Getting to Know Your Unexpected Ramifications Staff

John Calvary

This section is going to be a place for us to get to know the people who are on the Unexpected Ramifications Staff. It will be an establishing spot to see who these people are and what their interests are. It will run until we run out of people to talk about.

If you would like to be part of the UR staff contact us by e-mailing us or on the forums or on our comments page. All our contact information is at the bottom of every page and every article. So make sure you send in an application so we can get you in here as part of the staff.

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Don't forget to e-mail us at Unexpected.Ramifications@gmail.com, and post on our forums.

The Imonoran Empire Cast

By John Sanders

The Imonoran Empire Cast is back for its second season. With Season 2 here we will be listening to Forced War up until the end of the season. After taking the end of March and all of April off so he could do well in school RB will be back with a vengeance. The summer season is upon us and RB is getting prepared to take out all the stops and unleash his podcast on us.

You will have to just wait and see as may opens us up for business. According to its creator the IEC will be back in full swing. Come May 1st.

So get ready and in the words of RB Welcome Back to the Imonoran Empire.

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Don’t forget to e-mail us at Unexpected.Ramifications@gmail.com, and post on our forums.

F.S.O.

Edward Smith

Federation Space Online is coming back. With the down time in 2009 RB's Universe seemed all but abandoned! Now it is on the rise. Federation Space Online 3 is planned to be finished and ready for play Christmas 2010. With source material from F.S.O., F.S.O. 2 and F.S.O. 2.5. These MMORPs are retired now but the new F.S.O. 3 will be better than ever. With the new ideas that RB and the RB's Universe's F.S.O. Crew are putting into the game hopefully you can get into it like you got into F.S.O. or an of the sequels.

Also the Compound 2 is slated to come out January 2011. A separate group of people is working on this game from F.S.O. 3 so it will be coming out soon.

That is all the updates we have received on the F.S.O. we hope you enjoy them when the release.

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Don't forget to e-mail us at Unexpected.Ramifications@gmail.com, and post on our forums.

Lost Falchion and Forced War Publishing

By Sarah Macy

Well as we all know Lost Falchion will be published for a whole year this June. But of course RB can’t stop there. This first run according to the Author was a limited edition run which will close on June 12th, 2010. The one year anniversary of the book coming to print. Then in October the First Edition will be coming out with a shiny ISBN from Lulu press. It will now be listed on Amazon.com as well as the Lulu site. So if you want a limited edition copy of Lost Falchion you have a little over a month to get it. If you want to just wait for the first edition keep your eyes pealed because “The date may change depending on the my schedule,” RB
says.

Forced War is also coming out this fall. Anywhere from late October to early December you can look forward to seeing Forced War on the Lulu.com website. This book will not be receiving an ISBN because “This is the book that I will try to sell to larger presses,” RB says. He says that the length of this book lends better to being sold than the length of Lost Falchion does hence the reason why he got an ISBN from Lulu Press.

The idea that Forced War could be published by a large press or even a small press is an amazing idea! I know that RB does not have an agent yet but I feel as though he doesn’t need one if we start sending letter to presses like Random House and others, even small presses like St. Martin’s Griffin, or Dragon Moon Press. We could get Forced War published by summer 2011. It’s worth a shot.

But keep an eye out for Lost Falchion and Forced War coming out this fall!

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Don’t forget to e-mail us at Unexpected.Ramifications@gmail.com, and post on our forums.

Forced War

By Ron Jacobs

Well now Forced War is finished! I can give you a review of the entire novel.

As I said before when I reviewed the first half of Forced War “I feel it is a good story.” My thoughts haven’t changed! I am still completely and thoroughly blasted away by the novel. Getting the second half of the novel was very gratifying. I fell as though I have been put in a place of honor by RB. I am the first, along with Blie of the Believable Blie Blog, to read this novel. There have been very few who have been offered the place of having words on the cover of the book.

As to the story I fee that RB did a superb job writing this novel. The amount of detail RB puts into his world is just awe inspiring. I love what RB’ does with his story. He shows you a person who was completely into what they had been forced into that they forgot for a moment that they were forced. Then we see the growth of this character to allow them to function again in polite society.

I am grateful to RB for this story and I feel that if you like science-fiction this story is a must read. Pick it up! Read it. It will be out in November of this year!

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Don’t forget to e-mail us at Unexpected.Ramifications@gmail.com, and post on our forums.

Welcome Back to Unexpected Ramifications

By Ralph Davis

Well I know that this is the third article of this nature I have had to write. But I feel that this will be the last.

UR is BACK. We had to take a short break while RB worked on many things. Just like the IEC which had to take a break while RB was hard at work on Forced War. We took a break since there was no RB’s Universe News. Now that there is we are back in full swing!

You can expect a more Issue formatted set up. Just like there was on our PBWiki version. Now we a moving from Blogger to wordpress because of the freedom that it gives us. We hope that you enjoy read about the new things that RB’s Universe is doing and hope that you enjoy the set up and personalities of our writers.

Also we would like to welcome the newest member of the UR Staff. Ray B. May IV. Yes that’s right RB has now joined us on the staff. He will be writing an editorial/Column for every months issue. They will range on a topics from Publishing (this months) to recording (hopefully a future issue).

With that I am done. Thanks for coming back.

–Ralph Davis

Publishing Game

By Ray B. May IV

The idea of writing about writing seems backward. My point of writing this is to explain what sort of process goes on during the writing rather than just writing. I wish to explain things to you like editing, agenting, professional editing, and, finally, publishing. There are several topics that are meant to follow the first steps of getting published. The names I have these steps aren’t quite the right names for explaining what foes into that particular step.

I am, of course, going to start with step one: Editing. This step comes after the actual act of writing. To differentiate between the act of writing and these steps we will call these steps the Steps of Authorship. Authorship is the acts of tending the manuscript after the initial act of writing has been finished. Now the initial form of editing takes place after you print the manuscript out from your computer. You grab the red pen and start reading through. Don’t read the story! Read the sentences. Figure out what the sentence is saying and edit accordingly.

In this you are working to make the manuscript readable, not editing content or story. You are only making the obvious mistakes. The best form of editing is to give it to a friend and have them read it with a red pen. They will catch more mistakes than you will. This is the best “Free” way to get your book edited. After your manuscript is readable it is now ready to put in front of peoples’ noses.

This moves us on to point number 2: Agenting. Agenting is the best way to get your book in the hands of major publishers. The average (an agent that deals with, through normal means, an “everyday” author) agent won’t charge for the process of showing the novel to different publishers. What they receive in payment is from the contracts that they negotiate with the publisher. They also only negotiate with a major press; not a minor press or “subsidiary” press. An agent will also help with the initial editing process a little. Meaning most agents would like to receive a fully edited manuscript but will help with small changes.

Now once we have a contract negotiated and the manuscript is “sold.” We now get into the Publishing Process. Once the publisher takes it we now have the responsibility to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite the manuscript. As the Editor takes the manuscript and makes edits to the story and grammar and flow etc. The idea being that the book will come out with as few errors as possible and read as easy as possible. Your Editor will correspond and make you make changes to your manuscript. I know you don’t want to, we all have the perfect story and the best way to tell it. But, that is a huge but, there are changes that can and need to be made to help people understand the story better. It is better to make the changes and read through to find out if the story is better that way or not. If not then contact your Editor promptly and talk clearly and calmly about why you think it does not need to be changed. Once the editing is done it goes to proof print and critic review.

Publishing goes through several steps. First being the once above: Proof and Critic Printing. This causes you to get those nice little statesments on the cover. Then first print, or first edition, the number of copies is negotiated by the agent. It is the final staple in the wall – the numbers of copies – that will let your novel get its legs. From there it is all about promotion. And that’s another editorial.

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Don’t forget to e-mail us at Unexpected.Ramifications@gmail.com, and post on our forums.

RB Interview 11-07

This is an Interview that was released with RB in November of ’07.

This interview was done over the phone. Before anyone askes no we are not about to give out the phone number for RB. (This was done in October 07 and was placed in the November Issue).

Unexpected Ramifications: We are very excited to have RB on the line ready to have a little chat with us today. He has consented to giving us this little interview and we are very, very grateful. Hey RB thanks for letting us into the RB’s Universe Group. So what are you up to right now as far as RB’s Universe is concerned?

RB: Wow you guys really jump right into things don’t you? Well RB’s Universe is the project to link all my work. I really can’t (and this is a big problem of mine) stay focused on one item at a time. Thus the reason for all of my different worlds that form my “Multiverse” were made one at a time but usually while I was working on other projects, such as the Ynel being created during the beginning stages of the Urkia Quadrilogy planning. But right now it’s just getting the ideas and stories read for Empire Vol. 2 and getting the ideas for the Novel.

UR: So does this mean that you will be starting in on the novel soon?

RB: Yes and no. I will be starting the novel in November. This is because that is when NaNoWriMo happens (National Novel Writing Month for anyone who doesn’t know) and you have to write fifty thousand words in one month. So the novel will be around that long, and you can look for it in print at the RB’s Universe store of course, and maybe, if I’m lucky, in booksellers nationwide in about spring of ’08 (for the RB’s Universe Store at least).

UR: So you’re planning to write the entire novel on month? That’s intense. Can you let anyone know what the novel is going to be about? Or is that some big secret that the world will only know once they’ve read it?

RB: Well I’m not really into revealing to the world what I am writing about. You know the general setting and where the book is going to take place. What more do you need to know? Well I guess I’ll let you know the Main Characters that will be in the book. It is going to be a character we haven’t met yet. We might meet him in Vol. 2 but I’m not sure yet. His name is Hoban Rantré Imonora. He is the cousin to Emperor Jucal Imonora. Well he served in the Crondorian Conflict as a fighter pilot and then dropped off the map becoming a smuggler or bounty hunter when needed. He bought a ship and found a crew. It will also feature Emperor Jucal Imonora, a first for all stories in the Imonoran Empire. Oh, one other thing I will give you is a quote from the book itself. It’s, “The stars call my name. Everyone of them says, ‘Come Hoban.'” This is Hoban talking to someone I won’t say who right now.

UR: So you will be using this character as your figure head to move the novel forward?

RB: No since no one, except me, knows who he is. So I will probably key the advertising more toward the fact that it is in the Imonoran Empire and Jucal Imonora. I am going this way because we haven’t had an in depth look at his personality but anyone who has read the history knows what type of man he is and who he is.

UR: So what other projects are you working on right now?

RB: Well I’m not working on any RB’s Universe Projects at the moment. I am working on a Firefly/Serenity Fanfic though. What can I say I am a Browncoat through and through and so I’m writing something to show that. I will probably be posting that to the Fanfic boards on the RB’s Universe Forum. You see I made sure they designated that for any fanfic. Yeah that is not of Mal and the BDHs though it is of my own crew on the Killer Bee class transport ship named the Tienen (the Spanish word for “they have”). Which brings us to the title which is… dun dun dun, They Have. Yeah exciting I know. But it Is the main theme of the story.

UR: So since you write Fanfic do you “want” people to write fanfic of your stories and worlds as well?

RB: Yes I am a big supporter of fanfic, not only for people to do but for writers to see. Let’s say someone has an amazing idea but about a piece of copyrighted work. So he writes a Fanfic, the writer of the copyrighted material sees it retools it and talks to the author of the piece and so the author of the fanfic get’s his moment in the sun. This get’s his name out and next thing you know bam. So and so who got his start as a fanfic writer now has written his own book. And a 33.659 Trillion dollar movie has come out based on it. So toy answer the original question yes.

UR: What is your favorite genre to write in?

RB: [chuckles] Oh that’s easy Science Fiction. I love space and space ships and everything else to do with it.

UR: Science Fiction? But then why do you have two out of three worlds as Fantasy?

RB: Well if you think about it Sci-Fi is fantasy but we’re not here to argue that. Well that is because When I was younger I was fascinated, as most children are, with witches and wizards and Middle-Earth and so and so forth. So I made Urkia. Urkia was where I could escape. I went there when I was lonely, hurting or just generally feeling bad. So Urkia was a place where men carried swords fantastic races lived (such as the Asgarth, my favorite) and I could make amazing stories, none of which ever made it into the Urkia Quadrilogy planning phases. Then came The Empire and when I was working on finishing Urkia Book 1 I made Ynel just to get back to a middle-earthy feel.

UR: Will we ever see this Four Book Urkia set?

RB: I have the gist of the four books lain out. I have the basic “sketch” of the first book finish. The only problem left with the first book is going from 500 to 50,000 words and editing of course. But yes I predict in the next four year you will see the Urkia Quadrilogy as a complete set on shelves, at least in the RB’s Universe Store.

UR: Why have you put the older Urkia Quadrilogy on hold for the newer Empire Project?

RB: Well this has to do with a couple questions ago when you asked me what my favorite genre is. I LOVE SCIENCE FICTION. There is no other way to say it. So I have put Science Fiction to the fore front of my writing. Whether that is good for me as an author, who knows and who cares. I love the Empire. It has since become the place where I live in my brain. So it is of course my top priority.

UR: Well RB it has been a pleasure speaking with you. Please be sure to check this out when it posted on the zine.

RB: I will thank you for making the Zine in the first place. I got to tell you it was a real shock when I got your e-mail about the fanzine. Thank You.