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.

Behind every good author stands a great editor or spell checkers are great

I have only recently realised what a great benefit to the process of writing an editor is, My editor is just starting out but she is fully involved in helping me address the continuity issues and basic grammatical errors that I tend to to make. Spell checkers are great but bit nothing beats a well trained eye to sniff out those silly little errors.

For those of you that have read the Second Coming you should notice an improvement in continuity and structure as well as grammar and punctuation.

Despite good marks in English at school, and let's remember I went to school in the days when typing classes were for girls while boys did manly stuff like woodwork, correct grammar and punctuation are a bit of a mystery to me. I got caught up in the era where the precursors of the Green Party controlled education and decided that good grammar was not necessary to rite a good story. How wrong they were. And yes I wish I had learnt to type plopperly as, as you can imagine typing a full length novel is a bit of a mission with all the mistakes and backspacing.

I feel that my creative juices flow best when I write something long hand but it is also pretty pointless giving a manuscript to someone to type up as my handwriting is also atrocious. I bought a livescribe pen to convert my scrawl to text recently, unfortunately these pens are not designed with the likes of me in mind. They require neat and well formed script -which I haven't, so this experiment to truncate the editing process has only been partially successful.

But back to the editor. If you need editing assistance try these guys. http://styxpress.co.nz/

Finally found some gravel for the new toy. the first road I found had just been graded but I found a few others today that I could have a good fang down. Need to get the helmet camera out and take some video.

The first Skidian Chronicle

Skid is an imaginative science fiction novel of considerable skill that pokes fun at all forms of political correctness, while also indicating there are dangerous signs of a disintegrating world that is not adequately taken care of. Readers will recognise these as parallels to life on earth. 

The plot addresses some serious themes, touching on issues as wide as the survival of any planet in the universe - from pollution, to the exploitation of natural resources - the pros and cons of collective versus individual action - organic versus synthetic food - survival with humour versus the alienating aspects of a form of political correctness. 

The use of humour makes the book work effectively - mainly through the reactions of the "offworlders", Bruce (from New Zealand) and Sue (from the USA). Both Bruce and Sue react in stereotypical ways as caricatures of the cultures they come from - the skilful and amusing portrayal of their characteristics allows readers to laugh at their own attitudes. 

Unlike many science fiction books, skid doesn't get bogged down in detail or stray so far from known worlds that you lose the plot. Aficionados of science fiction and anyone who enjoys a good read will enjoy this novel.

http://www.amazon.com/Skid-Chronicle-Skidian-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B009FIAMXS