Yes!

One of the star systems I list in my fictional account of man's new journeys to the stars is 61 Virginis. Now Astronomers have discovered three new planets in orbit around that star.

In my first MSS, 61 Virginis has an Earth type world orbiting in the 'Cinderella zone' around said star. Another planet has been found at 23 Librae, which does not appear in the MSS as all the stars I list are similar to the Earth within a fifty light year radius. I'm feeling slightly smug and prescient right at this moment.

All that has to happen now is the CERN team cracking the physics. I'm smiling.

Falling through the stars mars base notes

This is some raw text from the MSS 'Falling Through the Stars', and is an excerpt from a sequence where characters are filling in backstory for the MSS in a conversation about a lead character's (Corwen Blount) backgrounds. The finished product is a lot better fleshed out than this sample.

“My grandfather got us out after my Dad was killed in the battle of Winchester.”
“That was rough. Didn’t the Europeans slaughter all the English rebels who surrendered? Shot them with anesthetic darts and removed their brains to power those bloody cyborg things of theirs?”
“I was too young to know. Granddad never said. He got my brother and me out on a private flight to Denmark, took the overnight ferry to Oslo, and flew us out via Iceland. That was before the European invasion of Sweden of course. I was only nine at the time, so the details are pretty hazy. I mostly remember the cold.”
“What about your mom?”
“She was the reason Dad went to war, so Granddad said. She was an English monarchist. A dissident. She got arrested, sent to El Hierro, and that was that.”
“Yeah, we all know what went on there.”
“Well no one really did until Dick Windsor escaped.”
“Does anyone know how many people died out there?”
“Several million. That’s the gossip. I heard an intelligence team sent a remote stealth probe to El Hierro. Twenty separate compounds holding five thousand people, each serving a central lab facility. Ten week rotation.”
“Like a twentieth century concentration camp?”
“In spades. Better organised by an order of magnitude.”
“You want to hear the worst of it?”
“Go on.”
“All the remains were used for transplant and food cultures.”
“You mean…”
“When a body was done with, they broke it down into the protein soup used to grow spare transplant parts for the ruling elite. The remainder, rumour has it, was turned into high protein food supplements. Granddad said the Gaian food agency called it Go-Quorn and pretended it was part of a healthy vegetarian diet.”
“I feel sick.”
“Well do it in the lower corridor.”
“How could they? Europe is a civilized culture, all those churches and mosques. All that history.”
“I don’t know. They just did.”
“So why didn’t we just wipe them out? We still had a few nukes.”
“North America wasn’t very strong at the time. The politicians wanted to pretend that it wasn’t happening because no one could afford a war.”
“If we ever make it back to Earth, I’m going to write my Congressman.”
“You do that. We have to get back to Earth first. Hey, here come the search party. Anything to report?”
“No way to the surface. We’ve lost about sixty percent of the base, but the good news is that all the agri-modules are okay, and we’ve got heating, power and water.”
“We’re just trapped.”
“We think we’ve got atmospheric containment, but there’s a slight leak showing up on instruments.”
“How slight?”
“Five litres an hour. We think.”
“We can live with that. For another nine months at least. What’s the state of mental health?”
“We lost half our personnel, so there are some issues with grief and shock. Two cases of genuine confinement disorder under sedation. A few frayed tempers. I think everyone’s got a little cabin fever after this long trapped underground. Tell you the truth, I think we got off lightly.”
“Lightly?”
“Could be a lot worse. The last view we had from the surface indicated that the attackers had been pretty well slaughtered. That was months ago.”
“So Earth either thinks we’re all dead, or the Europeans are.”
“Hope it’s the latter.”
“Hope there’s an Earth left to go back to.”
“How about communications?”
“Still off line. An ECM pulse fried the main comms net and we don’t have any spares.”
“Can we improvise something?”
“Spark transmitter, or we can rig a transmitter dish and booster amplifier for when we’ve dug our way to the surface again.”
“If we can.”
“How is the digging coming along?”
“Slowly. Half the caldera wall came down on the upper levels during the first assault. Millions of tons of rock. Most of our mining equipment is worn out and failing. It just wasn’t designed for this kind of use.”
Corwen was silent for a moment. “We need to think sideways here.”
“Such as?”
“You tell me the upper levels are blocked, and I’m guessing it will take us months to clear a safe path through the overburden.”
“And..?”
“Why don’t we go sideways?” Corwen suggested.
“Explain.”
“We still haven’t explored all the galleries still in Mars atmosphere. Why don’t we just expand the base sideways?”
“Because there are active vents full of toxic fumes. The kind that can even eat through an environment suit in a couple of hours.”
“Do we still have any suit gel? That blue stuff which acts as an emergency sealant in case of puncture?”
“Of course. Ten cases. No one uses it any more.”
“That’s acid resistant isn’t it?”
“Yes of course, it’s an inert compound gel. It can handle ph levels as low as minus point five. Just in case someone is sick inside their suit and vomits gastric acid on the helmet joints.”
“Cover the suits with it. That will extend the working time in any corrosive atmosphere.”
“Be damn slippery.”
“Better that than dead from decompression. We can keep on expanding the base until we find a vent leading surfacewards.”
“I’ll talk to the digging crews. We’ll go back to vent and passage mapping.”
“Bart, Colleen, Lafik. We can do this.”
“I hope so, Corwen. For all our sakes, I hope so.”
”Let’s just do it, and spare me your existential doubts.”
“It’s how we built Arsia Mons base, and I’m pretty sure we’ve got enough expandite foam and partitions. I recall arguing with the construction chief about storage just before the attack.” The ever cautious Lafik put slender brown fingers to his cheek.
“Joanna, how many effective personnel do we have?” Corwen’s head swung like a laser targeting system.
“Technicians and construction, forty. Administration, fifteen including me. Medical, eight, three Doctors and five nurses out of twelve. Food production, nine. Combat, six. Thirty eight Combat in the infirmary, six awaiting discharge. Oh and Professor Merriman and his five merry roving Areologists.” Joanna Lindstrom, a pale Nordic blonde answered crisply.
Corwen Blount drummed his fingers for a moment. “I want everyone put into two hour shifts. One construction technician to lead each shift. Teach two Comms technicians the fine art of pressure sealing and testing the new sections. Two shifts searching passageways at any given time, two putting in partitions and hatches at fifty metre intervals. That way we can give everyone sufficient rest and keep them focussed on getting out of here alive.” Orders, make the judgement call and put it into action, no matter how scared you feel inside went his inner narrative.
“I’m good with that.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“This means all of us. We lead from the front.” Corwen’s face split into a schoolboy grin. Confidence, Corwen, confidence. Bullshit baffles brains and confounds insuperable odds.
Lafik raised a sceptical eyebrow. “What about the chain of command?” He asked archly.
“We have to be the strong links.” Corwen grinned back at him.

Lafik turned his face away and thought he loves this, he truly does. Corwen saw the flicker of doubt and decided to assign his lead technician a less mission critical role. Lafik might crack and run in a real emergency. Highly competent as he was in his speciality, that anxiety streak of his might sabotage a tricky situation. “Get Merriman in here if you can find him.” Corwen ordered. “I need his input on the local geology.”

MSS Notes: Extraterrestrial life

There is as yet no trace of tool using life forms in the planets explored by pre colonisation teams, apart from the Leonine life form (Known as ‘Felixes’ to the colonists) discovered upon New Philadelphia. While there are a great many earth-analogue planets, ‘intelligent’ life forms, apart from human colonists and visitors, appear to be completely absent. There are a great many apex predators, such as the highly dangerous ‘Snowbeasts’ of Einsteins world, and the swarming ‘Trinocs’ of Cordoba IV, but none that have developed cognition in a similar manner to humanity. There are no species more advanced than humans within the current sphere of colonisation.

MSS Notes: Sub space drive

The Sub space or ‘Omega’ drive was developed from the physical principles discovered by Eleanor and Koor Kawaresen during Eleanor’s postgraduate semester at Florida State University. Successfully proved by the Omega III crew of Commander Corwen Blount, co-pilot Paul Stovek, Astronavigator Liam O’Reilly, and mission specialists Edith Paget and Edward Mulholland.

According to data obtained, the physical properties of sub space are not as predicted by the initial research. There is a significant but small anti relativistic effect which means that if a journey is begun to within a particular set of energy parameters, there is a risk that the craft may return from a round trip several minutes before beginning a journey through sub space. Because of the energy disparity effect of a craft returning out of sub space, mission profiles that might result in such an occurrence are strictly forbidden. This is because of the phenomenon named the ‘doppelganger effect’; i.e. two bodies of identical origin may not occupy the same space / time point as the short-lived isotopes of antimatter and quantum foam ‘residue’ from a sub space journey have massive explosive potential. There is no empirical data to support this hypothesis, but the mathematical models that sub space theory relies upon indicate enough significant risk of should such circumstances occur.

Sub space has proven highly efficient as a means of travelling between star systems up to a hundred plus light years distant. However, the fuel requirements are such that longer journeys are at present not practical.

A Sub space ‘bomb’ based upon the Omega drive was discussed by certain defence research institutes, but after numerous attempts to make a controllable device failed spectacularly, such research was deemed too dangerous, and all funding was withdrawn.

The energy requirements of the drive are high, and require a direct power source with at least thirty Gigawatts output. Only a Nuclear Fusion reactor with a minimum rating of one hundred Gigawatts at is able to deliver this level of power when required. Larger scale reactors such as a hundred Terawatt model have been proposed, but the cooling systems required for reactors of this size are considered too bulky and unwieldy for practical space travel purposes. Only one of this scale (Thunder Bay) is currently operational and requires several massive superconductor heat sinks to remain safely operational. However, the Thunder Bay installation has the significant environmental benefit of keeping the northern shores and much of Lake Superior ice free. Thunder Bay also provides backup energy for much of North America. A second installation is planned for the currently deserted city of Winnipeg, which will make North America a net energy exporter for the first time in over a century. An alternate site at Trois Rivieres, Quebec, was vetoed by the bloc Quebecois on environmental grounds, shortly before the city of Quebec was declared deserted in 2081.

The idea that sub space technologies would support some form of instantaneous teleportation was finally proven impractical in the late 2020’s because of the disorganising nature of sub space energies. While it has been known for many years that teleportation is possible, unprotected ordinary matter can never be restored to its previous matter state having passed through sub space. For example, it is a well understood phenomenon that unprotected organic matter disorganises and disintegrates into random inorganic compounds after exposure to conditions both in subspace and through ‘wormholes’. The Omega drive creates a hypermagnetic bubble or ‘tame space warp’ in which a craft made of normal matter may traverse the medium of sub space and return to ‘normal’ space intact.

Quantum foam erosion damage has been noted following return from sub space. This phenomenon has been linked to poor hypermagnetic field design allowing miniature sub space vortices to come into contact with unprotected matter following exit from subspace. Improved field coil array design has been instrumental in preventing asymmetric field collapse and thus almost eliminated such damage since the near disaster with the Vancouver.

Re: Vancouver, Cargo class 100 tonne capacity sub space transport. Third off the production line after the Atlanta and ill-fated Boston. First to suffer near catastrophic field collapse on the approach to the New Philadelphia star system. Massive loss of argon from the frontal field coil arrays almost crippled the Vancouver. Fortunately, New Philadelphia colonists with specialised metallurgical experience effected repairs to the frontal hull section, and enough argon was available in the Vancouver supply to repressurise the frontal coil arrays and return them to full use.

MSS Notes Re: Plague

Plague: Ebola type virus prevalent in tropical climates. Believed to be artificial mutation / variant of African Ebola, but currently (Late 2000’s) decimating poor South American populations. Predominantly droplet type infection also believed to be first spread by a particular species of flea / flea parasite. 90% fatality rate. Survivors suffer high rates of Liver and Kidney failure, also damage to Pancreas and Spleen. High short term cancer risk. Only 1.2% of sufferers have no measurable aftereffects apart from massive weight loss and muscle tissue atrophy.

Origin; Possibly cultivated in terror call laboratory for dispersal throughout North America. Current multiple outbreaks are thought to be a result of poor containment protocols. Virus breaks down 72 hours after death of infected host. Burning does not destroy virus. Disposal Protocol is for 6 days quarantine in sealed casket / impervious bag before interment. After this time, corpse is deemed to be ‘safe’ for burial / incineration.

MSS Notes re Communications

Despite the fact that properly shielded craft can successfully enter and leave sub space, in the late 2000’s no one has yet found a means to use the medium for transmission of voice / video communications from within a gravity well of more than one third of Earth Gravity. Energy requirements are very high, and signal quality is poor at over one parsec. A ‘Quantum wave’ effect sub space transmitter once showed promise, but research has since been discontinued after hazardous and random ionizing radiation levels were found to be a deleterious side effect.

News and materials are transmitted via transport vessels such as the Atlanta, a hundred tonne capacity unarmed interstellar cargo carrier.

Done

The Sky Full of Stars is complete. Formatting, cover design, the works. I am now going to buy myself a hardback copy, although the download is much cheaper(Please, please buy the download - I make double the royalty per copy).

Now to work on the next volume; 'Falling Through the Stars'.

I have bought my own copy of the hardback version which means I should have it in my hot little hands for Christmas.

Sky full of stars low resolution artwork

Final artwork for front cover dust jacket of Sky full of stars

Final artwork for rear cover dust jacket of Sky full of stars

Sky full of stars Cover notes

Reformatting of text has reduced the final MSS from 432 pages to 415. Word count 148,520. I suppose if pushed by an editor I might consider chopping out five thousand of that, but then that's the whole point of self publishing isn't it? You write what you want to write, not what fits in with what someone else sees as a 'market'.

Have been up half the night fretting over cover notes and cover design. In the end I decided on this text for the back cover;

There was what the media reported…

…rumours of a hoax have surfaced on several news services…. Now over to our Vancouver studio, where Environmental lobbyist Caleb Yamato is challenging the Omega projects environmental safety….

…The mystery of the two missing Omega crew members has sent a riot of half informed conjecture around the news feed community. The ill-fated mission to prove a radical design for travel between stars is being proclaimed an unmitigated failure by several authorities….

…In Brussels, the hereditary President of the Gaian Republic of Europe, Owen Blair, denounced the Omega Mission as a ‘plot of the western Terrorist nations’ to destabilise the peace loving Gaian European Republic….

Then there was the real story

The sky full of stars, first volume in the ‘Stars’ trilogy is a story of future wonders and personal tragedy set against the first interstellar war ever fought by humans.

Inside front sleeve;

In the midst of a mini ice age, the once mighty world powers are shrunken husks of their previous selves. An isolationist North America is the last of the Democracies, the Middle East a radioactive wasteland, and the expansionist Gaian Republic of Europe a repressive pseudo theocracy ruled by a tiny elite.
The Omega FTL drive, last gasp of the North American Space programme, succeeds beyond all expectations, but on the way back from orbit repeated attempts are made to shoot the returning crew down. Stranded on Earths moon, Mission Commander Corwen Blount hatches his own desperate rescue plan.

“Teach this young guy all you know.” The picture of a young, reddish blonde haired man with intense, almost harsh blue eyes appeared on screen.
“Who is he?”
“His name’s Richard Windsor. That’s all you need to know. He’s going to be your escort pilot.”

Well if no-one else buys a copy, I'll be keeping mine, and donating one to my local library.

Final (Hopefully) edit

Have just finished what I hope is the final draft of 'The Sky full of stars' at 148,463 words, most of it dialogue. I've tried to keep the immediacy of the narrative by keeping the descriptions minimal. No detailed travelogues, which I personally find makes a book too heavy a read. I've tried to make my characters do the scene painting through their dialogue in a minimalist sort of way. No windy speeches or explanations either.

The story rips along at a goodly pace, and overall I think it works. Tell you the truth I'm pig sick of editing and amending the manuscript, which is supposed to be one of the signs you're done and dusted.

Time for bed.

Cover art

This is the cover artwork for 'The sky full of stars'. Essentially comprising of several overlays of public domain images reversed, flipped and with the colour balance altered sufficiently to make this 'my own work' and thus sidestep any potential copyright issues. I can't afford a proper graphic designer, and have to do that side of things myself.

What the hell. I like it, and as I may be the only purchaser of a hardback copy, there's only me to please.

Executive decision

"The Sky full of stars", first in the 'Stars' trilogy, will be available in hardback from Lulu.com and also as a download for the first or second week of December providing Amazon are agreeable. Will post preliminary cover artwork tomorrow.

Excerpt: 1st draft, "Sky full of stars"

Authors note; This is from the first section of the "Sky full of stars" MSS, introducing two of the main characters. It's not the opening of the story, yet sets the general MSS background and lays foundations for one story thread. The MSS itself follows four main story threads, and flips between them in a plot / counterplot manner, rather like a modern episode of CSI. I rather like the effect.

A large screen displayed the speckled blackness of space above a brilliant sunlit arc of Earth’s atmosphere. From up in orbit the view of the enlarged Arctic icecap and associated weather systems were terrifyingly obvious. Through narrow gaps in the extensive cloud cover all the visible high latitudes of Earth glittered. Under those clouds, from the pole to Nome and thence to the Aleutians was a mass of solid pack ice. During the Northern winter, the ice pack often linked Norway to Iceland and thence to Greenland and all points north. Alaska and most of Northern Canada were near uninhabitable; the same for Northern Russia, which had lost all of its Northern ports half a century before. The Southern hemisphere had it just as bad. Another few years of lowered solar output, it was said, and there would be ice all the way from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn.

What we do today may mean a better future than we have right now, thought Corwen Blount, Mission Commander, barely glancing at the global spectacular on screen. Or maybe not. His stomach was knotted with tension as his crew waited, poised for the go. Visors down and locked. Environmental suits active and in independent mode. Just in case.
Not that we’d survive if it all went wrong. He mused to himself. This was the last gasp of the North American Space programme. It was common knowledge throughout mission control that funding was to be cut for much of the space programme if the experimental faster than light Omega drive did not work this time round. All the funds released would be diverted into the ever more bloated Social budget. Corwen briefly wondered about trying to join the space programmes of other nations if Omega failed, but could not think of a single workable option. China, India, and Russia only funded weather and surveillance satellites now, the global economy too weak to sustain any manned off world presence in the wake of that goddamned stupid internecine Middle Eastern nuclear war. Europe might be doing something, but the Gaian Republic were overtly hostile to North America nowadays, and more of a threat than a career opportunity.
“Omega ground control to Omega, we have you go for launch.” The knot disappeared as everyone smoothly switched into their allotted tasks.

A crew of five occupied a windowless cabin not much larger than the interior of a delivery van. Five seats were rotated into a forward facing pattern with two at the front, two at the rear, and one to the left hand side in the centre. In the roof of the instrument lined cabin was the main access hatch leading to the airlock and docking hatch, directly below was another which led into the crews ‘rest’ section. Above and upon every side above waist level, screens, keyboards and switches dominated the windowless view. At the front were two seats facing a dual set of controls reminiscent of an aircraft cockpit. Five figures, anonymous in near identical dark red Environment suits and near opaque helmets sat attentive to their tasks.
“Roger that, Omega control. Disengaging. Firing local thrusters.” The interior shook briefly, like a dog lightly flicking it’s ears. There was a far off hissing noise. The co-pilot raised a barely seen eyebrow at the pilot who quietly shook his almost opaquely helmeted head to indicate there was nothing untoward.
“We have slight rotation anticlockwise, correcting.” A twist of a control, four short spikes of light from the attitude jets, and the slowly rotating star field steadied.
“Looking good Omega. You have control. Relative outward drift five metres a second.” Another minute and they would be clear to initiate the sub space drive, heretofore only successful in laboratory tests.
“Starting reactors. Field wings deploying.” Outside, four eight metre long pods began to cantilever out from the white coated octagonal fuselage.

Inside the fusion reactor behind their shielded compartment, multiple toroids of plasma formed within powerful magnetic fields, spun, merged, then intersected with a sudden burst of neutrons into a star hot fusion reaction. Charged grids bled off the sudden glut of energy into hungry batteries and uncharged coils, power greedy drives sucking at the immediate abundance of raw power, ready to push the forty metre long spacecraft into a higher orbit.
“Ten seconds at full burn. Now.” Outside, five reaction jets lit up the rear thrusters in pale violet as the high-energy VASIMIR plasma drive went to full. A tooth shuddering vibration built up and steadied. Particles of dust drifted backwards to the flat walled rear of the control cabin. The rearwards pressure rose sharply with every passing second until it felt like a large man was standing on everyone’s chests, pushing their face muscles backwards like some kind of crude practical joke.
“Reactor output ten Gigawatts and climbing.” Edith Paget, mission technical specialist reported, her voice shaking with the drives vibration.
“Let me know when we get fifty.” Corwen Blount, lead pilot and mission commander called over the loud roaring hum, watching his screen intently.
“Three point five gee acceleration.” Paul Stovek, their ever-cautious co-pilot flicked light hazel eyes across the forward screens, alert for any problems.
“Forty now.”
There was a slight muffled thump that transmitted itself through the hull. “Field wings deployed and locked.” Paul reported.
“Forty nine.”
“Twenty five Gigawatts. Love that Nuclear fusion.” Corwen grinned, enjoying what he considered the greatest funfair ride of all time.
“Fifty five.”
“Primary burn end.” The VASIMIR drives flickered off and the vibration vanished; drifting motes glittered briefly in the beams of internal spotlights.
“Hold it steady there. Everyone ready?” A sensation of weightlessness returned. Corwen checked the onboard scanners. Only the telemetry from Ed Mulholland, the second mission specialist was looking anything like sickly, everyone else seemed to have handled the acceleration changes well. He smiled again.
”Telemetry; green board.” Liam O’Reilly, Navigator, looked up and nodded. “Guidance; ready for course lay in.”
“Life support; Pressure point eight bar. All readings nominal.” Ed reported through gritted teeth.
“Field Generators are at seventy five percent.” Paul spoke with a quick sideways glance and nod of confirmation at Corwen.
“This is Omega to Omega ground control. Ready when you are.” Corwen reported.
“Omega from Omega ground control. Secondary burn and sixty second countdown beginning on my mark. Mark.” The pseudo gravity of acceleration returned at a steady one gravity.
“Omega orbital launch station. Have you on radar at forty-seven kilometres and increasing nine fifty metres per second relative. Velocity stable, reduced to one point zero four G acceleration.”
“Course lay in forty five degrees axial, eighty right.” Liam said.
“Course confirmed.” The star field shifted slowly as the heavily shielded nose of the spacecraft eased round. Targeting sensors on their display flashed green, twice and steadied.
“Fifty five seconds.”
“Charging field wings. Five percent and climbing.”
“Fifty seconds.”
“Reactors at sixty five.”
“Bring the field strength up.”
“Inertial magnetic shielding ten percent.”
“Reactors at seventy three.”
“Fuel flow looking good.”
“Forty seconds.”
“Field strength thirty percent.”
“Reactors at eighty one. Plasma stable.”
“Field wings fifty eight percent charged.”
“Steady on the field strength. Gently now.”
“Omega ground control, we are go for light speed plus.”
“Confirm, Omega. Thirty seconds and you’re looking better than good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Field strength sixty one percent, stabilising.”

The pull of acceleration suddenly shifted a nausea creating ninety degrees from straight backwards to directly under their seats and the rearward pull ceased. “Life support; we have point six three cabin gravity.” Edith read off her display. Mission control could see all these readings on their siamesed displays back on Earth, but on a proving mission everything had to be confirmed and re confirmed verbally. Just in case.
“Thank you life support. Guidance?”
“Guidance shows on the money.” Liam reported simply.
“Burn ending, now.” Paul made two fine adjustments to the internal gyroscopes, then nodded as the compensation met with his approval.
“Twenty seconds Omega. We’re all praying for you down here.”
“So are we ground control. So are we. No more damp squibs this time, eh?” Corwen glanced at the crew displays and nodded with satisfaction. Here goes nothing. The drive might work, or leave them sitting and looking slightly foolish on a slow climb out of the ecliptic as it had to three other crews before them. He sat for a few moments listening to the verbal reports from his crew.
“Field strength sixty four percent.”
“Field wings are charged. One hundred percent. Make ready.” Environment suit visors were locked down.
“Point seven five cabin gravity.”
“Reactors at ninety seven Gigawatts.”
“Hold reactors at that.”
“Ten seconds, on my mark. Mark.” Paul began their internal countdown.
“All ready.” Liam reported.
“Nine.” Everyone kept their eyes on their individual display screens.
“Eight.” Corwen flipped open the red ‘initiate’ panel.
“Seven.” Chorused Paul and the Orbital Launch Commander.
“Six.” Ed nervously checked the position of his seat harness quick release.
“Five and God speed guys.” Came the voice of the Orbital Launch Commander.
“Four.” Paul did not blink.
“Three.” Everyone seemed to tense.
“Two.” Paul flipped the direct drive power feed on.
“One.” A slight hum began to thrill through Omega as the power levels reached crescendo.
“Initiate.” Corwen said and stabbed down at the switch.
“Ini…………” Paul’s voice began to confirm. The word was truncated by silence and a sudden sensation of lightness. Where Omega had been there was nothing but empty space.

Big news

In order to travel between stars, my characters rely upon traversing the realm of sub space within a heavy magnetic shield. However, in real life two German physicists claim to have 'broken the speed of light' using Quantum tunnelling. This is big news, and yet the article is buried in the archives of August 2007.

How the hell did I miss this? Must have been because I was travelling trans Canada at the time with only intermittent Internet and news coverage. This calls for a minor addition to the manuscript to add a little more verisimilitude. Authenticity, that's the thing.

Sky full of stars opening backstory post 1

In the latter half of the 21st century, in the midst of a mini ice age; the once mighty western powers are shrunken husks of their previous selves. An isolationist but united North America stands alone as the last of the Democracies, threatened by the expansionist Gaian European Republic, a pseudo theocracy ruled by a tiny elite.

The world is fragmented, smashed by war. The Middle East is a radioactive wasteland after the final armageddon between Israel and The Kingdom of God. Russia and China are isolated by both the economic aftermath of the Middle Eastern wars and encroaching permafrost. Following an armed struggle to rid itself of the Gaian republic, the once proud nation of England is little more than one large refugee camp. Dissidence means 'redefinition'.

Three children escape from their would-be Gaian executioners and disappear.....

Update: Post edited. Apologies for poor punctuation and repetition. This will not happen again. In mitigation I would like to plead Windows 98SE and hiccup in my Internet connection..

The Story begins here

This is the weblog of the following three science fiction manuscripts;

MSS 1 (First draft)
Working title; The sky full of stars
Current length; 148,000 words

MSS2 (First draft status; part completed)
Working title; Falling through the stars
Projected length 120,000 words

MSS3 (Note form only, working title)
Working title; A darkness between stars
Projected length 120,000 words

Other projects, including the 'Cerberus Conspiracy', first MSS under review, for rewrite;will have better websites than last time.

John T Morrow is a working pen name.

Excerpts of all three 'Stars' MSS will be posted on this blog in 1000+ word excerpts.