If, for some reason, you decide to start the Bloodhunters series on volume 2 or 3, here is a PDF you can download that will bring you up to speed. It contains major spoilers, which is why I’m not posting the content of the PDF on this blog. Personally I’d recommend reading all three in order, but I’m sure you have your reasons.
You can download the PDF from one of these links:
Want to chat about the Bloodhunters books? I've set up a Discord server here:
For now, the link is doesn't expire, so feel free to send invites to anyone you like. I don't expect a lot of people to come across this link. However, if we start to get an influx of spammers, I'll start booting people and remove the above link.
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| Geek Cutes Cover |
When Douglas Adams was asked this question, he used to respond, “A small mail order firm in Cleveland.”
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| Early Team |
I don’t think Bloodhunters would exist without Star Wars. Back in high school, I drew a lot of fanfiction comic books, and Return of the Jedi was a huge influence on my stories. In the earliest drafts of Bloodhunters, Bloodstone was basically Boba Fett, but I think we can agree the character evolved in a very different direction. At the time, there were only three Star Wars movies, and Fett only had a few minutes of screen time. In the canon of the time, Fett’s entire personality could be summed up as “ruthless bounty hunter.” Everything about the character’s out-of-helmet identity, I had to make up on my own.
Meanwhile, Whisper was kinda-sorta inspired by Boushh, Leia’s bounty hunter disguise in Return of the Jedi. That connection isn’t as easy to see anymore. In the earliest days, the “big reveal” was that Whisper was actually a woman (I’m a sucker for Mulan-type stories), but that didn’t seem like such a big thing to hide, so I had to give her a bigger secret.
Raven, oddly enough, was partly inspired by the video game character Earthworm Jim. In my mind, the way her suit carries her is similar to how Jim’s spacesuit works.
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| Early Trenyn |
Dervish doesn’t really have a direct inspiration, because there’s shapeshifters all over media. But the idea of her being a gift for Vermon may have come from the Star Trek TNG episode, “The Perfect Mate.” Or it might have been inspired by the pilot episode of Firefly, where River is transported as if she’s cargo.
Vik was partially inspired by an NES game called “Low G Man.” It’s about a guy who can jump really high, thanks to an anti-gravity backpack. The game is no masterpiece, but it’s an underrated gem. It got me thinking, “What if the same tech sci-fi uses for artificial gravity and hovercars was implanted into a human?” and Vik was born.
Yna was originally named “Ia,” but the capital I looked too much like a lowercase L. She came about because I was sick of “Human Torch”-style characters having no drawbacks. It seemed so convenient that you can just make a suit out of unstable particles, and that a person can literally turn into fire without any negative health effects. Terra from Final Fantasy VI may also have been an inspiration.
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| Early Panther |
Zak isn’t inspired by anyone, he just evolved for story’s sake. Though for his personality, I often had Link from the 1989 “Legend of Zelda” cartoons in my head.
Yeela’s more complicated. Originally Trenyn was going to have a pet drone that followed them around everywhere, held aloft by their telekinesis. I tabled that idea until book 3, and decided to give Zak a drone. But sometime during book 3’s intro, I decided Yeela was too interesting to let go, and she became the drone.
Vex is a long story. Early on I envisioned her as an enemy for the original team. Whisper would have a child, which would be artificially aged by a villain, then brainwashed and turned against the team. Elements of that story became Wisp. The final version of Vex takes some inspiration from Chloe from Life is Strange.
Glik was based on a virtual “paper doll” I created in the 90s. The base doll had a transparent chest, and you could see his organs beating. Originally it was going to be a doll of a human, but I made it an alien so I wouldn’t have to worry about drawing the organs right.
Glik
Wisp was an unrelated short story I wrote in the 90s, also to go along with a paper doll. I was going through severe depression at the time, and I kept thinking what the “perfect life” would be like. Then I started thinking about reincarnation, and how cool it would be to live multiple lives in different time periods, keeping the experience from each one. The original story was magical rather than technological. Fitting Wisp’s story into the Bloodhunters was a bit like fitting a square peg into a round hole, but I don’t regret it.
Lyryssa wasn’t really inspired by anyone in particular. She wasn’t meant to join the team, but her presence really helped advance the plot, so I kept her. I have a loved one who suffers from chronic pain, so I thought it would be nice to depict someone facing the same battle.
This should be fun. Minor spoilers ahead.
If you read the same author a lot, you’ll find that there are certain situations that seem to come up again and again. Sometimes these repeated scenarios are sexual, and you realize that you’re getting a peek into the author’s personal fetish. Some are more obvious than others. The creator of Wonder Woman famously had a bondage fetish, and many strips featured the title character getting tied up and humiliated. A few years ago I read “Wizard’s First Rule” by Terry Goodkind. It’s a good book, definitely worth checking out, but that part where the main character gets captured by BDSM assassins… Yikes. I won’t spoil it for you, but it feels like a completely different genre for a few chapters.
There’s nothing wrong with having fetishes (assuming everything's consensual), but it can feel a little creepy reading about someone else’s in a novel. Reading is an intimate activity anyway. It’s like walking around the author’s head, seeing the thoughts that would be invisible to you in real life. So when they throw something kinky in there, you have to wonder, are they showing us what they’re into? And do I really want to know that? I’m not prudish, I swear, it’s just weird to me how open some people are with their kinks.
And yet, I’ve also been accused of including a few fetishes in my own work. These aren’t serious accusations (so far), just some sort-of-kinky scenes in my work, that raised at least one reader’s eyebrow.
1. Peeing.
There’s a few mentions of urination in my books. So far it’s only been women, but that’s probably because there’s more women than men in my books. It’s mentioned with Raven because I wanted to show how her mind works - while peeing, she considers adding a waste filtration system to her robot suit. Yna mentions having to pee as a joke in “Adrift.”
Whisper pees in the “Gravity” chapter because I wanted to show how her cell worked. Also, I’m always bothered in novels when it seems like the author doesn’t take bodily functions into account. A while back I wrote a blog about "Minor Distractions in Media," and one of my big pet peeves is when we follow a character from the moment they wake up, and it's obvious they haven't had time to go to the bathroom.
It’s definitely not a fetish, though. There’s remotely nothing sexual about those scenes. The last thing I want to do is watch anyone, male or female, use a toilet.
2. Yna’s power.
Yna came about because I was sick of reading about super powers that don’t have drawbacks. So many comic book heroes have lesser-known secondary powers. How does the Flash run so fast without burning off his clothes or skin? Well, apparently he’s in tune with something called the “Speed Force,” which handwaves most of your science questions. Members of the Fantastic Four wear clothing made of “unstable particles” that transform with them when they use their powers. Ant-Man is light enough to run up your arm, but still has the strength to punch you out, because of Pym Particles.
I just wanted a character with powers that were as much a curse as they were a blessing. So yes, I wrote a character with built-in, justifiable nude scenes. So why didn’t I make her a man? Was it because I wanted an excuse to see her naked?
The truth is, she's female for the same reason most of the team is female. I just prefer writing about women. I think fiction is overstuffed with straight white male characters, and I want to do my part to balance the scales.
3. Nudity in general.
There are a fair number of nude scenes in my books. If they were to make it into a TV show, it would have to be rated for mature audiences. Honestly, I feel most of them are justified, and only a couple of them have a sexual context. In “Gravity,” the Grunthians strip Whisper because she could have hidden weapons. Tena spends a lot of time nude because she’s shameless, erratic, and likes making other people uncomfortable. Zak has to strip for the bath house so I can establish how he feels about his body. And so on.
4. Mindwipe, the entire chapter.
Honestly, I almost didn’t include that chapter in the book. I’ll be the first to admit that it sounds like some teenager’s wet dream. For the record: This is not some fantasy of mine. The story came about because of some posts I saw online, probably Reddit, where an incel mused about guilt-free rape. Basically he presented a situation where a woman is raped, but doesn’t remember it, with no risk of pegnancy or disease. The incel saw nothing wrong with the scenario, and wondered why it was so wrong. Naturally the internet tore him a new one, and rightly so.
The Mindwipe chapter is meant to call out incels for the way they think about women. Anyone who reads the chapter and thinks, “Man, I wish I had his powers” is seriously missing the point. The ending is pure revenge fantasy. I’m not saying rapists should receive the same punishment in real life, but it does feel like poetic justice.
5. Eroddicka
So, if Mindwipe was the standout offensive chapter in book 1, Eroddicka would have to be the one from book 2. That story evolved a lot. Despite appearing in the second book, it was one of the earliest Bloodhunters stories, with the first draft having been written in the 90s. I was a different person back then, and the first draft had a lot of humor that I find inappropriate today. I almost cut the chapter entirely, but it does include some elements I thought were important to the overall narrative. It contains some important character development for Raven, it touches on the plight of the Marae species, and it reminds us of the ongoing search for Vraxx. I sanitized the story a lot, but it’s still not the most family friendly chapter.
Those aren’t the only times my books delve into questionable territory, but I think they’re the most significant. I know this blog sounds a little defensive, but I just find it a fascinating subject. If someone wants to brand me as some sort of fetishist, that's fine with me. The TERFs already think I'm a pervert just for being trans, so I'm used to the accusation. It's actually pretty funny because in real life, most people think I'm so vanilla.
So if anyone was offended when they read the above scenes, I do apologize, but the stories were never intended to titilate or to demean women. I’m not a perfect writer, or a perfect person. I grow a little every day, in my efforts to become more woke. I know I can’t please everyone, but the last thing I want to do is offend people.
…Except maybe bigots.
Referencing: Bloodhunters v2: Blue Blood, Chapter 01.09, "Eroddicka"
In the story, there’s a line where Trenyn tells Raven, “…and Dervish made 200 credits. Not how you think.”
Okay, the first thing you need to understand is that Eroddicka isn't one of my favorite stories. It was one of the earliest Bloodhunters stories I wrote, back in the 90s, and it was so full of immature jokes that I spent more time delousing it than it originally took to write. I almost cut it completely, but there were elements I wanted to keep canon, such as a scene with Raven that gets a callback in book three.
That line survived, however, just slightly reworded. Originally Trenyn answered, “…and Dervish made 200 credits. Don’t ask how.” The original line implies that Dervish earned the money doing something Raven would definitely not approve of, most likely sex work. The revised line implies the opposite – that while Raven might assume that’s how Dervish earned the money, Raven would be wrong.
So how did Dervish earn the money? Personally, I’m a big fan of keeping it a “Noodle Incident” – an odd event that happens off-screen, that characters refer to, that is never fully explained to the audience. For example, the “Remember when you fell into that nest of gundarks?” line in Star Wars Episode II. Or the “Doesn’t matter when it’s Arcturian” conversation in Aliens. The fact that you don’t know all the details is what makes it funny.
But some people would rather have an explanation. If that describes you, read further for the boring answer. If you’d rather chuckle at the mystery, stop reading now.
After leaving the brothel, Trenyn and Dervish cut through one of the station’s many casinos on the way to the arena. As they passed a particularly busy table, a lumpy, orange-skinned man in a business suit grabbed Dervish by the elbow.
“Not so fast, pretty lady!” he said, with a disturbingly wide grin. His lips reminded Dervish of Grunthian murk-eels. His boneless arm wrapped around her elbow like a tentacle.
“I’m in a hurry…” Dervish began. Trenyn hadn’t noticed she wasn’t behind them, and she didn’t want them to get too far away.
“Can I get a blow for luck?” the gambler asked, holding up a pair of bright red dice with his other wormy hand.
Dervish considered shrinking her arm out of his grip, or suddenly growing some spikes, but she didn’t want to make a scene the way Raven had. It was easier just to do as she was told. She blew on the dice, and the gambler rolled them.
“Sevens!” the dealer yelled, and the gambler raked in his chips.
“You just won me two thousand credits,” the gambler said. Dervish had already started to turn away, but he grabbed her again and handed her two one-hundred-credit chips. “Here’s your cut, dollface.”
“Thanks, gotta go,” Dervish said, slipping out of his grip.
“I’m in room forty-one twenty-one if you want to make some real money later,” the gambler called after her.
But Dervish wasn’t listening. She caught up to Trenyn, anxious to show them her winnings.
So when the Bloodstone assigns missions to the Bloodwind crew, who gets the money from the bounties?
It's never explicitly stated, but my thought is this:
If a hunter goes on a solo mission, they split the reward 50/50. Half the reward goes to the hunter, and half goes to the Bloodwind crew as a whole. If multiple hunters work together on a mission, they divide that first half among all those involved with the hunt, and the other half still goes to the crew fund. The crew fund goes towards upkeep of the Bloodwind, food, and supplies.
See, I’m torn. I kind of like leaving this question unanswered, because it invites all sorts of fan speculation. On the other hand, I also hate keeping secrets. Book 1, Chapter 02.04, “Safeguards,” was originally titled, “Everything You Wanted To Know About Navorans But Were Afraid To Ask.” It included a lengthy section which explained Navoran reproduction, described in explicit detail. I took this passage out because it just seemed like a big lecture out of nowhere, and it didn’t advance the plot. Fun fact, there’s a clue in an earlier chapter, when Trenyn is offended by Vik sticking out his tongue.
So, I’ll leave it in your hands. Are you the kind of person who likes the mystery? Or do you prefer when every question has an answer? For those in the second group, you can find a document titled "Navoran Reproduction" in the Bloodhunters Freebies folder. I don’t really consider it canon, but it’s probably as close as you’re going to get.
Let's get this out of the way. I am practically the poster child for this trope:
Sci-Fi Authors Have No Sense Of Scale
I’ll be the first to admit that the Bloodwind’s dimensions aren’t well defined. But this is what we do know:
1. Bloodwind's big, yeah yeah yeah.
2. It’s not small, no, no no.
3. The ship is split into three sections: The cargo/landing bay (a big rectangular box), a round middle section that has two additional docking ports on it, and a wedge-shaped front section that includes the bridge and crew quarters.
4. The cargo/landing bay is the largest of the three sections, taking up more than a third of the ship.
5. The cargo/landing bay holds two shuttles. Two parked shuttles take up about half of the bay. In a pinch, it could probably hold four shuttles, but it would be a tight fit. In any event, it only has landing clamps for two shuttles.
6. I’ve never explicitly described how big a landing shuttle is, but in my mind they’re about twice as big as a school bus.
7. The pirate ship in volume 1 lands in the cargo bay, and takes up more than half the bay. The pirate ship has a crew of about 50, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s huge. The pirates keep a cramped ship, with only enough beds for half the crew to sleep at a time, and with many bunking in the same room. I think it’s safe to say the pirate ship is about as big as four school busses, maybe a little bigger.
8. Which means the landing/cargo bay is probably about as long as 8 school busses.
9. However, when I measure in school busses, am I talking about total mass, or just length? Was the pirate ship wider than it was long? The book mentions that the pirate ship had “inverted wings,” am I including wingspan as part of its size?
10. Eh, forget point 9. The pirate ship was nearly four school busses long, so the landing bay is about eight school busses long. We'll also say the bay is as wide as six busses. No, eight busses wide. There has to be some empty space around the shuttles when they park. Which actually means you could park 64 busses in the landing bay, if you crammed them in there with no space in between. We’ll go ahead and say the room is about ten school busses high. Which gives you a total volume of 640 busses.
11. Where are you getting all these busses? Don’t the kids need them for school? Whatever you’re doing, I’m not sure I want any part of this.
12. Google tells me that the dimensions of a full-sized (72 capacity) school bus are: 35 feet (10.6 meters) long, 9 feet (2.74 meters) wide, 8 feet high (2.4 meters) high.
13. This means that the landing/cargo bay of the Bloodwind is about 280 feet (85 meters) long, 72 feet (22 meters) wide, and 80 feet (24 meters) high.
14. And since that’s slightly more than one third of the ship, we’ll say the entire ship is 800 feet (244 meters) long.
15. For comparison, a football field is 360 feet (110 meters) long, an aircraft carrier is about 1,000 feet (304 meters) long, and the Enterprise D was 2,103 feet (641 meters).
16. I'm sure I got the math wrong in there somewhere. If I ever release an official Bloodhunters technical manual, I'll get someone else to do the numbers.
17. But none of this blog post is canon anyway. The truth is, the Bloodwind is about as big as it needs to be for the plot to work.
Well, I sure don't, but that's up to you. Two of my beta readers hated him, and one even told me I should cut him from the team.
To me, Vik represents the Conservative ideal. He’s brave and heroic, but a bit of an ass. He’ll gladly put his life on the line to save yours, even if he doesn’t approve of your lifestyle. He's just progressive enough to think he's woke, but he constantly judges people who aren't like himself. He thinks he can't be racist because he has a non-white friend.
Everybody has an uncle like Vik, or a grandfather, or maybe just a family friend. Maybe they served in the military or had some other dangerous job. You respect this guy, and you’re thankful his service. But you try not to engage him conversation, especially if the topic is politics.
In a way, Vik represents my younger self. I grew up in a Conservative family, and the character represents the values my family tried to instill in me. Well now, that didn’t quite work out, did it?
Honestly, I almost cut Vik from the final draft. But I liked the conflict he added to the group. You can’t just have everyone get along together perfectly all the time, where’s the fun in that? I also needed someone to be wrong sometimes, to help the exposition along. Might as well make the “always wrong” guy the group’s token white guy while I’m at it.
(Spoilers for the first book)
One of my beta readers thought that Vik was the main character at first. In fact, that was what finally convinced me to keep the character. I liked the misdirection. You think you're reading a standard cheesy sci-fi story about a square-jawed Flash Gordon-esque hero, then BAM, you find you're actually reading about a transgender woman of color and her bisexual girlfriend. I even considered making Vik the final villain of volume 2, but that idea didn't get very far.
But yeah, he's not there for you to like. No judgment if you do, though.
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