oh, spaceforce

God, it says so much about my novel that I have to Google "u.s. navy mortuary affairs" -- fifty-three percent casualty rate, people! Fifty-three! On the North Carolina alone! That's over five thousand souls who never made it back to Earth. (All starcarriers do have cold storage for bodies, but a number of those lost die in space, which makes it nearly impossible to recover the bodies. As well, Mortuary Affairs Storage wasn't meant to have to carry that many dead, and so Engineering has rigged up a system to double some of the now-empty sections of the ship as cold storage to allow everyone who can come home to come home. Just before McAuliffe finally figured out the Zelenka converter, the senior staff were discussing the necessity of burial in space or at one of the American forts -- there reaches a point where it's impractical to carry around that many dead. Several thousand families are extremely grateful the North Carolina got home when it did, if only so that they could bury their children and spouses and parents.)

no, seriously, *anvils*

I suddenly want to write an adventure novel. You know, of the Indiana Jones/The Mummy/Dirk Pitt type. It can take place in Thailand and Laos and star an ex-Navy SEAL, with, you know, some kind of secret hidden treasure in Laos (which is still a Communist country, by the way, and has areas that are off-limits to foreigners...I mean, come on, begging for a story here).

Ex-Navy SEAL, because oh lord, have I read a lot about SEALs, even though none of my main characters actually are SEALs, and he can live in, like, Phuket or Koh Samet or Koh Samui or something and then get hired to lead a team into Laos for some private company or secret government agency or something...

It'll be fun and lighthearted! Okay, anvils would be lighter than my current novel (fifty-three percent casualty rate! two dead main characters by the end of the book! possibly three! one hundred fifty thousand Americans who never returned to Earth! decade of intergalactic war!), so obviously I need something to look forward to.