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Welcome to my place in the blogosphere!
feel free to explore the Flight Deck and check out my books and website.
Then fasten your seatbelts, sip a glass of something sparkling and let's chat awhile!
I hope you'll stop by again for guest authors and spotlights from time to time.

Beloved Enemy joined Starquest and Children of the Mist to continue the Destiny Trilogy and I'm thrilled to announce was shortlisted for the R.N.A. RoNA Awards 2017, awarded 2nd Runner up in the RONE Awards 2017 and was the winner in the SF/Fantasy category of the 'Best Banter Contest'.

Saturday 19 August 2017

#WeekendWritingWarriors -Ten Sentence Sunday - An introduction to Earth Colony Niflheim


Welcome to Weekend Writing Warrior and 8 Sentence Sunday, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to read and write! We've got a variety of genres and talented writers just waiting for you to come sample their work.

Writers share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet on Sunday each week. Be sure to visit the other writers - they're listed below:

If you'd to share your own 8-10 sentence snippet, whether published or not, follow the link and sign up. It's a great community to be a part of! 

For the past few weeks I've been sharing excerpts from Starquest, the first of  Destiny Trilogy. Thank you to everyone who's been following and commenting. As I said last week, that was just the beginning of the adventure, although it looked like the end for Jess ... but I won't give any more away *evil cackle*!

Let me now introduce you to Niflheim the home planets of the two telepathic members of the Destiny's crew and where an important part of Starquest takes place. Niflheim is an Earth colony named after the Norse land of mist and cold. Many of the places and inhabitants are also named after characters and places in Norse legends. The descendants of the original settlers developed their powers of telepathy in order to communicate over vast areas having abandoned all technology. Parts of the planet are reasonably temperate and they have evolved a rural lifestyle and an economy based on the bartering of skills and produce.

Author Note: The planet Niflheim was inspired by the sight of the snow swirling like a pink mist over the Welsh Mountains, at sunset. I was writing Starquest at the time and an idea for a planet with pink  snow came into my mind, and the question - how would settlers on a sparsely populated planet communicate with no technology? And so the telepaths of Niflheim were born. Although only a few chapters of Starquest are set on Niflheim, some of the characters seemed to demand their own story, and so 'Children Of The Mist' became the second book in the Destiny Trilogy.  Although several of the characters in Starquest are also in this book it is a complete and separate story, and features Tamarith, a close friend of Jess.

Excerpt from first page:

The message from Gladsheim had been clear—Earth Colony Niflheim was in danger.


The rider shivered and drew his long coat more closely around him. His pony lowered its head against the wind, picking its way over the snow-covered plain. Vidarh knew he was not alone on this journey—he sensed the presence of others, all making their way to Gladsheim from various parts of the world.

Without warning, a mind connected with his, as sweet as the tinkle of tiny bells.

Greetings, Vidarh of the House of Ragnak, this is Tamarith of the House of Yarvi. I have been assigned to guide you to our fair city. You have come a long way to be with us, and we, the inhabitants of Gladsheim, thank you.

Relieved, he swiftly telepathed his response, Greetings Tamarith. I look forward to meeting you and the others soon.

The rest of your journey is not easy, she replied, but we will guide you. When you reach the other side of the mountain we will be waiting to take you to Gladsheim.

Two minds united against a common foe. Two hearts afraid to show their love:Long ago Tamarith fell in love with a man she can never have, and is convinced she will never love another. However, she cannot help but be intrigued by a handsome stranger whose psychic powers exceed even her own.

Vidarh seeks only to find his true purpose in life and to win the regard of his father, who eschews his son’s psychic abilities. Thrown together by a common threat to their planet, then torn apart by an evil greater than any they could have imagined, can Vidarh save the lovely Nifl woman who has captivated him, before it is too late?

Will Tamarith and Vidarh overcome the deadly enemy who threatens to destroy all they know and love? Will they find the happiness they both seek? Or are they fated to live their lives alone?

Purchase all three books (or just one, they stand alone, while sharing some of the same characters)  at https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B01MRY3XXT





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Thursday 17 August 2017

Serenngeti - Spotlight, Guest Post and #Giveaway



Serengeti
by
J.B. Rockwell
Genre:
SciFi Adventure



It was supposed to be an easy job: find the Dark Star Revolution Starships, destroy them, and go home. But a booby-trapped vessel decimates the Meridian Alliance fleet, leaving Serengeti—a Valkyrie class warship with a sentient AI brain—on her own; wrecked and abandoned in an empty expanse of space. 

On the edge of total failure, Serengeti thinks only of her crew. She herds the survivors into a lifeboat, intending to sling them into space. But the escape pod sticks in her belly, locking the cryogenically frozen crew inside. 

Then a scavenger ship arrives to pick Serengeti's bones clean.

Her engines dead, her guns long silenced, Serengeti and her last two robots must find a way to fight the scavengers off and save the crew trapped inside her.




**On
sale for .99 from Sept 4th- 9th**



Serengeti 2:
Dark and Stars


Fifty-three years Serengeti drifted, dreaming in the depths of space. Fifty-three years of patient waiting before her Valkyrie Sisters arrive to retrieve her from the dark. A bittersweet homecoming follows, the Fleet Serengeti once knew now in shambles, its admiral, Cerberus, gone missing, leaving Brutus in charge. Brutus who’s subsumed the Fleet, ignoring his duty to the Meridian Alliance to pursue a vendetta against the Dark Star Revolution.

The Valkyries have a plan to stop him—depose Brutus and restore the Fleet’s purpose—and that plan involves Serengeti. Depends on Serengeti turning her guns against her own.

Because the Fleet can no longer be trusted. With Brutus in charge, it’s just Serengeti and her Sisters, and whatever reinforcements they canfind.

A top-to-bottom refit restores Serengeti to service, and after a rushed reunion with Henricksen and her surviving crew, she takes off for the stars. For Faraday—a prison station—to stage a jailbreak, and free the hundreds of Meridian Alliance AIs wrongfully imprisoned in its Vault. From there to the Pandoran Cloud and a rendezvous with her Valkyrie Sisters. To retrieve a fleet of rebel ships stashed away inside.

One last battle, one last showdown with Brutus and his Dreadnoughts and it all ends. A civil war—one half of the Meridian Alliance Fleet
turned against the other, with the very future of the Meridian Alliance hanging in the balance.




Hecate
Prequel to Serengeti

Black Ops—the intelligence arm of the Meridian Alliance Fleet came calling with an offer Henricksen couldn’t refuse: a ship—an entire squadron of ships, actually—and crew to command. A chance to get back to the stars.

Too bad he didn’t ask more questions before accepting the assignment. Too bad no one told him just how dangerous this particular skunkworks project was.

They call the ship the RV-N: Reconnaissance Vessel - Non-combat, Raven for short. A stealth ship—fast, and maneuverable, and brutal as hell. On the surface, Henricksen's assignment seems simple: train his crew, run the RV-Ns through their paces, get the ships certified for mission operations and job done. But an accident in training reveals a fatal design flaw in the Raven, and when an undercover operative steals classified information from a Black Ops facility, the Fleet Brass cancels the tests completely, rushing the faulty ships and their half-trained crew into live operations. On a mission to recover the Fleet’s lost secrets.

Out of time and out of options, Henricksen has no choice but to launch his squadron. But a ghost from his past makes him question everything—the ships, their AI, the entirety of this mission, right down to the secrets he and his crew are supposed to recover.




Audiobook
available 10-17-17




J.B. Rockwell is a New Englander, which is important to note because it means she's (a) hard headed, (b) frequently stubborn, and (c) prone to fits of snarky sarcasticness. As a kid she subsisted on a steady diet of fairy tales, folklore, mythology augmented by generous helpings of science fiction and fantasy. As a quasi-adult she dreamed of being the next Indiana Jones and even pursued (and earned!) a degree in anthropology. Unfortunately, those dreams of being an archaeologist didn't quite work out. Through a series of twists and turns (involving cats, a marriage, and a SCUBA certification, amongst other things) she ended up working in IT for the U.S. Coast Guard and now writes the types of books she used to read. Not a bad ending for an Indiana Jones wannabe...
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!









Popguns, Rayguns & Laser Rifles: How Much Tech is Too Much Tech?
By J.B. Rockwell


Alright, I can hear it already: all the tech is just the right tech, there is no such thing as too much tech!

Well, maybe. Actually, yes, for some, but not for others. Basically, this is the whole ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ sci-fi argument that’s been raging since Moses parted the Red Sea and Zeus’ pappy slew all his brothers to become top Titan dog. More importantly, it’s an argument with no definitively correct answer but some very staunch (and sometimes militant) supporters on either side.

My stance? Both are good. Some want all the science, others want all the feels. The world deserves books that offer both.

My preference? Feels. All the damn time.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the tech too—it’s not sci-fi without some whiz-bang inventions thrown in, after all—but where I start to lose interest is when the tech takes over at the expense of a real story. Spend three pages describing how the ship’s engines work? Snoozarama. You lost me and I’m skipping ahead, looking for some action. But you also need to wow me a little and provide something unique and interesting in the sciency area to score maximum points on my sci-fi reader scale.

So, when it came to writing Serengeti, therein lay my challenge: how to write the ‘splosions and feels book I wanted but still introduce some nifty-neat tech ideas to keep the readers happy and engaged? Also, how to avoid overdoing it and just throwing out preposterous ideas that would make those same readers roll their eyes and snort like a skeptical pug.
In other words, not too much tech, but enough to have some fun, and make sure it was somewhat believable.

Somewhat. I like to give myself the liberty to stretch the bounds of creativity.

So, what did I come up with? Well, weapons, of course. Serengeti is a warship, after all. Specifically, a concept called liquid laser (that was actually chemical and corrosive and not laser at all) and a coiled particle array that sliced and diced like the universe’s greatest ever Ginsu knife. And to complement those weapons, some defensive measures: an electronic camouflage package that made ships invisible to sensor arrays, and banks of photovoltaic plating to drink in the starlight and fuel the power cells in Serengeti’s belly.

See? Cool stuff. Well, I think it’s cool stuff. Not too much, and not too little, borrowed from existing tech or familiar tech ideas but with just enough uniqueness to give the story flavor. Or so I hope.





For insider news and subscriber-only info, subscribe to my occasional Newsletter. I promise not to spam and your in-box will only see an email from me every 3 or 4 months or so - unless of course I have something really Newsworthy to share! http://madmimi.com/signups/196357/join