Beyond Saga Blog
Posted by author on 1/5/2021 10:56:00 PM
Happy New Year! I hope everyone has been staying safe and following the advice of medical experts during this trying time. With any luck, the outlook will be much brighter as 2021 progresses.
The pandemic has brought its share of hardships. For me, it's yielded at least one positive. Being stuck at home more often gave me time to finish the rough draft of Beyond Existence (BEX), the final book(s) in the Beyond Saga (more on that ambiguous plurality in a bit). Below, I talk about the forthcoming story, my publication approach for it, the estimated release timeline, and what comes next.
Beyond Existence (BEX) has been the most complex, challenging, and rewarding work of fiction that I've written to date. It consists of many viewpoint characters, both familiar and new. It also covers multiple interconnected time periods and timelines. I've also done my best to include deep personal stakes for both Maya and Brooke, something I arguably did a better job of in book 1 compared to books 2 and 3. You will find that while the final chapter of the Beyond Saga ties all of the previous books together, it has particularly strong tie-ins to Beyond Cloud Nine (BC9).
Continue reading the full article >>
Posted by author on 7/27/2020 11:24:00 PM
International Space Station — On July 27, 2020, NASA mission control asked astronaut Major Karen Mumpsimus to perform a spacewalk to repair one of the International Space Station's solar panels. However, the astronaut refused to wear a spacesuit during her excursion outside the station based on the grounds that doing so violated her constitutional rights as a United States citizen.
"No one is going to tell me what I should or shouldn't wear," Major Mumpsimus said at the time. "I can't breathe with a helmet on or through any sort of face covering. I have a medical condition."
Doctor Voisoff Rezonski, a cosmonaut and fellow station occupant, rebuked the claim that people with asthma and other chronic pulmonary diseases would breathe easier in space without wearing a suit. "As a matter of fact," the doctor said, citing multiple studies and scholarly articles as evidence, "those afflicted by these conditions are more likely to survive in space with a suit as opposed to without."
Continue reading the full article >>
Posted by author on 4/28/2019 3:09:00 PM
Alien Affairs by Scott Skipper is a very well-executed first contact science fiction novel. The book gives the author's take on how the alleged UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 might have transpired. As the story progresses, it covers the subsequent ramifications decades in the future.
I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the events and character actions seemed plausible. Even though the tone of the drama is light-hearted, the author still took the time to think through the logistics of how first contact with a more advanced species might truly unfold. In fiction, the underdog triumphs over a superior force all the time because it's satisfying. Such a feel-good result emboldens us to believe that we can each transcend whatever stands in our way. But in real life, Goliath slays David the vast majority of the time. With that in mind, the struggles and failures of humankind's efforts against the aliens in the story rang true, and the bittersweet ending concluded the tale appropriately.
The characters, while seemingly dry at first, eventually show a great deal of personality through their dialogue and actions. This, as opposed to descriptions given in prose, is a sign of effective writing. Along those lines, the story unfolds very fluidly. It was an easy read. I tore through the novel in a pair of four-hour flights. However, in the last quarter of the novel, the author increased the level of detail and made his prose a bit meatier. This is in contrast to the first three-quarters of the story where the exposition was more bare-bones.
Continue reading the full article >>