My 2010 EPIC Award-nominated science fiction novel, Sunrise Destiny, just received this terrific review from Kathy at Dark Divas Reviews (the bold emphasis is mine):
Rating: 5 Delightful Divas (their highest rating)
I added Mark Terence Chapman to my auto-buy list; and that was just 80-some pages into the book. This is a very long ~ at 450 pages ~ story, but I never got bored, never lost focus and certainly never wanted to rush it to its conclusion. Sunrise Destiny started off in the vein of one of those old-time PI stories, but there were a few things that didn't quite fit… until I remembered that this is also a sci-fi story. I was much taken with the slight dichotomy and, as the story progressed, found myself more and more intrigued.
Sunrise Destiny can almost be split into at least two parts; at first I wasn't sure it would work, but Mr. Chapman is able to move seamlessly between the two worlds and make everything come together very well. Generally, I find most science fiction stories a little harder to adjust to; especially with regard to the speculative nature and otherworld aspects. With Sunrise Destiny, Mark Chapman's narrative was strong and wonderfully detailed, without overdoing it, and I found myself so involved in Donatello's adventures that I was easily able to enjoy the futuristic elements.
There's evil galore, a plot for world domination, aliens and a good old-fashioned adventure. This is also a romance; the hero, a PI, whose reputation flirts with notoriety and a heroine who is a prostitute and Sunrise's sometime lover. Two people, who on the surface, just don't seem to have what it takes. But they do, and in spades. I loved watching the progression of their long-time relationship from now-and-again to full-bodied romance. Very nicely done Mr. Chapman, very nice indeed.
I do feel that a warning should be given: There is some violence and a disturbing scene; while it's there it is by no means graphic. And it goes a very long way to adding impetus for actions taken later in the book. All in all Mark Terence Chapman's Sunrise Destiny was a wonderful surprise and a story that will definitely be a re-read.
To find out more about Sunrise Destiny, including a blurb, a 4,000-word excerpt, and ordering links, please visit my web page.
Mark.
I have a tentative release date for my upcoming sci-fi novel, Sunrise Destiny. The plan is for a May 21 release. When private detective Donatello Sunrise is coerced into finding a Mob boss’s daughter, he stumbles onto a much bigger case. Dozens of women, all young, all petite, have disappeared in recent weeks. Mysterious and conflicting clues seem to point to a government conspiracy, a mad scientist bent on global domination, or perhaps abduction by bloodthirsty alien vampires. Nothing makes any sense.
Before he knows it, Sunrise and his hooker friend Lola find themselves in a life-or-death struggle. The Mob wants them dead, the cops want them for serial murders—even the kidnappers are after them. With the fate of two worlds intertwined, Sunrise and Lola must somehow help the good guys defeat the evil ones.
The trick is telling one from the other.
I'll follow up when I have a firm release date.
In addition to the trade paperback print edition, The World Outside the Window anthology is now also available in Kindle ebook format. (Other ebook formats will follow.)It was supposed to be a routine prospecting mission, but something went wrong.
With 43 billion souls crammed together on Mother Earth and using up natural resources at an unsustainable rate, the essential minerals that support human civilization are in desperately low supply. Tesserene, the mineral that makes starflight travel possible, is especially critical. Without it, humans are effectively imprisoned on their home world.
When prospecting ship Shamu is almost destroyed in a distant asteroid belt, Swede Johansen and rest of the crew of five is left with three days of air, little water, a smashed starflight drive, and no hope of rescue. It will take every ounce of ingenuity and stubborn pigheadedness they possess to find a way to survive.
Assuming they do find a solution, the ultimate jackpot awaits them in the shadows of a distant moon—if the galaxy doesn't kill them first.
For more information about me or The Tesserene Imperative, please visit my website.
On his 90th birthday, Arthur C. Clarke talked about meeting aliens. He remarked that humans are waiting until extraterrestrial beings “call us or give us a sign." “We have no way of guessing when this might happen. I hope sooner rather than later.”
I used to agree with this sentiment. Now I kind of hope later rather than sooner. Why? I don't think we're ready. Religious zealots would freak. (If aliens weren't created in God's image, then they must be godless, right? And thus soulless. Maybe the work of the Devil. Etc.) Plenty of other people would freak out as well. Some would be terrified. The stock markets might crash. There would be rioting in the streets in some places.
Odds are any aliens we hear from will be thousands, if not millions, of years ahead of us. (What are the odds that we'd be at roughly the same level of development?) If so, making face-to-face contact with them might be the worst possible thing for us.
If they're aggressive, we don't stand a chance. (Picture modern humans with tanks and H-bombs against cavemen with clubs.) Even if they're friendly, there's the issue of culture shock. Would we really keep striving to push the frontiers of science and technology if we could buy an inexpensive alien device that's a thousand times better than anything we have today? It would be so easy to just sit back and accept their bounty.
Many human scientists might study the advanced alien science and work up from there; but I suspect that for most of us the knowledge that we're thousands of years behind the aliens would have a crushing effect on our collective psyche. If we start thinking of ourselves as inferior in any way, we're done for as a vibrant species.
On the other hand, as arrogant as we are at the top of the Earthly food chain ("How quaint. Here's how we do things on Earth."), if we take that attitude out onto the galactic stage, we're likely to piss off someone who can slap us back into the Stone Age.
There are all sorts of negative scenarios that are possible and likely and don't bode well for humans. There are positive ones as well (Utopia on Earth and peace throughout the galaxy, for example), but I suspect we aren't ready for them and will screw up through ignorance, pride, aggressiveness, or any of the other less desirable human traits.
As cool as I think it would be to finally meet real-life aliens, I don't think we're ready for them. (And vice versa.) Give us another century to mature and maybe, just maybe we will be. (If we don't kill ourselves first....)
Mark.
(This entry is the last of my nine-part chain that began as a guest blog on author Gabriella Hewitt's blog and continued on through six others to author Jamieson Wolf’s blog, before ending here. Click here to return to Part VIII.)
I’d have to say that all the time I spent on editing and polishing paid off in the long run. The first drafts of either of the two books I sold (or my later ones) would never have passed muster. It was the endless, painstaking editing that made the difference. (That and critiques by other authors on critiquing web sites, and readers who’d liked some of my short stories and wanted more, that forced me to keep improving my writing.) Remember that, if you ever feel the urge to “leave it to the editor to fix.” Trust me, you’ll never get to the editor unless the manuscript is in reasonably good shape to begin with. It’ll be rejected long before you get that far.
As for my novels, The Mars Imperative (formerly Lichen or Not) was published in June 2007 (available in paperback from Amazon, and in ebook format on Fictionwise.com), and The Tesserene Imperative (formerly Tesserene) just came out this month (October 2007). I’m still editing and polishing Sunrise Destiny, and I finally finished the first draft of My Other Car is a Spaceship in July 2007. (All the editing and promoting of The Mars Imperative took its toll on my writing time in June and July. The 27,000 words I wrote after signing the contracts took me almost as long as the 85,000 words I wrote before then.)
Now that I’ve sold Lichen and Tesserene, it’s time to get back to work on
Clearly, the route I took is the not the traditional one for getting published as a novelist. But with the advent of micropublishers, print-on-demand (POD), self-publishing, ebooks, and the like, there are more routes to getting published than just the “find an agent and wait while they try to get a major publisher interested and then wait some more” route, which can take many years, if it ever happens. Any of these routes could be the “right” route for you. Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities, but don’t wait for opportunity to knock—seek it out. (And, of course, selling that first—or second—novel isn’t the end of the journey. It’s only the beginning.)
In the end, I may not be the astronaut—or baseball player or pirate—that I wanted to be as a youth, but—almost as good, and much safer—I get to write about them, and indeed have, in various books and short stories. And, I get to share those stories with others. What could be better than that?
My books are available from Amazon.com/Amazon.ca (paperback), Fictionwise.com (ebook), and other retailers. Or visit my web site at http://tesserene.com.
(Now that you’ve read this nine-part blog chain, what do you think of the idea? Leave me a comment and let me know. Also, please spend some time reading the other entries on the other blogs. There are some terrific authors represented in this chain.)
To begin with Part 1 of this story, click here to jump to author Gabriella Hewitt’s blog.
Mark.
The Tesserene Imperative, the follow-on to The Mars Imperative, has just been released in ebook format. Currently, it is available on the publisher's website.
