Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Aurora Springer’s latest release is GRAND MASTER’S GAME.




Blurb
Spin across the galaxy as Violet and her Grand Master hunt their enemies.
Cracks in the portal web threaten galactic civilization, and suspicions fall on the mysterious Grand Masters with their immense psychic powers. Once, there were twelve Grand Masters, humans and aliens, on the Council. Now there are eleven. One was killed when the young pawn, Violet, rescued her Grand Master, Athanor, from the Red Queen’s dungeon. The Red Queen fled the fight and now she lurks out of sight, regenerating her energies.

Athanor devises a risky plan to expose his enemies on the Council and force the Red Queen into the open. His strategy will employ Violet’s empathic skills as his secret weapon. Meanwhile, she wrestles with her erratic talents and doubts about their unequal partnership. In their search for revenge, they contend with the portal crisis, psychic traps and hostile aliens. In the inevitable battle of Grand Masters, Violet and Athanor each will face their worst nightmares. What is the sacrifice for victory?



Book 1, Grand Master’s Pawn is discounted to 99c for July: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TP1N5PM

Excerpt:
The spinning ceased. They had arrived at the destination. Kondric pushed the portal door open and stepped out onto a narrow shelf of rock. An icy wind roared into the cylinder from a murky gray sky.

Kondric recoiled, yelling, “This isn’t Avalon!” A fit of coughing convulsed his face and he tottered on the edge of the cliff. The Grand Master grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the cylinder. Holding his breath, Kondric pulled on the headpiece of his suit.
The frigid air stunk of rotten eggs. Violet gagged and blocked her nose. She sensed Athanor expand his shield to envelop the three of them. As a further precaution, she reattached the breather on her suit.

“The atmosphere is deadly,” Athanor said.

The lights on the control panel clicked off. The portal had died. With a squeak of alarm, Violet gripped Athanor’s arm. They stood on an unknown frozen planet with a toxic atmosphere, overlooking a bottomless precipice.

“Where are we?” she breathed.

No one answered.

Standing at the rear of the precarious ledge, Violet leaned against Athanor’s warm body and squinted through the gloomy atmosphere. The portal perched on a cliff surrounded by roiling umber clouds. Frozen peaks stabbed into the horizon. Far below the clouds, blue green spikes protruded from a glassy blue lake. Ice pillars carved into fantastic shapes were reflected in the mirror of the lake.

Overhead, jagged lightning zipped from the ominous black clouds and struck the frozen peaks. A fountain of water vapor sprayed into the sky. Cracks snapped across a pillar of ice. The severed top tumbled slowly into the lake and the splash rippled outward in concentric circles. Winds roared through the peaks, spinning dark streaks of cloud across the sky towards their shaky perch.

The hazy black swirls fired an alarm in Violet’s mind. “Athanor, it’s the black dust. Port us out of here!” she shouted, fearing the clouds contained the horrid dust that suppressed his telekinesis.

“Hades!” he grunted. Quickly checking that they were linked together, the Grand Master tapped his insert and they flipped into the soundless void. To Violet’s amusement, Kondric’s mouth had frozen open in a cry of shock. She and Athanor had slipped into their customary half embrace.  

They popped out beside the teleportal cylinder in the central square of the main town of Avalon. Violet inhaled the flower-scented air and relaxed.

Bio:
Aurora Springer is a scientist morphing into a novelist. She has a PhD in molecular biophysics and discovers science facts in her day job. She has invented adventures in weird worlds for as long as she can remember. In 2014, Aurora achieved her life-long ambition to publish her stories. Her works are character-driven romances set in weird worlds described with a sprinkle of humor. Some of the stories were composed thirty years ago. She was born in the UK and lives in Atlanta with her husband, a dog and two cats to sit on the keyboard. Her hobbies, besides reading and writing, include outdoor activities like gardening, watching wildlife, hiking and canoeing.

Aurora has published science fiction romances in two series, two novellas and short stories. Her first series, Atrapako on Eden, describes the interactions of humans on the terraformed planet of Eden with scaled aliens from the hostile planet of Vkani. She has published two books in this series: The Lady is Blue and Dragons of Vkani. Her second series is Grand Master’s Trilogy. Book 1, Grand Master’s Pawn, and Book 2, Grand Master’s Game, have been published. Her short story, Gifts of Jangalore, is set in the Grand Masters’ Universe. Her standalone novellas are: A Tale of Two Colonies and Captured by the Hawk.

Media links:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Aurora-Springer/e/B00K2C4NL8

Monday, July 27, 2015

More Progress.

A decent cover and a much better title. Will be putting it up on Authonomy soon. (It's there but needs updating and release, but they've approved me as a non-spam author. What do they have against processed pork products?)

Saturday, July 25, 2015

After the convergence #4 8-10 sentences for #WeWriWa

More about Sarah



Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors.  This is a sample from my latest work, and I hope you enjoy it. It continues after Alan has been interviewed by the machine. This selection is part of where Sarah Gonzales is introduced. She's important, mostly by her absence in the first part of the book - she disappears - but takes a much more active role later. She's just gone through "the selection", a rather brutal sorting out of who is smart enough to go to "the academy" and work with or on "The Machine." It's done in school, in front of everyone. However, after that there seems to be a problem. While it's not really emphasized, this is a critical clue to what's happening in the story.






The machine beside him spoke, “Mr. Anderson, please, I don’t make that kind of mistake.”
They proceeded to discuss her as if she weren’t there.
“She doesn’t seem to have the depth we require; she is decent in logic and is highly imaginative, but.”
“Have you checked the date and signature?”
Sarah drifted off into her own world.
Lord Pershore pulled his sword and stealthily approached the highwaymen. They bound Lady Sarah Jane Gonzales and were carrying her off to their lair, a run-down public house near the Bath road.
“Ms. Gonzales, pay attention, please,” it was that man again. She stood and said, “Well if I’ve failed, I’ve failed; I’ll just go now.”
“No you haven’t; it looks like someone from the resistance has been at work; you don’t know anyone in the mutual impedance society?”


This work was recently published and is available for Kindle, including Kindle unlimited. It is a dark, noir detective story set in the near future, after machines have become intelligent. It uses a number of engineering/science puns - the "mutual impedance society." 
Available here.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Progress, I guess.

I finished the first draft of my latest. It's on writeon (there's not a way to give it a link), and maybe Authonomy.  I've changed the title, and have a not ready for prime time cover.
So it's a step forward, but not as far as I'd like. Anyway, if someone is so daft as to want to read it, I'd be happy to send an advance copy.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Colonel Treader's Chicken Nuggets.

Definitely not something Darcy would have eaten. That's his loss.

Cut one or two chicken, I can't use this word, well at least Jane Austen wouldn't. But then it is 2015. Breasts (so there - she'd have said "white meat") into reasonably sized chunks. One breast is fine for two people, and I split it down the middle and cut about 75mm wide slices. Oh, after removing fat and the "back meat" which is usually awful.

Crack an egg and put the nuggets into it and let sit for a few minutes. Mix them up so the chicken is coated.

In a plastic bag put:
 1/3 cup corn meal (Ground Maize for those in the UK, not Corn flour (which is corn starch in the USA (But I digress)))
1/3 cup flour.
1/2 teaspoon salt (can omit or use "lite" salt)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon Chipolte pepper (you can't buy this in Tesco's so ask a Yank to smuggle it)

Pour the chicken/egg mixture into the bag and shake. The idea is to thoroughly coat the chicken with the corn meal mixture.

Fry in about 1/4 inch (2-3 mm) of oil until done. Some generic vegetable oil is best, don't bother with fancy Olive oils for this. It's a good idea to flip the pieces over about half way. This will take about 10 minutes.

Eat.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

After the convergence #3 8-10 sentences for #WeWriWa

Introducing Sarah



Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors.  This is a sample from my latest work, and I hope you enjoy it. It continues after Alan has been interviewed by the machine. This selection is part of where Sarah Gonzales is introduced. She's important, mostly by her absence in the first part of the book - she disappears - but takes a much more active role later. This shows where her fantasy life collides with her reality.




Then he moved up and kissed her neck, and finally her mouth. She guided his hand down between her legs, loosening her for what she both feared and desired.
Sarah moaned, and then awoke. Her mother was knocking on her door.
“Sarah, get up! It’s almost time for school.”
“Mother, I was having the best dream, ever.”
“You don’t want to end up on relief or in prison like my no good husband, do you?”
“No.”
“Then you need to get to school. Get good grades and go to a good school. Stop reading that romantic trash."

This work was recently published and is available for Kindle, including Kindle unlimited. It is a dark, noir detective story set in the near future, after machines have become intelligent. It uses a number of engineering/science puns - the "mutual impedance society." 
Available here.