Tag: Publishing

Blurbled!

A first draft book description for Maroli Tango. Comments welcome.

Sometimes, no matter what’s going on, you have to make it about you.

Earth, 2026 — an alien civilization’s backwater territory; an epicenter of impending catastrophe.  In fifteen years, a solar event will scorch the planet. Coming up after that, an ice age looms. Two million light years away, the Unseen have demonstrated the means to settle a grudge.

United States President Carmen Benequista is tired of dealing with it. Embattled, worn out, she is visited in a dream. Her deceased husband says, “Find someone to share your life while it can still make a difference.”

It’s not a rocket science proposition. Her steady companion, Space Mafia kingpin Brandon Lopez, 15 years her junior, is waiting for a signal.

Meanwhile, 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.

Right there in the middle is a legion of consciousness-elevated maroli labor appliances, a product of ancient Anye technology, monstrous in appearance, sweet of disposition, intent on discovering their 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.

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Read This First

Here’s the deal — you might want to read The Illusion of Gravity first because it’s the first volume of a series.

Alternatively, you can start with one of the other books and backtrack later to find out what you missed. There’s no penalty.

Literary Science Fiction, focused on story, not just space ships and ray guns. Entertaining. Immersive. Ambitious. Value-positive. Fun. Written for grown-ups. Suitable for young adults. The opposite of dark, smutty, ugly, pessimistic.

Amazon makes it easy to find out if a book is something you want to read. Go to the Kindle listing. Click below the cover art on the ‘Read Sample’ button. Give it a few pages. You’ll know soon enough.

The Illusion of Gravity can be found here. Discover my catalog here. Check out my blog for other essays. Thanks for reading. We need you.

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Therapied!

So, at around 119,000 words, I realized Mason Fowlkes was a pivotal cast member with a relatable story. Oops. Time to shuffle chapters and fill in backstory. It's therapy, for both of us. Maroli Tango, in progress.

Community Resources was headquartered on Residential Deck 5 (RD-5). Day care. Classrooms. Crafts center. Fitness center. Jump Ball court. Thrift Exchange. Library. Meeting rooms. Etcetera.

There resided the Family Services department, under the direction of the distinguished Anye Samudri elder Brian Lama, no relation to Dalai Lama, although possessing similar bearing and rectitude.

Continue reading “Therapied!” →
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Family Drama!

According to fellow author Ashley Manning, that's what I've been writing these last several years, in a Sci-Fi framework, which he could have said is very avant-garde of me, but didn't. Nevertheless, here's a fresh example from the work-in-progress. You decide.

There were no federal authorities on hand to witness a CH Banks spacevan landing in the street, but Russell and Nancy’s next-door neighbors were absolutely on station.

The man’s fourteen-year-old Chihuahua barked herself wheezy and had to be picked up. His wife came out with their granddaughter, all of them in pajamas, forcing Brandon Lopez to deboard and apologize for the ruckus, even though it wasn’t his fault and everybody knew it.

The granddaughter was star-struck, delaying their getaway by running into the house for a glossy mail solicitation from February, featuring United States President Carmen Benequista at a charity auction on the arm of her frequent companion, former NSA security auditor, U.S. Navy veteran, number two executive at CH Banks International, Space Mafia heavyweight, Filipino-American Brandon Lopez, age 45.

Continue reading “Family Drama!” →
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Expositated!

I'm not much of a wordsmith when it comes to exposition. I rely on that fly-on-the-wall third-person-limited view, where the story is told by action and dialogue, without a narrator whispering in the reader's ear.
But sometimes you just gotta prep the scene, especially in first chapters where motivation might be a little fuzzy. Damn. I'm pretty sure it's something I'm not very good at. Regardless, here goes.

A back-handed compliment often given to Carmen Benequista by her enemies was that she won the senior-citizen vote on a resemblance to Sophia Loren, if only the actress had been two f-stops more photogenic.

Sour grapes, repeated by the entitled super-rich, their minions and thought-slaves, unions, associations, financial institutions, industrial conglomerates, the Mafia, the cartels and so forth, ad infinitum.

Continue reading “Expositated!” →
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Maroli Tango

A possible final title for the novel. On the cover, I'm thinking we dress Pascal in a sash and do-rag, holding a long-stem rose in his tertiary tentacles.

On Tuesday, Secretary of the Treasury Norbert Donaldson denounced President Carmen Benequista as a “Reckless tyrant, having no understanding of fundamental economics, willing to wreck the world financial system to settle her petty grievances.”

Angela Moss, Carmen’s Chief of Staff, said, “You should go ahead and dump him in the ocean.”

Carmen loitered in an Anodyne corridor, natural body lying comatose on her bed, speaking with her friend virtually, from the Virtuality. “He obviously didn’t believe I’d do it.”

“It’d be nice if we had intel about his situation.” Angela arranged papers on her desk. “Who do you think’s leaning on him? CIA? East coast mob?”

“Enforcing policy for central banks? Has to be the CIA.”

A door at the end of the hallway changed color from red to seafoam green. On the other side of the door, an oval opening waited, the sort of thing one might find on the back of a gorilla costume.

Carmen took three steps into an abrupt scene change. Angela Moss snapped into clear focus, in Super 3D Ultra-Vision, delivered by her maroli valet’s high-resolution sense array.

The aroma of lavender filled her nostrils. She said, “Pascal; did you take a shower in my quarters?”

Pascal replied, “This one has never felt so fresh.”

Angela said, “You guys are creeping me out.”

Carmen bounced on phantom legs, feet barely connecting with the floor. She wiggled a tentacle. “Give me a pen.”

With a few delicate strokes, the Treasury Secretary was fired.

Angela grumbled. “Let’s not tell anyone we’re signing documents this way.”

Carmen pedaled her legs, invoking flight mode, soaring to the ceiling. She said, “I won’t if you won’t.”

Her chief-of-staff retreated to a corner. “You could swoop down on Norb Donaldson in his back yard. Nobody would see it.”

Hovering in front of a mirror, Carmen attempted a shrug. A maroli has no shoulders. It didn’t translate. “I could, couldn’t I?”

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Warbot!

A teaser from the current WIP, working title 'Maroli Winter'.

The sensation of operating the breaching waldoe was an order of magnitude more intimate than the same experience within a simulation, and Myra Fowlkes knew why — the Anodyne virtual tutorial authored by the manufacturer was pathetic.

The machine’s vision was intensely sharp and focused, with more depth of field than delivered by organic optics. While waiting to deploy, she smelled silicone grease with sufficient precision to locate the source without taking a single step — it was on a flexible seal dovetailed into the spaceboat’s hatch opening.

The warbot felt like a neoprene wetsuit. Its hands were her hands, clad in half-finger diving gloves. Its feet wore hiking boots like ones she’d taken back to the store because they were too stiff, except these had so much traction she had to take weight off one ankle if she wanted to rotate.

Continue reading “Warbot!” →
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YA-ing

Another teaser from a work-in-progress. 77,000 words and no title, yet.

Chapter 203

Anuraga, The Dust Cloud

Mason Fowlkes went straight from lunch to a partially shut-down docking terminal, its boarding passage absent of patrons, occupied only by a shipwright replacing airlock seals.

Mason told him, “I’m going out of slot five in a few minutes for a podcast interview. I’m cleared with the house, but …”

The man held up a hand. “I’m done with five.”

“Okay, because I didn’t want to …”

“You’re not in my way. Where’s your boat?”

Continue reading “YA-ing” →
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Space Soap Opera

Another teaser from work-in-progress

Espinho, Portugal

Portugal’s time zone was an hour behind Serbia, the sky still illuminated by the last rays of a setting sun; making it imprudent to land Advaita Vedanta in an alley, invisibility technology notwithstanding.

Brandon Lopez should have flown the van, a mistake painfully evident upon deboarding, unremedied by sending the spaceboat off to a parking slot in orbit.

Maryanne Orsa’s one-hundred-eighty-two-year-old English/Norwegian/AjJivadi mother, Lisbet Porter, met him at one end of the alley with a tiny dog on a leash and an admonishing tone in her voice. “Did I just see you land a spaceboat seven blocks from where I’m living?”

He cringed. “I’m an idiot.”

“That’s what you are.” She gestured. “Let’s get moving before the neighbors show up.”

Continue reading “Space Soap Opera” →
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