Cybling Store
November 12 - 14, 1999
Hyatt Regency Woodfield, Schaumburg, IL
http://www.doodler.com/windycon/ 		Cybling Contents

Mike Moscoe
November 14, 1999
9:00 am CT


 Mike Moscoe

Get Mike Moscoe's Books


Mike Moscoe's latest book “The First Casualty,” is far future Science Fiction novel full of star ships and human struggle. Look for “The Price of Peace” coming in January. With "Lost Days," Mike completes the story he started in "First Dawn" and "Second Fire," but not Launa and Jack’s adventures 6,000 years ago.

Next year, Analog will be publishing Mike’s latest novelette, about a young girl’s first job, delivering pizza . . . on the moon.

Growing up Navy, Mike learned early about geography, change, and the chain of command. He's worked as a bartender and cab driver, Personnel Officer and Labor negotiator. Now that he’s retired from his last day job of building databases about the critters of the Northwest, both the endangered ones and the ones endangering them, he can concentrate on writing. Trained in International Relations, he's also studied history and salary administration, theology and counseling. In retirement, he’s looking forward to a serious study of human folly and glory.

He lives in Vancouver, Washington, with his wife Ellen. He enjoys reading, writing, watching grand-children for story ideas and upgrading his computer -- all are never ending.

The Windycon '99
Q&A


Cybling Good morning from Cybling....we're here with Mike Moscoe early on Sunday, the last day of WindyCon. Mike I have a few questions here that folks have left for you on your mini-message board...so why don't be begin. Mike, THE FIRST CASUALTY hit the bookshelves this January. Can you tell us a little about it?
Mike Moscoe First Casualty was the book I've been wanting to write since about the time I was ten. I always wanted to command a platoon of marines, a space cruiser, a whole army. Well, most people don't get to do that. Then, of course, I grew up, and discovered things were a bit different from when I was ten. So, my marines are tough, they're mean, they're highly trained - and the entire platoon hopes Mary can find someone to surrender to before the Lieutenant figures out what they're up to. You see, my marines aren't from central casting. Half are twenty something who never had a job with health benefits, the other half are forty something who worked hard to build up their seniority at the asteroid minds, only to get their downsizing notice and draft notice in the same envelope. Things have changed a lot since I was ten.
Cybling They certainly have! LOL! This sounds like it's going to be a great read, Mike, thanks! Mike, we have another question here. FIRST DAWN, SECOND FIRE, and LOST DAYS are listed at Amazon.com as part of the Lost Millennium Series. What is this series about, and will there be another book?
Mike Moscoe How do you win a war that was lost 6,000 years before you were born? That's what Launa O'Brian and Jack Walking Bear, two US Army Officers are trying to do. I picked up a book, The Chalice and the Blade that talked about the collision between the peaceful farmers of the Old European Culture and the Warrior Kurgan Horsemen. The farmers got trashed. Me being who I am, I got to wondering. What if those peaceful farmers had some military advisors? Of course, I also was skeptical enough to wonder if there was much basis for the Chalice and the Blade. I ended up with 6 bookshelves full of books on the old Europeans. I may not have them down the way you think they were, but I've created a wonderful bunch of folks that look a lot like the peaceful farmers I worked with in corporate American, under attack by the very Kurgans I kept running into on my jobs. In real life, the bastards always seemed to win. Well, Launa and Jack had their work cut out for them, but so do the bastards this time out. The Trilogy is done, done, Done! However, as anyone who's read the last book knows, while things are peaceful once more in the Danube River Basin, something really weird is going on in China. As any good, experience worker bee will tell you, you can't change just one thing. So, give me enough time, and you too can take a trip to China, 6,000 years ago with Launa Jack, and a guy from Baltimore. But that’s another trilogy.
Cybling I have to tell you there are quite a few chatters out here at CYBLING who will be delighted to discover a Trilogy that only contains 3 books. And we'll look forward to the next group. THE PRICE OF PEACE is due out in January of 2000. What can you tell us about this novel?
Mike Moscoe The Price of Peace is two things. One, it is a very little bit of a sequel to The First Casualty. That means that I'm using the same universe. I'm also borrowing two minor characters from Casualty, folks that were a lot of fun but didn't get nearly enough space to have that fun in. One is Commander Izzy Umbota. Izzy has always wanted to command a warship in space. She's wanted it in the worst way. And the Patton has got to be about the worst ship to command. The cover art shows her leaking gas at every seam. That's not battle damage folks -- she's just way over due for overhaul and the budget cutters -- this is peace remember -- don't think she’s bad off enough to spend the money on. Captain Trouble has never wanted to be anything but a marine, you met him briefly talking to Mary in Casualty. He's the one's who's proposal for marriage got interrupted when he found out she's brought entrenching gear with her. Now that peace is here, he's taken a downgrade to Lieutenant to stay a marines. But, there may be more trouble on the horizon for him than even he can handle. Ruth is a farmer’s daughter, and never wants to be more than a farmer’s wife. Well, her husband went off to the wars and didn't come back. He's not dead, he just didn't bother to come back. Throw these all together with a few pirates, drug runners and a fool who has more money than he deserves and not nearly as much power as he wants and you've got a rollicking good tale. One last thing, this story is dedicated to my mom, the farmer’s daughter who married the sailor and discovered what the Price of Peace was for herself and her family.
Cybling What can you tell us about the Novelette Analog is publishing next year?
Mike Moscoe This is a special story for me. My son and his wife announce a while back that my wife and I were going to be grandparents real soon. That got me thinking about the world my grandchild would grow up in. So I started on a story for her. Her dad's a Pharmacist these days, but his first job was delivering Pizza. So, I waited until Nikki Moscoe was born, put the final touches like name and sex on the story and sent if off. You see, I figure sixteen years from now, a girl’s first job will still probably be delivering pizza. But, if she's committed to it, she could be doing it on the moon! Course, the worst part of the job is that she'll probably have to do it from her bedroom in her folks house in Portland, Oregon. Yep, she's got the job of overseeing the dumb little robots in the Pizza Heaven on the moon as they cook and deliver food to the lucky few folks with real jobs on the moon, or rich kids going to space camp on the moon or wealthy couples honeymooning on the moon. But Nikki being Nikki, she'll still find a lot of fun even if only her heart is where she wants to be. I'd like to thank Mike Whelan for that wonderful picture of the little girl playing in “The Ultimate Sandbox” for the idea for this story, as well as my son Bob, his wife Yvonne, and Nikki, of course.
Cybling Mike this has been a lot of fun and I want to thank you from crawling out of bed on the "sleep in" day of the convention to come over and answer these questions for you. Hopefully we can get you to come out and join us again in the future!
Mike Moscoe It's been fun to be here. I’d love to.


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