...repeatedly exposed to samples of Aston's DNA over the course of several months. That has to have improved his chances.

So, you take your volunteer (probably with some terminal condition in the early days) and prepare a number of tissue cultures. Use something easy to obtain and grow, like epithelial cells from the mouth. Add one drop of Leonovna's blood to the first culture. It will probably self-destruct post haste. No matter. Take one drop of the result and add it to the second culture. Continue the process, putting one drop from the previous trial into the next culture. At each stage, the cells (or whatever) that are least poorly adapted to the new host should be the most numerous.

Eventually, the symbiote should adapt. When it stops destroying the cultures, introduce it to cells from the patient's muscles, liver, etc. and when it succeeds with everything, try it on the patient. This procedure should give somewhat better odds than 1:1,000.

biochem wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:

I think there's another way. Leonovna's symbiote was...errrm...repeatedly exposed to samples of Aston's DNA over the course of several months. That has to have improved his chances.

So, you take your volunteer (probably with some terminal condition in the early days) and prepare a number of tissue cultures. Use something easy to obtain and grow, like epithelial cells from the mouth. Add one drop of Leonovna's blood to the first culture. It will probably self-destruct post haste. No matter. Take one drop of the result and add it to the second culture. Continue the process, putting one drop from the previous trial into the next culture. At each stage, the cells (or whatever) that are least poorly adapted to the new host should be the most numerous.

Eventually, the symbiote should adapt. When it stops destroying the cultures, introduce it to cells from the patient's muscles, liver, etc. and when it succeeds with everything, try it on the patient. This procedure should give somewhat better odds than 1:1,000.

I would have thought that they would have tried that in Milla's timeline. Given the advantages of the symbiote, I would have expected them to have experimented in every possible way to increase it's efficacy.