Edward Hoornaert's Blog, page 37

Were you having the same dream? #mfrwhooks

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Here’s a selection from Escapee, my recently released science fiction romance. Enemies from the Proxima star system have invaded the isolated mining moon where Catt Sayer is a civilian pilot. She picks up a lone survivor, Captain Dukelsky, who wants her to fly her airship to the far side of the moon to attack the enemy’s base.

Not wanting any part of a suicide mission, Catt destroys the canon he’d hoped to use to attack the enemy’s base. But that’s sabotage, and she realizes she’s also destroyed his reason for living. After a long, restless night filled with guilt and the kind of heart-to-heart discussion possible only in the dark from opposite sides of the cabin, she realizes that his dream of fighting a Just War is noble. She comes to a decision first thing the next morning.

She debated getting dressed, the more layers the better. But to do that properly and comfortably meant stripping off the skintights, and there was no time for that; Dukelsky might return at any moment. She clothed herself in dignity instead. She sat in her captain’s chair, swiveled it toward the cabin, and composed herself to await his return. She crossed her legs, but then decided on a more formal seated pose. Keeping a confident expression on her face, she waited.

She was considering changing her pose again when the ’fresher door squeaked open. “I’ll do it,” she said in a firm, prim voice.

Dukelsky stopped just outside the door. Sleep dulled his expression and shadowed his eyes. Claws scrambling, the skoot and the kitten raced each other to reach him first. The skoot won and danced around him on its four hind legs, tongue slathering the air. When he lowered his hand, the kitten leapt into it.

“I said, I’ll do it,” she repeated.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Does this mean you were having the same dream I was?”

“Pardon?” After glancing at the front of his shorts, her neck and face flamed. “Not that,” she said with as much frazzled dignity as she could muster.

Dukelsky had dreamed about her?

Be sure to check out the hooks by other great writers in the Book Hooks blog hop. Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list.

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Escapee

Book 2 in the Repelling the Invasion series

[image error]Catt Sayer just wants to survive.  The working-class fugitive delivers military supplies on a decrepit airship, but her hard-won livelihood vanishes when invaders overrun her harsh moon. Even worse, an idealistic, upper-class officer wants her to risk her life on a hopeless trek to attack enemy headquarters – manned by 10,000 soldiers.

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Effing Feline makes an offer you can’t refuse #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline, am going to present evidence of cat’s undeniable superiority in order to encourage you to join the Felinism Movement. Did you know that cats directly inspired some of the most enduring literature in history? Here’s proof that we inspired The Hardy Boys series:

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Romance, too. It defies belief that one of the Bennett girls being named ‘Kitty’ was a coincidence. Here’s proof that cats were the patterns for both Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett! — as well as all the Regency romances of Georgette Heyer:

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I’m sure cats inspired Mr. Valentine to write his recently released sci fi novel Escapee, too! In the book, enemies from the Proxima star system have invaded the isolated mining moon where Catt Sayer, a civilian pilot, makes her living flying supplies on a decrepit airship. She picks up a lone survivor, Captain Dukelsky, who wants her to fly her airship to the far side of the moon to attack the enemy’s base..

But Catt jettisoned the canon he’d hoped to use to attack the enemy’s base, destroying his plan — and also his hopes and his reason for existing. After initial fury that Catt barely manages to overcome, he falls utterly quiet. She can’t figure out what he’s thinking, but she’s afraid of whatever it is. (FYI, Lancelot is her android co-pilot.)

After two hours of oppressive silence, she’d made the tea as a peace offering, but Dukelsky hadn’t even looked up when she gave it to him. An hour later, the tea was cold.

Dukelsky scares me, Catt typed into the instant message app built into the cockpit’s controls, and sent the message to Lance’s console. He hasn’t budged or said anything for three hours.

“But he isn’t—”

“Type, Lance,” she whispered fiercely, “type.”

Lancelot had been programmed to simulate human expressions, and now his eyebrows rose in simulated amusement. He typed a response without looking at his keyboard: You like him, don’t you, Catt?

“What!”

“Type, Catt, type.”

Effing Feline here again. I urge you become a card-carrying member of the Felinism movement. Just send your membership fee of $27,539.97 to me. It’s that easy!

Be sure to check out the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

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Escapee

Book 2 in the Repelling the Invasion series

[image error]Catt Sayer just wants to survive.  The working-class fugitive delivers military supplies on a decrepit airship, but her hard-won livelihood vanishes when invaders overrun her harsh moon. Even worse, an idealistic, upper-class officer wants her to risk her life on a hopeless trek to attack enemy headquarters – manned by 10,000 soldiers.

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo Books
Smashwords

 

 

If you kill me #mfrwauthor

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Here’s a selection from Escapee, my recently released science fiction romance. Enemies from the Proxima star system have invaded the isolated mining moon where Catt Sayer is a civilian pilot. She picks up a lone survivor, Captain Dukelsky, who wants her to fly her airship to the far side of the moon to attack the enemy’s base.

Not wanting any part of such a suicide mission, Catt destroys the canon he’d hoped to use to attack the enemy’s base. Here’s part of his reaction. I apologize for the length, but there’s nowhere to break it.

“Always with the feelings, you women,” Hector said. “Helen. Sandrina. Now you. You just destroyed military weapons during wartime, a capital offense, and yet you want to talk about my emotions? Well I don’t have any, godsdamn it.”

[image error]“Don’t hit me!”

“Hit you?” Didn’t she know by now he was one of the good guys? But when he realized he’d advanced most of the way to where she cowered, Hector stopped and shoved his fists into his pockets.

“If you kill me, you’re –”

“Kill you!”

“– stranded on this mountainside until you die.”

“I would never –”

“Yes, you would. Capital offense, you said, and you’re so furious at me—”

“I am not furious.”

“– that your face is all red.”

“I’m disappointed, that’s all.”

“Stop right there!”

Oh, damn, she was right — he’d raised his hand and stepped toward her. She was almost in grabbing distance, except the pilot’s seat was between them and she would just dash to the other side and he’d reach to his left and she’d dash to the right and the chase would degenerate into undignified slapstick.

“If you take one more step,” she said, “I’m going to scream.”

“You already did.” Hector came close to laughing, but this didn’t seem like an appropriate time. He kept his hands in his pocket and forced them to unclench. “If your female irrationality demands it, go ahead and scream. I’m curious, though. Who’s going to charge to your rescue?”

Catt stared into his eyes. The phrase she bored deep into his soul came to mind, but that was meaningless twaddle. His usual mask was down, perhaps. That was all. And yet something she saw made her stand a little straighter, a little less frightened. He had no idea why.

“You,” she said. Her voice sounded puzzled and surprised.

“Me? I’m going to charge to your rescue? But I’m the bad guy, according to you.”

“Yeah, you are.” She spoke so matter-of-factly he almost believed her. “But you have a soul in there, I think.” She relaxed her defensive posture. “Screaming might bring out the gentleman in you and you’d rescue me from yourself . . . I think.”

Maybe another female could understand her tangled logic. He couldn’t. And yet . . .

Her naive trust vibrated through all the reaches of his body. He was used to dealing with people at a superficial level. He was so used to being misunderstood he’d stopped resenting it. And yet at some cockeyed level, this hot-tempered woman understood him better than almost anyone, just from looking into his eyes.

Be sure to check out the hooks by other great writers in the Book Hooks blog hop. Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list.

[image error]

Escapee

Book 2 in the Repelling the Invasion series

[image error]Catt Sayer just wants to survive.  The working-class fugitive delivers military supplies on a decrepit airship, but her hard-won livelihood vanishes when invaders overrun her harsh moon. Even worse, an idealistic, upper-class officer wants her to risk her life on a hopeless trek to attack enemy headquarters – manned by 10,000 soldiers.

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo Books
Smashwords

 

 

Effing Feline pronounces Felinism #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline, showed my intellectual prowess last week by announcing the birth of a new movement certain to sweep the nation and redefine the Internet — felinism. However, there seems to be some uncertainty about how this new ism is pronounced.

FEE line ism
FEE lin ism
Fuh LINE ism
Effing ism
etc.

I shall reveal the proper pronunciation after today’s snippet from Eds’ NOW LIVE novel, Escapee.

Enemies from the Proxima star system have invaded the isolated mining moon where Catt Sayer, a civilian pilot, makes her living flying supplies on a decrepit airship. She picks up a lone survivor, Captain Dukelsky, who wants her to fly her airship to the far side of the moon to attack the enemy’s base..

Last week, we saw Catt destroy the canon he’d hoped to use to attack the enemy’s base. But as she heads back to her airship, she realizes that he had watched her. Here guilt slams her as she faces him.

As Catt walked toward Dukelsky, she avoided looking at his face, afraid of what she would see around the edges of his respirator. He did or said nothing, just stood there motionless, which keyed her anticipation to the breaking point. She made a wide detour around him, hoping to get inside without facing up to what she’d done.

Guilt weighed down her spirits. Sabotage during wartime…was that treason?

At a personal level, she’d destroyed not just his militaristic bravado, but also his hopes of emerging a hero; she hadn’t touched him, yet she’d hurt him. What would he do to her? Nothing she didn’t deserve, perhaps—but she didn’t want what she deserved. No person honest enough to acknowledge their own faults wanted that.

She wanted him to acknowledge the unfairness of his plan—it was suicide, and it would kill her, as well as him. Above all, she wanted him to recognize her act of sabotage sprang from years of oppression by patroons and was admirably restrained, considering who she was.

Effing Feline here again. Now for the big reveal — how to pronounce that difficult word. It’s pronounced . . . horn-art, with only a slight accent on the first syllable.

Wait, wait — wrong word! My new ism is pronounced fell-in-ism, to rhyme with feminism. NOT to be confused with felonism, you smart alexas!

Be sure to check out the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

[image error]

Escapee

Book 2 in the Repelling the Invasion series

[image error]Catt Sayer just wants to survive.  The working-class fugitive delivers military supplies on a decrepit airship, but her hard-won livelihood vanishes when invaders overrun her harsh moon. Even worse, an idealistic, upper-class officer wants her to risk her life on a hopeless trek to attack enemy headquarters – manned by 10,000 soldiers.

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo Books
Smashwords

 

 

Effing Feline founds felinism #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline, object to the way cats are objectified in advertisement! They’re treated not as individual cats, but as mere things. It’s not a new disgrace, either, as these pictures show.

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Puss in Boots, a heroic folk figure, is here reduced to a mere caricature to sell shoe polish! If that doesn’t convince your of the depths to which ancient marketers around the world would stoop, here’s another repulsive example.

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Muy disgusting !

Enemies from the Proxima star system have invaded the isolated mining moon where Catt Sayer, a civilian pilot, makes her living flying supplies on a decrepit airship. She picks up a lone survivor, Captain Dukelsky, who wants her to fly her airship to the far side of the moon to attack the enemy’s base. She agrees . . . but only because she’s sure he’ll give up because of the moon’s cataclysmic volcanoes.

When he doesn’t give up despite a scare, Catt decides on a more decisive way to change his mind. While they’ve landed for the night, she will destroy the canon he plans to use to attack the enemies. The canon is in a crate packed in the airship’s hold. While Captain Dukelsky sleeps , she uses the ship’s forklift to get it out of the airship.

The forklift responded with a sluggish whimper, but it gained speed as the slope increased. At the steep stretch, she slammed on the brakes while releasing the catch holding the crate in place. It slammed to the ground and tipped slowly. For a moment, she feared it would land flat, but it tipped over, then over again, until it was rolling down the canyon like a cube-shaped boulder. The canyon jogged to the left, but the crate went straight, smashing into the canyon wall and bursting apart. Plasti-foam shattered and filled the air like hailstones. The artillery piece rolled intact for another fifty feet until it encountered another wall of rock, and there it shattered into a dozen chunks, with some flying into the air as high as had the crate.

Catt watched her destructive handiwork and dismounted. The tired old forklift would never climb back up this slope; after saying goodbye to it—just a stupid old piece of machinery, so why did her eyes start to sting?—she turned to trudge uphill.

That was when she saw Dukelsky, watching her every move.

Effing Feline here again. You’ll notice — I sure did! — that all of these cats are nude. It is past time that we put a stop to this shameless use of cats to make money. Some of your are probably feminists. I call on all of you to join me in a new and overdue movement.

Felinism!

Be sure to check out the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

[image error]

Escapee

Book 2 in the Repelling the Invasion series

Catt Sayer just wants to survive.  The working-class fugitive delivers military supplies on a decrepit airship, but her hard-won livelihood vanishes when invaders overrun her harsh moon. Even worse, an idealistic, upper-class officer wants her to risk her life on a hopeless trek to attack enemy headquarters – manned by 10,000 soldiers.

E[image error]scapee is a new edition of the science fiction romance that was the Rone Award’s First Runner Up as the best science fiction novel of 2016.  The re-release, with new material throughout, will go live November 23 — the birthday of my oldest son, to whom the book is dedicated. Until then, it’s available for pre-sale. Don’y let it escape you!

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo Books
Smashwords

 

 

Effing Feline founds feliinism #wewriwa

[image error]

I, Effing Feline, object to the way cats are objectified in advertisement! They’re treated not as individual cats, but as mere things. It’s not a new disgrace, either, as these pictures show.

[image error]

Puss in Boots, a heroic folk figure, is here reduced to a mere caricature to sell shoe polish! If that doesn’t convince your of the depths to which ancient marketers around the world would stoop, here’s another repulsive example.

[image error]

Muy disgusting !

Enemies from the Proxima star system have invaded the isolated mining moon where Catt Sayer, a civilian pilot, makes her living flying supplies on a decrepit airship. She picks up a lone survivor, Captain Dukelsky, who wants her to fly her airship to the far side of the moon to attack the enemy’s base. She agrees . . . but only because she’s sure he’ll give up because of the moon’s cataclysmic volcanoes.

When he doesn’t give up despite a scare, Catt decides on a more decisive way to change his mind. While they’ve landed for the night, she will destroy the canon he plans to use to attack the enemies. The canon is in a crate packed in the airship’s hold. While Captain Dukelsky sleeps , she uses the ship’s forklift to get it out of the airship.

The forklift responded with a sluggish whimper, but it gained speed as the slope increased. At the steep stretch, she slammed on the brakes while releasing the catch holding the crate in place. It slammed to the ground and tipped slowly. For a moment, she feared it would land flat, but it tipped over, then over again, until it was rolling down the canyon like a cube-shaped boulder. The canyon jogged to the left, but the crate went straight, smashing into the canyon wall and bursting apart. Plasti-foam shattered and filled the air like hailstones. The artillery piece rolled intact for another fifty feet until it encountered another wall of rock, and there it shattered into a dozen chunks, with some flying into the air as high as had the crate.

Catt watched her destructive handiwork and dismounted. The tired old forklift would never climb back up this slope; after saying goodbye to it—just a stupid old piece of machinery, so why did her eyes start to sting?—she turned to trudge uphill.

That was when she saw Dukelsky, watching her every move.

Effing Feline here again. You’ll notice — I sure did! — that all of these cats are nude. It is past time that we put a stop to this shameless use of cats to make money. Some of your are probably feminists. I call on all of you to join me in a new and overdue movement.

Felinism!

Be sure to check out the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

[image error]

Escapee

Book 2 in the Repelling the Invasion series

Catt Sayer just wants to survive.  The working-class fugitive delivers military supplies on a decrepit airship, but her hard-won livelihood vanishes when invaders overrun her harsh moon. Even worse, an idealistic, upper-class officer wants her to risk her life on a hopeless trek to attack enemy headquarters – manned by 10,000 soldiers.

E[image error]scapee is a new edition of the science fiction romance that was the Rone Award’s First Runner Up as the best science fiction novel of 2016.  The re-release, with new material throughout, will go live November 23 — the birthday of my oldest son, to whom the book is dedicated. Until then, it’s available for pre-sale. Don’y let it escape you!

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo Books
Smashwords

 

 

Quick Quiz about Earth’s new neighbor

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An artist’s impression of the planet orbiting Barnard’s Star, which is the nearest single star to the sun. (ESO/M. Kornmesser)

Q. Quick quiz: What’s the nearest star to our sun?

A. Proxima Centauri — a red dwarf that is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. It’s part of a three-star system, the brightest of which is Alpha Centauri.

Q. Interesting! The villains in Ed’s Repelling the Invasion series are called Proximanians; I wonder if this is where they’re from.

But For the moment, let’s forget multiple-star systems. What’s the closest single star, like our sun?

A. Barnard’s star.

Q. And does it have any planets?

A. It does now

An international team of scientists has found evidence that suggests a large, rocky world — a super-Earth — may be orbiting a nearby star.

Barnard’s Star is the fourth closest star to us, coming after the Alpha Centauri triple-star system, comprising of Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri A and B. Named after American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard, the star is quite special: It moves across our sky — a measure called proper motion — faster than any other star.

Read the rest of the article about our new next-door neighbor.

 

Keep that thing away from me #mfrwauthor

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After missing a couple weeks, I’m back with a hook from Escapee, a re-release of an award-winning science fiction romance. Catt Sayer and Hector Dukelsky are fleeing an enemy invasion, in an airship. They have company — an ugly creature called a skoot, which was described earlier like this:

“Except for sparse fur, its head was crocodilian, as was its rough hide, but its short tail was plumed and its legs were doglike, even if there were six of them. The lolling tongue was sort of doglike, too, except it was longer than an anteater’s. All in all, a hideous combination of features. She would never understand why people kept them as pets.”

The skoot hopped off the couch and trailed her toward one of the doors at the back of the room. Sayer skittered away as though afraid. “Keep away from me. Go.”

“Sorry,” Hector said. “He doesn’t know any better. Skoots love people and follow them around. That’s how they get their name. People are always telling them to scoot out of the way.”

“Why’d you bring your pets, anyway? Don’t you know there’s a war going on?”

Anger and helplessness made his voice go flat. “These two are the only survivors of the attack. I owe it to the troopers who owned them to ensure they survive.”

“Oh. Well.” She paused with the ’fresher door open. The facilities behind her were as tiny as on a shuttle, with toilet and sink that folded down from the walls into combination shower/dryer. A person could use just one function at a time. “I’d appreciate it, Dukelsky, if you’d try to keep that thing” — she waved in the skoot’s direction — “away from me.”

Be sure to check out the hooks by other great writers in the Book Hooks blog hop. Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list.

Escapee

A Disillusioned Soldier

[image error]Hector Dukelsky, an upper-class career officer, yearns to fight a righteous war instead of defending corporate interests on Banff, an isolated mining moon. That dream dies when his entire command is slaughtered while he’s away, leaving him alone in smouldering rubble with no chance to survive, let alone strike back at the enemy.

A Pilot with a Chip on Her Shoulder

Catt Sayer, a working-class fugitive from the law, earns a meagre income carrying supplies on a decrepit airship, but her hard-won life vanishes when invaders capture Banff. While searching for survivors, she rescues Hector and flies him to safety. But he doesn’t want safety. He wants her to risk her life on a hopeless journey to attack the enemy headquarters.

A Dying Moon

Catt is sure Banff will kill them long before the enemy can … yet she agrees to Hector’s scheme, certain he’ll quit after experiencing one of the moon’s eruptions or ferocious storms. But he doesn’t quit, and slowly his noble dream—and his love—conquer her heart. She pits her life and love against Banff’s lethal environment, even though the only reward for success will be the opportunity to face ten thousand enemy warriors.

Escapee will be released on November 23 — the birthday of my oldest son, to whom the book is dedicated. Until then, it’s available for pre-sale.

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo Books
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Headers Up!

The header image of this blog has proved to be a a maintenance nightmare. You see, it shows the covers of all my books.

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Actually, that’s not true. It doesn’t show my computer programming books, nor the contemporary romances I wrote for Silhouette Books. But it does show my science fiction and sci fi romance books, so new books or covers means a new header image.

I’ve been tardy about adding my September and October releases (Alien Contact for Runaway Moms and The Guardian Angel of Farflung Station), and that it’s been weighing on my mind — especially since I have another release coming up on the 23rd of this month (Escapee) and another soon after in December or January (Constellation XXI).

Last weekend I bit the bullet, as soldiers would do when undergoing battlefield surgery without anesthetic, and redid the header to include Runaway Moms at the left and the new covers for my Repelling the Invasion series. I also made my life a tad easier by including a placeholder for Constellation XXI with a splashy ‘coming soon’ sign. The book’s exact release date is yet to be decided, as I’m working with a new editor at the end of this month and don’t know quite what to expect.

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Finally, I had an ‘Aha!’ moment . . . though in truth it was more like ‘Why didn’t you think of this before, you idiot?’ The books were already grouped by series, so I added the name of the series.

If I didn’t point all this out to you, you’d probably never notice the header, but I spent an hour or two on this so I darned well want somebody out there to pay attention!

R.I.P Hal, the killer computer

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I’d wager that most science fiction fans have seen the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film, 2001. I’d also wager that most of the viewers would agree on the movie’s most memorable character.

It’s not this dude, heroic astronaut Dave Bowman:

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It’s Hal 9000, the Killer Computer!

Why do I bring this up now? Because Hal recently died at the age of 90 in Stratford, Ontario.

If you haven’t seen the movie, or even if you have, here’s one of the memorable confrontations between astronaut Dave Bowman the creepily calm computer.

Actually, it was the actor who voiced Hal who died. His name was Douglas Rain, and he was a founding member of the company at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival. Can you name any other science fiction actors who also played Shakespeare? Tell us you guesses in a comment, then check out SyfyWire’s listing of 22 Shakespearean space dudes . . . including William Shatner as Mark Antony.

But first one more Youtube tune for you. 2001 made composer Richard Strauss into a popular success, a couple decades after his death. Here’s the wonderful opening of Thus Spake Zarathustra used in the film.