SFR Brigade 2nd Midsummer Blog Hop - "Out Of This World"

Welcome to the 2nd Annual SFR Brigade Midsummer Blog Hop. This is my first time participating and the theme this year is Out Of This World.

To celebrate, I will be gifting an EBook copy of The Lancaster Rule from Amazon Kindle (US). Please leave your email address in the comments section for your chance to win. You'll then need to sign into the Rafflecopter at the end to say you've commented to be entered for the Grand Prizes. See the details on the that at the end of the post. Good luck and have fun hopping along!

I thought I'd share with you a little bit about world building. For The Lancaster Trilogy, I tried to keep it very realistic. It's set 300 years into Earth's future and in getting there, we've had a few global wars and economic crashes. Catastrophic events hinder the march of progress, and this is what I used to keep things more or less believable. So, no transporters like Star Trek and hyperspeed space jumps are still being tinkered with.

In the Lancaster world, the setting/architecture and culture remain pretty much the same with -- of course -- lots of new cool advanced looks and changes. Basing things on past events and history, 300 hundred years, while it may sound like a long time, isn't really that long when it comes to Earth's history. A lot of things still remain the same (with some changes to speech, culture, trends, technology, medicine, etc). But we've basically only made huge leaps and bounds within the last 80 years or so. Using this as a basis, jump 300 years forward, throw in a couple of world-crushing wars and events, progress after rebuilding takes a little time. That being said, the beauty of writing science fiction is that you can make up some cool stuff -- like gadgets and weapons and amazing scientific discoveries.

In The Lancaster Trilogy, you'll find the world is ruled by one man. The capital city of the world is called the Citadel, nestled in the Swiss Alps. The citadel is a monstrosity of a place, shrouded in the mountains, dripping with high-tech security and surveillance. The weapons on the Lancaster world range from cool stuff like krima sticks, pulse guns and snare guns 3's. You'll also find incredible flying cars, mega shuttles, space crafts and space stations.

At the heart of it all, the human race while they may advance, remain pretty much the same at their core. I used this as a basis for the tale and tried to bring out the character's story, using my protagonist, Josie, to be the catalyst that brings everything out and together. A fish out of water, a 300 year old relic who entered a stasis pod and wakes up to a changed future. What a story!

The Grand Prize for the 2nd Annual SFR Midsummer Blog Hop are:
1st Prize - $150 Amazon or B&N Gift Card (winner's choice) and an ebook bundle.
(currently Ghost in the Machine, Bayne, Recast Book 1: Wither, Recast Book 2: Clash, Alien Adoration, Switched, Reckless Rescue, Wreck of the Nebula Dream, Keir, Terms & Conditions Apply, The Key, Marya, The Iron Admiral, Sasha's Calling, Trouble at the Hotel Baba Ghanoush, Winter in Paradise, Once Upon a Time in Space, The Telomere Trilogy, Winter Fusion, Blue Nebula, Demential, Wytchfire, Maven, Fires of Justice, Interface, Girl Under Glass, Breakout, Stark Pleasure, The Plan, and Starburst. Bonus books - Ghost Planet, The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy and Deception, and Games of Command).

2nd Prize - $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card (winner's choice).

3rd Prize - three $25 Amazon or B&N Gift Cards (given to separate winners and their choice).

And don't forget, you MUST leave a comment with your email address AND sign into the Rafflecopter to win the prizes.
To win the Kindle copy for The Lancaster Rule simply leave a comment and I'll select a random winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Remember, to increase your chances, hop along to the other blogs listed below.
Good luck!

Cheers!

VOTE FOR ME!

The link for voting has gone LIVE! So click on over to Long and Short Reviews, scroll down to THE ETERNAL KNOT, and click the button, then click the VOTE tab.

Thanks in advance for your vote. It is much appreciated!

Cheers!

Featured Today at Kaye Manro's Blog

Just to let you know, I'm doing some shameless promotion today at Kaye Manro's Blog.  So stop by and find out about the Lancaster Trilogy.

Cheers!

Interviewed by a SF Adventurer

Just a quickie to let you know that I've been interviewed by AR Norris, fellow SFR writer and space adventurer.  A few weeks ago, you'll remember I interviewed her, and now, I take my place in the hot seat.  Stop by her blog, Adventures of a Sci-Fi Writer, and check it out.

Cheers!

RELEASE DAY for THE MASTER KEY

It's RELEASE DAY at last!

THE MASTER KEY makes its maiden voyage into the world today.

Stop by my publishers, Champagne Books, and check it out.  If you have a Kindle, just give it a few days for it to appear on the Amazon site.

Cheers!!

Six Sentence Sunday - June 12

Hello again!  Thanks to everyone who drops by to read these tasty snippets and leaving wonderful comments.

For today's Six, I'll once again be teasing you with a little treat from The Master Key which is due out this July. (Sequel to The Lancaster Rule)

In this scene, my protagonist Josie is "picking a fight" with Simon.  They share a special relationship based on witty remarks (mostly Simon) and insults (mostly Simon again).

“Josie,” Simon grumbled but obviously enjoying himself. “I’m not taking you to eat at some fast-food outlet. They serve nothing but poison in places like that—processed poison.”

“I don’t care. It’s my stomach! And Fried City is still around. That’s f*****g unbelievable.”

“What is this obsession with food?” Simon frowned.

“I do not have an obsession with food. And since when do you care about what I eat?”

Despite her fretful manner, she seemed touched to know that Simon cared by allowing a quick tug of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

In this second book of the trilogy, the heroine, Josie, now married to world president John Lancaster, and begins her new life in the future. But all is not idyllic as a dangerous man from her past returns as old enemies return to plague her life.
Revelations of Josie's past, three hundred years ago, surface and begin to unfold, every question she has ever wanted to know is answered. Events lead her to the Scrap Yard, a cybernetics space station where she must battle it out with her enemies.

For anyone interested in participating, click to Six Sentence Sunday, and follow the rules. You can also check out the six sentence reads from the other participants.

Tweet about it too, use the #sixsunday hashtag.

Thanks for stopping by!!

My First Six Sentence Sunday

So, to kick-start the July release of The Master Key, the sequel to The Lancaster Rule, I decided to participate in Six Sentence Sunday.  Here we go then:

“She’ll never make an operative.” Simon propped his arm companionably over John’s shoulder and watched as Josie sheepishly recovered from a stumble.

“She’s my wife, not one of your team.” John clamped his mouth into a line and rolled his eyes, a habit he seemed to be borrowing lately from Josie. “But you’re right. An operative she will never be.”

For anyone interested in participating, click to Six Sentence Sunday, and follow the rules. You can also check out the six sentence reads from the other participants.

Tweet about it too, use the #sixsunday hashtag.

In a Den of Books

Wow.  I'm impressed.  I never had so many visits to this page until my guest K.M. Tolan dropped by to download what he carries around in his head.  He must be famous or something...  I even got two new followers!  Hi!!  *cyber waves*  Oh, but never mind, let's not dwell on Tolan's brain activity and what he conjures up in there.  Let's get back to me already!

So I started this week like I start all Mondays.  Groaning and bitching that the weekend was over, and then groaning and bitching as I waded through my emails and various other online commitments.  But, it wasn't going to last very long because I had to quickly get my game-head on and drop by a small bookstore to see if they were serious about wanting to sell my books.  And, well, since I'm posting here, the answer was YES!

My books can now be found locally (here at 13ºN a.k.a. Barbados) at The Book Den.  A small bookstore for used and new books with a loyal following of ardent readers.  Tucked away, all on its lonesome, my book...

Tell me it doesn't look pitifully lonely.  It's practically begging you to take it home with you so it can sit amongst your other favourite books, to be loved and cherished like a good friend.

Okay, enough shameless self-promotion.

March trundles toward its finish in just under a week and April and Easter and all those chocolate cream eggs approaches.  Oopsy...going off track there.  Okay, April I have lined up an exchange interview with Ashley J. Barnard.  Her sequel to the amazing Shadow Fox called Fox Rising is also due out for release this April.  Join me as I ask her some questions to gain a little insight into her fantasy world and her engaging characters.  April also finds me with another review for The Lancaster Rule...eeee!  Let's hope it's another good one and my nails won't be affected too much by my gnawing teeth.  Also coming up, another blog post from me over at The Writer's Vineyard, so stay tuned to that.  On top of all that, the winner for Novel of the Year will be announced April 19th as well.  And if you didn't know, well, I'm in the running for that, along with some very talented writers, including Ashley Barnard, Ciara Gold, K.M. Tolan (hmm, there he is again), Nan Arnold, and Michael Davis.  Okay, I feel intimidated being surrounded by all of them...maybe I'll just find a rock to burrow under until it's over.

Right, time to shut up for the time being.  Working on my latest WIP (work in progress), The Grosjean Chronicles.  Have to say, it had been slow going at first, where it wandered and wavered a bit, and then I had to stop to review the last book in the trilogy.  But now, I'm back on track and it seems to be heading in a different direction altogether.  Not a bad direction, but one I didn't foresee.  Ah, wells.  Sometimes the book just takes a life of its own.

See you in April...