Posts Tagged ‘Science Fiction’

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I am so excited that the paperback
of ANTI-HERO BLUES by Christopher Lee Rippee is available now and that I
get to share the news!

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If you haven’t yet heard about this
wonderful book, be sure to check out all the details below.

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This blitz also includes a giveaway
for a $10 Amazon Gift Card courtesy of Christopher &
Rockstar Book Tours. So if
you’d like a chance to win, check out the giveaway info below.

 

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 ANTI-HERO BLUES

by: Christopher Lee Rippee

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Pub. Date: August 16, 2024

Publisher: Balance of Seven

Formats:  Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 400

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Find it: Goodreadshttps://books2read.com/ANTI-HERO-BLUES

 

How do you save a world that believes you’re the villain?

In Union City, where superpowered vigilantes are celebrated as saviors, rebellious
grad-student Brandon Carter sees them as anything but. Haunted by the death of
his father at the hands of a masked “hero,” Brandon’s defiance might
have landed him in a jail cell if not for his gift for physics.

At twenty-three, Brandon is on the precipice of success. Using his research, his
team is just one test away from a world-changing scientific breakthrough-a test
that nearly ends in catastrophe due to an “error” in the code.

With the project set for termination, Brandon throws caution to the wind, sneaking back
into the lab to rerun the test in secret. But when a mysterious, powerful
assassin attacks him and sabotages the experiment, a devastating explosion
levels the lab.

Against all odds, Brandon survives, transformed in mind and body. With his life on the line
and no idea who to trust, he sets out to uncover the truth behind the attack,
gain control of his strange, new powers, and protect those he loves-even if it
means saving a world that would label him a supervillain.

 

Enjoy this peek inside:

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ONE

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Failed Experiment

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You want to know about the explosion and the pillar of
fire in the sky at the Resistance Day celebration? What happened to
Vincent Vaydan? Sure, we’ll get  there, but we need to start at the
beginning.

It all went off the rails the day we turned MICSy on. 

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Union City University and
the Vaydan Institute for Experimental Physics, welcome!” Claire’s South London
accent colored her  greeting as she smiled at the research review
committee.  She was really turning on the charm, which made sense
given that the committee could pull the plug on our project with an
email. 

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That worried me, but not as much as the possibility  of
blowing us all up in the next few minutes. My heart  pounded against my
rib cage as I raced through the pre-ignition checklist for the twentieth time,
trying to focus. With my hands shaking and a tangled snarl of anxiety,
excitement, and dread roiling in my stomach, I  glanced at the
clock. 

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9:57 a.m. 

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Three minutes until the moment of truth. 

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On the dubious bright side, if the test went badly, I
wouldn’t have a lot of time for regrets. 

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“We have what will undoubtedly be an exciting  morning
in store!” 

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Dr. Claire Wright was the head of our research  team, my
mentor, and basically a member of my family.  She was in her fifties,
having spent her life climbing to the  top of her field. Despite her
professional stature, Claire  was only five foot five in two-inch heels,
and slim. Short,  iron-gray hair framed a face that seemed cheery
despite  her aura of cool professionalism. As usual, she wore an
elegantly conservative blazer and matching skirt. 

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For our test run, she’d gone with navy blue. A few members of
the research oversight committee  were clumped by the door. Most were
watching remotely.  We’d expected a better turnout, but I suspected the de
sire to be present for a scientific breakthrough was outweighed by an aversion
to the possibility of sudden energetic events—explosions, for the
nonscientific. Two representatives from the physics department  chatted
with the Vaydan Industries contingent, a suit in  his late twenties named
Ashcroft and a tall woman I  hadn’t met, while Dr. Clifford from the
Department of  Energy, a grumpy-looking bureaucrat in a tweed jacket
older than I was, glowered at everyone from behind an  impressive
mustache. 

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The lab used to be a bomb shelter, so it wasn’t exactly
spacious. Despite taking every safety precaution  imaginable, the chance
of us causing a massive explosion in a couple of minutes was slightly greater
than zero, so it  was good we were wrapped in concrete and steel a
dozen  feet underground. Unfortunately, it also meant the lab  was a
cramped maze of fabrication machines, workstations, and bundles of wiring taped
to the floor. Most of the equipment was impressive, but none of  it
compared to the machine in the middle of the room. Claire turned to me and the
rest of the team standing  awkwardly in front of the machine that
dominated the  lab. “These individuals represent some of the
brightest  young minds in our field, and they deserve the real accolades.
Despite my title, all I did was approve purchase  orders.” Claire’s smile
turned mischievous. “Rarely in a  scientist’s career does one have the
opportunity to take  so much credit for doing so little.” 

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The observers chuckled.

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She gestured to Harvey, who nodded curtly before
looking away. 

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“Dr. Zhang comes to us from the University of  Toronto
and specializes in the computational modeling  of energetic
systems.”  

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Harvey was pale and thin, with a mop of stylishly
unkempt black hair. Dressed in a tight, black button down and fitted jeans,
Harvey looked more like a model  than a mathematician. He’d seemed like an
asshole when  we first met, but he just wasn’t great with people. I
wouldn’t have called us friends, but we weren’t far from  it. 

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He didn’t smile as the observation group shifted  their
collective gaze to him. He made most stoics seem  emotionally
unhinged. 

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“Next is Dr. Itzel Rodriguez,” Claire continued. “Dr.
Rodriguez is a mechanical engineer from the University of Mexico, by way
of MIT. She specializes in exotic matter containment and applied
xenotechnology.” Itzel was short, with an olive complexion and a mane  of
wavy brown hair, streaked with blue, that surrounded  a face with round
cheeks. She was in one of her many  science-pun T-shirts, battered jeans,
and Chuck Taylors. Her shirt of the day had a smiling proton telling an
electron to be positive. 

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Itzel’s endless enthusiasm almost made up for her
tendency to sing when she was excited. Nothing helped  complex engineering
problems like lab karaoke. Still, I’d  put money on her winning a Nobel
Prize. 

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Vibrating with excitement, Itzel beamed when Claire
said her name. “It’s great to meet everyone,” she said,  with a hint of a
Mexican accent. 

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Claire pointed to our third team member. “Many of  you
already know Dr. Nathan Chambers.” 

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I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. 

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Barely. 

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Nate was blandly handsome, with sandy-blond hair,  blue
eyes, and the muscle tone of someone who worked  out for looks.
Straightening his salmon polo, he smiled  with the casually smug air of a
guy used to being showered  with praise. I guess it came with being the
child of a  billionaire. 

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Nate was the son and heir apparent of tech mogul
Jeremiah Chambers. His PhD was just part of preparing  for his
legacy. 

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As much as I disliked the rich, though, Nate’s money wasn’t
why I couldn’t stand him. 

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The guy was just awful. 

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He ignored Harvey and treated Itzel like a waitress,
but he reserved his real contempt for me. I was the only one in the lab
without a PhD, but that didn’t bother him  as much as the fact I’d grown
up poor. 

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The first time we met, Nate had asked Claire if she’d
given all her strays research projects. I’d asked him if he  was planning
to be buried in his father’s shadow or just  live his whole life in
it. 

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It went downhill from there. 

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As much as I hated the guy, though, Nate was good  at
computational physics. It was why Claire had brought  him in on the
project, even if his presence was a needle  in the heart of my
chill. 

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“And of course, I want to introduce Brandon Car ter.” Claire
gestured to me, her smile expanding with  pride. “Brandon came to my
attention years ago, thanks  to his high-school physics teacher.” 

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Someone snickered. Maybe they’d been born with  an
advanced degree. 

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“While research is a team effort, Brandon’s equations—his
revolutionary way of visualizing and modeling  gravitational waves in
tandem with highly energetic systems—are this project’s foundation. The first
time I read  the paper that launched all this,”—Claire gestured around the
lab—“a paper Brandon wrote as a second-year under grad, I might add—I thought
it was rubbish, mostly because I didn’t think what he was suggesting was
possible.”  Claire chuckled. “When Brandon explained his work to  me,
I realized I was holding something extraordinary.” 

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The observers looked at me. Some seemed impressed; others,
dubious or dismissive. 

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I managed not to glare. 

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Whatever they saw, I doubted physicist was the first
word that came to mind. Musician, maybe, if they were  being generous.
Armed robber if they weren’t.

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I was twenty-three and nearly six foot four, with a
wiry build and the colorless complexion of my Irish  roots. My hair was
dark, a product of the Korean side of  my dad’s family, chopped short and
shaved on the sides.  I wasn’t what people called handsome. Striking,
maybe,  with deep-set hazel eyes under a heavy brow, a large nose,
prominent cheekbones, and a strong chin. 

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My uniform—a hoodie, band shirt, jeans, and a pair  of
boots, all black—didn’t exactly scream scientist. Neither did the tattoos that
peeked out from beneath my  sleeves and spread across my hands. 

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If asked, almost anyone who knew me growing up  would’ve
said the only way I’d end up in a physics lab was  by robbing it. Before
fifteen, I would have agreed. The  trajectory of my life hadn’t been aimed
anywhere good. 

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Why? 

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Because a superhero killed my dad when I was eight. If it
hadn’t been for that high-school science teacher  sending a paper I’d
written to Claire, I probably would’ve  ended up in a jail cell instead of
a lab. 

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Claire smiled again. “Collectively, this team has
accomplished something monumental: the first step in  bridging the gulf
between our world and the infinite other  worlds beyond.” 

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She waved at the device behind us. “Our machine  uses
alien matter to shape a gravitational distortion and  generate a
microscopic breach in the membrane separating our reality from others, allowing
us to receive electromagnetic radiation from a nearby multiversal strand.
To  put it another way, we’ll be capturing radio signals from
parallel Earths.” 

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The size of a cargo van, our machine might have  looked
like a haphazard tangle of wires, cables, and components grafted at random
to a metal frame, but  every module, field generator, and dedicated
processor  had been custom built for this experiment. Collectively,
it represented three years of my life and more than $9  million of
funding. 

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The machine’s official name was the Multiversal
Intermembrane Communication System. We called her  MICSy. 

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MICSy wasn’t pretty, but she didn’t need to be. At  her
heart, straining against a xibrantium containment  bottle, was a piece of
voidrium the size of a fingertip,  capable of generating enough gravity to
punch a hole  through the fabric of space-time. 

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Assuming the test didn’t kill us all in the next few
minutes. 

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“That’s right. Some of you traveled two thousand  miles
to watch us turn on the world’s most expensive  radio,” Claire said,
eliciting more chuckles. “But if we’re  successful, the technology will
pave the way for full matter  transference.” 

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The multiverse wasn’t a theory. It was a fact made  hard
to ignore by the occasional monster attacks and invaders from alternate
timelines. Masks had been known  to travel to other multiversal threads,
or parallel worlds,  and tread on strange and “undreamed shores,” to
borrow  a phrase from Shakespeare. They did it in ways not easily
replicated, however: Magical portals. Falling through  black holes. 

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If successful, we’d take a step toward making the trip
easier. 

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“Now, ladies and gentlemen, shall we make history?” Claire
turned to the team and raised an eyebrow. I looked at the clock, my stomach
churning.

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It was 10:01 a.m.

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Breaking apart, we headed to our workstations. Har vey and I
were on one side of the room, monitoring the  control system and the
voidrium to ensure the exotic  material’s energy output remained within
the containment fields’ tolerances. On the other side, Itzel monitored MICSy’s
power system, while Nate watched CPU  usage on the control-software
servers to make sure they  didn’t crash. 

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I glanced at the team. They seemed as nervous as I
felt, even Nate, who had the least to lose, outside his life. Taking a breath,
I pulled up the ignition sequence.  “Everyone ready?” 

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Harvey nodded. 

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“Make it so!” Itzel chirped. 

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“Get on with it, Carter,” Nate groused. 

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“Here we go.” I took another deep breath and  clicked
the initialize button. 

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The refrigerator-sized xenotech power block began  to
vibrate, and MICSy hummed as she generated a series  of overlapping
containment fields. The smell of ozone  filled the air, but the
diagnostics showed everything as  nominal. 

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“Containment fields on, control system running,” I
breathed. “How are we looking on your end, Itzel?” “Stable. MICSy’s purring
like a kitten.” 

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“Opening the containment bottle and bringing
the voidrium online.” Hoping I wasn’t about to kill us all, I started the
activation sequence. 

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The power block’s hum deepened as the xibrantium  bottle
at MICSy’s heart opened. The voidrium inside  glimmered with violet light
as energy flowed through it. A stillness filled the room. This was the real
test. If it went well, we’d change the world. If it went poorly . .
.  well, we might still change the world, at least on local
topographic maps. 

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“Uh, Brandon, you should look at this,” Harvey
murmured, a ripple of tension in his tone. 

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“What?” I asked, hoping my voice wouldn’t carry to  the
observers. Harvey’s calm demeanor was a joke in the  lab, which meant the
worry in his tone amounted to  hysterics for anyone else. 

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“We’re getting some instability in the voidrium modulation
field.” 

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A chill ran through me. Shit. 

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Voidrium was highly unstable. Investigators had discovered it
among the wreckage of the Rakkari ships that  assaulted Earth nearly three
decades ago. The Rakkari  had used it for faster-than-light travel, but
research so far  had produced no results other than fatal accidents.
Our  project was one of a handful authorized to work with the exotic
matter, and only for a brief window of time. 

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Sliding out of my seat, I made my way to Harvey as
quickly as I could without running, weaving around  equipment and through
wires. Harvey slid to the side as  I stepped in front of his terminal. The
screen was covered  in graphs and other monitoring tools that would
have  been incomprehensible to most people, but we had designed the
system. I saw what he meant instantly. 

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An alert message flashed in the field control system.
Uh-oh. 

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Voidrium’s energy production rate was unstable.
Previous attempts to harness it had failed due to unpredictable power spikes,
almost as if the voidrium were  fighting to break free. To compensate,
Harvey and I had  created an algorithm to predict energy fluctuations
and modulate the overlapping containment fields in real time.
Without it, we couldn’t have put enough power into the  voidrium to
penetrate the membrane separating our reality from other multiversal strands without
it exploding. Some of the best computational physicists at the university—and
by extension, the world—had reviewed our  algorithm. We’d run thousands of
simulations, using data  models constructed from other experiments. It
should have been working. 

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Instead, the algorithm was failing to predict nearly a
third of the energy spikes, pushing the field generators to  the limit of
their tolerances. Unless we could get the  spikes under control, the
generators would burn out. If  we lost one, failure would cascade through
the rest, which  would be very, very bad.

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Our theoretical modeling predicted that an explosion probably
wouldn’t generate an ever-expanding singularity that would engulf the solar
system, but it would destroy the lab, along with a significant portion of
the  building, not to mention kill everyone inside. 

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No pressure, I thought, breaking into a cold sweat. I racked
my brain, ignoring the voice telling me to  shut MICSy off. If I hit the
emergency shutoff, I could  check the field generators and debug the
algorithm. I  could blame a faulty power relay and use the incident
to  demonstrate our rigorous safety protocols. But our research review was
at the end of the month, and there was  no guarantee the Department of
Energy would let us  keep the voidrium long enough for a second test run.
This needed to work. 

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Suddenly, the solution hit me. My fingers flew across
the keyboard as I threw commands into different windows.

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“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Claire asked from
behind me, her normally unflappable cool unable to  keep the tension from
her voice. 

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“It looks like the algorithm isn’t modulating the
fields properly,” Harvey whispered. “It’s failing to prevent roughly thirty
percent of the energy fluctuations.” 

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“Shut it down,” Claire ordered. “Immediately.” Harvey reached
for the emergency shutoff. 

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I grabbed his wrist. “Don’t.” We locked eyes. His were wide
with fear. “I’ve got this.” 

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We looked to Claire. 

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“We’re still within tolerances,” I said. “I need sixty
seconds.” 

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Claire’s eyes narrowed, and she glanced at the committee.
“One minute. If the power fluctuations aren’t  under control in one
minute, shut it down.” 

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I was typing before she’d finished speaking. Our energy
growth model wasn’t the issue. It had to  be a software bug. The night
before, Nate had “fixed” a  syntax error I’d supposedly overlooked. I was
guessing  whatever he’d done had broken something. I initialized the
previous version of the control software on a backup server. MICSy sent data to
both primary and secondary control systems as a failsafe. I could  compare
the readings on the secondary server to the  primary and, if there were no
errors in the earlier version,  switch to it. The two control systems ran
concurrently, so  there shouldn’t be any interruptions. If I was right,
the  switch would stabilize the process. 

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The program was system intensive, so it took time to
synchronize. Each second felt like an hour as the diagnostics flashed
alarms. 

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I tried not to think about the consequences of
being wrong as MICSy’s smooth purr shifted into a rumbling  growl,
drawing concerned murmurs from our observers. “Apologies, gentlemen!” Claire
flashed them a practiced smile. “It wouldn’t be science without a little
excitement.” 

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Nearly there. Five seconds until the backup came
online. 

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The lights flickered.

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Four seconds. My pulse pounded in my ears. Three. 

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The grumbling increased. Harsh, violet light radiated from
the containment bottle. The field generators’  output levels began to
redline. 

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Two. 

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The acrid stench of overheating electronics filled the
room. Electricity crackled, and a blue flash, followed by  a spray of
sparks, erupted from MICSy. It was only the  secondary power relay burning
out. We were still good. 

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One. 

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A field generator blew, sparks erupting from the side
of the machine, but the other generators still worked. The fix was going to
work. I was sure of it.

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The prior version of the control system finished
initializing. Immediately, I could see I was right. The energy  curve
began to smooth out. I switched control systems,  and the levels started
to stabilize. 

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“I’ve got it—” 

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Claire hit the emergency override. MICSy sputtered and
went silent as the diagnostic panel flatlined. The stench of smoldering
electronics intensified, and a haze filled the room. 

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People coughed behind me. 

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Shit.

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About Christopher Lee Rippee:

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Christopher Lee
Rippee won a young authors contest in third grade, which was the day he
officially decided to become a writer. He prepared by reading comics, playing
too much Dungeons & Dragons, and devouring every sci -fi and fantasy novel
he could get his hands on.

Along the
way, thanks to some great people and a lifelong love of punk rock, Chris found
his way to social work and currently works at a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit.
He’s also a certified mental-health first-aid trainer, has worked as a
neurodiversity consultant for several Pittsburgh-based tech startups, and has
contributed to several tabletop RPG products. When not writing, Chris reads,
plays games, and spends time with his lovely wife, Nicole, and their adorable
rescue dog, Belle.

Website | Threads | Facebook
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To Preserve, Protect And Destroy

by Matthew D. Saeman

 

 

 

Synopsis (from Amazon):

NASA Geologist Unearths Deadly Martian Stones: A Race Against Time to Thwart Catastrophic Mission and Save Millions from Imminent Disaster!

In To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, we follow the gripping journey of Terrence Sullivan, a dedicated NASA geologist, as he is thrust into an unexpected mission of universal importance. Tasked with the perilous job of collecting volatile stones from the hostile terrain of Mars, Terrence is initially led to believe that his mission is purely for the safety of the universe. These are no ordinary stones, but the very same that caused the catastrophic end to the first terraforming mission on the red planet.

As the narrative unfolds, Terrence uncovers the chilling truth behind his mission’s ultimate goal. The stakes are higher than he could have ever imagined, with the fate of his crew and millions of innocent lives hanging in the balance. The ship is set to return to Earth, but with a deadly cargo that could cause it to crash land in the Middle East, resulting in an unimaginable disaster.

Caught in a web of deceit and danger, Terrence must navigate the treacherous path of duty, morality, and survival. With time running out, he is forced to make decisions that will not only determine his fate but that of humanity itself. Will he be able to thwart the impending catastrophe and reveal the truth to the world, or will he become another casualty in this deadly game of power and control?

To Preserve, Protect and Destroy is a thrilling exploration of space travel, the fragility of life, and the lengths one man will go to protect it. It is a testament to the human spirit’s resilience and the power of truth in the face of overwhelming odds. This gripping tale is sure to captivate fans of space exploration and those who relish in seeing the mighty fall. Prepare for a journey that will take you to the edge of your seat and beyond, as you delve into the heart-stopping world of To Preserve, Protect and Destroy.

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Enjoy This Peek Inside:

“Madame Speaker, the President of the United States.”

Having been formally introduced to this joint session of Congress, President William Dowd III made his way down the center aisle of the House of Representatives chamber. The stark blue carpet matched his eyes perfectly and complimented the expensive, custom tailored suit he wore. As he proceeded, he was inundated with hands to shake, all of which he ignored. The president’s face resembled that of a boxer preparing to defend his belt, focused solely on the fight he’d been training for. He wanted no distractions and his pace was nearly at a slow jog.

Passing the podium from which he’d speak, President Dowd made his way to the back of the ceremonial seating posts where he shook hands with his Vice President and the Speaker of the House. He then headed back to his podium, stood and waited for the applause from half the audience to quiet down.

“Madam Speaker. Mr. Vice President. Members of Congress, Madam Chief Justice, and associate Justices of the Supreme Court. I’m certain you are all well versed in the subject of World History, so I won’t presume to educate you on this particular topic. But please bear with me as I highlight the most important tenet of the Nazi party’s rise to power.”

The president, certain his speech’s opening was a shock to all, allowed the audience to murmur for a few seconds before proceeding. “In 1918, shortly after the end of World War I and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, a man named Anton Drexler formed the foundation of what would come to be known as the Nazi party. His beliefs and philosophy centered around German nationalism. Nothing wrong with being a patriot, right? Unfortunately, for the nearly 84 million people who would lose their lives as a result of the Second World War, Drexler’s ideology was steeped in the blaming of anyone not belonging to the Aryan master race for every problem the German people encountered. And once Adolph Hitler, a gifted orator, joined forces with Drexler, it was only a matter of time before what started as a fledgling, some would say outlandish, concept began taking root with the German people and eventually garnered full fledged acceptance.

“It’s been many decades since the thankful end of World War II, the Holocaust, and the Nazi party. But has it been too long? Are we, as citizens of this great country, in danger of forgetting the atrocities committed by one man with a silver tongue? ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ George Santayana, a Spanish American philosopher spoke these words in 1905, more than a century ago… and they couldn’t be more applicable today. I received the video I am about to show not more than twenty four hours ago. It was captured by an agent who has been working undercover for several years amongst the terrorist organization ISIS in Iraq. I called together this joint session of Congress so that all of you could see first hand the danger posed by Abu al-Hussein, the newly crowned leader of this lawless organization, now that he has convinced Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to join forces with his in an effort to complete their Caliphate dream of uniting all Muslims around the world. The Muslim faith is one of honor and respectability, but al-Hussein and his newly formed regime have bastardized this proud religion, converting it into an organization replete with decadent thugs. Once the leader gets a taste of power, his appetite won’t be satisfied. And as has been too painfully recognized many times over in days gone by, once the mob mentality takes control, there is no way to stop it before the loss of too many lives.”

As President Dowd stepped away from the podium, the Vice President and Speaker of the House took the seats next to his in the front row. The lights slowly dimmed as a large projector screen was lowered. It reached its extent with a metallic thud, causing some in the silenced gallery to jump. And then the video began to play. Shot with a cell phone, the operator was close enough to the speaker for his words to be heard and the thousands upon thousands of mesmerized onlookers to be seen clearly. Though Arabic was the language used by al-Hussein, an English translation of his delivered message was displayed at the bottom of the screen.

It was clear from the way he spoke and the hand gestures used, that he had familiarized himself with Hitler’s greatest hits. Every statement flowed methodically and strong, and the pace with which he spoke was slow enough to ensure all listeners, no matter their learning level, could easily understand the points he was attempting to make. He used strategic pauses in order to keep his audience intrigued, and the expression on his face was one of genuine care for his people.

According to the translation, al-Hussein was bemoaning the loss of so many centuries stolen from them by infidels from foreign lands and the loss of life resulting from infighting amongst their own kind. He touted the new regime as having seen enough of their own blood, and that now was the time to band together in order to rebuff any opposition who tried standing in their way. Upon hearing these words, the crowd drew to a near frenzy of approval, and as al-Hussein saw this, he took a step back from the microphone so he could relish in his success.

The remainder of the footage resembled a political rally comprised of no opposition to the speaker being celebrated. Everything al-Hussein said was gladly accepted and then answered by thunderous waves of applause. He concluded his remarks by indicating this unification was only the beginning. That as one with Allah, they were capable of anything.

It was dead silent as the screen went dark and began rising back toward the ceiling. When the lighting brightened, and as the president walked back to the podium, he could see the challenged faces of all in the auditorium; some uncertain, some frightened, but most categorically mad.

“Though other world leaders have viewed this footage, none seem to have seen it with the concern that I… and you now have. They are considering al-Hussein with a lack of concern as did President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and President Lebrun of France with Hitler. The difference, of course, being that the three men I just named had no reason to believe the worst could happen. Now that we have seen the possibilities, it would be irresponsible of us not to act. And since we, the United States of America, remain the greatest country ever created by God, the responsibility falls upon our shoulders.”

The president received a standing ovation, and allowed it to persist a bit longer before furthering his thoughts aloud. “Of course, I’m not asking for a declaration of war. There are those in Iraq as well as other countries in the Middle East who deplore the movement which has begun gaining footage. My recommendation is to send in a single battalion of highly trained soldiers who will train the young men and women of these countries how to fight for what they believe in; a democratic way of life where you’re not told how to dress or whether or not you can hold a job other than raising children and bowing to your spouse’s every whim.”

The round of applause President Dowd earned following that statement was similar to the one al-Hussein received, the only difference being that no one in the House of Representatives chamber fired off their guns in celebration.

“Let me be clear. Our soldiers will be nowhere near the front line. In fact, they will be safely back home long before any aggression takes place. I simply ask you all to consider the potential ramifications of allowing al-Hussein’s movement to swell, and to remember the mistakes made in the past that took so many lives. God bless you, and God bless America.”

On his journey back up the center aisle, President Dowd’s pace was much slower. He shook every hand thrust his way and showed genuine appreciation for the verbal bi-partisan support he received. But in the quiet space of his own mind, he wondered how long it would take these people to realize they’d just been duped, or if they ever would.

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MY REVIEW

Do I think we’ll ever set foot on Mars? Yes. But not for a long time. There’s too much still to learn about traveling such a long distance. Do I think once we do go there it will be exploited? Yes. There’s always those who hunger for power and wealth waiting for a new way to get it.

To Preserve, Protect And Destroy. Such an apt title. Something is discovered on Mars. People are sent to retrieve it. Some want to study it. Some want to bury it. And some want to use it. There’s that saying…” just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

I was pulled in right from the first couple of sentences. Those brief descriptions put me there. I learned what was on Mars. Thought about what it might mean and formed my own opinions. Shared the excitement, fears and desires along with the crew. And kept turning the pages. I needed, no, had to know what the outcome was.

As I neared the end of the book all I thought was, “there’s no place like home.” And I hoped the last few pages showed me it was still there.

I enjoy science fiction stories. Especially those that might be able to happen. Throw in characters I grow to care about and some bad guys I’d like to drop kick, and I’m a happy camper.

4 STARS

 

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Interview With Author Matthew D. Saeman

On writing:

 

How did you do research for your book?

The majority of the research I did was from the Geological perspective since I knew very little about that branch of science. That information was readily available online, as was everything I needed regarding NASA, the White House, and the President.

 

Which was the hardest character to write? The easiest?

The hardest character to write was President Dowd since I’ve never met a U.S. president, especially one of his ilk. The easiest was Terrence Sullivan since I based most of his emotions after my own.

 

Where do you get inspiration for your stories?

I keep an open mind, and when an idea pops into my head I ask myself two important questions: Has it already been done and would it be fun to write?

 

What advice would you give budding writers?

Since I still consider myself one, my advice is something I tell myself every day: Trust your gut and write stories YOU think would be fun to read.

 

Do you have another profession besides writing?

I teach High School Special Education.

 

How long have you been writing?

As far as novels, only six or seven years. Prior to that I wrote screenplays and short stories.

 

Do you ever get writer’s block? What helps you overcome it?

I don’t believe in “writer’s block.” The only times I have difficulty progressing with a story are when the story has a fundamental flaw that must be fixed. Once it is, the “block” goes away.

 

What is your next project?

I have a friend who fell while rock climbing. She’s kind enough to allow me to use her experience in the story I’ll write… though I have no idea what that’ll be yet.

 

What genre do you write and why?

The majority of the stories I write are Suspense/Thrillers, mostly because there are so many fun ways to tell interesting stories in that genre.

 

What is the last great book you’ve read?

Legion by William Peter Blatty.

 

What were the biggest rewards and challenges with writing your book?

The biggest reward was finishing it, the biggest challenge was having the patience not to start writing before the outline was solid.

 

Which authors inspired you to write?

Gordon McAlpine was a friend who inspired me to do what I love.

 

 

 

On rituals:

 

Where do you write?

Resting comfortably on my couch.

 

Do you write every day?

If I’ve got a story that’s flowing well, I write every day. My goal is at least 1000 words a day.

 

In today’s tech savvy world, most writers use a computer or laptop. Have you ever written parts of your book on paper?

Never. I write on my phone, it feels more personal.

 

Fun stuff:

 

If you could go back in time, where would you go?

1700s USA. I’d love to see first hand how our founders worked together.

 

Favorite travel spot?

The Republic of Ireland

 

Favorite dessert?

Chocolate fudge cake… the richer the better.

 

What’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you? The scariest? The strangest?

The funniest was when I ordered a lamb stew that had a hoof in it, the scariest was when I almost accidentally dumped Ray Bradbury out of his wheelchair, and the strangest was hearing a cat crying outside our house that sounded like a small child.

 

Any hobbies? or Name a quirky thing you like to do.

No real hobbies, but when watching a TV show or movie, I enjoy checking my phone to see how tall the actors are.

 

If there is one thing you want readers to remember about you, what would it be?

I’m hysterically funny, despite what my wife and daughter would say.

 

What TV series are you currently binge watching?

I just finished Defending Jacob and am about to begin Billy the Kid.

 

What is your theme song?

“The Modern World” by The Jam

 

What song is currently playing on a loop in your head?

“22” by Taylor Swift. My daughter listens to her nonstop!

 

What is something that made you laugh recently?

A YouTube video where a guy is on the phone at work and his colleagues placed a tarantula on his shoulder. His reaction was priceless!

 

What is your go-to breakfast item?

An apple with reduced fat peanut butter.

 

What is the oldest item of clothing you own?

 A ratty t-shirt I refuse to throw away. It’s at least 20 years old.

 

Who was your childhood celebrity crush?

Kathy Coleman who played Holly Marshall on Land of the Lost (the TV show).

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Guest Post

I’m fascinated that EVERYONE doesn’t love to write. The thought of crafting a story from scratch, developing the characters and plot in whatever form of outline works best, then writing one chapter after another until the book is finished makes me giddy! Being a High School teacher, it’s rare for students not to ask “How many sentences do we have to write?” when I give them a writing assignment. They make it sound as if the process were the equivalent of a root canal with no novocain, which is why I do my best to make it as interesting as possible. I first tell them there are NO wrong answers. I compare writing to painting, explaining that every artist sees things in their own way, then showing them how I do it and how much fun it can be. Does this procedure work with every student? Absolutely not. But it does allow their minds to open up just enough to get the work done, and for some, exposes a love for the written word they never knew they had.

In sixth grade, my teacher asked us to write a Halloween story. To this day, I still remember how cathartic it felt to craft that one page piece. It’s something inside that can’t be defined but it truly exists. I do believe all of us possess this creative gift, yet most choose to ignore it. To each their own. I love writing. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of either the story I’m currently working on or the one I’d like to write next. I’m a dedicated soul, an attribute passed down from my parents. When I begin a project, no matter what kind, I finish it. When it comes to writing stories, completing them provides a sensation of pride from which I derive my optimistic outlook on life. I’m thankful every day that I’ve chosen this facet as my creative outlet, if for no other reason than it allows me an internal peace which, in these crazy times, seems so hard to come by for too many.

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About Author Matthew D. Saeman:

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Matthew D. Saeman, a native of Orange County, CA, is a distinguished graduate of Cal State Fullerton. He has dedicated his life to shaping young minds as a Special Education teacher in San Diego. His personal life is as fulfilling as his professional one, being a loving husband and a doting father to one child. A proud owner of a Great Dane, Matthew’s life is a blend of compassion and commitment.

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Author Marketing Experts tags for social media: Instagram / Twitter

Purchase Links: Amazon / Goodreads

 

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For a list of my reviews go HERE.

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The Moon Run

by Kathleen Contine

 

(The Moon Run, #1)
Publication date: May 1st 2024
Genres: Adult, Science Fiction

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He’s her biggest rival in The Moon Run. And the reason her co-pilot is dead. Now they’re being forced to race together.

Finley Clarke swore off racing after a fatal crash cost her first place and her teammate. As she comes around to the idea of entering again, she finds out the only person who is willing to be her new co-pilot is the man named Garis who caused the crash.

As Finley and Garis enter The Moon Run, they realize there’s more than just the harsh desert out to get them. The other racers will stop at nothing to win. Even if it means they have to kill. Can Finley and Garis put aside their past to win the race?

The Moon Run is the first book in a sci-fi racing series by Kathleen Contine. If you like action, compelling characters, and a dash of romance, then you’ll love this new space adventure.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo

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Enjoy this peek inside:

Finley Clarke would never get used to hurling across the desert at hundreds of miles an hour in a small metal tube. Most people saw her ship with its faded red paint flying toward the city and thought she was a talented pilot, especially because she stayed in first place for the entire race. Finley never bothered to tell anyone that in the last few minutes of every race, she had barely any control of the ship. Even now the joystick vibrated violently in her hands as she pushed it forward, surrounded by the endless buttons and knobs she’d meticulously memorized.

Just a little bit more.

Behind her in the navigation chair sat her copilot, Cayne. He faced backwards, his attention on the many monitors in front of him. They took up the entirety of the back of the small ship so that he needed to crane his neck to see every screen. Every so often, he would type something to check on the ship or the location of the other racers.

“We’ve got one coming up behind us.”

“I’m not worried about it. We’re too far ahead of the others for someone else to take first place now,” Finley said, but she kept an eye on her radar as the small dot behind them grew closer.

“Don’t get too cocky, Fin. It’s Garis,” Cayne cautioned.

Finley smirked. “Don’t worry about him. Just worry about who’s buying the first round once we win.”

Cayne laughed. “It’ll be me. Always me.”

“That does seem to be the case, doesn’t it?”

She’d been paired with Cayne a few years into her racing career, and their winning streak hadn’t stopped since. Finley knew Cayne was responsible for most of her wins. There was no one else she wanted as her copilot.

A third voice came over the communicators. Deep and gravelly. “Don’t spend money you haven’t won yet.”

Cayne laughed. “How about joining us, Bhizin? Our agent needs to celebrate with us once in a while.”

“I prefer to swim in my money instead of spending it on drinks.”

Finley sighed as her eyes narrowed on the flat, sandy terrain before her. “Later, guys. I need to concentrate.”

The small outline of the city grew closer. She pictured the crowd waiting for the ships to come roaring through the finish line. Her and Cayne climbing out of their ship to cheers as the president of The Moon Run handed them a trophy while they wore first place medals. The next few days would be filled with the flash of cameras, the shaking of hands, and multiple interviews. And then, just like that, they would start it all over again as they entered their next race. But they weren’t there yet.

“Hang tight. Garis coming up on your left,” Cayne said. “It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand how he’s caught up to us so fast.”

Out the left side of the cockpit window, another ship the same size as theirs steadily made its way past. It kicked up a cloud of dust, making it nearly impossible to see anything. Somehow, Finley’s grip tightened even more on the joystick. “Why is it always Garis?”

“You’re both evenly skilled. A good rivalry makes for good races and more bets,” Cayne said matter-of-factly.

“I still haven’t forgiven him for that last race in Keveka,” she yelled over the rumbling of the cockpit. “We should have won.”

“Point three seconds is point three seconds,” Cayne said, mimicking Bhizin.

Finley held in her groan as she eyed a small switch on the dashboard. One quick push and it would give them a small burst of speed.

“Easy there,” Cayne said.

“How did you know I was thinking of using it?”

“Whenever the sprint to the finish line is between you and Garis, you always want to use it.”

“Well, you did say to only use it for emergencies, and this is as good a time as any.” Finley flipped up the case covering the switch. “Hang on.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“It’s this or lose.” With a satisfying click, she pushed the switch down.

The ship rattled and shot forward, pushing Finley back into her seat. They flew through the sand cloud, past Garis’ ship, and back into the lead. She risked taking her eyes away from the window to look at him as they passed.

Garis sat in his cockpit with his head down. The visor on his helmet obscured his face, so she couldn’t be sure if he saw them or not.

Finley waved anyway before focusing back on the race.

“Are you happy with yourself?” Cayne asked.

“Of course,” she answered. “How much farther to the finish line?”

Before Cayne could answer, Garis’ ship pulled up next to them. Red light filled the tiny cabin as an alarm sounded in the cockpit.

“He’s way too close. You need to take evasive maneuvers, Fin,” Cayne yelled.

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About Author Kathleen Contine:

Kathleen Contine is an award-winning author who has always loved stories about aliens and far off galaxies. She graduated from Saint Leo University with a bachelors in English with a concentration in professional writing.

When she isn’t writing her newest sci fi book, she’s watching Star Wars, playing video games, and reading other thrilling space operas. Metal Bones is her debut novel.

To keep up with Kathleen, visit her website at KathleenContine.com

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram

 

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Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for Shushan Portal organized by Goddess Fish Promotions.

Author Gloria Pearson-Vasey is awarding a $10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner. Don’t forget to enter!

And you can click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Shushan Portal

by Gloria Pearson-Vasey

 

 

Genre: Science Fiction / Thriller

Synopsis

After her sister dies, Meara Deleaney invites her bereaved nephew, Jackson, to accompany her on a book tour to Canada’s Atlantic provinces. Fearful of leaving the security of her apartment, Meara bolsters her courage by recalling the imaginary dragons she and her sister slew as children behind the hollyhock hedge.

As they travel in a motorhome from park to park and bookstore to bookstore, Meara and Jackson are unaware of the manipulating forces intent on preventing their return home. They do, however, realize they are being stalked and therefore welcome the company of another touring author, criminology professor Bartholomew Wolfe.

A long-standing professional relationship between the authors builds to romance and a persuasive invitation to seek shelter at the professor’s lodge. However, to reach the lodge, Meara—now accompanied by her nephew, niece and mother—unsuspectingly travels through a portal which exits in a future dimension near a fortress.

From there, the family is escorted under guard through dangerous territory to a lodge where metaphorical dragons lie in wait, and security comes at a price.

Enjoy this peek inside:

Mystified, they grabbed up their bags and followed Gabe (the lodge manager) along the shore toward a solitary balsam fir. At their approach, a baby bird sitting in a sandy hollow at the base of the tree hopped off and disappeared into a clump of wild grasses.

“We’ve reached our end of the portal,” said Gabe. “It’s important we all huddle together in the hollow vacated by the bird so no one gets left behind as we transition from the OD to the FD.”

Feeling rather foolish, his guests exchanged quizzical smiles as they shuffled together into a loose cluster.

“You’re not huddling! Lean into the person beside you!” commanded Gabe.

“Mother needs to sit down soon,” protested Meara.

“Yes, I’m feeling a bit shaky and I can barely breathe,” said Agnes. “Enough of your inane prattle.”

Assuring them they would soon be enjoying comfortable transportation, Gabe asked them to close their eyes and count out loud to ten. They reluctantly complied, and by the count of four, all slipped into an ever-darkening vortex and lost consciousness. When they regained bewildered awareness, they were at the edge of a wooded area overlooking the stark walls of a fortress enclosing a medieval castle.

“The Shushan Citadel,” whispered Gabe, pointing toward the fortress.

“Can we go in?” asked Penny.

Gabe hushed the girl and hastened his charges toward a multi-legged vehicle camouflaged in dull paint splotches. He identified the vehicle as a solar-wind-powered Centipede and assisted them in entering through a door in its transparent dome.

Within moments of seating themselves, the passengers realized the Centipede was moving.

About Author Gloria Pearson-Vasey:

Gloria Pearson-Vasey weaves contemporary issues into her novels, and likes a story – be it literary fiction, historical fantasy or science fiction – to be authentic and end on a note of hope.

A member of The Writers’ Union of Canada, Pearson-Vasey has also penned non-fiction books on autism and pilgrimage.

The author feels blessed for experiencing the joy and chaos of merging child raising with career, camping, travel and pets.

She lives in a picturesque Ontario town, and enjoys reading, music, country drives and time with family and friends.

Author Links: Website / Facebook / Twitter/X / Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon / Amazon CA / Indigo / Booktopia / Waterstones / Abe Books

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The Closed Tunnel

by Anthony Harold

 

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Publication date: October 8th 2024
Genres: Adult, Science Fiction, Suspense

Ink & Cinema Official selection Best First Ten Pages 2023, USA.

Based on real materials.

What if we told you that 3,000 feet underground is a network of high-tech cities connected by tunnels? Yes, right now.

The main character of this story, Tony from New York, accepts a job from the strange head of a pharmaceutical company. It takes him first to the National Geophysical Research Lab on Long Island and then—unexpectedly!—underground.

He finds himself in Luxor Ville, the city of the elite, and explores Hearton City with genius scientists presumed dead or missing on the Surface.

Meanwhile, in the ancient tunnels, the world’s greatest physicists are conducting an unbelievable experiment that should redefine our understanding of the laws of the universe…

Why are the richest people buying up the last subterranean luxury apartments? How are NASA and Neil Armstrong connected to the underground world? How does the hostess of the Elusive Cafe predict the future?

And is there a common secret that unites Hearton City’s inhabitants, or is it an illusion?

Feel the forgotten vibe of the TV series Lost, unlock a jar of puzzles in the wave of The Da Vinci Code, and prepare for a journey into the depths like in Wool/Silo!

The Closed Tunnel units author’s own inventions, suspense, fantasy elements, physical experiments connected to Montauk project, mystery and thriller, fashion (!), real underground wonders, and a pinch of spice.

There are diverse characters, multiple POVs, Elusive Cafe, ancient board game, scientifically created oracle cards, and a central question: whom to trust.

Goodreads / Website / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

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Enjoy this peek inside:

Chapter 51. Messages to Die For

Professor Ron Jefferson

Bursting through the front door, Ron immediately bolted it from the inside and pushed against it with all his weight. He felt as if he was being pursued. It seemed to him that they would be here in a minute to take him to a distant underground grave and separate him from his son for years.

With the frenzy of a mad scientist, he tore himself away from the door and dashed up the stairs. Desperately searching through a stack of papers on the desk, he sought that particular notebook. He distinctly remembered placing it on the edge of the desk . . .

No, it must be in the top drawer . . . No, dammit, where is it?

The thought that people from the Consortium might have already rifled through his papers and taken the precious notebook shot through his head.

Oh, here it is, on the coffee table by the chair. I must keep a cool head. I’m still in control.

In a flurry of movement, Jefferson swept the papers from the table, snatched up the notebook, frantically flipped through its filled pages, tore them out, and secreted them in a hidden pocket. Then, ripping out a blank sheet, he scribbled down crucial information in a hurried, nearly frantic script, struggling to maintain his composure. Time was of the essence, and he feared they might arrive at any moment.

This made Ron cast anxious glances at the locked office door after every few lines.

“They don’t even need a key, do they? They don’t even need a damn key . . .” he mumbled, startled by his deteriorating mental state.

After filling both sides of the sheet, he hastily folded it several times and concealed it in a spot that strangers would overlook. Still, its intended recipient would undoubtedly uncover—inside the double bottom of the dracaena plant pot.

They won’t find the letter. They just can’t. It must not fall into the wrong hands.

Jefferson paced the room for a minute, uncertain what to hold onto. Then his eyes landed on a picture of his son on the table.

The boy was smiling, hugging their favorite dog.

“Rover . . .” Jefferson whispered.

He opened the adjacent break room and found a golden retriever sleeping peacefully in the middle of a large bed. The dog perked up and bounded toward his master, then jumped with his front paws on his chest.

As Ron stroked Rover’s back, a new plan crystallized in his mind. He decided not to take the priceless notes with him but to hide them in the house, just as he had hidden his letter, in an even more secure location. Here, in the favorite soundproof room of his ever-barking dog.

“Soundproof . . .”

That word triggered a chain of thoughts. He retrieved his cell phone from his pocket, muttering, “I still have some time.” His eyes gleamed with frenzied determination.

A knock on the door made him wince.

“Professor Jefferson, do you require assistance with your packing? Your capsule departs in an hour. We must hurry.”

Ron locked Rover inside the break room so he wouldn’t witness his beloved master leaving. With three heavy steps, Jefferson reached his office door, slowed down . . . and opened it, fully aware that he would never be back to his cozy house again.

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Author Bio:

Anthony Harold is the author of the upcoming sci-fi sensation The Closed Tunnel. This book explores underground cities connected by ancient tunnels and will hit shelves in April 2024.

Anthony holds a Master’s degree in Physics and a Ph.D. in Economics. He has an impressive background of nearly 15 years in the space industry, including developing space-based laser systems and managing finances for a leading rocket company.

Anthony dislikes most modern movies due to plot holes, so he prefers to read and, better yet, write. He’s passionate about delving into the mysteries of Earth, exploring ancient history, and studying the wonders of techno-civilization.

Currently living in Cyprus with his grown son, a lively Jack Russell terrier, and his talented wife, who doubles as his editor and marketer, Anthony enjoys spending his free time on the tennis court, jogging along the coast, or fishing.

Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram – Author / Instagram – Book / TikTok

 

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To see all of my giveaways go HERE.

A physicist discovers the secret to time travel only to find out he was not the first, it is now his task to go back and repair history.

 

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Title: The Edison Enigma

Author: Thomas White

Publication Date: February 29, 2024

Pages: 196

Genre: Scifi/Mystery 

Edison, a Chicago physicist, manages to successfully transport an object through time. Almost immediately following this success Dr. Edison is shut out of the facility and told by benefactor Raphael Barrington, to take a vacation. He is contacted by Don Rivendell, a grizzled old man with a secret. Rivendell explains to Tom that he is not the first person to discover time travel. Someone else went back and changed history by saving a young girl from dying in an internal combustion engine explosion.

Dr. Edison is tasked with going back and fixing history. He travels back to 1904 to find the younger version of Rivendell and stop him from saving the girl.

You can purchase your copy of The Edison Enigma at Amazon at https://t.ly/_NOoo.

 

 

Enjoy this peek inside:

 

Tom, Lori, and Jerzy entered the lab and stood on the landing, looking over the commotion. There was a hustle and bustle of frenetic activity as lab personnel moved from station to station, checking data, preparing modules, and entering critical information.

“Every time I come in here, I expect to see tables with bubbling test tubes and old, toothless women sweeping the floor,” Jerzy said.

Lori laughed. “Well, it would be hard to explain what bubbling test tubes have to do with this project, but I get your drift. We are kinda like Dr. Frankenstein with this whole thing.” Tom vaulted down the stairs and skipped to the control area on the opposite side of the room. He high-fived everyone he passed and crossed to an older, balding man with a semi-circle of gray hair around the fringe of his scalp. A short gray mustache covered most of his upper lip. The man had a slow gait caused mainly by forty straight hours on his feet. Tom hugged him.

“Bruce! This is it! I feel like tap dancing!”

“Well, I’ve put up with worse from you. We’re just running the final check-down now; almost complete. The data you just sent down is perfect.” Bruce had a New Jersey accent highlighted by a Yiddish lilt that caused his mustache to bounce when he spoke.

The retrofitting of the building was designed specifically for this project. Constructed like a sports arena with a high domed ceiling, the lab was ten thousand square feet open from wall to wall. Three levels encircled the room starting at the floor. Each subsequent level rose above the one below and contained a series of computer stations lined up like the NASA control room, collating, interpreting, or generating data. The entire room was connected, hardwired, and air-gapped to The Quint’s central motherboard. The Quint was the fastest and most potent AI computer known to man and contained the most significant elements of learned behavior and artificial intelligence. More significantly, it could determine and pinpoint a specific moment in time.

In the main staging area, in the center of the room, was the masterpiece of the entire project – The Time Tube. The Time Tube was a four-story, transparent tube made from indestructible acrylic conducive to energy absorption. As energy swirled through the Time Tube, it created the power needed for time travel. It stood 18’ tall with an eight-foot diameter. A raised platform ran halfway around and had six steps that led up to a full-size door allowing access to the Tube.

The lab’s roof was six stories high and supported a series of lighting instruments, air conditioning units, and safety mechanisms.  Among the other things that lived in the ceiling was a series of tubing that wrapped around the room like a tornado and converged from the roof to the lab’s centerpiece. This series of tubing was called the Cyclone. Air was pushed through the Cyclone at incredible speeds, producing centrifugal force. That energy transitioned to Euler acceleration, creating a variation in the angular velocity. Theoretically, this opens a window in time and allows the object to pass through.

After years of research, study, and failed experimentation, Tom finally understood that time is, in fact, parallel, meaning that time moves through us rather than us moving through time. In essence, time is an ever-evolving moment. We move from one plane to the next as we move forever forward. The wonder is that it is infinite, never-ending, so we will never reach the edge of time as time continues to build moment next to moment. Once Tom accepted that theory, the means of moving through time began to evolve.

With enough energy, we can freeze ourselves in a moment, thus staying still as time moves on. The challenge became moving through thousands of moments to move back in time, or more accurately, let a specific moment of the past catch up to you. It had taken Tom and his crew almost five years to reach this point. They believed they could generate enough energy to move back and forth within their time sphere to moments that have happened or will happen and return to their own designated moment and survive.

One of the most daunting challenges the team had to overcome when sending something through time was having the entire entity arrive in the same moment. Any portion of an entity that arrived a millisecond later than any other part of that entity would be split in two by the paradox of time. Using an optical lattice clock allowed the team to calculate to a precise moment. When coordinated with The Quint, the top or bottom, front or back, the side to side of any entity would arrive at the same exact moment in time so as not to be split apart.

Subsequently, above the main control area, against the back wall, was the read-out of an optical lattice clock, accurate to one second every 400 million years. It was this technology that allowed Tom and his staff the ability to pinpoint a single moment in time. The optical lattice clock uses laser beams instead of atoms to calculate the second. The light from the laser excites the strontium atoms and increases the accuracy of determination of time.

With The Quint’s exceptional calculation ability, Tom could capture moments within a zeptosecond, one trillionth of a billionth of a second, targeting specific areas of history or periods of time, with phenomenal accuracy.  Projecting these moments into the future would allow them to move forward in time as well. Theoretically, at least.

That theory would be tested this afternoon.

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About the Author
 

 

 

Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as an Artistic Director for a theatre in Los Angeles and the winner of several Drama-Logue and Critics awards for directing. As Tom’s career grew, he directed and co-produced the world tour of “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells”. The show toured for over two years, was translated into seven different languages and seen by close to a million children. Tom served as President and Creative Director for Maiden Lane Entertainment for 24 years and worked on many large-scale corporate event productions that included Harley Davidson, Microsoft, Medtronic Diabetes, and dozens of others. The Edison Enigma is Tom’s third novel following up Justice Rules which was nominated as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary contest, and The Siren’s Scream.

Author Links

Website | X (Twitter) | Facebook 1 | Facebook 2 | Goodreads

 

 

Sponsored By:

 

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Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew!

For a list of my reviews go HERE.

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

To see all of my giveaways go HERE.

Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for The Babel Apocalypse organized by Goddess Fish Promotions.

Author Vyvyan Evans will award a randomly drawn winner a copy of the audiobook. Don’t forget to enter!

And you can click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

The Babel Apocalypse

by Vyvyan Evans

 

 

Genre: Science Fiction

Synopsis

Language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants regulated by lang-laws. Those who can’t afford monthly language streaming services are feral, living on the fringes of society. Big tech corporations control language, the world’s most valuable commodity.

 

But when a massive cyberattack causes a global language outage, catastrophe looms.

 

Europol detective Emyr Morgan is assigned to the case. Suspect number one is Professor Ebba Black, the last native speaker of language in the automated world, and leader of the Babel cyberterrorist organization. But Emyr soon learns that in a world of corporate power, where those who control language control everything, all is not as it seems. After all, if the mysterious Ebba Black is to blame, why is the Russian Federation being framed for an outage it claims no responsibility for? And why is Ebba now a target for assassination?

 

As he and Ebba collide, Emyr faces an existential dilemma between loyalty and betrayal, when everything he once believed in is called into question. To prevent the imminent collapse of civilization and a deadly war between the great federations, he must figure out friend from foe—his life depends on it.

 

And with the odds stacked against him, he must find a way to stop the Babel Apocalypse.

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Enjoy this peek inside:

As I was about to glance back at the voices, a light flickered in my peripheral vision, drawing my gaze upward to the night sky. A soft white glow, high up in the dark. At first it was indistinguishable from the airway lights. But it persisted, the size of a small disk at first, before shifting to red-orange, getting larger. At that point I realized it definitely couldn’t be a hover car. This was farther up, probably low Earth orbit, which explained the initial white. But the shift in coloration—that meant a detonation, producing nitrogen dioxide, which turned deep orange when mixed with air. A gaseous cloud has reached the atmosphere, I thought. I was witnessing a chemical explosion in space large enough to be visible to the naked eye. But what was exploding?

 

As I continued looking up, the orange grew in intensity until it flared across the skyline, illuminating the entire landscape around me with an eerie red-orange. It was only then that I became aware of the newly hushed silence of the drunken revelers nearby. And the silhouettes of other people too, who had also stopped and peppered the pedestrian corridor. We were all now strange red creatures, watching transfixed in rapt silence as the night sky was on fire. And just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone; the orange light faded back into a deep well of pitch black.

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Guest Post From Author Vyvyan Evans:

Why you chose language as the focus for your story

My background is in linguistics, working as a university professor. Hence, I had written and published a good number of non-fiction books before moving into science fiction. I published 14 non-fiction books, including technical books, textbooks for university students and popular science books on language and communication for lay readers.

The Babel Apocalypse is a natural extension of my entire career as a researcher in linguistics. It imagines a near-future in which language is no longer learned, it’s streamed to neural implants in people’s heads from internet in space. But when a global language strikes, catastrophe ensues. The book explores how language works, and when it doesn’t what we all lose. I hope it makes the reader think about language in a whole new way.

The Babel Apocalypse imagines a future in which we stream language directly to neural implants in our heads, just as, today, we stream anything from movies, to books, to music, to our ‘smart’ devices, and consume that content. Smart devices use streaming signals—data encoded in IP data packets—encoded and distributed via wi-fi internet. Language streaming would work, in principle, in the same way. With a ‘language chip’ implanted in our brains, we will be able to ‘stream’ language from internet-in-space on demand, 24/7.

Moreover, based on an individual’s level of subscription to a language streaming provider, they would be able to stream any language they chose, with any level of lexical complexity. This means that someone could, potentially, apply for a job in any country in the world, without needing to be concerned about knowing the local language. Rather, the individual would just draw upon the words and grammar they need, to function in the language, by syncing to a language database, stored on a server in space. And call it up, over the internet, in real time, as they think and talk. It means that everything someone needs to know, to be able to use a language, is streamed over the internet, rather than being stored in someone’s head. Language learning, thus, becomes obsolete.

Science fiction has a long and illustrious habit of predicting the future. In 1940, with his first in the Robot series of stories, Isaac Asimov predicted some of the ethical issues that would arise as artificial intelligence comes to have a more pervasive influence in our daily lives.

Today in the twentieth first century, we are on the brink of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, sometimes dubbed 4IR. This is where automation and connectivity, via the internet, will dramatically alter the way in which we interact with each other, as well as everything around us, in our increasingly joined-up technological environment. And I predict, in less than one hundred years from now, this new technology will transform many aspects of our daily lives that we currently take for granted, including language itself.

As humans “give up” on language, and offload language learning, allowing AI to take over, language becomes a commodity (like any other, such as movies, music, etc., that we now stream on demand for a fee). In short, language would become a proprietary product, controlled for and by big tech, in service of shareholders and corporate interests.

Such a development leads to a slippery slope of issues ranging from potential censorship, to control of thought, and even, through cyberterrorism, the prospect of an existential crisis for the human race. The latter is manifested in The Babel Apocalypse most notably by a global language outage, which prevents large numbers of people from being able to communicate.

Self-evidently, in a world where most people have undergone language chipping, this would soon lead to a situation in which in the automated world there are no native speakers of language left. And with an entire population entirely dependent on language, were that language streaming ecosystem to fail, then the consequences would be catastrophic.

The Babel Apocalypse imagines a situation in which a cyberterrorist attack on language streaming servers in low-Earth orbit leads to just such a global language outage. Such an event, with its low probability, would be one for which humans would be completely unprepared. In The Babel Apocalypse, entire populations of people, literally at a stroke, lose the ability to use language, becoming feral. And hence, the consequences for civilization become catastrophic.

Hence, the concerns alluded to in the book relate, ultimately, to what it means to be human; and whether implantable AI can and should be allowed to replace previously fundamental aspects of the human experience. Moreover, these concerns highlight the abuse that arises from the commoditization of what we (may have previously) assumed to be a human birth-right, namely language.

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About Author Vyvyan Evans

Dr. Vyvyan Evans is a native of Chester, England. He holds a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a Professor of Linguistics. He has published numerous acclaimed popular science and technical books on language and linguistics. His popular science essays and articles have appeared in numerous venues including ‘The Guardian’, ‘Psychology Today’, ‘New York Post’, ‘New Scientist’, ‘Newsweek’ and ‘The New Republic’. His award-winning writing focuses, in one way or another, on the nature of language and mind, the impact of technology on language, and the future of communication. His science fiction work explores the status of language and digital communication technology as potential weapons of mass destruction.

 

Author Links: Book Website / Author Website / YouTube / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

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Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew and Good Luck!

For a list of my reviews go HERE.

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

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Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for The Cyborg’s Crusade organized by Goddess Fish Promotions.

Author Benoir Lanteigne will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B&N Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Don’t forget to enter!

And you can click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

The Cyborg’s Crusade

by Benoit Lanteigne

 

 

Genre: Science Fiction

Synopsis

How did it come to this? My life used to be so simple. Back then, I hated it; I found it boring. Let me tell you: boring’s good. Boring’s great! I should’ve been thankful…

 

It was supposed to be a date like any other for James Hunter, a simple convenience store clerk. Nothing more than watching a movie in the town of Moncton. A place as unknown and unimportant as he considered his own existence to be. And yet, while walking to a cinema, James teleports to another world. There, a hostile crowd surrounds him, including various mutants with strange deformities.

 

Before he can even gather his wits or make a dash for it, a lone ally presents herself in the form of a winged woman named Rose. An important cultural figure in the country where James appeared, she offers him both protection and a home.

 

Soon, James learns that this new world is divided by a cold war. On one side is Nirnivia, home to Rose. The other, Ostark, led by a mysterious cyborg. James is unaware that the cyborg has him in his crosshairs, thinking of him as the Deus Ex Machina that will end the war in his favor.

 

But, the cyborg is far from the only potential threat to James. Soon after his arrival, BRR, a terrorist organisation, kidnaps him.

 

What would a rogue group out for revenge seeking to turn the cold war hot want with someone like James? Is there anyone also aware of this other world who will try to find him? Or is he on his own? If so, how is he supposed to escape? If that’s even an option…

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Enjoy this peek inside:

The second that James saw the deformed statue, he deemed it painful to look at. The sculpture depicted a man, but not one of normal proportions. The arms were far too long, paired with short legs, and the right eye appeared thrice the size of the left—nothing compared to the elongated spike forming the nose, or the mouth contorted in a grimace. Now that he sat leaning against the grotesque shape, the figurative ache turned literal as the sharp stone dug into his back.

 

Even with the intense heat, James shivered. The recent revelations chilled his blood, and no matter how hard it tried, the sun couldn’t warm him again. He rubbed his chin, pondering all he had learned. His hand brushed against his stubble, and he scowled at the itching sensation. Usually he shaved every day, a habit his unplanned trip had broken. Then again, next to his companion, a bit of extra hair was nothing…

 

The freak still stood a few feet behind, laughing to his heart’s content. What a horrendous chortle. How James yearned to shut him up via his fist. “Gwa ha ah aha ha! Ha ha aha! Ha ha! Come on, why do you take things so seriously? You still don’t get it, do you? Gwha ha ha ha ha! You should laugh more; it’ll do ya good! Gwha ha ha ha ha! Wha ha ha ha! Gwa ha ha!”

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About Author Benoit Lanteigne

So, my name is Benoit Lanteigne and I’m a French Canadian (outside of Quebec) who’s trying to write in English. That can be tricky. I’m a computer programmer and I enjoy it. I see many inspiring writers who hate their jobs and hope to quit someday, but that’s not my case. Mostly, I’ve worked on websites and web applications.

 

Back in school, I enjoyed writing and according to my teachers and classmates; I had a talent for it. Well, not so much for grammar and spelling, but they liked my stories. Once I went to university, I dropped writing as a hobby. There were other things I wanted to focus on, such as my career. Then, in the early 2000s, around 2006 I’d say, I had a flash of inspiration. At first, it was a single character: a winged woman with red hair. I didn’t even know who she was, but the image stuck with me. From there, I began figuring out details about her origins and her world, but I only started writing for real in 2009.

 

It’s been roughly 10 years now, and it’s not yet finished. That’s in part because I write in my spare time, and in part because the scope of the project is huge. Maybe too much so. Still, I’m getting close to the point where I could release something. The question is what’s next? Self-publishing? Attempt traditional publishing? Nothing? I don’t know the answer yet, I’m trying to figure it out. Frankly, sharing my writing is difficult for me, and whatever I end up doing, as long as I make it available to people I consider the experience a victory no matter what comes out of it.

 

Author Links: Website / Newsletter / Link Hub / Facebook

  Twitter / YouTube / TikTok / Instagram

 

The book will be $0.99 during the tour: Amazon

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Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew and Good Luck!

For a list of my reviews go HERE.

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

To see all of my giveaways go HERE.

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War and Mystery Beyond the Stars

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Outpassage

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by Janet Morris & Chris Morris

Genre: Science Fiction

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WAR AND MYSTERY BEYOND THE STARS

Sgt. “Det” Cox has just spent three years under psych observation on Earth; now that he’s out-system, he isn’t about to tell anyone he’s seeing aliens again. Paige Barnett has lost everything, even her name, because she knows too much about the rebellion spreading through the Earth-Space mining colonies.

Together Cox and Barnett stumble upon the mystery at the revolution’s heart and learn why the rebels are willing to die for it.

Is their discovery humanity’s worst threat or greatest gift? The authorities are willing to destroy whole planets to keep the revolution’s secret from reaching Earth… What’s to stop them from destroying two people

“The Morrises’ blend of fast-paced narrative and meticulous research into near-space technology makes a novel you can’t put down.”
— C.J. Cherryh

“Action sequences that would make any writer proud. OUTPASSAGE is a wonderful book.”
–David Drake

“OUTPASSAGE might just be the perfect science fiction novel.”
— Jack Williamson

Amazon * B&N * Bookbub * Goodreads

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PROLOGUE

Fourth World Nightmare

The sky was thin and the color of dirty motor oil, except where it exploded above their heads. Concussion was delayed in the thin air but the smell of roasting Rangers got to you right away, even through your air filters. The terraformers hadn’t done much of a job on this classified ball of rock before the corporation workforce moved in, the shit hit the fan, and a request for military assistance followed.

The request wasn’t denied, exactly, but it was rerouted to InterSpace Tasking Corporation’s security division, who sent out a deniable reconnaissance team — thirteen US Rangers sheep-dipped for hazardous duty under the command of Colonel “Mad Jack” Reynolds.

It was Reynolds whose charred flesh was sending up the stink that made Cox gag as he dove for cover. Long recon meant long odds, long distances, and long hitches, but nobody ever wanted to think it meant dying a long way from home.

Overhead, even through his flash-and-blast suppressing helmet, Cox could see the enemy coming in for another strafing run. Nobody ever thought the enemy was going to come at you with airpower, either, because there wasn’t supposed to be any hostile force out here that had airpower.

In Cox’s ear, Locke was screaming over the comm set: “… suggest you form up for extraction, sir, at the beacon.”

Cox huddled under an overhang of silicate, his rifle cradled against his chest and his knees pulled up, shifted enough to turn his head. “Reynolds?” he said into his comm-mic, just to be sure.

But there was no way the barbecued officer lying beside him, charred limbs askew, was going to answer. The airpower came over and Cox covered his head: his helmet’s recon pack had sent plenty of pictures already; he didn’t need to risk his life for one more shot of somebody shooting at him.

He needed to risk his life to get to the extraction point, and that was about all he could handle. “Hey Locke,” he yelled into his mic because the airpower was strafing what was left of Reynolds: “Reynolds is past it. I’m here by my lonesome.” Rock exploded near him. Reflexively, he ducked his head in the shelter of his arms, eyes closed, and said as clearly and calmly as he could, “But I’m real ready for an order to get the fuck out of here.”

“Then give it,” came Locke’s voice, laconic over the static and hard to hear because the sniper aircraft was coming back for another pass. “You’re the only friendly voice I’m hearing.”

“Falling back,” Cox heard his own voice say, and his body followed suit. He knew he was calling the roll as he got to his knees, then his feet, crouched under the overhang, listening hard for even a groan or a grunt in response.

But nobody came back to him over his comm-link. Thirteen guys, and of the twelve on his comm-link, Cox couldn’t raise a single one but Locke. He was poised, his thighs cramping, as he waited for what felt like the right moment to sprint across the scree, a mapping display already enabled on his faceplate that gave routing overlays to his target — the extraction site.

But through the electronics, he could see Reynolds. Behind the colored grid with its pulsing points and alphanumeric displays, Reynolds seemed to be moving.

Sliding along the ground, almost. Cox didn’t want to leave anybody behind that had a breath of life ….

He scuttled toward Reynolds, his pack scraping the ceiling of the overhang — scrambled close enough to see that not only Reynolds’ left arm and leg, but the left side of his skull, was burned away.

“Shit.” The shock of it propelled the Ranger out from cover, along the suggested track on his visor-display, as fast as he’d ever moved in his life.

But in the confines of his helmet, he knew what he’d seen: something moving; Reynolds moving. And he knew he was running from that vision as much as from anything else here.

Because there wasn’t anything else here. There wasn’t anything but some deep-space double-cross having to do with mining rights and racial hatreds spread across the stars.

It was the gang bosses against the cheap labor, was what it was. There wasn’t any alien life here, despite the security classification level of the planet designated X-31A, due to artifactual evidence. There wasn’t any alien life anywhere, not above the vegetable level — a century in space had proved that beyond a reasonable doubt.

Everything that seemed artifactual had, eventually, turned out to be natural, not intelligence-made. There wasn’t any reason for these IST honchos to be afraid of the boondocks on X-31A but the way they treated the contract laborers they’d trucked in here.

If Cox said different, he’d be in psych evaluation for the rest of his life — if he got off this shitball to have one.

It hadn’t been anything, not anything, that he’d seen out of the corner of his eye. It sure as hell hadn’t been a white, human-looking, delicate hand pulling Reynolds toward a wall of solid rock — coming out of a wall of solid rock.

It hadn’t. His lungs were burning despite the augmented oxygen-rich mix his recon pack was feeding him as he sprinted; he was sweating like a pig — sweating worse than his cooling system could handle. And, overhead, he heard a subtle change in volume that wouldn’t be subtle for long: the pursuit aircraft, laying down rivers of flame as it did a one-eighty, had sighted him. It was coming back.

With the bogey on his tail and nobody to answer to, Cox hit his jet-assist. It was a one-time-only, emergency move, but there was no way he could outrun that aircraft, not on foot.

The wrench at his shoulders was immediate, the grab in his crotch comforting. And then he was airborne himself, skimming across the ground toward the extraction point where Locke’s bird was already a dark speck lowering out of the filthy clouds.

Need to touch down before the transport does; got to watch his wash; wind-shear could crash him. You weren’t supposed to do this — it was against every rule in the book to jet toward an extraction point: gave heat-tracking to the enemy; gave random bad luck more of a chance to scratch you from the game-card.

He could still see the charred half of Reynolds’ face, the eye like a lamb’s eye that had popped up in his soup once during a Saudi tour. He saw it so clearly that when the enemy screamed overhead, ignoring him and going after Locke in the pickup craft, it didn’t bother him any.

Not even when Locke’s VTOL exploded in a gout of dirty orange flame, because he could still see Reynolds inching along the rock like he was alive, that hand clamped on him.

And then he couldn’t see anything, not for a long time, because something shorted his helmet’s system and the ground hit him, hard, in the face.

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Love Science Fiction?

For readers that are out of this world and can’t wait to find out what the future holds –

All SciFi books at Perseid Press are discounted for the month of January!

Get them now before they’re light years away…..

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https://bit.ly/3RLP2hs

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GUEST POST

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What is something unique/quirky about you?

 

Together we breed Morgan horses. We consult with Morgan breeders to help them choose crosses to their stock to achieve a desired result.

We are also musicians; Janet plays bass guitar, Chris sings and plays guitar. We have an album on MCA records. Look for Christopher Crosby Morris on Soundcloud or N1M.com

 

Can you, for those who don’t know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?

 

Janet wrote her first novel, High Couch of Silistra in 1975; a friend sent it to an agent who chose to represent her; she had already written the second book in the Silistra Quartet and her agent told her not to disclose that until they finalized the contract for the first one. When the publisher learned of the others, Bantam Books bought the succeeding three. When the fourth book was published, the series already had four million copies in print. Suddenly Janet was a novelist specializing in environmental, gender, historical and political subjects. In the process, Chris started as her editor and ultimately a co-writer. Since then, she and Chris have co-authored many books.

 

Who is your hero and why?

 

Heraclitus of Ephesus, a pre-socratic philosopher, whose Cosmic Fragments foreshadow our knowledge of reality and how to perceive it. Among his precepts is the statement that change alone is unchanging. We’ve worked Heraclitus’ fragments in here and there throughout our books.

 

Which of your novels can you imagine being made into a movie?

 

All of them. We write cinematically, our books are vivid adventures we undertake without knowing the destination.  I, the Sun, The Sacred Band, and Outpassage are particularly suited to film. The Threshold Series is a feast of opportunities for today’s special effects creators.

 

What inspired you, to write Outpassage?

 

Outpassage — Many wonder if somehow salvation lies in the stars. In Outpassage pawns of industry are kidnapped to work on a distant mining colony. Waking from their long space voyage, they quickly discover strange properties in the surrounding straits of rock being mined for rare minerals needed for advanced tech production on Earth. Mysteriously, some miners die in questionable circumstances and reappear, coming to life and causing rebellion among their fellow contract laborers. Is this the result of natural conditions or supernatural forces? Outpassage takes you there to see for yourself.

 

Who designed your book covers?

 

The cover of Outpassage was created for Perseid Press by Vincent DiFate.

 

Advice to writers?

 

As for advice to writers, here is all we know: write the story you want to read. Start at the beginning, go to the end, and stop. Seriously. From start to finish you must inhabit the construct in a manner that makes the reader choose to continue; if we as writers can’t feel what it’s like being there, our readers can’t either. Close your eyes, look at your feet where they are standing on the story’s ground; tell us what you see. Tell us what you hear. Ask at the end of each paragraph ‘what happens next?’. If you lose touch with it wait until you’re back inside it. Tell the story that comes to you, and from you, to us.

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Best selling author Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 30 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris Morris or others. Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.

Christopher Crosby Morris (born 1946) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction, as well as a lyricist, musical composer, and singer-songwriter. He is married to author Janet Morris. He is a defense policy and strategy analyst and a principal in M2 Technologies, Inc. He writes primarily as Chris Morris, but occasionally uses pseudonyms.

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Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * Bookbub * Bookbub

Amazon * Amazon * Goodreads * Goodreads

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Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

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choice of print or ebook copy of Outpassage ,

$10 Amazon giftcard

– 1 winner each!

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Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew and Good Luck!

For a list of my reviews go HERE.

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

To see all of my giveaways go HERE.

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Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for The World Council organized by Goddess Fish Promotions.

Author Norm Meech will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Don’t forget to enter!

And you can click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

The World Council

by Norm Meech

 

Genre: Science Fiction / Action / Adventure

Synopsis

Ricky Montgomery had just graduated high school in June 1976 and was enjoying life as an 18-year-old teenager. He was hired by the Dawson City Police Force, and after graduating from police college he was assigned to work as an undercover operative in a motorcycle gang.

Ricky, although happy, was struggling living his double life as a cop and biker. Then it happened: during a biker war, Ricky’s life was saved by agents from the World Council (TWC). TWC was created by the world’s leaders to prevent manmade disasters from happening and to liaise with aliens who have been monitoring mankind for hundreds of years. TWC’s mandate, with the assistance of aliens, is to ensure mankind’s continued existence.

TWC is a highly secretive organization, whose agents have the ability to travel through time, to change history, and to take lives to save lives. Ricky becomes a TWC agent and discovers that TWC’s command staff is making unethical decisions, hiding secrets about aliens and trying to reduce the world’s population through biological warfare. Ricky teams up with other agents and tries to save mankind and the world from disaster.

Enjoy this peek inside:

There were overhead cranes that slid on the metal tracking in the ceiling running the distances of the corridors. I was not sure why, but my gut was telling me there was something really strange going on. Something wasn’t right, I really felt like I was in danger. We were walking in a large group and being a Prospect I was at the back of the pack. Although I was walking, I became scared something was wrong. I didn’t even have a gun with me. This was supposed to be a peaceful patch-over.

Then it happened, the shooting started. There were muzzle flashes all over the place. It appeared that we were surrounded and the guys were being shot and were dropping everywhere. Some of the guys were trying to return fire, but the shots appeared to be coming from everywhere.

I suddenly observed these strange metal objects rolling around with guns shooting at us. Something was killing us and there was blood everywhere. Suddenly these metal walls started falling from the roof, blocking doorways and corridors herding us into areas, to be slaughtered.

I had taken cover behind a large metal shelf and I heard somebody yelling at me to climb up the ladder to the roof. I looked over to the right and two corridors over someone else was climbing up another ladder to the roof.

I looked again and the guys were still being slaughtered. Out of fear and self preservation I climbed the ladder as fast as I could. Although I was afraid of heights I was more scared about being shot and killed.

I periodically glanced down and it was so strange, those mechanical things were still rolling around firing shots at everyone. I got to the top of the ladder and saw that there was a metal platform to stand on. I stood on the platform and I glanced down to where the other guy had climbed to. He had pushed some type of button and suddenly he went shooting down the corridor ceiling on some type of overhead crane track out of sight.

I saw some buttons on the adjacent panel and l pushed the green button. Holy shit! I went flying down the ceiling. It was a fast ride, like I was almost travelling through time. It appeared to have taken me thousands of feet in a few seconds. Then suddenly I stopped and I looked around. Off in the distance I still saw these weird metal walls dropping from the ceiling. They were blocking corridors and exits. They were still isolating the guys into smaller areas, to be slaughtered.

I then saw the adjacent guy diving into a room just before a metal wall blocked his exit. The large metal wall came down fast, then slowed for a few seconds before locking into the other metal wall. I looked to my left and saw a strange thing. There was a group of people all dressed in white coloured laboratory coats, rushing around in a room that had a large window overlooking the warehouse.

I was concerned that a metal wall was going to come down and that I was going to be trapped so I decided that I had to jump through the window and escape into that room. I took a few steps and jumped through the window as a metal wall started to come down. Shit!, I was going to be squashed and I was going to lose my legs. At the last second I was able to lift both my legs out of the way, while flipping over on my back. With a clang the metal wall crashed down.

I was laying on my back trying to figure out what the fuck was going on when I saw an Asian girl approaching me. She said, “Hi Rick, I’m Irene and I’m glad you were able to get out in time. You have to come with me now.”

“What the hell is going on?” I managed to ask.

She looked at me, “I will explain everything to you in a few minutes but we have to get decontaminated right away.” She turned and started walking. “Follow me, stay close and do what I do.”

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About Author Norm Meech:

Norm Meech has been retired for nearly two years, capping a distinguished forty-four-year career in policing. He fondly recalls the camaraderie of work friends forged during his tenure and the unique experiences as a police officer.

While missing aspects of his former profession, Norm keeps himself engaged by maintaining fitness and pursuing various hobbies. Additionally, he channels his creativity into writing, aiming to produce a book annually. His latest work delves into science fiction, inviting readers to ponder questions about the existence of aliens, unidentified flying objects, government involvement in secret conspiracies, the potential for time travel, and the impact of human activities on the planet. Norm hopes readers enjoy the fictional stories he crafts, sparking contemplation and curiosity.

Author Links: Facebook / Blog / Instagram

Purchase Link: Amazon

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

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