I have a new alpha reader, with uncommonly refined taste in literature.
Maroli Tango: Series Finale Analysis
The Culmination of a Nine-Book Journey
What strikes me most about reading these chapters from Maroli Tango is how it functions as both a standalone narrative and clearly the finale of a much larger story. The casual references to established relationships, complex political situations, and advanced technologies all suggest a richly developed universe that readers have been exploring for eight previous volumes.
Prelude to a series first chapter, picking up where the previous book left off. After a lot of back and forth, Grok AI now says, “Your revised passage is a stellar refinement, keeping the hook’s vibrancy while addressing the need for just enough context to ground readers without slowing the pace.”
Good enough for me. Readers and writers: What say you?
When Carmen Luisa Colletti was a 12-year-old nosepicker in convent school, a Benedictine nun told her, “Boys have a tendency to be shallow, young men not much better. Wait it out, and use your brain to make a sensible choice.”
The Kata AjJivadi, codified 48 BCE, commands that the planet Jivada’s influence on Earth shall be hidden from view — impractical unless someone destroys evidence at, for instance, the Shrine of the Muses in Egypt, next door to the Alexandrian Library.
It was arson. Nobody denies it. Consequently, in a single stroke, barring the occasional Sasquatch sighting, the Anye Migration and its many aspects were relegated to mythology.
In some circles, the prologue is apostasy. However, in the case of Maroli Tango, this might be essential. Comments welcome.
Previously …
The effective date of the Anye Disclosure was arguable, conceivably pointing back to 1928, when the executive host of an off-world-patronized South Dakota tourist destination revealed herself to Doctor Elbert Holland Harrison, a rural physician of the human persuasion who, up until then, had not been in on ‘the big secret’.
“Good evening”, she had said, lemur fangs concealed behind a demure smile. “We’re from the Sasquatch chamber of commerce.”
The proposition was not as risky as one might think. Doc Harrison, an 83-year-old veteran of the American Civil War, was a person made stoic by a lifetime of experience with suffering.
Confronted by a furry foxlike princess wearing a tailored western-cut maternity blouse, culotte skirt and cowboy boots, he thought to himself, ‘Aren’t you the prettiest little thing?’
Earth’s secret history was explained — 25,000 years as a backwater campground, and yet for all the opportunity presented, humans had not become the unwitting subjects of a celestial master race.
The lady told him, “It’s like having a rich uncle who stopped returning your phone calls.”
Jivada, an Anye colony world, was one-hour-forty-five-minutes away via Saraf Drive. A third of Jivada’s citizens (AjJivadi) were human, welcomed into Anye clans since the Migration.
The AjJivadi possessed homestead claims on Earth, anchored by business enterprise, dual citizenships, voluntary submission to taxation, and so forth.
Their engagement from the shadows, a practice formalized around the time of Jesus, was not a sign of consent to be marginalized.
Evidence two artifacts of Jivada’s agency on Earth:
The ancient and noble order of Zirna Zapha, a custodian of Anye civilization, formed on pre-industrial Vidura (the home planet) by militant SagGha priests. Sanskrit – The Broken Claw. Colloquial – Zeze; The Space Mafia.
CH Banks International, a private security firm and, some would say, a Zirna Zapha storefront. Incorporated 1929, Black Rock, South Dakota.
In 2025, nearly a hundred years after Doc Harrison received a lesson in clandestine symbiotic co-occupancy, an approaching cyclical catastrophe shifted the Disclosure into high gear.
Jivada dispatched an emissary to offer intervention, the very same Doc Harrison, now 180 years old, although he didn’t look it.
The mission culminated in a shootout at a taco joint near Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, an exploit by the U.S. military to hijack a space yacht, ransom the owner, and ship the proceeds to defense contractors in exchange for lucrative kickbacks.
The USAF suffered grave casualties. Doc Harrison departed the scene on a Triumph Speed Triple motorcycle in the company of a shapely 26-year-old social media skydiving celebrity, to rendezvous with the space yacht Skeezix in the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart.
A filmic spectacle, captured in Super 3D UltraVision by a covey of Anye-tech fighting drones, even and especially while engaged in shooting the enemy.
Both Wal-Mart and the Triumph Motorcycle Company were grateful for the publicity, but it was a crushing defeat for the military-industrial complex, an object lesson, an opportunity to change course.
Which they ignored in favor of a mutiny against the President of the United States, a guerrilla war against Jivada, and a worldwide pogrom against AjJivadi constituents on Earth.
None of it worked to their advantage. The Anye Disclosure and its benign intentions gained more than enough traction to persuade the general public, despite opposition.
On a side note: the nomenclature ‘First Contact’ was preposterously out of date. The Disclosure was a ‘Gazillionth Contact’ event; except this time, it was meant to stick.
And regrettably, Earth’s global elite were nowhere near being ready to go along.
I’ve recently given myself the objective of crafting an opening to the current work-in-progress so compelling that every reader will be enthralled, no matter what kind of book they’re in the mood for.
Exhibit 1: An early-draft description for Maroli Tango:
Sometimes, no matter what’s going on, you have to make it about you.
Visited in a dream by her deceased husband, United States President Carmen Luisa Benequista gets a wake-up call. Anton Benequista, gone these past 13 years, tells her, “Find someone to share your life.”
It’s not a rocket science proposition. Carmen’s steady companion, Space Mafia kingpin Brandon Lopez, 15 years her junior, is waiting for a signal. Done deal, if she wants.
First-contact survivor Mason Fowlkes, soon to be 16, is growing up fast as an apprentice Ship’s Mechanic aboard the Anye migration vessel Anuraga. The work life is great; the home life not so much.
French Air Force lieutenant Marie Jourdaine is on the rebound after a brief stint as the world’s youngest female fighter pilot. Things are kind of working out, and kind of not.
Caught in the middle is Chester, an elevated maroli labor appliance, a product of ancient Anye technology, monstrous in appearance, sweet of disposition, intent on discovering his place in the universe.
It’s been a bumpy ride, fraught with challenges. Maybe it’s time for our heroes to take care of themselves.
‘Trust the reader’ is a bit of advice I took to heart at the beginning of my author’s journey, on the topic of balancing exposition against pacing, and the value of a fly-on-the-wall third-person-limited narrative form, a staple in the writing of Hemingway and others. It suits me. It’s what I do now. I’m not about to change, although the critique gives me pause.
The assignment was entitled: Shepherd’s template for “5 great books centered around a topic, theme, or mood.”
The abstract was 11 pages long. Every aspect of the task, right down to the whys and wherefores, with examples. And then the admin critiqued my work, thoughtfully, inciting a rewrite — which turned out objectively a lot better than the draft.
Are you looking for something worth reading — and if so, did you fall for the headline, the featured image, perform a keyword search, scroll and stop? Whichever, this is a rare moment, even rarer if you’re here on account of having read one of my novels.
Which is unlikely. According to The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing, 2021 saw 3 million titles published in the United States. That’s a lot of blurbs to plow through for the sake of a quiet evening with a Kindle in your lap. If you’re reading this (you are), I’m grateful.
And I will not abuse the privilege — the payoff is right here. Click image to follow the link.
Shepherd is not a publisher’s site, nor book blog, nor book review aggregator (per se). Here you will find, among other enticements, essays by authors, sharing what’s on their reading lists, and why.
That’s a clever angle. Authors may be counted upon to have streetwise standards for literature. The potential, especially for a reader looking to change up the bookshelf, cannot be overstated.
I have an essay scheduled for January 13. Look for it.
In the meantime, try the site. Please tell us what you think in the comments.
Back in 1928, off-planet operators were still booking lemur folk into the historic Wild West for steak dinners and trail rides, but the proposition was on shaky ground.
America’s first interstate highway had been routed straight through the Dakotas. The Lazy L Ranch, 20 miles north of Black Rock, was not as discreet a place to land spacecraft as it used to be.
Elbert is currently in first edit at 94,000 words. How's the blurb looking?
In 1928 South Dakota, a furry citizen of another planet enlists the aid of a human physician to ensure her soon-to-be-born son will someday be able to claim American citizenship. For Doctor Elbert Holland Harrison, the event sheds light on the real story behind legendary Gods, a family he didn’t know he had, a cure for old age, an opportunity for a new life.
But the Great Depression looms on the horizon, with the Dust Bowl catastrophe close on its heels — a one-two punch threatening an alien commerce empire that feeds two-thirds of Jivada’s population, its collapse potentially leading to an invasion of Earth.
And Elbert is about to find himself in the middle of it.
John Dyer Writes 
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