Trapped on Talonque by Veronica Scott – Guest Post With Excerpt (and Giveaway)

Tags

book feature, excerpt, giveaway, guest post, scifi romance, series, Veronica Scott

Today, I welcome back author Veronica Scott to Whiskey With My Book.  Yes, I said ‘welcome back‘.  She has visited before and is visiting again.  Voluntarily!  I think that means she likes us…..

Anyway, please enjoy Veronica’s post and then look for giveaway details after the excerpt.

Please welcome Veronica as she tells us about the latest Sectors book, Trapped on Talonque.

Thanks for having me as a guest today to talk about my new scifi romance release, Trapped on Talonque. I mixed a few themes that fascinate me on this one, from a science fiction take on Sleeping Beauty, to the idea of ancient aliens, to the ritual ball games played by the ancient civilizations on Earth. Although the story takes place far away from our planet. And of course my hero is a Sectors Special Forces soldier!

 

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The story:

Will an alien sleeping beauty awaken to save him, or destroy everyone around her?

When a Sectors Special Forces soldier and his team crash land on an alien planet, they’re taken captive and given a challenge–win at the violent ball game of sapiche and live. Lose, and they die, sending a mysterious, alien beauty to an even uglier fate. To survive, these soldiers must win the game and find a way to free the dangerous prisoner from her locked chamber.

Nate Reilly and his team are in deep trouble. Prisoners on a backward alien planet, they’re brought before an alien ‘goddess’, sleeping in her high tech seclusion. Nate is astonished when she awakes and establishes a psychic link with him. But her news is not good–he and his men must win a brutal challenge set by their captors, or they will die. She’ll give her aid, but in the end their courage and strength must win the contest.

Bithia sleeps in her chamber, as she has for thousands of years, since her own people unaccountably left her there. Viewed as a goddess by her captors, she must hide her ancient secrets to survive. But only the bravest of men may free her. Can she use her psychic powers to keep Nate and his men alive long enough to help her escape, or will her only hope of freedom die with them?

The excerpt – Nate’s first view of Bithia, the Sleeping Goddess. Thom and Haranda are under Nate’s command and being held as prisoners:

He stood on the edge of a high-tech chamber out of place on a primitive world such as this one. Ringing the room were strange displays, blinking lights, roving green beams, unknown instruments. The sophistication of the technology was well beyond anything the Sectors had achieved, let alone the dwellers of this planet. Nate spared only a second to glance at these wonders. His attention was caught and held by what occupied the center of a large alcove directly across the room.

The cubicle was lined in shiny metallic material and from the floor rose a graceful pedestal of the same material, topped with a thin platform at waist level. Neatly arranged on a layer of dark purple padding lay a woman, apparently asleep. She certainly wasn’t from this planet, nor any world known to Nate. This mysterious female had ivory skin with the palest of lavender undertones in her cheeks.

“I’ll be moon-damned.” Thom’s attention was riveted on the sleeper as well. “An Ancient Observer?”

“Can’t be—no one’s ever found actual remains,” Haranda said from the other side. “Although this room certainly suggests a high level of technology, it’s not AO. Another sophisticated, highly advanced forerunner civilization. The galaxy is a big place after all.” Roused from his state of funk, he studied the walls, apparently more interested in the devices and displays than in the woman. “I minored in AO studies at the Academy.”

“I don’t think she’s a well-preserved corpse.” Nate couldn’t take his gaze from her, not even to watch what their captors were doing now. He took himself sharply to task for the lapse. What if we’ve been brought here as a sacrifice? He had to be mentally prepared to fight, not gawk at a pretty girl. But the next moment he found himself studying her again, unable to keep himself from indulging in another view.

The woman was tall, probably his equal in height, definitely humanoid. She lay pillowed on her own hair, a thick, sweeping fall of glorious blue mixed with amethyst purple, set here and there with twinkling jewels. From his location across the room, he couldn’t see whether she was breathing, yet he had a definite sense of a living presence.

Her clothing was a simple, silvery white and lavender sheath, like finely woven metallic thread had been spun to make the dress. Thin jeweled straps held the garment at her shoulders. The finely pleated fabric clung to her curves sensuously. She lay on her back, arms stretched out a little on each side, her graceful, six-fingered hands spread open on the cushion. She wore no jewelry save for an elaborate bracelet on her left wrist, studded with colorful stones whose facets caught and amplified the lights in the main room.

Grimacing, the woman arched her spine as if in pain, moving her head on the pillow restlessly.

“What the—” Nate swiveled his head and saw the noble flipping small jeweled medallions set into one of the wall panels.

Apparently remaining unconscious, the woman struggled to raise her hands from the bedding, her face contorted. A harsh chiming emanated from the walls, as if warning against whatever procedure he’d initiated. Undeterred despite a second sirenlike sound joining the cacophony, the noble finished his task with a satisfied grunt. The black-clad priestesses seemed to want him to stop, one going so far as to touch his sleeve before being impatiently shaken off.

The lavender-clad lady cowered at the far wall, covering her ears and crouching pathetically.

Nate’s head suddenly filled with fire, and then icy cold replaced the heat, a piercing pain shooting through his entire nervous system from the top of his brain, along his spine and out to peripheral nerve endings. He fell to his knees, dragging the other three prisoners with him, exclaiming curses in their surprise. Barely hanging on to consciousness, Nate fought the alternating hot and cold waves and the associated pain in his head. Dazzling streaks and multicolored pinwheels obscured his vision, staying even though he screwed his eyes tightly shut.

“Sicondame sliquon…” came a deep, female voice from all around them.

Nate raised his head, eyes tearing, staring at the woman on the table. Is that her voice? How can she sound so calm under apparent torture?

The alarms and klaxons abruptly shut off. Nate’s ears rang with the aftereffects of the discordant noises.

Hands on his hips, the noble nodded and made a declaration to the priestesses in a tone conveying satisfaction.

Nate shook his head again as the guards impatiently yanked him to his feet. The soldiers tugged at him and the other three prisoners, indicating their time in the chamber of the sleeping lady was at an end. He twisted to catch one last glimpse of her in the gradually fading light.

She opened her eyes, looked directly at him, and in his head he heard two words.

I’m sorry.

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Giveaway!

Veronica is giving away an e-book of Trapped on Talonque (or choice of a Veronica Scott title) in mobi or epub format.  For your chance to win, comment on this post (click on ‘LEAVE A COMMENT’ under the post title above).  Comments will be open until 11:59pm – in my southwest Iowa time zone – CDT.

 

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Buy Links:

 

 

 

 

 

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Author Bio:

Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author and “SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happily Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.

Three time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her romances! She recently was honored to read the part of Star Trek Crew Member in the audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “City On the Edge of Forever.”

Blog: https://veronicascott.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vscotttheauthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Veronica-Scott/177217415659637?ref=hl
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Veronica-Scott/e/B006CUCJ92/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

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The Endurance, 4-book (so far) series by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Tags

5 stars, scifi romance, series, Tracy Cooper-Posey

Reviewed by KJ Van Houten

First, I do NOT always review in series! I just seem to be on a series-reading trend at the moment. That’s a “very good thing” because it means the books are captivating me to the point where I don’t want to leave that ‘world’. But it makes it difficult to separate the books out for a proper one-book review, so please forgive me for yet another long, combined review!

The series is comprised of these four stories: 5,001 (a short story), Greyson’s Doom, Yesterday’s Legacy, and Promissory Note. While first in the series, 5,001 actually comes later chronologically, which is how I’m going to discuss the series.

Background
The ‘world’ is The Endurance, a generational ship of colonists who have left Old Terra and are on their way to a new home referred to as Destination. The ship is led by a captain, but a lot of the ‘work’ of the ship is actually in the hands of an artificial intelligence system. The ship has been fitted with everything needed to sustain multiple generations of humans within a closed system.

The ship is divided into regions, some resemble crowded cities, some industrial areas, while others are parkland and farmland with scattered residences among living trees and plants to mimic Old Terra. There is a river, or water system, the motion of the ship creates gravity and the AI controls a day/night system of lighting.

People are born from artificial wombs and the AI selects people to serve as parents. There are limited general born in order the maintain a viable and supportable number of people on the ship, so becoming a parent is considered an honour, although everyone on board really work together to raise children properly. Upon reaching a certain age – about 14 – children are assigned a mentor and raised to work within certain occupations that support the ship.

Everyone is assigned a daily amount of rations and entitled to a certain number of energy credits which is used to ‘print’ or generate everything from food to clothes, tools, or items of interest. All waste or objects no longer wanted are recycled or added to the energy pool of the ship.

People are loosely divided into patricians and plebeians based on occupation, family, and where they live. Everyone comes together to enjoy tankball, however – a ball game played in special arenas where the ball and the arena or tank goes through various levels of gravity from 2 gs to zero-g. People become quite obsessive over the game, and I admit that I’d love to see it played for real!

People’s lives are mostly open to public view, as news, activities, and personal ‘blogs’ are freely available and widespread on the Forum, which I tend to think of as a system like Facebook on steroids. People can post anything, comment on anything, and debate over anything. Everyone’s lives is available for public view so this keeps people ‘honest’. The only thing missing is there don’t seem to be any pets on the ship, so no widespread photos of kittens or puppies.

Greyson’s Doom (ship years 210-219)
Greyson Durant is the newest captain of The Endurance. He has not been in the position for long, having taken over when his mentor stepped down. The story begins when Greyson is assigned a child to mentor. This is not as good news as it sounds, as there is only one captain, this means that the AI has calculated the odds that a new captain will be needed not far into the future – in other words, Greyson is going to die at a young age.

So it is with some resentment that he takes on the mentorship of Emmaline Victore, age 14. Problem is that Emmaline does not want to be captain! The first part of the story takes us through the challenges Greyson and Emmaline face as he tries to teach her how to be a captain through challenging her at every turn while she tries to resist but finds herself not able to resist answering those challenges.

Years pass. Emmaline has grown into an adult and gets assigned to work on the Bridge staff until Greyson is to meet his predicted fate. Somewhere along the way, Greyson and Emmaline fall in love. But Greyson’s fate comes all too soon when a mysterious flu-like infection sweeps over the ship. Emmaline is forced to take over the captaincy while adding her efforts to keep Greyson and the rest of the people on the ship alive. I won’t say how that ends, but it’s an interesting twist!

Yesterday’s Legacy (ship year 313)
Marlow Fitzgerald is in charge of the civil guard on board The Endurance. When there is an incident at a tankball game, her path crosses that of Jonah Solomon, a radical free-thinker who has taken the unusual path of being raised a patrician to not having an occupation. He has gone through several, and lived in several districts on the ship, so he has a unique perspective, seeing life through the eyes of both patricians and plebeians. He has become quite popular writing essays on the Forum, and has managed to supplement the basic rations by bartering stories for goods.

In the current ship environment, there is a lot of unhappiness as rations are cut, and the captain and Bridge crew have made decisions that the populace is unhappy with. Unrest grows steadily and Marlow and Jonah are caught in the middle of a complicated political game – literally as people become divided by which tankball teams they support, teams which divide along lines of patricians, plebeians, and Bridge crew. The games become opportunities for people on all sides to show their public support for or against others, which leads to rioting.

Somewhere in the midst of threats of mutiny, Marlow and Jonah find love. Jonah also discovers his true role on the ship, and Marlow discovers her own role is more complex than she thought.

Promissory Note (ship year 402)
Life on board The Endurance seems to have gotten a bit grittier. Especially for the average citizen, like socially popular engineer Laura Hyland, who has found herself in a position of needing an extension on a loan.

The loan was her apartment home in one of the crowded cities in exchange for growing produce on her rooftop for a local shopkeeper – a wily man who is a true master of bartering, which is the only economic system available as currency has no meaning on a ship where basic needs are provided for everyone through a system of rations and energy credits, as it has been since the day the ship launched its journey.

When she goes to ask for an extension, she discovers her promissory note was exchanged to Micah Thorn, a notoriously unpopular, unsocial man who makes a living coding systems to support the ship. Coding covers all of the systems, basically making improvements shipwide under direction of the AI. Micah offers a deal – if Laura will work on a research project for him on the side, he will consider it payment for her note.

Laura agrees, despite knowing that Micah is feared by most people for his constant scowl, rumours of revenge against those that anger him, and a mysterious past – very unusual as he must be the only person without a real presence on the Forum. Laura finds herself increasingly intrigued by both Micah and the research project he has her doing. Micah is similarly intrigued by the Laura, as she seems to be the only person that sees through his scowl and is also intelligent enough to grasp the theory he is trying to work out in his research. A project that turns out to have major implications for the future of everyone on The Endurance.

5,001 (ship year 735)
Caelen Williams, a master engineer, is called by the Bridge to investigate a serious problem – they are losing water. This should be impossible since the ship is a closed system and everything is recycled. The problem has been increasing over the past 17 years and if it continues, threatens the lives of everyone onboard. Caelen discovers that the data systems have somehow been manipulated to create this problem, but to learn who and why, she needs the help of Devar Todd, a former primary coder whom Caelen has a previous relationship with.

Devar no longer works as a coder, has become a bit of a recluse, because he was charged with game fraud surrounding tankball – roughly 17 years ago. Caelen and Devar have a theory that he was framed, around the same time the problems with the ship’s water system began. Is this a coincidence or is there something more going on?

The former lovers reconnect as they come to a startling conclusion, and must take risks to test their theory – a theory that will exonerate Devar while also having a MAJOR impact on the ship and the lives of the people on board. This short story ends with a revelation that I truly hope the author explores more fully in a later book!

Bottomline
I found the concept of life on a generational colonist ship fascinating, and the author does an amazing job of showing how various systems – not just mechanical or physical, but social, economics, etc., function together. I felt like this would have been a fascinating project to have done back in my college days when I was taking a course in system dynamics as part of a futures studies program. I probably would have made a better grade if I could have used this series as an example and mapped out the various systems and how they worked together! The author does an excellent job of showing the ship as an enclosed system along all of the STEEPLED concepts we studied. (STEEPLED being a multi-perspective view of looking at a system through its component parts of social, technology, environment, economics, politics, legal, education, and demographics and how these parts influence each other.)

This series totally appealed to the futurist side of me as well as to the SF fan and the romantic inside. Yes, there is love and sex in this story, but not a lot of the latter, or at least it doesn’t seem like a lot, but I found myself so caught up in other aspects of the story that there may be more than I realize. I admit, this world is proving to be difficult to leave behind. I want to live in this world. I think I read there will be another book in the series coming out soon and I seriously hope that is correct! I’d pick this as one of those series that I want to never end! (Apologies to the author, I know writing does not work that way.)

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Get the Books

Add The Endurance books to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase the series at Amazon:

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 Author

Find Tracy Cooper-Posey at her website: http://tracycooperposey.com/

 

What Are You Reading This Weekend?

Tags

aliens, Art, audiobook, Brenda Cooper, Chris Fox, military scifi, scifi, tiger, Vaahlkult, wraith

Wraith by Vaahlkult

This print reminds me of an audiobook I am currently listening to.  Destroyer by Chris Fox.  The title of the print, Wraith, is the name given to the evil invaders in the book.  It is not the image I have associated with them.  But the tiger in a space suit reminds me of the Tigris, the race of spacefarers that have a tenuous agreement with humans to combat the wraiths.  At this point in my listening, it is not looking rosy for the good guys.

Art available at Society 6.

At any time, I usually have several books going.  One on my e-reader, which is typically what gets featured here, since that is my go-to form of reading.  I also listen to audiobooks and read print books.  Each form has its time and place.

This week I am going to feature a couple of books that are not on my e-reader.  I’ve already mentioned the audiobook Destroyer by Chris Fox.  Book 1 in the Void Wraith trilogy, Destroyer is military scifi with lots of action and intrigue.  The second featured book is the print book I’m currently reading – Book 1 in the Glittering Edge series, Edge of Dark by Brenda Cooper.  It is also scifi and also features some scary invaders in the far future and, ooh, is good!  I anticipate continuing both series.

What are you reading this weekend?