What universe would I play in?
AMA #7
The Scuttlebutt (Author and Raconteur Press publisher Ian MacMurtrie—who I swear used to write westerns) asked:
If I could play in any current series, what would I choose?
Um … The one with the best sales?
I don’t know. At one point I considered Monster Hunter International. Just a book in the New York City chapter. I would have had fun with that. You know
Everyone in the NYC chapter drove into Long Island or took the Long Island Rail Road. No one took the subways. That’s where the giant rats the size of buses lived.
Things like that.
I even had a random idea for a short story of “There are no alligators in the sewers because Sobek ate them,” only Sobek looked like a Gorn, and the chase ended at Big Alice (power station, Astoria). The solution was to plug the monster into the power grid and light it up like Gojira. It resulted in the the 1977 blackout…
Then Ringo wrote Monster Hunter Memoirs, where Sobek looked like a Caiman.1
I brought it up with Larry Correia once. He was busy. Since then, four other random people are playing in the universe now.
Another series I considered: When Ringo posted on X that “All series without an ending will have to stay that way, unless I can get a coauthor to wrap them up,” I immediately asked how to volunteer for his Special Circumstances novels.
After 12 books of Saint Tommy, I think I can handle it.
That’s a bit in limbo right now. I’d been going back and forth on it with … people…
My last exchange with said people was last June … before LibertyCon …
IE: Right before I went into the hospital.
I got out of the hospital, recovered, and went almost immediately into marketing On Tiber’s Edge.
After that I started writing the sequel.
At least I think that was the exact sequence of events. I may have started on the outline for Beside Still Waters before On Tiber’s Edge even released. If that’s correct, that means I was working on the sequel before I even finished my recovery.
It’s funny, looking back on it, the hospital stay really screwed up my schedule, didn’t it? For a “near death experience” so undramatic,2 it really did screw up a few things.
Anyway, with Special Circumstances, I sent an email in as I wrote this post. I haven’t heard anything back yet, but it’s early days. And I don’t know anyone’s convention schedule, so who knows?
But to honestly answer the question… I’d work in anyone’s world who wanted. I’m not particularly picky.
Would I like to do Ringo’s Special Circumstances? Sure. Though I wonder how much would look like James Patterson’s NYPD Red series…
Now I have to explain that, don’t I?
Okay, Marshall Karp is a Hollywierdo who wrote a book series lampooning Hollywood. The first book was The Rabbit Factory. It took an awful lot of shots at a theme park in Anaheim that was, really-honestly-truly-NOT-Disney-don’t-sue-me, and the first murder victim worse a character costume of a Rabbit, not a mouse, so it was not Mickey. Honest.
I found two of Karp’s books in his series. One of the novels (don’t ask me which, this was decades ago) featured a serial killer, who was following his own script on Hollywood producers who rejected it.
The next time I find Marshall Karp, he’s working on a book series with Patterson called NYPD Red, that also deals with Hollyweirdoes.3
The first book features — wait for it — a serial killer who has scripted out the murders. It felt very much like a retread of his own novel. Karp moved it to New York, changed the leads, and … not much else, really.
Anyway, I bring this up because that could—very technically — be an option with Saint Tommy and Special Circumstances. Don’t mistake me, I have thoughts for at least two original novels worth of Special Circumstances. Personally, I think just swapping characters would be cheating.
But…
Ringo has over seven million copies of his books in print. If I had 1% of his readership, I’d close all my social media down and retire from the internet. You, the person reading this now, clearly reads me and my books. If you read a Special Circumstances novel that took from Saint Tommy NYPD, you’d noticed. But unless there’s a lot of pirated novels out there, a sizeable margin of Ringo’s readership have clearly not read anything by me.
So, technically, I could take my twelve Saint Tommy Novels and rewrite them as four Special Circumstances novels. They would be very different novels by the time they were done. Ringo’s lead is different. Large parts of developing / discovering powers would be excised. Tommy’s supporting cast isn’t Barb’s. Etc, etc.
Why four novels? The Saint Tommy novels are half the size of the standard Ringo, and I ended up with trilogies each time, whether I planned it or not. And cutting them down to run continuously would shrink them further. I could technically take Ringo’s Barb, drop her into similar situations, and run them from there. Figure each book would translate down into, maybe, 50,000 words? And each trilogy would make a 150,000 word John Ringo novel.
Granted, if we did that, I’d probably have to pull the Saint Tommy novels from the Baen website. Yes. Baen sells my books. They’re just a vendor. They do not publish my books. Forgive me for stressing that, some people have been confused. I figure if we turned Saint Tommy into Special Circumstances, having those just lying around would look awkward. I’d be amused if they didn’t.
What would I do with Special Circumstances in original stories? I’d have the bad guys be smarter, for one. Thus far, the Special Circumstances villains all want to engage with Ringo’s heroine immediately.
At least one of Ringo’s short stories could have turned into a full novel if he changed two elements, one of which is “have the villains scatter.”
It would have looked like a Mitch Rapp novel as Urban Fantasy, but still…
And frankly, his second novel changed the world so much that I don’t see how it couldn’t reshape the planet.
And I’d have more detective work…
Yes, detective work.
Don’t look at me like that. I think Die Hard has a mystery in it, but like Mike Hammer novels, we’re all too busy getting shot at to pay attention to said mystery.4
No, I have not read Ringo’s new chapters on his paid Substack. I don’t even have time for the free Substacks I’m subscribed to. You don’t want to see my email backlog. Oy!
So yeah, I’ve had thoughts here and there.
One of my ideas for a Special Circumstances novel is a concept I’m holding back on.
Originally, I was going to make another Saint Tommy novel with “the kids,” Jeremy and Lena. But life has gotten in the way of that one. And frankly, if it’s possible to become a co-author of a Baen novel, I’d rather write use the original idea to write that one. Not that I don’t want to play more in my own universe, but because I want to make something like money.
As for any other series I’d want to play in … nothing comes to mind.
I mean, White Ops is if I did Babylon 5 by way of Baen.
Love at First Bite and Honeymoon from Hell was if I did vampires, and it started as a Buffy fan fiction long, long ago.
If you follow my stories in the Fantastic Schools anthologies with L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright, I’m basically doing “Harry Potter university,” and I’m sort of making that my own novel, with each short story being a chapter.
I wouldn’t really want to do Star Wars unless Timothy Zahn was in control of Star Wars.
I could see myself doing Marvel comics, but only if they let me fix Marvel. The plot is called “One Final Day,” where Mephisto has been responsible for screwing up all of the Marvel universe since Civil War, and using One More Day to rewrite reality and screw up everyone.
I have an idea for a Punisher story, where my thought is put Frank Castle in a situation where he has to save people from a shootout—I was thinking a Texas divorcee, with children. Make Castle suspicious of her. Make him do detective work. For extra change of scenery and comedy, make her live across the street from Aunt May in Queens.
Follow that with a plot where Castle kills The Wrong Person (like a member of The Hand), and we put a $50 million bounty on him, so Castle gets to play with every villain in the Marvel universe except for Doctor Doom (like he needs money. Ha!). I figure it ends with Deadpool trying to kill Castle, until Frank talks Deadpool into faking Castle’s death, taking the money, and letting the Hand after Wade—it would be much more fun for Deadpool that way, he kills more people. (The real finale comes when the Hand sends ninjas after Castle directly. At that point, the Marvel heroes come in to break it up, because enough is enough.) Castle then works for SHIELD for a bit.
Keep in mind, what I’ve read and see of The Punisher is so old, what I read was written by Frank Miller. So if all of these plots have happened already, then I got nothing. And Mike Baron apparently follows me now? So I’m sure if I just reinvented the wheel, I’m going to hear about it.
I don’t have many ideas for DC Comics. I have a general idea of
“Superman is allergic to magic. First, Lex Luthor hires one of Constantine’s villains to curse Superman from another continent. Then, we invite every magic user to kill Superman.”
I figure that would run a few issues. Maybe a year?
Also, I’d want to do more with Bane. He might be the most underutilized, misused character in all of Batman lore. But Chuck Dixon would have to have first dibs. And then I’d have Chuck Dixon read any comic script I produce.
That’s all I have immediate ideas for.
However, I do follow the advice of the late Peter David.
When somebody asks you if you want to write in their series, you say YES.
I think I’ve be
Again, feel free to ask me anything in the comments. If you get an email, you can ping me through the comment button at the top.
And please, feel free to buy a book, or leave a book review. Either would be greatly appreciated.
Caiman: BIG freaking crocodile. I remember reading a novel that described them getting up to 80 feet long. Wiki says they max out at 33 feet. Not sure which I believe, Wikipedia or Fiction.
Yes, yes. I technically nearly died. But I didn’t, so it doesn’t count. I was just really tired. And If I fell asleep, I wouldn’t have woken up. Very undramatic.
If you must read a Patterson, NYPD Red made it about eight books, I think.
See: “Where are my detonators?”