Red Legacy

At Any Cost

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5 Comments

  1. Hope you find something great very soon.

    Also, let us know when your new book is published, have been looking forward to this since you announced it.

    • Thanks! I’ll definitely say something, but it might be quite a while! Finding an agent is usually a 3+ month process. Then finding a publisher is another 3+ months. Once that’s done, the actual printing and distribution of the book can take 3-12 months, depending on the speed of the publisher. So… it’ll be a bit :)

  2. Thank you for the story and making it so adorably audible. It is thoughtful and emotional and a good fiction in general. I have a just a few critical remarks.

    The Soviet people in your story remind those in Marvel Universe rather then the real ones. I would hardly imagine stalinists allowing same-sex marriges and giving up on sexism to an extent as to allow Maria to be in charge. Stalinism was so recationary that is was almost a restoration of monarchy.

    Also, I did not quite get whether you portray Lamarcian theory getting the upper hand above Darvinism as the fact of that Universe or just as ideological ramification to justify one’s regime. A cool and possibly unique fictional assumption in both cases :)

    On behalf of the people that were once Soviet but not Russian I slightly took offence when you viewed them at the same thing.

    Adam Rachel Draden is the best as Maria! I like to perceiving voices of the actors as cross references between stories at Hpmorpodcast. It’s like in Cloud Atlas movie.

    • Thank you! And I apologize for giving offense, I should have been more careful about that.

      The thing about feeling like this is the Marvel Universe was intentional, actually. Originally the story was titled “Red Menace: Origins” and it was the origin story of a super-villain named Red Menace. The section with The Americans went on for a few more pages, as Maria injected herself with the radiophage to survive the radiation and also GAIN SUPER POWERS!!! And then she swears herself to the destruction of the Americans, with that section ending “She would become their Red Menace.”

      Sheila Williams of Asimov’s SF convinced me this was a dumb thing to do. The story is better for it. But if I ever want to write crazy pulp super hero stuff, I already have my villain. :)

      • Injecting radiophage would be desperate but smart and getting supper powers would be awesome but plotting the revenge against all Americans would be exploiting family loss as a means to justify all too nationalistic-looking squabble between fictional righteous Russians and hateful Americans. On the other hand, if Maria swore against Darwinism, or, for that matter, Capitalism, then it would actually make sense. If Darwinism was actually in that Universe that is. Was it, by the way?

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