The Lifeboat

I have finally completed the first draft of the third novel in the Skidian Chronicles series, tentatively titled; 'The Lifeboat'. This was supposed to the final novel in the series. However, there are some loose ends that I feel I need to tidy up, even if in doing so I am merely satisfying my own curiosity.

On the other hand I need to satisfy my growing audience as well.

I am going to start to post some excerpts from The Lifeboat in my blog and create a readers group to critique and provide feedback as I progress with the editing process. Let me know if you are interested in being a part of this team.

The Lifeboat.

Prologue

Far out on the dark, frozen perimeter of the solar system a comet reached the outward limit of its orbit about the sun and began to blaze a trail back towards the inner system. This particular comet had never been recorded in human history or detected by any of mankind’s increasingly sophisticated astronomical instruments as it swung along its path.

Eventually the comet did come to the notice of terrestrial astronomers and was given the designation 2013D4. Comet 2013D4’s course was projected more or less accurately, enough to suggest that it did not pose an immediate danger to earth along with a number of other celestial bodies. For a number of reasons, not least that people wanted to know whether the bodies posed a risk or not to planet earth, some of these bodies were higher on the list than others in terms of importance and scrutiny. Comet 2013D4 was well down that list and nobody noticed a couple of unusual course changes that on close inspection could not be easily explained.

For a long time nobody picked up on 2013D4’s exact trajectory and when they did there was some idle speculation between the groups of astronomers that were interested enough in the possible outcome to discuss its route as it sped toward, then possibly impacting one or more of the Jupiter Trojans.

Eventually Comet 2013D4 ploughed into an asteroid called Automedon, knocking the asteroid out of its orbit, before it blasted out the other side of the Jupiter Trojans and carried on its merry way.

This kind of impact wasn’t all that unusual and happened regularly enough that astronomers thought little of it at the time. Automedon bounced around like a big marble knocking other, smaller asteroids out of the way. Then somehow it was flung out of the Trojan field and was hurtling its way towards the centre of the solar system where it would either meet its end in a mighty collision with the sun or be flung outward again to begin a journey through the solar system until it hit something else or degraded away to nothing.

Every little bit helps

Suddenly I seem to be getting some attention in the big wide world. Book sales are steady if unspectacular and people keep following me on Twitter, even though I have little to tweet. The Command Authority, using my spare phone tweets for me more often than I do. Though it would be fair to say that this is more by accident than design.

To cap this off people at work keep downloading my book and or swapping hard copies around  between them and actually  seem to be enjoying the read. Either that or they are saying nice things about me on the hope of a free coffee.

All this helps to encourage me to spend more time on the third (I hesitate to say final) chapter in he Skidian Chronicles series. Not easy after a long day at work and there is more to life than work and the second job that costs far more in time and effort than any hope of return.

This intermittent blog is actually a good way to warm up to the process of writing and to provide some shameless self promotion. Pity it is now 9.20pm and it is almost my bedtime.

Some neat new reviews for the First Skidian Chronicle

If you really needed a reason to buy both novels

"Easy fun read. I didn't really like the ending at first, but the second book clears it all up."


and well what can a man say?

"It took me a while to pick this book up only because I'd promised Keith I'd be brutally honest and I didn't want to disappoint! Turned out to be a book that I was unable to put down this weekend and wished I had read it sooner!

A surprisingly good and easy read, Sue P'd me off a few times due to her lack of knowledge about farming, or anything hah! The love scenes were a bit quirky (thats all ill say about that), and the arrogance of the Skidians and how it affected Bruce was pretty comical. Not quite sure if this was sci fi enough for me if that makes sense but It's only the first so am looking forward to reading the second over the long weekend."