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What’s New:

My Latest Book

A collection of otherworldly short stories available at Amazon:

an astronaut stranded by a broken Martian rover axle;

a freighter captain must either pursue his ex-wife’s abductors or deliver a critical steel shipment;

a Martian trainer must face the son of his student that disappeared twenty years ago;

an astronaut saved by a sentient ship must choose between returning to Earth and saving the life of an android who helps him escape;

a Beta Hydri IV emigrant is leaving, but a mysterious young woman tempts him to stay;

an android discovers illegal music, knowledge, news, literature, and self-realization. He decides to share the experience by setting millions of androids free;

an alien is abducted from a menagerie, and a private investigator must find him; An engineer arrives to a colony overrun by invaders. His job is taken, and he must stop the deportation of all humans;

inside an alien Dyson Sphere Larkin, investigates a murder, apparent social unrest, and AIs no longer enforcing the law. Their star is dying, and changes must happen to save their future;

a shuttle collides with a compromised space station orbiting dead Earth. A couple struggles to save the station, the collision survivors, and their relationship;

a second expedition to Gaia discovers an abandoned colony and carnivorous plants that draw their prey using windborne pheromones;

a man unearths a wooden box that grants him magic wishes. He meets two ghosts and the box’s owner, Jack, who demands payment for the wishes. One ghost suggests he transform the demon;

an early-medieval boy is left to care for his infant brother. A small dragon steals the child. The boy seeks magic to go back in time to save the boy;

a medieval Irish man travels to learn about his parents. He locates his mother’s grave but ignores warnings to forget about his father.

Book Review:

The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin

This sequel to the Three Body Problem begins with the effort to defend Earth from a Tri-Solaris invasion and continues for three hundred years.

The time frame for this book is, IMO, too long. The consequence is a considerable amount of arms-length telling. There is also a considerable amount of in-your-face showing. I got to know the major characters, grew to care about some of them. The greatest issue of this book is that during large parts, it is a slow read. In other places, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

There were several fascinating concepts, such as ‘the dark forest’ which sent shivers down my spine, and the ending was a bit deus ex machina.

One thing I cannot deny is that this book is fresh, filled with new and exotic ideas, a complete departure from what I’m used to, in a way I really liked.

So, I liked it, but took me forever to read. If you have plenty of time, I’d recommend it.

My newest novel, Last Flight to America is now available on Amazon in hardback, paperback, and Kindle.

In 2256, a century since the great thaw and decades after the blessed refreeze, Mathew Jansing, a reserved, environmental biologist and childhood amnesiac, believes humanity will again leave the envirodomes.

During an altercation with his celebrity mother, Matt accidently kills her in self-defense, but the borough will never believe his innocence. He flees the envirodome in an aerobus for the poisonous badlands of Tennessee.

He encounters unreported rejuvenation and breathable air. Why would scientists keep this secret? Matt discovers a fugitive woman, Ellen Fitzgerald, hiding in the Smokies. She shares food, and when police storm the forest, they hold up in an underground bunker.

Matt doesn’t know it, but he’s been found guilty in absentia, and both the police and his mother’s revolutionary group, led by Norbert Buckson, want him dead. Norbert intends to overthrow the North American envirodomes with military robots and has sent Ellen to bring Matt back.

Borough police capture and imprison Matt and Ellen. In the face of his execution, if only he can stay alive, he intends to; learn why his mother tried to kill him, clear his name, and share the secret of Tennessee rejuvenation, but the revolution is coming, and he might be too late.

My novel, Last Flight of the Sirens is available on Amazon in hardback, paperback, and Kindle.

In 3585, after a childhood of sexual abuse, Phi, a young, telekinetic, humanoid alien escapes her Vardiaan owner. She returns home to Myrth where time travelers foretell that a man on Beta Hydri IV will save her pacifist, Ramasese people from genocide, slavery, and war.

Phi travels to Beta. She seduces and abducts Michael Singh, a recently widowed journalist and immigrant from Earth. He awakens from years in stasis to a war-torn world where Phi’s people, exiled from their city, hide in trees and caves.

After meter-tall insectoid Scimenon conquer worlds, humanoid Vardiaans move in, selectively enslave the populations, and establish slavery as the primary commerce. The Ramasese’s psychokinetic, sexual skills make them priceless slaves. While Scimenon murder them on sight, Vardiaans kill the adults to take their children.

Despite his abduction, when Michael sees the horror facing Phi’s people, he reluctantly agrees to fight with Phi against the monsters they face. Now, this wave of war and slavery threatens to move to the distant human colonies. The key to Michael and Phi’s success is an abandoned Dyson Sphere stocked with ancient, high-tech weaponry and ships. They race against time to save the Ramasese people.

Writers of the Future Contest

I just received word from W.O.T.F. My romantic comedy–I never thought I could write one–received a Silver Honorable Mention for the 1st quarter submissions. In this whirlwind story, On Beta Hydri IV, Vena, an exiled crown princess from Myrth, meets Noah at the Zanzibar club. He is sick of Beta and plans to return to Earth. They take turns saving each other from aliens before realizing what they’ve done.