The Auriga Project by MG Herron is the story of an archaeologist Eliana who, in an accident during its unveiling, is pulled through a translocator (teleporter) machine and ends up on a planet on the other side of the solar system. The planet is populated with primitive people whose culture bears a remarkable resemblance to ancient Mayan civilisation. While Eliana uses her training to help her learn the language and fit into this new world, her husband, the scientist who created the translocator tries to find a way to get her back. It’s not an easy matter because the machine shouldn’t have been able to send her farther than the moon. He knows that Eliana’s ring (a black diamond made from rock from a meteorite) caused the malfunction, but he has no idea just how or why. Meanwhile Eliana discovers that the god of the people on her planet looks suspiciously like someone from an advanced alien species, and he demands regular human sacrifices. She hopes that her husband will find her … [Read more...]
Sci fi Review: The Alien Element (Translocator Trilogy 2) by MG Herron
The Alien Element, book two in the Translocator Trilogy, is as good as the first in the series (The Auriga Project), a fast paced intriguing mystery set on two worlds millions of light worlds apart but accessible via a translocator (but only if used with the black diamond.) It deepens the mystery on earth and answers the primary questions regarding the mysterious god on the planet Eliana found herself on. Now back on earth Eliana is in the jungles of Mexico searching for links to the Mayan civilisation on the other planet. She has no desire to go back to the planet, until she finds something in the Mexican jungle that she simply has to compare with something in the abandoned stone city on Rakulo’s world. Her husband, Amon refuses to send her, however, and by the time he realises that he should have said yes, it’s too late to do it in a controlled fashion because she’s leapt through the rift that appeared in his lab and got there herself. In this book we have three … [Read more...]
Interview: Thomas D. Taylor, Sci fi, Horror and Lit Fic Author.
Hi Thomas. Thanks for joining us today. First up, what kind of books do you write? I write horror, science fiction, “literary fiction”, and nonfiction. Great. Tell us a bit about yourself. I am a quiet recluse, living with my wife and a cat, out in the country. There's a mountain view through my office window, and I can watch horses graze in the pasture close by. Why do you write? I write to convey my ideas to other people, and to entertain them, but mostly I am writing to entertain myself. I love what I do for a living, and I will in all probability continue writing to my dying day. How long have you been writing, and when was your first book published? I've been writing since before kindergarten. I published my first short stories in 1991, and self-published my first book in 2012. Tell me about your latest book. “Spectral Septet: Seven Spine Chilling Compositions” is the latest horror book in a series of them. Readers will find in it six short stories and … [Read more...]
Sci fi Review: Why You Were Taken by J T Lawrence
ClickClick on Cover to Buy Why You Were Taken is the first in the When Tomorrow Calls Series by JT Lawrence. Set in South Africa in the near future (2021) in a world with some quite advanced tech for a world that’s only 4 years away—algae powered street lights, biomorphic buildings, and locket cameras for example. It’s not a dystopian future, but one plagued by undrinkable tap water, limited water in general, electricity blackouts, a soaring suicide rate, few personal cars, and a mostly infertile population. Personally I would have given it another 10 years, at least, to let the world get to the point of human cloning and 3D printing of a human baby, but once you get into the book, whether it’s set 4 years in the future or 20 doesn’t matter that much because it’s fiction. The book is labelled as a ‘dark cinematic thriller’. It’s certainly a thriller—the story is basically about someone trying to escape someone who’s intent on murdering them—and it is dark in terms of the murderous … [Read more...]
Sci fi/steampunk Review: Outrageous Fortune by Kathleen McClure and Kelley McKinnon
Click the cover to purchase. Outrageous Fortune is set in the same world as Soldier of Fortune, a future steampunk world set on the planet Fortune. This story takes secondary characters from the first book and tells the story of what they were doing when their lives intersected with Gideon Quinn in Soldier of Fortune. You could read the books in either order. So here we find out more about Rory and Jinni and John Pitte and his crew. If you read the first book and wondered how Jinni and Rory got on once she was aboard the Errant, or how Etiane lost his hand this book will tell you. The banter is even more amusing than in Soldier of Fortune. The plot is as unpredictable; the writing is as good and thankfully the proofreading is better, so that I found much less errors than in book one. Once again the book has snippets of backstory throughout and again this is done exceptionally well. The book’s point of view weaves back and forth between the characters, but it’s done so smoothly … [Read more...]
Free Web Fiction: Ephemeral City – Doors
Every week in Friday Free Web Fiction I post a first draft scene from my work in progress (WIP), or a short story, or an excerpt from one of my books. Today’s offering is from my Prunella Smith WIP, The Lock Smith's Secret. I’m in the ephemeral city again. Celestial bodies sparkle around me, seen clearly through the transparent luminous walls and floors. I’ve arrived at last at the floor where the Locksmith has his room, and I walk down the corridor towards his light. Below me lies countless floors with countless corridors and doorless rooms, and more rise above me, but the man in the end room hunched over his work is the only soul in the entire city—or at least that I can see. I suspect that people inhabit these rooms in some way, but I can’t see them. Or maybe there really only two people in the whole universe—me and the locksmith. My feet make no sound on the floor made of light—surprisingly solid for something that looks so baseless. I stop outside the room. A wall with no … [Read more...]
Friday Free Web Fiction: Ephemeral city
Every week in Friday Free Web Fiction I post a first draft scene from my work in progress (WIP), or a short story, or an excerpt from one of my books. Today’s offering is from my Prunella Smith WIP, Past Worlds, The Lock Smith's Secret. I’m in outer space, walking down in the middle of a road in an unlit transparent city. Skyscrapers tower over me on both sides of the road, but the city is empty, not a soul in sight. No furniture fills the rooms and no lights shine to reveal the emptiness. Deep space surrounds this city which stretches on and on around me, perhaps to infinity. And I can see it all, like an artist’s drawing showing only the outlines faintly white against the darkness. A drawing with perfect perspective, lines converging into vanishing points everywhere I look. Through the walls and roadways galaxies swirls and stars twinkle. This cannot be a real place, and yet it is. It exists somewhere, if only in a dream. Is it a dream? I expect so, but the thought does not eject … [Read more...]
