V.W. Singer's Blog

Really happy to have my third book in the Vampire-Tech series finally out on Amazon!

Vampire-Tech: Outbreak



Vampires and Werewolves are real, but firmly based in (alien) science. In this third volume the battle between newly created vampire Tara Harker and her ally John Seward breaks firmly in the open when Master Werewolf Viktor Tiranul unleashes the ultimate stage of his plan for power.

Note: Written under a different pen name.

Bolo Rising by William H. Keith Jr.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Bolo series of novels, first created by Keith Laumer and subsequently written by several prominent SF authors, has long been one of my favourite SF worlds. This novel, Bolo Rising, is an excellent example of why I like them so much. On the surface, it is just another alien invasion story, easily dismissed as just another story of ray guns and daring heroes. But it goes much deeper than that, and I think represents very well the classic form of Science Fiction, based on interesting concepts, wide ranging plot, and human beings dealing with a very futuristic world.

Spoiler Alert! - While I won't be going over the entire book in detail, many important elements in it can't be discussed without a certain amount of "spoiling", so here's your chance to stop reading.



Still here? Great. Let's go.


First, most central and almost unique to the Bolo series is the treatment and depiction of Artificial Intelligence. It seems that almost every new SF story or film featuring AI is the tired old trope of machines gaining self awareness and immediately turning on their human creators. Even Asimov's classic Caves of Steel deals with how AI can go wrong or move in unexpected directions, not always beneficial to humans. But not so the Bolos. Originally the result of attempts by military researchers to create robotic tanks, something that the major powers are already working on today, they succeeded, but in an unexpected way. In programming their AI powered tank with as much military tactics and history as possible, they unwittingly created an AI that had also absorbed all the best of the military ethos. The desire to protect the helpless, a limitless need to defend and serve their creators, and the willingness to suffer destruction in the performance of their duties. In other words, they had created artificial warriors who embodied the concept of Honour. For those interested in reading about the birth of the Bolo, I suggest the short story "Honor Of The Regiment". Bolos were never treated as perfect in the books and stories, and could go rogue if severely damaged, or left unmaintained for long (very long) periods, just like any machine, or human being, for that matter. For that reason, each Bolo was partnered with a human commander. I say partnered and not "operated" because the human/Bolo team was truly that. A team that fights and often dies together, because Bolos are not indestructible or invulnerable.

The next feature of the book are the alien invaders. Like Battlestar Galactica (the original series) the invaders are a machine based civilisation. But these invaders are truly alien. They have no concept of biological life, or have somehow forgotten it in the distant past. As you would expect with a machine culture, they prize integration and utility. As such, the biological machines that are the humans are a puzzle to them. Logically, every independently operating system must have a purpose, a use, and after invading the human colonised planet, they set about investigating these strange biological machines to determine their intended use, with truly horrific results, as might easily be imagined. In the mean time, the surviving humans are put to work scavenging the destroyed cities and countryside for scraps of usable materials and technology. The true horror of the situation is that the machine based aliens are not evil or even hostile. They simply are unable to understand things like emotion, exhaustion, fear, pain, or death.

On the human side of the story, at the start it is a tale of raw survival under the most savage and terrible slavery imaginable. The most callous and ruthless human slave owner understands the basic needs and weaknesses of their slaves and take these into account, if only to preserve valuable assets. But not so with the invaders, who are not deliberately cruel, but simply uncomprehending. Many of the survivors choose suicide or simply give up and die.

Even worse, their most powerful and reliable defender, the Mark XXXEH Bolo named Hector, has been suborned, "hacked" and made to serve the alien's purposes by implanting the equivalent of a trojan or virus into the Bolo's systems. Hector's unfamiliar AI and operating systems have not been destroyed, but instead are constantly "reset" whenever the Bolo attempts self diagnosis and repair, and is given false data and instructions. Ironically, since the aliens have yet to totally take control of Hector, it is set up as a watchdog over the captive humans, destroying any who try to escape or approach too close to the massive war machine. Unsurprisingly, many of the captives use the Bolo as a convenient and relatively painless method of suicide.

Once such person is Major Jaime Graham, a Bolo commander. Driven to despair, he decided to end his suffering by approaching the Bolo and crossing the fatal boundary. But almost by accident he discovers that Hector still responds to some very basic voice commands unrelated to combat operations. Since the alien slave overseers and biological salvage units don't approach Hector either, the Bolo becomes Major Graham's safe space, a place to rest and temporarily hide from the ceaseless demands to work.

And this is where the plot begins. If Major Graham can somehow enter and repair the Bolo's AI, he can stage a revolt that might free the humans or at least deal truly significant damage to the invaders before he and Hector are destroyed. Thus begins a guerilla war featuring a single fighter the size of a multi storey building, and those few humans (male and female) who still retain the spirit to fight.

The book is an anthem to the human spirit and to the hope of Artificial Intelligences that may someday be our partners and even our friends, and their fight against the very opposite of the Bolo, the "evil" and hostile machine intelligence that so many predict is in our future. This is SF in the classic style, not a disguised soap opera or a thinly veiled vehicle to promote a political or social agenda.



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Pink and Scarlet by V.W. Singer




NOTE: Author's Comments - Not A Review.

While writing novels is great, sometimes there are ideas and situations that don't warrant a full scale novel, but are nonetheless compelling scenes. Often it is a single scene, a particular bit of BDSM play and so on. An over time I have written numerous short stories, just to satisfy my own urge to see these ideas in "print".

This book is a compilation of some of these stories, covering deep submission, the desires of people who live beyond the bounds of everyday life, to knife play.

These stories are not FSOG material, and not a single billionaire is to be seen. They are not Romance with a capital "R", but some might be seen as romantic.

Come and take a peek into the dark side :)



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I'm proud to announce the release of my latest work of SM Erotica, Phantom Pain.



































Like the classic haunted house story? Well imagine what happens when the ghosts are not only frightening, but filled with sadistically erotic desire. Throw in a team of parapsychologists, a lawyer, and an entire reality TV crew, and you have a ghost story unlike anything that you've ever seen before.

At the moment it is only available at A1Adultbooks:

http://www.a1adultebooks.com/ebooks/b...

But is should be coming to Amazon and other outlets soon.

My novel "Taker" is set in the Regency Period of England, and as such required a great deal of historical detail, and while there are a lot of Romance novels set in that era, very little SM erotica can say the same.

For instance, Covent Garden was filled with entertainment spots and brothels of every description, and looked nothing like it does today.

















Here is a period depiction of a brothel. Note the birch rods on the wall. BDSM is not new.




The poorer areas, such as the infamous Whitechapel could be grim.


















While the haunts of the upper middle classes were much nicer. Shopping was popular at that time too.





















On the other hand, life was not as prim and filled with prudery as we imagine. Without modern conveniences, people often had to make do.



Entertainment could be dignified or as rowdy as you wanted.











































And politics was not always gentlemanly.


























Prostitution was open and easily accessible. There was even a published guide to the girls, with reviews!

https://suite.io/rupert-taylor/2gvg238

There were BDSM brothels too!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa...

You have to know how to get undressed!

http://historicalhussies.blogspot.com...

And you have to know about the Thief Takers themselves.

https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.co...

Much of the research was done on an interesting site "Suite 101.com" which no longer exists except on the "Wayback Machine". Its replacement is nothing like the original and has lost its academic focus. I still have copies of the site pages in my research directory, covering subjects such as "The Sex Trade in Georgian England" and "The Reticule - A Regency Handbag".

I hope this has been an interesting dip into the workings that go on behind a novel, even an "erotic" one such as "Taker".

I just completed another interview on Wayne Turmel's Historical Fiction blog, featuring my novel "Port Royal". Anyone interested can find it here:

http://wayneturmel.com/2015/08/can-hi...

Awesomegang.com recently posted an author's interview with me and I thought I'd put a link here for anyone interested :)

Find out all the things you didn't want to know about me -

http://awesomegang.com/v-w-singer/

I thought it might be of interest to some readers to get a little peek into some of the research that went into "Port Royal", so I decided I'd post some of the pictures I used with a little explanation for each one.

For a start, this is a map of Port Royal, "the most sinful city in the world" at its peak:

And here is a reconstruction of some of the shop houses near the dockside.

The end of Port Royal came not from invasion or the Royal Navy, but from a huge earthquake that sent half the city to the bottom of the sea:

Here is a map of the sea routes used to travel from Europe to the Spanish Main:



























Next, we have some details of the clothing that the people wore. This is a period illustration of an English gentleman's attire in 1663:


































A lady's dress from the same period:

































A less formal summer dress:

































Since "Port Royal" is an erotic book, it was necessary to see how the English people of that time and in a place such as a pirate's den did it, so I located a rare copy of a 17th century sex manual. Yes, they actually had them. The illustrations are X-rated, so I'll only show you the cover:



































What is a pirate tale without ships. Here is a diagram of the rigging of a large warship.










































Some detail of its guns:































And finally, a very rare photograph of white slaves (indentured servants) in Barbados.



















I hope this has been an enjoyable taste of the kind of research that goes into a book like Port Royal.

Buccaneer by Dudley Pope

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Neither the Golden Age of Piracy nor the pirates themselves sprang fully formed from dragon's teeth. It (and they) came about by a very singular and unlikely set of circumstances.

First, it required the base material, the people. These were supplied by the rise of Cromwell in England and the death of the King. Cavalier supporters were exiled or fled to the Caribbean to escape the new regime. Most were not sailors or adventurers but minor nobility and landowners. Added to these were the sweepings of the streets and inmates of prisons in England and unfortunate Irish, all of whom were kidnapped and sent to the Caribbean as "indentured servants", slaves in all but name.

Next was a suitable location, a base in hostile Spanish territory where the pirates could find safe harbour, supplies, crew, and businessmen to buy their plunder. This came about by the a doomed expedition sent by Cromwell to exert English power in the Spanish Main in the form a fleet led by Penn and Venables. The expedition was a miserable failure, many of the soldiers and sailors dying from disease and hunger rather than Spanish weapons. The best the survivors could do was to capture the Island of Jamaica, which was largely unoccupied but which boasted the finest harbour in the region. The English founded a settlement there, a settlement that would come to be named Port Royal, the most sinful city in the entire world.

In this novel, Ned Yorke, an exiled member of a Cavalier family, has his estate in Barbados stolen from him, leaving him with only a merchant vessel, and a crew of ex-servants and his lover, the wife of the Roundhead supporter who stole his estate. He is not a hardened adventurer or even any kind of a sailor, just as could be expected from someone who was basically a plantation owner.

And yet during the course of the novel we see our hero moulded by circumstances beyond his control into first a pirate, a buccaneer, and then a privateer, a pirate with a license. He commences his career at the very time when the seeds of Port Royal and the Golden Age of Piracy are first planted. Although he would prefer to find a new plot of land to restart his plantation, this is not to be, and slowly and painfully he realises that his only option is piracy and he sets about learning the necessary skills while at the same time keeping his followers alive and fed and dealing with the hostile Roundhead Governor of Jamaica.

This is not the novel for someone looking for another "Pirates of the Caribbean" or the ordered and structured adventures of an officer in the Royal Navy. Instead it is a view of the life at sea and of a band of ordinary men and women forced to adopt piracy as a way of life. The language, history, and the lifestyle of the period are well and accurately portrayed, and the characters feel very real and human, with all their strengths, frailties, and lusts. Even the women are well portrayed, being neither helpless playthings or pure and haughty ladies, but real and very hardy people, suited to a very harsh and dangerous time.

I give the book five stars and I intend to read the rest of the series. I recommend you give it a fair try too.



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The sequel to the novel Vampire-Tech, written under the pen name of Bryan Romer, is now available on Amazon, as well as the Fiction4All website.

What if vampirism and lycanthropy are not some kind of curse at all, but the result of the inadvertent application of alien technology that was meant to help not harm?

How would people infected in this way deal with this world shaking change to their lives?

And how would governments and businesses respond?

Test pilot Tara Harker must deal with all of the above, plus the added complication that the only man in the world who understands her new condition is the person the world knows as Dracula. Can she trust him? Is he even human any more, and if not, what does that say about her prospects?