Skip to main content

Rescue Brokers, Bounty Hunters, Smugglers, and Mercenaries: Gusto for Hire


Some of the most colorful characters in science fiction and fantasy are those whose primary interest is--or seems to be--collecting the money due them. Whether it turns out the hired hand in fact has a hidden heart of gold like Han Solo, or is nothing but surly voice in scarred armor like Boba Fett, characters who enter the plot with apparent or real disdain in the outcome of the story allows them to casually wisecrack when more engaged characters like Luke Skywalker are committed to being sincere, which at times makes them a bit boring.

I must say I'm an earnest kind of guy myself, which is probably why I usually write sincere characters who deeply care. About everything.

So when my friend Mike Lynch invited me to write a story about his "Rescue Broker," a category of character he created himself, I didn't know what to think. A rescue broker is someone who will do pretty much anything a bounty hunter, smuggler, or mercenary would do, but as specifically hired on contract to come to an individual person's or even an entire civilization's rescue.

Mike's rescue broker par excellence is his single-name character Stelfson, featured in Mike's story, "No Revolution is Too Big." (It turns out Stelfson has that on a business card.) Stelfson doesn't like to waste time or put up with silly questions. He's a bit surly, at times dryly funny, and always keeps focused on the business at hand--which ultimately, is business.

Mike's tale has been launched as a separate short story that will eventually be in an anthology of the same name (the picture of the already-designed cover is at the top of this blog post). A number of other authors have contributed short stories about Stelfson and his adventures in the galaxy, including me. My own contribution to the Stelfson saga is called: No Revolution Too Small and it definitely paints Stelfson in the "hidden heart of gold" category. It will the the fourth story released (one is coming out once per week for the next ten weeks--as of 17 OCT 2013) in the group and will eventually be in the anthology when it comes out.

But as a story concept, a rescue broker is in no way limited to Stelfson. There could be as many flavors of "rescue broker" as there are flavors of other types of characters for hire. Check out Mike's story on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Kobo and feel free to come up with your own version of the idea...

ttp

(For my own 99 cent story in this series, please follow this No Revolution Too Small Kindle link.)

Comments

  1. Mike LynchOctober 19, 2013 at 4:41 PM

    Very nice review, Travis. It had me intrigued, and I'm involved with the series.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Captain TravisOctober 19, 2013 at 6:37 PM

    Thanks, Mike. I really do think the idea of a "rescue broker" is an interesting one. It's part of what makes your story and this series appealing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 Ways to Deal with the Problem Magic Poses Christian Fantasy Writers

First off, what is the problem with magic for Christians? Or sorcery? Or witchcraft? (Are all of those things even the same?) An entire book could be written on this topic (perhaps I'll do that someday) but to keep this as brief as possible, the short reason this is a problem is the Bible has nothing good to say about the practice of magic (neither does extra-Biblical Christian tradition). No translation of Scripture will record the 12 Disciples watching Jesus walk on the water and say, "Wow, that was magical!" Nor is the mana falling from heaven in Israel's wilderness wanderings described as some kind of powerful spell that Moses used, nor even is his rod described as "magic," even though Moses had the power granted to him by God to turn it into a serpent at whatever time he chose. No, the Bible describes events like these as "miracles," or "signs," or "wonders." On the other hand, when the Bible talks about "mag...
17 comments
Read more

Speculative Fiction Writer’s Guide to War, part 19: War Costs: Soldiers’ Pay

The Travis’ are back with another installment of our series on Warfare. We’ve been analyzing a writer’s perspective on calculating the cost of war, developing some tools and thumbrules you might start with when calculating the cost of war in your story, and seeing how this mundane task can yield helpful ideas for your writing. At the very least, your effort to make your warfare come across as thoughtful and realistic (by your story world’s gauge of consistency) will be appreciated by the discerning uber-fans your serving.  Travis C here. Last time we left off with a detailed approach to calculating how much food both human and non-human fighters might consume and began a illustration using those calculations to gauge the financial impact of war in a fictional world. Our purpose wasn’t to delve into all possible fine details, but to give you an example where doing a bit of math can provide some values for you to work from. This week we’re going to dive into another significant expen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Speculative Fiction Writers Guide to War, part 18: War Costs Exercise–Food for the Army

Travis P. here. I'm continuing re-posting this old series with the intent of eventually finishing the entire thing. This week's post is based on my previous  post on how much food a combatant needs .  This week runs through the numbers as a practical exercise, giving you an example of how, if you ever chose to do so, to calculate what an army needs. My fellow Travis is lead the way for this post: Travis C here. As you saw last post, this topic is huge, and rather than try and combine informational content with illustration, we’re going to split things up for a bit.  Travis P introduced us to food supplies over the ages.  He covered a spectrum of periods and practices from ancient days till modern times and speculated upon futuristic scenarios in sciences fiction and fantasy environments. This week, I want to build an example calculation using data that he provided along with some other resources.  I’ll keep the story going as we discuss varying forms of supply a...
Post a Comment
Read more