• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Science Fiction Books by John L. Lynch

  • New Persia News
  • Endemic News
  • Newsletter
  • About the Author

Archives for March 2019

New Persia: The Tempest is on Wattpad

Read New Persia:The Tempest on Wattpad.

Keep up with the ongoing project of bringing The Tempest to life. Offer suggestions and feedback.

I haven’t posted everything, yet, but there’s some pivotal scenes. Don’t read if you don’t want spoilers!

Some Analogs from the Real World

Suri Pahlavi drives a car like one of these.
The Qaher, AKA the Hawker Hunter

Why use historical cars, planes, and tanks in a science fiction setting when I could create whatever I want? I feel a setting needs to be internally consistent, and should have what Tom Clancy called verisimilitude. If you get the details right, the story is believable. When I use a real plane as a template it is much easier to get the details of its capabilities correct- how fast it is, what maneuvers it can make, how the ejection seat works. The pilot character Farad Hashemi knows this stuff, and I should, too.

Suri’s car is more whimsical. Traditionally, an aspiring young woman like her, given her country origins, would be interested in riding horses. I decided to be more modern and gave her a passion for fast cars. It’s far more practical, and Suri is both a forward thinker and an adventurous soul.

What the heck is a Mbwa?

Readers of the forthcoming second book of the New Persia series will encounter a whole new set of foreign names. Names belonging to people are almost all either of Persian or Swahili origin. Names of military equipment follow the same pattern.

For instance, the Azanian light tank called the Mbwa is named for the animal called “Cheetah” in English. This makes sense because it’s a fast tank. In the setting, many animals from Old Earth have become legendary because they either didn’t make it across the gulf of stars or died out after the planet was colonized. Their names live on, much as the names of dinosaurs do on our own world.

The Mbwa light tank is modeled after the 1950s era AMX-13 light tank made in France. The tank looks like something from science fiction. I was attracted to the unconventional design, which includes an oscillating turret. It has a three-man crew and a 75mm autoloading gun. Instead of the gun elevating inside the turret, the entire turret moves up and down. Like many 1950s innovations, this one didn’t catch on. An oscillating turret cannot be sealed against chemical weapons or radioactive fallout, which in our world were possible hazards of post-WW2 warfare. So far, neither the New Persians or Azanians have discovered the secrets of the atom and both have agreed to ban the use of chemical weapons in war.

The Mbwa is light on armor, and its gun is too weak to penetrate the frontal armor of the standard Persian tank, the Karar. Will the Mbwa‘s mobility and fast-firing cannon compensate for its shortcomings? We’ll see.

AMX-13-.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX-13

The submarine “Yunes” plays a part in the story. The boat is named for the dolphin, the marine mammal (not the fish.) The name is Persian.

For “The Tempest’s” storyline I needed an appropriate submarine from the same post-WW2 era as the rest of the military hardware found in the rest of the series. I wanted the submarine to be something special. Generally the New Persians are inferior in technological progress compared to the Azanians, but occasionally they are the leaders in innovation. The Yunes is a shining example of New Persian technology, a design years ahead of anything the Azanians have on or under the ocean. The submarine is almost twice as fast as older designs, owing to its rounded, cigar-shaped hull. It has a larger battery capacity and a snorkel, allowing it to stay submerged except for daily trips to periscope depth to charge batteries. It’s the peak of diesel-electric submarine design, and because of the lack of nuclear power in the world of New Persia, it is unlikely anything better will come along for a while.

How could I justify an anachronistic submarine after closely following real-world developments from the 1950s so closely? It turns out I did.

USS Blueback (SS-581) underway c1960s.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blueback_(SS-581)

The US Navy’s Barbel class was the peak of diesel-electric submarine development in the 1950s. Built between 1956 and 1959, they barely fit in my timeline for New Persia. With its radical streamlining and teardrop hull, pioneered on the research submarine Albacore, the Barbel class would have been the dominant sub class in the USN had not the even more radical technology of shipboard nuclear reactors made them obsolete as soon as they were built. The contemporary Soviet Foxtrot class submarine could not have competed with the Barbel in speed, sensors, or stealth.

In the world of New Persia, the Persians have an advantage at sea. Will it matter? We shall see.


Primary Sidebar

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Recent Posts

  • The Fire on the Bonefish
  • More prosecraft.io results
  • Prosecraft.io analyzed “The Tempest.”
  • The Byzantine-Persian War that Changed the World
  • My books are available in paperback.

John L Lynch

Contact Me

  • Email
  • Facebook

Join the newsletter!

Sign up to get my newsletter! I review books written by other authors, give sneak peeks to my current writing project, do fun contests and more!

Archives

  • October 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018

Secondary Sidebar

new persia review

New Persia: Before the Storm

The Tempest: New Persia Book Two

Endemic Review

Endemic

Listen to the Acoustic Pedestrian Podcast with me in it.

http://wp.jimdorman.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/New%20Persia.mp3
Learn how to read my books for free with Kindle Unlimited

Footer

Copyright © 2023 John L Lynch

Powered By Weles Studios

Copyright © 2023 · eleven40 Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in