In The Time Of Dying Now available

Earth was used up, and humanity had a choice – leave, or perish. And so they left, in great ships full of colonists and scientists, with soldiers to protect them all.  Hurling through space in a timeless sleep. Waiting for the ship’s computers to find their new home and wake them.

But when they wake, they realize things have gone horribly wrong. They aren’t where they should be. The ship has malfunctioned and landed them on an alien planet not even on the charts. A world bathed in permanent darkness due to an unusual orbit.

After a single night of fire, death, sabotage and destruction, this world is now their home.

They’ll have to make a life here without going mad in the eternal darkness. A task made even more dangerous when they realize they’re not alone.

Ether, now available.

The day Daniel Harper inherited his uncle’s old farm, he also inherited a strange key. When he used that key on the cellar door, he found himself not on the rotting wooden steps, but in the path of an oncoming car in a dark city street.

He’s just stepped into Ether, a world of steam powered cars, and wooden ships that sail the skies. The key to going home is the key that brought him there, but he’s left it in the cellar door. Now his best chance of finding the way back is to go along with Ether’s most wanted criminal and former bodyguard to the murdered King in the hopes of finding another key.

Review by Pete Tzinksi:
It’s an archetypal story, with a classic structure, of the sort you see in Narnia, Alice and Wonderland…to an extent…A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, and so many other books. It’s a classic high fantasy story, of the sort that existed before Tolkien gave “high fantasy” a definition. And atop that, it’s also the classic “stranger in a strange land” sort of story. The man from our time, out of his time and place.

A lazy person could call the characters clichés, but they aren’t. They’re archetypal characters too, classical characters who fit their mold and fulfill the function. They’re very much classical heroes out of mythology and world culture, and I think that helps to put Ether into the class of fairy tale, similar to what someone like Neil Gaiman was going for with Stardust, a classic (almost English) fairy tale, although I think that Daniel lends the story a certain Western/American sense that a British fairy tale wouldn’t have.

Daniel is the classic hero, following the hero’s journey as laid out in things like Hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell, who is thrown into a strange land and while initially seeking to get home is also growing as a human being into someone who can fulfill his great potential, and then placed in a situation in which he must recognize his potential and act upon it, or go back to his old life (which is not a choice at all, because he has been reshaped to that point so that he MUST act on his potential). Daniel does this, and he goes on to help Ian and the Princess serve justice. There is the romance between the Princess and Daniel, but that’s not the key part of the story that everything else hinges on. Daniel, having come into his own, must move to rescue the princess and aid her because…he must. It’s the character he is.

Ian is the staunch ally, the loyal supporter. Not necessarily the sidekick, but he is the Unfurth to Beowulf, he is Chewbacca to Han Solo, he is Sam to Frodo, Spock AND McCoy to Kirk, in that they augment the hero character. A “sidekick” cannot function without the main character, not without serious evolution, which removes him from being a sidekick and makes him and augmenting character. That’s what Ian is. He provides clarity for Daniel, he provides knowledge and protection, and at the same time, it is his grim sense of loyalty and sense of justice — bitter though he might be after years of neglect — which help to awaken in Daniel the potential.

The Princess is a classic story of someone who is outcast and must fight to reclaim their throne. She could have been the center of the story, if Daniel hadn’t been. She doesn’t exist to serve as the love interest, any more than Ian exists to serve as the sidekick. In many ways, she’s there to serve as a final catalyst, the final door through which Daniel must inevitably go in order to fulfill his potential and step onto the path that he has to follow.

The world, the villains, are all unique creations, but they are the unique backdrop to a very classical, very old sort of story.

Keeper

When Captain Alex Marcase’s estranged father dies, he hopes his
inheritance will be enough to fund his next deep space expedition. When his
inheritance turns out to be a genetically-altered slave named Evan, it’s just
the beginning of the end of Alex’s normal, orderly life. Not only does Evan
have his own brand of morality, his special abilities are coveted by his late
owner’s enemies. As the pair head into deep space with their enemies in hot
pursuit, Alex’s chief rival ahead of them, and a saboteur onboard their ship,
will they be able to learn to appreciate each other as individuals in time? Or
will their differences be too much to overcome?

Now available in paperback or pdf download at the Midnight Reading store.

Read a review.

Book 2 in the Keeper series.

Still affected by betrayal and deceit, Alexander Marcase feels his life has lost all connection to truth. Unable to comes to terms with his own past, he’s determined to discover the reality behind Evan’s. What they learn along the way reshapes their understanding of Keepers and Sha’erah, as well as their appreciation for each other. But nothing they’ve experienced this far can prepare them for what they’re about to find.

Now available in paperback or pdf download at the Midnight Reading store.

The day Alex Marcase learned he was the new owner of a Sha’erah named Evan, his life turned upside down. Dealing with each other took time, and a great deal of effort on both their parts. In the years they’ve been together, they’ve been to hell and back on more than one occasion. Each time growing stronger in their trust and conviction.

This time, hell is looking for them.

Now available in paperback or pdf download at the Midnight Reading store.

Adjusting to their lives as fugitives, Alex and Evan have begun forging a new future amid a recovering humanity. Until a ghost from their past threatens to destroy what’s left. Facing demons both real and imagined will bring them answers, and open their lives to an entirely new kind of threat.
Their future has only just begun.

Now available in paperback or pdf download at the Midnight Reading store.

 

An older title, availabe in print for the first time:

Military pilot Mac Brennan was looking forward to a quiet, peaceful retirement. He signed on with a group of scientists heading out into deep space to join a colony, forgotten during the 20 year Union War. They promised him lavender grasses, clear blue skies, and untold miles of wild, untouched nature where a man can return to the roots of living free, and in harmony with the world. A home where he could indulge his love of flying, and the easy job of policing a few thousand pre-occupied scientists and colony builders.

What he found were the destroyed ruins of the original colony, evidence of horrible destruction, an outdated AI full of riddles and offering no answers, and one survivor – a young man with no memory of what happened, and an unspeakable fear of night.