Precipice
by M. Pax
M. Pax the author of Precipice is my guest today. Check out the blurb of Precipice, the excerpt and her guest post on world building.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
In the far future, humanity settles the stars, bioengineering its
descendants to survive in a harsh universe. This is the sixth book in the
science fiction series, The Backworlds. A space opera adventure.
The
Backworlds hang by a Quantum string, a thread about to snap. Annihilation is
coming if Craze can’t stop it.
The
genocidal alien he had trapped breaks free, destroying a ship belonging to the
Backworlds’ oldest enemy, the Fo’wo’s. The murderous alien wants to overtake
the galaxy. The Fo’wo’s want another war.
The
Backworlds’ best chance to survive is to overcome a century of hate and forge
an alliance with the Fo’wo’s. Because of his history with the alien, Craze is
recruited to represent his people. Now he’s the most hated man in the galaxy.
The
looming war will be a holocaust unless he can stop it, knowing salvation comes
at a price.
Boing
Boing gives The Backworlds 5 stars! "This is a fun, fast paced novel that
reminded me a bit of early Heinlein".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
Until he knew for certain whether he dealt with one
genocidal alien or two, Lepsi couldn’t think right. His thoughts refused to
stand still, stuttering and churning.
The hatch slid fully open. He sprang off the cargo
ejector, sailing two kilometers into the ether. He tumbled in the black for
precisely twenty-three seconds then engaged his thrusters to journey the
remaining twenty kilometers over to a spacecraft-sized mass of debris. The bits
clumped together forming a weird metallic planetoid.
He traced along the char marks and the mangled
pieces of hull. The answers he needed wouldn’t be found in this trash, yet he
was closer to them here than anywhere else, unless he joined up with the horrid
alien again. His limbs shuddered and his lungs struggled for breath. He never
wanted to see the cloud-like ship again. He couldn’t. He’d crack into a billion
unrecoverable pieces. Just like the rubble of the Fo’wo ship around him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Guest Post
Guest Post
How Humans Can Survive in
Space
Any world created in fantasy
and science fiction has to be rooted in believability. In that regard, a story
set in space is no different than contemporary or historically-based fiction.
Get a detail wrong and the reader may not forgive being yanked out of their
cherished time in the story world.
One aspect requiring
attention in a story set in space is how humans survive off Earth. We are
uniquely adapted to this world, so the issue of why people aren’t dying in
space has to be addressed.
In Star Trek, the characters
travel to M Class planets. In Battlestar Galactica the people only leave the
ships in smaller vessels. In Total Recall (the original), people lived in
buildings created to protect them from the elements of Mars. People can live in
domed cities or on terraformed worlds.
In the Backworlds, I
terraformed people to adapt to different environments. It makes the most
economical sense. Bioengineering humans requires less resources than
terraforming a planet.
Creating new worlds and
societies is a blast and there’s a great temptation to reveal everything
invented to the reader as soon as possible. This is where the writer must
employ a lot of discretion and control. The world should be revealed in context
and as the story unfolds. Only what’s necessary should be told. Yet the writer
has to know it all to weave a cohesive tale that doesn’t fall apart because the
details don’t line up.
Another issue in a story set
in space is travel. How will people move from planet to planet? Physics and
science play a hand in solving the problem. Ignoring it is fun, as people can
flit among galaxies at whim. It’s not realistic, however, unless you invent
believable technology to do the deed.
Star Trek has warp drive
(actually NASA gets closer to making this a reality). Star Wars has hyperdrive.
Babylon 5 had jump points at space stations. There are wormholes, alien
technologies, and a whole host of other travel methods invented by fiction that
has gone before.
In the Backworlds, I employ
the Lepper System which accelerates ships between star systems. It’s similar to
the jump point system used in Babylon 5.
How
your people survive on a different world and how they travel puts restrictions
on the story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and
Links:
M. Pax is author of the space adventure
series The Backworlds and the contemporary science fiction series The Rifters,
plus other novels and short stories. Fantasy, science fiction, and the weird
beckons to her, and she blames
Oregon, a source of endless inspiration. She docents at Pine Mountain
Observatory in the summers as a star guide, has a cat with a crush on Mr.
Spock, and is slightly obsessed with Jane Austen. Learn more at:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mpax1
See what inspires The Backworlds on
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/mpaxauthor/
Amazon - http://hyperurl.co/PrecipiceAMAZON
B&N - http://hyperurl.co/PrecipiceBN
iBook - http://hyperurl.co/PrecipiceAPPLE
Googleplay - http://hyperurl.co/PrecipiceGP
Smashwords - http://hyperurl.co/PrecipiceSM
Kobo - http://hyperurl.co/PrecipiceKobo
Other - http://mpaxauthor.com/mpaxworks-books-and-stories/the-backworlds-series/precipice/
Be sure to visit the other blog on the tour for extra chances to win:
June 8: Blog of author Jacey Holbrand
June 8: It's Raining Books
June 9: Yeah Books!
June 10: The Blog of C.R. Moss
June 10: CBY Book Club
June 11: BooksChatter
June 12: Lilac Reviews
June 15: Shelf Full of Books
June 16: Long and Short Reviews
June 17: Two Ends of the Pen
June 18: Mixed Book Bag
June 19: Kit 'N Kabookle
June 19: Black Heart Magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment