This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Merrin Slade will award a $50 Kobo gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
In a world where perfection is demanded of its citizens, one imperfect woman may be the only person who can save humanity.
One thousand years in the future, humans have developed the ability to alter their genes to create a perfect version of themselves, but not all are so fortunate. Cerys Skye is a Wild Type, genetically unaltered and forced to live in the Refuge—a place for Wild Types and the unlucky citizens whose genetic modifications society has deemed as imperfect.
All the fiery tempered young woman knows is how to fight. Using her wits and skills, Cerys must compete in brutal prize fights if she is to bring food to the table for her younger sister. But, she is always aware that the next fight could her last—she must find a way out of this life.
Leaving behind all that she knows, the last place the tempestuous Cerys expects to find herself is joining the United Planet’s Space Force Academy, where she battles prejudice and intolerance in a world run by genetically modified humans.
As the new recruit discovers, not all is as it seems at the Academy with a shadowy cyber-evil seeking to threaten humanity. But, when loyalties are tested and the stakes are high, can Cerys rely on newfound allies and her unshakeable courage to stop the impending catastrophe?
Contains mature themes.
Read an Excerpt
She felt light-headed. “I need half an hour. To find my sister, that’s all…” Starla would understand this was for both of them. She would ask Gerry to take Starla in. Of course, she would. Gerry had a big heart.
“If you’re joining the Space Force, you leave now. You must decide,” he said.
Panic seized her. “I have to say goodbye. I must make arrangements.”
“Step into the pick-up zone. Or you are free to stay behind.”
Cerys glanced up at the silver disk darting through the clouds towards them. She looked back at the crowd. Inquisitive tourists gathered in a wide circle around her. Standing on the edge of the pick-up zone, their faces flashed: green, white, green, white.
In that moment, a woman shoved to the front of the crowd, the haft of a sword glinting over her shoulder—a Valkyrie.
“Kara,” Cerys shouted. “Over here.”
“Cerys.” Kara strode towards the checkpoint. GMs shrank away. “What’s going on? Did they take you? I heard about it.”
The secofficer scowled, and the crowd whooped.
“Kara, listen.” Cerys tugged her aside. “I’ve been recruited to the Space Force. Tell Gerry to look after Starla, and tell Starla…I love her. I’m getting her out of here. I’ll send money. Promise me.”
Kara blinked. “Now? You’re going now?”
“Just promise.”
“I promise.” She nodded vigorously. “Of course, I promise. Hey, what’s this…?”
Secnoids grabbed Kara from behind, dragging her away. Even the famous Valkyrie were not permitted to say goodbye.
“Tell Starla I’ll message…” Cerys shouted, but Kara was already lost in the crowd.
About the Author: Merrin Slade is a science fiction writer who transports readers to alternate futures and faraway universes.
When I saw: Perfect for fans of sci-fi thrillers and horror, from Alien to Jurassic Park. I thought, how can I go wrong? I may have started out thinking, yeah, Hell Moon is what I expected and I was lured in by that beautiful cover, but it didn’t take long before I became intrigued.
We start with a distress call. The group find a human woman and 8 or 9 year old child, in a cryochamber. The woman doesn’t make it, but Maya becomes a part of their group and Janice takes on a mother/guardian role.
I started to connect with the characters and wondered…who will survive. After all, this is a horror story and someone has to get knocked off. We do have a couple of humans. I fell in love with Janice, a human, Gaby, an uplifted dog, and Cristobel, an uplifted cat. I’ll leave it to you to read the book and figure that one out. We also have Tyler, a human, and his uplifted dog, Jaimy. We have S’risssa and Ahn’ssi, 6 1/2 foot tall lizards. The are S’rellick aliens. The two aliens have a mission….
The ship is The Kanga, operated by Artificial Intelligence. We are underground, with ghosts and scarabs. One civilization built on top of another.
“You pretend the monsters don’t exist, and then maybe they won’t, right? Isn’t that why you lied?”
“…we lie and say we can make things better. But we don’t know if we can. And sometimes, no matter what we do, it turns out we can’t.”
Hell Moon by Mary E Lowd was a fabulous surprise. I thought, okay, it sounds interesting. It did take me a while to get involved, but after I met the unique and unusual characters I couldn’t stop reading. As the battle between the creatures and the group intensify, lives will be lost. An author that can take out one of my favorite characters could be on MY hit list, but that is not the case. Everything comes together in a way that left me satisfied, yet wanting more. So bring on the The Ancient Egg, Book II.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
A search and rescue mission on a deserted moon goes wrong when Janice and her crew mates are attacked in the dark abandoned city beneath the surface. Infected by a strange blue energy, Janice doesn’t know how much time they have left, or what will happen when time runs out. The underground ruins crawl with mysterious, scarab-like figures, and even death isn’t a certain escape, when the dead rise as ghostly forms. The only logical choice is to flee, but the lizard-like aliens paying for the mission insist on forging on. Their secretive agenda and the sordid history of the sentient spaceship who brought them there divide the crew, when they can’t afford to be divided. Trapped on hell moon, Janice must fight to keep as much of her crew alive as possible while wrestling against impossible odds. The only one who has a clue about how all the pieces tie together is a little girl who survived the last hundred years asleep in her cryo-pod. On a world where the dead rise as ghosts and multiple civilizations have already been destroyed, solving the mystery of the scarabs might be the only way to survive and escape… HELL MOON. Don’t miss this dark, action-packed adventure through a hostile universe. Perfect for fans of sci-fi thrillers and horror, from Alien to Jurassic Park.
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, Space Opera
275 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 8, 2023 by Deep Sky Anchor Press
Series: Xeno Spectre, Book I
ABOUT MARY E LOWD
Mary E. Lowd is a prolific science-fiction and furry writer in Oregon. She’s had more than 180 short stories and a half dozen novels published, always with more on the way. Her work has won numerous awards, and she’s been nominated for the Ursa Major Awards more than any other individual. She is also the founder and editor of Zooscape. She lives in a crashed spaceship, disguised as a house and hidden behind a rose garden, with a large collection of animals, both real and imaginary, who collectively serve as her muse.
I want to thank Book Sirens, A C Huntley, and Bena House LLC for the opportunity to read and review a copy of The Galactic Zookeeper’s Guide To Heists And Husbandry.
I expected something outside the normal and that is what I got. At first, I was having a hard time getting into the story, even thought of not finishing it. Patience paid off, though it took almost half the book for me to get involved. Was it the writing style? My expectations?
Definitely worth the read as I watched Saffron Savage find a life worth living, since her life on Hialeah made her so desperate, she would even traffick one of the animals she cared for, an umemeh, sort of a two headed llama. She lied, she betrayed, she stole, she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.
I watched her go from a job that stole her soul to second chances and finding enemies that became friends, and more.
The last half of the book was a winner. I got in the flow, from her struggle to deliver the umemeh to a notorious mobster, to meeting Captain Reyes and his crew, to finding a home. We have space battles, a little romance, and a crass, belligerent woman who finally had me laughing and supporting her decisions as she comes to the realization that not everyone is out to get her.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Galactic Zookeeper’s Guide To Heists And Husbandry by A C Huntley.
3 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
For eight years, Saffron Savage has been stuck on a dilapidated zoo-planet on the outskirts of the galaxy. Her mountains of overdue student loans make it impossible to afford the cost of leaving, and her sleazy coworkers force her to work demoralizing jobs on a daily basis. Desperate to escape, she hatches a scheme that might just be crazy enough to work: steal the zoo’s rare, two-headed llama and sell it to the highest bidder. When the poorly planned theft lands Saffron and her stolen companion as unwitting stowaways on an outbound ship, she must pose as an animal rights activist on a mission to return the animal to its home planet. To her surprise, the ride comes with some perks – an instant chemistry with Captain Michael Reyes and burgeoning friendships with the ship’s motley, animal-loving crew. Other than the lie that’s snowballing out of control, Saffron finds herself settling into this quirky, ship-bound life. If only the buyer wasn’t the most notorious, cut-throat mob boss in the galaxy. Or there wasn’t a warrant out for her arrest. The Galactic Zookeeper’s Guide to Heists and Husbandry is a fast-paced space romp about second chances, rediscovering purpose, and finding family in unexpected places.
Humor, Science Fiction
394 pages
Expected publication June 1, 2023 by Bena House LLC
ABOUT A C HUNTLEY (from Amazon)
Ace is a creative artist who authors science fiction novels, paints impressionist art, and dabbles in film. She lives in suburbia with her husband and child where she dreams of adding a dog, a few cats, a snake, a bat-house, and some chickens to the family.
Seeing I am such a cover hound, I thought it would be interesting to get Zanne Raby’s take on the cover for Descent Into Darkness. It sure is colorful and intriguing, making me want to know what is happening. Welcome Zanne.
Subject: Discuss your cover
Hello All! I’m really excited at being
featured as a guest author on the Fundinmental blog and I’d like to thank Cheryl
for inviting me to write about the cover of my latest novel, Descent into
Darkness, the second book in the sci-fi/ space opera series, “The
Chronicles of Deneb”. Since I’m working on a series I’d like to begin with a
little background to set the scene.
Let’s jump forward to the year 2080 CE. In the sixty years separating us from the characters in my series, humanity has just about ignored every little bit of science related to our climate catastrophe and allowed our beautiful planet to plunge into decay. Politicians and big multinational companies wore blinders over the decades that resulted in droughts, famine, and mass migration. But rather than own the problem, the developed world manned the guns and doubled down on isolationism. That’s not all folks, because NASA, the European Space Agency and ROSCOSMOS banded together and created the Space Ark Project – three massive shuttles that were built to be the saviors of the human species. Except in 2080, that’s not what’s really going on. When Dr. Daniel Radu, the project manager of the United States of North American’s Space Ark Project, overhears the truth he decides that he’s not going to take it lying down. He didn’t get to be one of the best astronomical engineers on Earth by twiddling his thumbs after all. Daniel arranges for his team to take control of the Space Ark Mayflower and off they go, leaving the rotting planet and the even rottener politicians behind while they rocket through space and on to their destination: Deneb7. Now fast forward three years to 2083 CE and let’s catch up with the crew in the second novel of the series, Descent into Darkness, where they try to integrate into Denebian society. Little did the intrepid space travellers realize that the desert planet was populated until their arrival and by then, it was too late. The war-like denizens of Deneb sent out a greeting party and you can just imagine that things didn’t go so well for the crew. The refugees try their best to integrate with their new neighbours. But what do you know, the humans bring along some unintended guests in the form of a deadly disease that begins to blaze through the local population. With Denebians dying like flies, a lack of communication and a series of misunderstandings spark off a deadly planet-wide conflict. The cover of Descent into Darkness is a reflection of this. The fires of war blaze in the background while one of the powerful warbirds descends through the roiling clouds of smoke to bring battle to the enemy. The entire planet is ablaze and I tried to capture that on the cover bThanky portraying mushrooming clouds of greasy orange smoke billowing up from the ashes of destruction. Above it all, isolated from the carnage, is one of the weapons of annihilation. There, high above the wreckage and safe in their warbird, a pilot is about to make their descent. High above the planet’s ravaged surface they soar, unseeing of the destruction they unleashed on the city below, unaware of the carnage they wrought that extinguished thousands of lives. The title of the novel, “Descent into Darkness”, alludes not only to the actual massacre of the population and destruction of the planet exacted by the war on Deneb, but also of the moral abyss into which the characters find themselves falling. In the novel’s cover, I’ve tried to distill some of the more important elements of the plot to incorporate them into the cover. If you want to dive into the depths of Deneb, why not to pick up a copy of Descent in
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. Happy to have you here, Zanne.
Descent into Darkness: Mayhem follows the
Mayflower in the second book of The Chronicles of Deneb series. Journey along
with the crew of the Space Ark Mayflower as they adapt to their new home on the
planet Deneb. But along with their struggle to integrate into an alien culture,
a new battle sweeps across the planet with the arrival of the human-transmitted
Chimera bactovirus, bringing war and fanning the flames of racial intolerance.
With a bloody conflict raging across the planet, the crew of the Mayflower is
split between the two factions and embroiled in the chaos and destruction.
Descend with the crew into darkness, where the only survivors of a global war
will be on the right side of the border.
EXCERPT
“Pallav? You alright?” Tara’s voice broke him from his
reverie and he pasted on a phony smile.
“Sorry darling, I was a million light years away. I’ll be
fine,” he promised. Sweat trickled down his back in the unrelenting heat of the
Denebian day, his disruptive pattern shirt already sticking to his body as he
shrugged into his rucksack.
“Daddy, I’m gonna miss you.” The chirpy sing-song voice of
little Jolanta gave him cause to smile at the child as she held out her arms to
him. Swooping her up, Pallav dropped a kiss on the little girl’s rosy brown
cheek, her eyes glistening with tears.
“And I’m going to miss you too, little one.” Hugging the
orphaned girl to his chest, he burrowed his face into the cloud of dark hair
that was as soft as a feather before pinching her cheek and gently setting her
down. Guilt pierced his heart at the sad resigned look on the child’s face. Had
it not been for him, Jolanta would be snug as a bug with her biological parents
and not in lockdown high above the capital city living with a pair of humans.
Poor little thing… she’s known so much loss in her short
life, he thought. Surrounded by death as the human Chimera bactovirus raged
across Deneb, Jolanta had been cruelly abandoned by her mother after Tara
retrieved the fallen child from the cobblestoned marketplace in the centre of
the capital city. He could still picture his wife walking through the door with
the tiny tot in tow. Shocked, surprised, but then captivated, Pallav let the
child into his heart. It wasn’t like his two teenagers wanted him around
anymore. No, Luke and Isabella were busy chartering their own course in the Wessel
world with Gomalan insisting that they attend the best boarding school in the
nation.
Taking advantage of his position, Pallav had initiated a
thorough search for Jolanta’s parents only to get confirmation that they were
amongst the thousands in Styria who had succumbed to the pandemic. Since her
arrival, the young orphan had been his little shadow, never leaving his side,
following the big man’s movements with her luminous opalescent eyes. He smiled
inwardly at the thought of Jolanta climbing into her little cot and begging her
new daddy for a bedtime story. Guilt-ridden he realized that he’d miss her more
than his own children who were so immersed in their new lives that even their
weekly holotalks were rushed and awkward. Laughing at himself, Pallav knew he
was totally under the child’s spell.
“I promise to be back in time for market day, so no tears,
okay?” Taking the little urchin’s chin in his hands, Pallav stared into her
eyes. “And you have a promise to make to me too young lady, don’t you?” The little
brown head nodded up and down, serious eyes acknowledging the responsibility
her adopted father had assigned to her.
AUTHOR Bio and Links
Since the days of
the Napoleonic War, there has always been a member of Zanne’s family in
uniform. Choosing to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors, Zanne joined the
Canadian Armed Forces in 1980, and was selected to attend the Royal Military
College of Canada – the first year that women were accepted into that
prestigious academy of learning. After graduation, she studied to become a
Transportation and Movements Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
During a career
spanning 38 years, some of the most memorable experiences involved command of 8
Mission Support Squadron as part of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, leading a
study on support to the Canadian Arctic involving several trips to Northern
Canada, including Canadian Forces Station Alert (the most northern settlement
in the world), a three–year tour with NATO at Joint Force Command Brunssum, a
deployment as the NATO Liaison Officer to United States Central Command, and
finally a nomination as the Deputy Commander for the Canadian Forces Recruiting
Group.
After hanging up
the uniform and putting away the combat boots, Zanne bought a small acreage in
Central Ontario and designed her own house. With an office overlooking the
picturesque shores of Georgian Bay, surrounded by maps and images of alien
worlds, she is pursuing her life-long ambition to become an author. Enough of
the reports and returns that littered her desk over her career, now she could
turn her attention to unleashing the creativity that had taken a back seat to
the analytical world of logistics. The time had come to shake the dust off and
begin a new career. The winds of change had called.
Zanne is
currently crafting The Chronicles of Deneb, a sci-fi series that will
take the reader from a dystopian earth on a voyage across the galaxy in search
of a safe haven. But the planets the team discover provide anything but the
sanctuary they sought. In her spare time, Zanne enjoys travel, photography,
hiking, and gardening. And always, a good story to pass the time.
