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.

The Second Coming-Media release

Media release for the Second Coming
Local Author Publishes Second Skidian Chronicle Sci Fi Novel on Amazon Kindle 

Auckland NZ, December 29 12 2013 – Auckland writer, Keith Fenwick, has released the second Kiwi themed satirical science fiction novel in the Skidian Chronicles trilogy; The Second Coming. This is Keith Fenwick’s second novel.

In his first novel “Skid - The First Chronicle” Keith Fenwick takes us to a highly sophisticated world where civilization is about to fall apart in a spectacular fashion. A world whose leader’s arrogantly assume that they can do no wrong in the face of the dangerous signs of a disintegrating world around them.

In the Second Coming Skid has undergone the apocalypse signaled in the first novel, now revealed to be the work of the malfunctioning computer intelligence charged with maintaining Skidian society as the most powerful and sophisticated in the known universe.

The Second Coming follows the main human characters, now back on planet earth, grappling with a gap in their lives they cannot explain and details the almost complete disintegration of a once powerful and sophisticated society. Skid once had a population that numbered in the hundreds of millions. By the time the story returns to the planet Skid after a short and eventful interlude on planet earth where a new pivotal Skidian character emerges and treats the locals with complete disdain, the population has dwindled to several thousand Skidians eking out a basic living as best they can.

The Second Coming reminds us how fragile a flower intelligent life is in our universe and how close we all are individually and collectively from disaster that threatens our way of life. One drunken miss step, one line of rogue code, one random, unprecedented incident on top of an unfolding disaster and it could be the end of most of us.

Reviewer Andrew Baker says, ‘I found the book quite fun, especially when I got to the meat of it. It's quite comical and some of the adventure and action made it so I had to keep reading on past my bed time. The Second Coming turned out to be a fun and funny read and I would recommend it to anyone that has the endurance for longer, slower adult science fiction novels.

The Second Coming Kindle version
http://www.amazon.com/Second-Coming-Skidian-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00F8A9FRGASIN: B00F8A9FRG

The Second Coming Print version
http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-coming-Chronicle-Chronicles/dp/1492742619ISBN-13: 978-1492742616

The First Chronicle
Kindle version http://www.amazon.com/Skid-Tasting-plant-ebook/dp/B009FIAMXS
Print version http://www.amazon.com/Skid-The-tasting-plant-Volume-1/dp/1479378844

Review -The Second Coming

A Review for the Second Coming 

The Second Coming by Keith Fenwick is a next-in-series title about several different people whose stories are in some way related, but if you are just coming in you don't quite know how. Sue and Bruce are normal, everyday Earthlings... mostly. Sue, who owns a travel agency, is somehow pregnant when she hasn't had a sexual partner in a very long time. Her best guess is immaculate conception. 

Bruce, on the other hand, is a bit of a foul mouthed, rugged loner living off the land. He feels that something is missing--a chunk of his life perhaps. 

On the other hand, Mitch, a third Earth personality (and the United States President), was experiencing no abnormality in his life before a spaceship landed in an American military airplane hangar after a little airspace encroachment, battle, and chase. The alien flying that craft is Myfair, the happenstance ruler of a mostly unknown planet, Skid--the most advanced planet in the universe.

In the wake of a mind-blowing apocalypse on his planet caused by a malfunctioning computer intelligence charged with making Skidian life as easy as possible, Myfair was simply traversing the deep, not looking for anything in particular, when he accidentally stumbled upon Earth, violating American airspace and instigating a dogfight in the process. The skirmish caused him to lose control and scrape his ship across a range of mountains, forcing him to find a place to land. A secured military base is as good a place as any, wouldn't you think?

To you and me it would seem like an insanely stupid idea; but to an intelligent life form that considers us a pitifully ill-advanced, backwater planet that can be easily handled, an air of arrogance keeps our intelligent thought process from rendering us dangerous to a Skidian, and even worthy of note. This is why Myfair was just fine with parking in a military hangar and taking a Sunday stroll around, checking out American war planes. His lack of realization that there could in fact be danger on such an inconsequential planet is just the reason he runs into Bruce, Sue, and President Mitch, which begins their journey together.

As a critique, it takes a lot of reading to get to this point. It could have easily been a hundred or more pages shorter. In addition some of the sexual description was weird, almost as though it hardly had a place in the book. I don't mean all of the sex in general, which was very little, but when it popped up unexpectedly--specifically from the main female character's perspective--it took me by surprise and seemingly without reason. On the upside, there are almost no instances of it. In fact, all such instances containing sex probably only amount to a single page, or less even. My final critique is that Bruce's mother added an almost irritating ingredient to the mixture that bothered me--not because it existed, but because it worked itself into this book so late. Perhaps Fenwick touches on this in the first book, which could make me wrong in thinking this was new, but it was bothersome none-the-less.

All in all though, I found the book quite fun, especially when I got to the meat of it. As the book follows Myfair and other Skidians and allows you to see what their arrogance and underestimation gets them into, it's hard not to laugh. Reading about the effect that Bruce and Mitch have on others is no different; it's quite comical and some of the adventure and action made it so I had to keep reading on past my bed time. The Second Comingturned out to be a fun and funny read and I would recommend it to anyone that has the endurance for longer, slower adult science fiction novels.