Sneak Peek: The Krokinthians (PMF) (Patreon)

In April, I got something done I've wanted for a while: I found a great concept artist and we worked up a visual for the Krokinthians in Poor Man's Fight. Twitter led me to Kelly Toki, we got talking, and then it was off to the races.

Kelly developed this visual from the descriptions in No Medals for Secrets and the brief nightmare sequence in Last Man Out. And I'll be honest: she came up with a much cooler final image than my initial thoughts. Did you know the Krokinthians HAVE EYEBALLS ON THEIR KNEES? Neither did I, and I'm the writer! But this is canon now!

KNEYEBALLS. Thank you, Kelly!

The Krokinthians have been mentioned in the first three books, but it wasn't until No Medals for Secrets that any of them took the stage. In all honesty, I wanted them to be a part of the story from the beginning, but they just didn't fit the narrative and had to be cut. But they've always been around, if distant--and there are reasons for that distance.

For one thing, the Krokinthians are just fucking weird. They're ALIEN. They don't look like us, they don't think like us, and they sure as hell couldn't hang out with humans in a bar. The average Krok is the size of an elephant and doesn't like being out of their aquatic environment for more than half an hour. Also, they think humans are annoying. Really annoying.

They are also, to be blunt, smarter than humans. While humanity figured out its earliest Faster Than Light travel on its own, much bigger leaps came from the theft of Krokinthian science and technology by the CDC, the now-defunct smallest of the Union's "Big Three" corporations. How did big, weird-ass aliens like the Kroks develop better tech than humanity, you ask? They're not telling. They don't want to talk to us. We're a pain in the ass.

Also, Krokinthians don't have asses. They think that's weird, too.

We'll almost certainly see more of them in the next novel. In the meantime, I wanted you to "see" what they look like in more than just words. I'm pretty damn happy with how they came out.

Also, for more awesome art, I *highly* recommend you go check out Kelly's page at  https://www.artstation.com/kellytoki