NationStates Jolt Archive

A project of mine over the past 2/3 of a year, I finally finished writing my first novel at the end of August.
The book is called "Europa" and it contains, among other things, huge descriptive battles, gempire building, exploration and conquest, and a medium element of science fiction. The plot is so:
In the year 2010, we all die. End of story.
No, just kidding. Most of us die in a huge nuclear war, and the million or so on the planet who survive (the greatest concentration of survivors is in Europe seeing as North America and Asia are the most devastated) and the survivors rally around local strongmen (former generals, politicians, businessmen, and other usurpers) and manage to survive. Move forward almost a thousand years later: The history of the world is lost, as is the record of the nuclear war, along with most modern technology (electricity, medicine, and motor vehicles are the most recovered from the disaster). Europe is divided up into tiny little city-states which are constantly viing for control. Each year, thousands of young men die on the battlefield for their own king or lord, mostly in wars caused by international partisan politics. In this continent torn apart by petty wars, three men stand out: A cynical mercinary knight from Germany, a noble warrior/leader from Caen, Normandy, and a would-be scholar from Vienna forced to leave upon the destruction of his home city and seeking death by serving in a dangerous position in the most brutal war in central Europe.
After two of the three meet, the unexpected death of the lord of Caen leads the warrior/leader to take power over the city. The two formulate a plan to end the pathetic state of politics by creating a single united Europe. Finally, the third character joins just as the European Empire has begun to take over France and England. Meanwhile, an antagonist arises in the East. A political manipulator, equally bent on gaining power.
Meanwhile, I put some of my own political veiws into the story. Heres my question: how many of you would buy it once it gets edited and published?

Sounds interesting. Let me proof read the story.

Sounds very interesting. I like that kind of genre. :)

Sounds pretty interesting. I'd probably buy it, if for no other reason except that I would be able to say, "Yeah, the author asked me what I thought about the idea before the book was even published." :)
But for a more useful answer, yes, I think it could sell well. It sounds like a really original idea with a lot of potential for an interesting plot.

Hell yes! Try posting a tidbit of some of the story, so people can see if they like it or not.

its got potential
id read the first few pages before i bought it to make sure that you can put sentences together.

good luck getting it published.

it wont be long before you are posting threads called "publishers suck"

This is the first chapter, and probably the most revised. The prologue, which isn't revised yet and isn't here, tells a little about the knights. The knights are an important part of the first part of the novel. They're similar to knights from the middle ages, only they ride motorcycles and have cold steel swords as well as firearms. Their armor is plasma steel, an alloy put on the arms market before the devastating nuclear war, and while the light armor deflects bullets at all but extreme close range, it is vunerable to sharp cold steel weapons, hence the need for both cold steel and firearms. Of course, while the knights, who train from childhood, dominate the battlefield, the majority is regular conscript-level experienced infantry.
Here's the first chapter. (No plaguerizing!)


Chapter 1
As the sun set over the Ardennes forest, three armed men stood motionless in a small clearing between the trees. Two, clutching submachine guns, were obviously nervous and frightened, though they tried to hide it. The other, covered in a black cloak and touching a holstered long sword, expressed no emotion of any kind. A few minutes passed, and then one of the gunmen spoke.
“Dey not coming, sir,” he declared with a slight tone of relief in his voice.
“Silence,” said the unemotional one, slightly agitated.
“With all due respect, he’s right, sir,” added the second gunman. “Duke Schelbekker said it was a fool’s errand to wait for the enemy to risk their entire invasion simply for a trial of this sort.”
“In case it wasn’t obvious to you, the Duke was at the time…” he hesitated, “Misinformed.” He had wanted to say “Intoxicated”, as was most certainly the case, but his pay was more important than pointing out his employer’s flaws.
Suddenly, the swordsman snapped alert, drew his sword and headed over to a nearby brush. “They’re almost here. Stand ready,” the two gunmen looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, but their expression changed when they heard the distant buzz of numerous motors. Numerous? There’s only supposed to be one! Though the swordsman as he brought his cycle out from behind the bush.
“Foul play”, said the first guard. “We got one knight, dey bringing many!”
The other gunner looked more nervous than ever. “What should we do, sir Knight?” he asked, turning to the swordsman.
“We fight!” the knight activated and mounted his cycle, pulling back his black cloak to reveal an extensive set of glossed black armor. Almost every inch of the chestplate was covered by badges, each with a different symbolic coat of arms on it. One for each enemy struck down, he thought to himself. His own symbolic badges, perhaps someday to be taken by whoever struck him down, were attached to the front of his helmet and the sides of his shoulder pads. With his left hand, he reached to the side of the cycle, and pulled his glossed black helmet and two swords identical to the one he held in his right hand from their resting place. He put on and secured his helmet and tossed the two swords to the gunmen. “We’re being cheated, you’ll need these.”
The knight then decided he favored a steel pike over the sword, and he sheathed the blade just as 6 knights in dark red armor emerged on the other side of the clearing. The foremost one announced indignantly, “The Grand Lord of Mainz demands that his rightful claim made to the Lord of Brabant be fulfilled! Meet this demand or face death, you scum!” The six enemy knights simultaneously activated the switches that raised the flag on the rear of their cycles, signaling a challenge.
“The Lord of Brabant refuses your inane demand. Challenge accepted!” he raised his own flag and aimed his pike forward. Six to one. Cheating in a trial! How lowly! Nonetheless, this did not greatly concern the black knight. The enemy made their move, charging at maximum speed. It was enough time to react, as they were at least 50 yards away.
“Cover fire!” shouted the knight to the first gunner, as he grabbed the second guard and pulled him onto his cycle’s back seat. The first guard rushed to the side, sword in one hand, gun in the other. By the time he had reached his position, the black knight has covered at least 20 yards and only 15 stood between him and the red knights. With little hesitation, the gunman seated behind him opened up at the same time as a barrage of bullets swept over the enemy from the guard on the ground. The distance closed, and one enemy was already knocked off his cycle but probably not dead yet. Time slowed as the foremost red knight came closer. When he was only 10 feet away, the black knight performed the skilled maneuver of launching his pike into his opponent. Such force and precision was possessed by few. The pike hit the first rider in the front of the neck and cleared straight through the back. As he passed the first rider, he grabbed the second by the helmet with one hand while retrieving the bloodied pike from the first with the other. In an instant, he was holding the second rider in mid air, the enemy’s bike passing by without a rider. The gunman didn’t need to be told what to do. Without hesitation, he rammed the sword into the dangling knight’s chest.
The remaining mounted enemies passed, ground to a halt, turned, and charged back at the black knight. The cover fire started again, then stopped abruptly. The red knight who’d been struck from his cycle had gotten to his feet and, using a long rifle, put a bullet through the gunman’s head.
The black knight slowed, reversed direction, and then accelerated back toward the three remaining red knights. Hesitantly, he pulled a lever in the center of his dashboard, and a large vertical blade extended from the front of the cycle. Although standard for fighting infantry, the plow-like weapon was not intended to fight against calvary. If it punctured an enemy’s fuel tank, the resulting explosion could kill both the enemy and the black knight. His ally seated behind him had once again readied his firearm, holding it steadily. The distance between the knights once again began to close, and the gunner let loose three rounds. At this time, it became apparent that this man was obviously qualified to be a royal guard, for one of his shots smashed through the visor of the enemy on the far side of the echelon formation. That left the knight at the head of the formation slightly to the black knight’s right, while the knight further behind him was straight ahead.
Unfortunately, when the formation leader was about 10 yards away, the enemy switched weapons, revealing a large caliber pistol. In an instant, the pistol roared, and the bullet smashed the black knight in the side of his ribcage. He fell over the side of the cycle, feeling a deep, shocking pain in his side. His bike continued on with the gunner on it, slicing headfirst into the foremost cycle but fortunately escaping before the anticipated fuel explosion.
Still holding his 6-foot pike, the black knight hit the ground painfully. In an instant he was back on his feet, wincing in a sharp pain in the left side of his chest. Broken rib. Nothing serious, it’s happened before, he thought to himself, trying to ignore the agony. The knight who had fired at him now had a serious advantage, as he was still mounted. However, if he was to win with any honor, he must use cold steel. (This rule was by far more important than the cheating).
The black knight turned to see his lone opponent charging at him one last time. He stood his ground, dropped the pike, and drew his sword, and waited. Closer, closer… “Not yet,” he said out loud. Still closer, and time seemed to proceed very slowly, each second passing in painful anticipation. Closer…. NOW! An alarm went off in his head. He sidestepped, extended his blade to his side, and leapt forward. The red knight was only inches away to his left, but couldn’t respond in time. He felt his sword extend, felt the resistance as it passed through his opponent’s body, and suddenly time returned to normal. He landed, rolled, and returned to his feet. The red knight continued, but the cycle wasn’t accelerating. Before coming to a complete stop, the riders’ torso slid away from his lower body and hit the ground.
He stood in silence, taking in the moment of victory under the now dark sky, almost indifferent to the moment. A few dozen feet away, his cycle lie on the ground, two corpses lying beside it. One was the gunman who had ridden with him, dead from several gunshot wounds, but his sword was buried in the lower torso of the enemy who had slain him.
It was a shame, for both of his companions could’ve easily achieved elite status in the Royal Guard, and the knight had come to know them in the past 2 days. Both were single, roughly 17, and there would be no wives or children to mourn their death. It filled him with anger, for the war which he had just ended had been started by partisan politics. The wife of the Grand Lord of Mainz had run off with a cousin of the heir to the Lordship of Brabant. The Grand Lord of Mainz had demanded her return. Now, because of some bastards fighting over a woman, two young men had passed to the grave long before their time, having been denied a life of success as soldiers and some fame, all because of a stupid argument. The knight knew better than to blame himself for their deaths, but he did feel anger at the whole situation.
After burying his dead comrades and saying a prayer for each, he activated the cycle’s radio communication syestem.
“This is Hiendrich. I need a cleanup crew here now.” He turned it off, then, removing a set of tools from his belt, walked over to each enemy corpse, and removed their personal badges in turn, then attached all six badges to his own armor and claimed their swords, pikes, and firearms as his own as tradition dictated. The sun had almost risen by the time he heard the rumbling of the approaching convoy.


I've got a long night and day tomorrow, but if anyone would like to post imput about this, i'll be able to respond in about 20 hours.

Where can I get this here book?

Sounds cool. Do you have a publisher?

nice! a few spelling mistakes, and it was a little bland at points, but overall very good. i liked it.

Sounds like "A Canticle for Leibowitz."

I like your style very much. (I'm a short story writer, i'm not very good at writing any stories over 40 pages) This looks like my kind of story right here. I like how you led up to the confrontations and the description, and you have a very orignal plot. It sounds similar to one of my own stories.

I could see me and you Co-Writing something.......

Anywho, i would by your book any day!

Thanks for the imput all. Unfortunately, the entire book (70,000 words) has to be edited and revised before I go looking for a publisher. That's the most difficult thing to do. I've also written a few short stories, and it's hell trying to get them published.

Will the book be published in Germany? :) :D

Only if it's available in audio with either Tony Robinson or Stephen Fry.