Authorpreneur Dashboard – Kristine Smith
Code of Conduct
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Captain Jani Kilian’s life should have ended in front of a firing squad. Instead, she evaded battlefield justice by dying in a transport crash. End of story, according to official Commonwealth Service records. But doctors repaired her in secret, using the most advanced Service Medical technologies available, or so they assured her. In the last days of the idomeni civil war, she escaped their homeworld of Shera, and spent the next 18 years on the run. But someone like Jani leaves a trail no matter how hard they try to hide it, and she soon learns the Service hunt for her never ended. When Interior Minister Evan van Reuter, her former lover, tracks her down and begs her help in finding his wife’s killer, she has no choice but to agree. The search takes her to the Commonwealth capital of Chicago, a hotbed of political intrigue as dangerous as any warzone. As the danger mounts, so do Jani’s struggles. Her rebuilt body is breaking down, and memories long suppressed are flooding back. Of one horrible night 18 years ago, and the gut-wrenching decision that changed her life forever.
Book Bubbles from Code of Conduct
Setting
Because of CODE’s mystery aspects, I originally tried to set the story in London, England. Blame the influence of Sayers and Christie. But after failing to create a sound sense of place, I realized I lived quite close to a fine location, and one, since the story is set in the future, which I could rework at will. Some parts of Chicago will seem familiar. I enjoyed preserving place names: O’Hare, Boul Mich. Substituted “The Parkway” for North State Parkway, and consolidated most of the North Shore into “the Wilmette Bluffs.” Reopened Fort Sheridan. It’s fun when it’s your ball.
The Evolution of a Character
Jani Kilian has, in one form or another, been stewing in my backbrain for 8 or 9 years. I initially planned to portray her in a series of short stories. She was much less sympathetic back then, a drug-addicted sociopath whose never-ending quest to sate her various hungers led her into the paths of unsuspecting innocents. Sometimes, she helped them, as long as there was something in it for her. As the ideas grew to novel-length, I realized someone might be able to turn a completely unsympathetic individual into a series centerpiece, but that someone wasn’t me. Slowly, Jani evolved into a conflicting combination of survivor guilt, hair-trigger survival instinct, and protectiveness toward those she considered ‘under her wing.’ She’s capable of heroic acts, but she’s not a heroine.
