Four Minute Read - Vigilance

In the following excerpt from the Future Chron Universe novella "Vigilance," a rocket

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jockey has been hired by a mysterious contact to place an equally mysterious black box on the Mars moon Phobos. Rex, the rocket pilot, doesn't much care who, what or why, but he does care about getting paid.

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Rex Stamford had worked around the clock to supervise the hopper modification. He had enlisted the help of his network of acquaintances he had worked with on both Mars and Earth. The main change to the hopper rocket was the additional fuel tanks strapped like a belt around its main rocket. The extra fuel would allow the rocket engine to burn long enough to achieve a rendezvous with the Mars moon and then provide the needed retro-burn to bring the rocket back down.

Rex had borrowed the results and necessary calculations from public documents filed by other expeditions. He had enough fuel to duplicate the orbital elements of those other expeditions and rendezvous with Phobos at some nine-thousand four-hundred kilometers altitude. He had chosen a small ridge on the trailing side of the moon as his target for placing the relay station.

Rex had contracted for an expensive, made to fit EVA suit for himself, something he could keep afterwards. Even so, at no time did Roscians balk at paying the bills and he never even requested an explanation for an expense. Because Rex was able to pay a premium for all services the hopper rocket was ready on time.

Seven Minute Read - War Through The Pines

The following excerpt is from my story War Through The Pines. It is a story of the

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first war in space. Donner is the young boy whose life is impacted by the war. Though at first he follows the news rabidly, by this time in the story he has become skeptical of what it would accomplish.

The geopolitics of the story are not mine but were taken from the book The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.

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September 6, 2054

Three weeks after negotiations had begun the US used its remaining space-based assets and secret ground-based weapons to launch an attack on the Japanese-Turkish coalition in space. Within two hours the coalition's space assets were essentially destroyed. The coalition was now blind. Then the US launched its remaining hypersonic airplanes and delivered almost total destruction to the remaining military assets of Japan and Turkey. The peace talks were suspended.

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Five-Minute Read - Whatsoever You Do

Here is a sample of the first novella, "Whatsoever You Do," in the Future Chron

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Universe. 

Here's the blurb:

A pandemic had long been predicted.

Now it was happening and a former graduate student, Jack Jackson, may have the key to its containment, synthetic biology. 

But because in the court of public opinion synthetic biology is feared, it has been forbidden in the money conscious halls of medical research. 

How many will have to die before they change their minds?

In this sample a CDC researcher has been sent to a hospital clinic in South Sudan. He finds there a viral infection that kills quickly but is not too contagious, yet. At the clinic he talks with the doctors and gathers a sample and does preliminary analysis but will do more complete analysis back at the CDC, if he can get back.

This is from Chapter 5 (Wesley is the researcher, Kamal is his guide). Written August 2016 and published in November:

Rocket Winter: A Novella

Another story in the Rocket Series is available. The novella "Rocket Winter" can be found here. This continues the story began in "Rocket Summer" and "Rocket Fall". 

Jack's idea would truly change the world. But creating a new kind of rocket engine had its costs.

Jack had failed once and almost died.

Now he had failed a second time and it looked like it would be the last. Unless he found support.

Then he found out through his mom that his dad, though long dead, had left the financial support he needed. And his mom, of course, was his number one supporter. And then there was Janie …

Rocket Summer Short Story

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Rocket Summer: A Short Story is going on sale this month and so the page must be removed from this site. It can be purchased for 99 cents, October 20 on Amazon (click photo).

Rocket Fall

Sometimes it's dangerous to pursue your dreams.

Sometimes you suffer setback, disillusionment, or even defeat.

And sometimes you almost destroy mom and
dad's house, as Jack was about to find out.

Rocket Fall is the second short story in the author's Manifold Earth Universe: Rocket Series. Beginning in the near future and extending into the far future, the Manifold Earth Universe extrapolates future humanity's struggles, failures, and successes in moving out into the vast cosmos.

See the Manifold Earth tab to read Rocket Fall.

New Tab - Manifold Earth

There is now a new tab across the top for my new universe: Manifold Earth. If you visit you will find a brief introduction to the new universe and you can read short stories, free.

Rocket Season #1

I find that people who want to “change the world” really want to change the way others think, to make others think the same as they do. But people that want to improve the world want to make it better, like improving agriculture to support another billion souls, or improving medical knowledge to save another billion lives. So improve the world, don't change it. 

 -  The Great Gramps

Story Sample - The Lattice Of Space

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A sample of my novel The Lattice Of Space has been posted on the Story Samples page. 

This is the last of my "Robot Novels" which I particularly enjoyed because of the banter that developed among the robots. Some of my favorite characters.

Dark Side

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The print version of the Remembered Earth Universe novella Dark Side should be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retailers in the next couple of days (the epub will be released July 20). This is the eight story in the Cislunar Series and introduces the reader to Moon settlements, facilities in cislunar space (basically Earth-Moon space), and the friction that may develop between commercial and scientific interests on the Moon. 

In this case, mining interests threaten the operation of an already building radio-telescope on the far side of the Moon. The scientists are worried that the mining operations will create electromagnetic interference, making the successful functioning of the telescope impossible.

Into this situation comes a recently graduated law student whose job is to find a way to make sure the use of the telescope will not be impaired. But he fails, and in failing succeeds.

To see how, read Dark Side in print now, or later in an epub (July 20, 2023) version.

While part of a series, Dark Side can be read as a stand-alone.

The Remembered Earth Universe: Cislunar Series extrapolates the development of cislunar space over the next century and tends to use more probable science and technology than my other universe Future Chron which uses more speculative science as a background.

Click below to order.

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

The Realm?

In cleaning up this website and trying to make a more uniform presentation I have taken out any references to my in progress story, The Realm, I hope to add back a sample of this story once I start working on it again.

Robot Planet Sample

This is one of my favorites because of the interplay among the robots. It is the second story in the Spin-Two Trilogy. Look under the Story Samples tab and scroll down.

Frozen Time Sample

I have posted a sample of my novel, Frozen Time, on the Story Samples page. This is the third novel in the Time Series Trilogy.

Time Wars Sample

A new sample has been included in the Story Samples tab for my novel, Time Wars. The first novel in the Time Series Trilogy.