The week before Christmas

I have been on leave from my day job all week and have found it quite liberating. Not only have I managed to complete most of my self appointed tasks, as well as the little extra's that popped up after a weekend's riding; new rear tyre, new barkbusters, and home made tail tidy after the OEM rego plate holder came loose. I have also managed to complete at least a few of the tasks set by the command authority, and get her Christmas presents as well. The ones instructed me to get and the ones I bought when I had clear instructions not to use my initiative.

I have found the week liberating in other ways, no mad rush to do any shopping, getting out and about when everyone else is working is a great feeling. More importantly I am pretty rested, which is pretty unusual for me at the this time of the year and I am going to have a good long break.

I was going to write about some interesting things I had seen this week or done. I did get caught behind a woman in convertible the other day who decided to stop in an admittedly slow stream of traffic and put the soft top up. Probably so she could start texting without anyone being the wiser. Texting being the number one cause of accidents on our roads so I am led to believe.

I also manged to get out and road test the new rear tyre and do a few more km's on my bike.

As I navigated to the blog from my Facebook page it struck me again how my blog and books seem popular in what I would consider unusual parts of the world considering I am a white middle aged, middle class male, of centre right political views, writing science fiction with a distinctly kiwi flavour. Though, any of the current crop of American Republican Presidential campaigners and their media cheer leaders would consider my views somewhere to the left of of Lenin.

For reasons that are beyond me my blog gets more hits from Brasil, Italy, and Spain and the Skid Chronicles Facebook page is popular in India. If I could work out how this happened I would no doubt be wealthier than I am today and my novels would be selling in the tens of thousands and not just the tens.......

The story so far- The Skidian Chronicles Trilogy and Lifeboat teaser

In the First Chronicle, the main protagonist of this tale along with the woman in his life, was abducted by a group of aliens from the Planet Skid.

 The First Chronicle deals with Bruce and to a lesser extent his fellow abductee, Sue coming to terms with the culture shock of finding themselves in this alien environment with no prospect of ever making it home and doing their best to make a go of it on a world facing a Skidian made catastrophe. A catastrophe that no Skidian seems to be taking too seriously despite the clear warning signs to the contrary.

The comparisons with our own world are obvious along with the ‘it will never happen to me, or not in my backyard thankyou very much,’ attitude of the average Skidian. In time the dire predictions of gloom, doom, and famine did come to pass. This was of little comfort to the few survivors of the calamity that all but wiped out the greatest civilisation that this remote and relatively unimportant section of the universe had ever known.

The Second Chronicle, The Second Coming, deals with Bruce finding himself back home and dealing with a profound change in his life that makes him question everything he knows to be true.

Change that he is struggling to come to terms with, largely because the Skidians wiped the memory of most of the experiences that led to this epiphany. Bruce thinks he is losing his marbles until he meets Sue and discovers they have an infant son. They meet almost by coincidence in a bar in her American hometown that Bruce has been drawn to for no better apparent reason than an acquaintance has a brother who owns a bar in the city.

Then one of the original crew of Skidians who had abducted them turns up in the bar with a much bigger fish in tow: The President of the United States no less. The four of them return to Skid with a different mission from the first trip.

This third novel in the series; The Lifeboat deals with what happens next. Bruce discovers all is not what it seems and makes some startling discoveries regarding some of the questions that mankind has wrestled with for thousands of years. If you have a need to know the meaning of life then this novel is a must for you.