Tobin Marks's Blog
March 21, 2018
Chapter Thirty-Six: Time
Chapter Thirty-SixTimeMagellan IITime was a delirium. It had no beginning, no end, and no substance. While her body lay in a timeless state of dormancy, her mind was vividly active. The visions had returned again, but it was different this time. Time. She stood in front of an old door. A door that she’d never seen before, but whose location was very familiar to her. It wasn’t in a room, or a building. It was the arboretum at Cambridge: her favorite place on Earth.But this wasn’t Earth.The doo...
February 1, 2018
Drakon Rus: The Path's Price
Chapter TenThe Path’s PriceThey rested on top of the tower the rest of that day, and spent the night there. Neither was in the mood to push on. Alex used the time to go back over the book, and practiced finding the door. He had a lot of experience delving into his subconscious, but only via extreme physical duress. Now, he tried by only using his mind and his will. Sitting on the towers ledge, overlooking the huge, beautiful forest valley more than five hundred meters below, he attempted to m...
January 26, 2018
Drakon Rus: Battle for Cambria
Weaving her way towards the evacuated hospital, Britt ran through the chaotic streets of the human capital. The quick trip she had anticipated took longer than expected. She stopped several times to administer first aid to anyone she found. Most were soldiers, but she found three civilians who’d been hit by crossbow bolts that had over shot the wall. Most had survivable wounds, but two died in her arms. Both were soldiers with head wounds, and who had been manning those walls. Her visage grew...
October 18, 2017
Earth Ark: Chapter Fifty
A One Way MissionKoryak, EarthPrior to the war Mother Olga had made sure that Koryak’s deep bunker had everything it needed to sustain life underground for years. An immense blast shield covered by several meters of dirt protected the main entrance. This led directly to the surface, and would be what the survivors would eventually use to escape their subterranean existence. But there were two mine entrances, and inside the other one she’d placed two large ATV’s with their own set of blast doo...
July 17, 2017
World War Extinction (WWX)
The following is a chapter from my new book called:Earth Ark: The Magellan ll StoryThis chapter depicts an almost total extinction event on planet Earth. Fortunately there's a huge star ship named the Magellan ll with ten thousand colonists heading for a new world, so the race lives on, and sets in place the back drop for the Hope Prophecy Trilogy. Chapter Thirty-SevenWorld War Extinction EarthWearing her usual grey business suit a size too small, and matching jacket, Lenya rushed into Presid...
February 12, 2017
The Coven's Crucible
The Covens CrucibleThey met about noon on a drizzly December day sometime between the catfish skinning, and the crawdad shucking. Matt was the newest resident of the little Plaquemines Parish town of Venice, Louisiana, about 80 miles south of New Orleans. He had seen the signs around town advertising the fair, and felt compulsively drawn to see this slice of local life. He’d only been working in the area for about a week when the annual Orange Festival took place a few miles up the road in Bu...
January 28, 2017
A short story
The Devil’s Top HatMaybe it was that damned hat; maybe it was my imagination, but regardless of which, my short conversation with the Devil that terrible night, changed my life forever. It was a sweltering 30th of June 1978 in Bakersfield, California, and had started out as any other normal Friday night. It ended however, in the early morning of July 1st, amid the hellish screams that accompany limbs being torn from a body. Two bodies in fact. To this day my guilt is consummate: for I had bee...
January 27, 2017
Crossing the galaxy
As every sci-fi fan knows you can't have a cool story without going to a cool alien planet to fight your battles on. I mean, you can't always blow up the Earth, because that's not really fantasy; we do that everyday anyway. So, it's much better to go to another planet and blow it up instead. The problem of course, is how to get there. The physics involved pretty much rules out any logical method of traveling hundreds of light years, and since Einstein was right (we can't travel faster than th...
January 26, 2017
Every sci-fi needs a good spaceship
In book one: Endeavors Run, I have two different space ships. The starship Endeavor is where a lot of the action takes place, but not all. Actually much of it takes place on the shuttles that have the ability, unlike the Endeavor, to leave orbit, fly in the atmosphere, and even land on the surface. (No transporter beams in my AD 3200 century) These small craft called an OVAL. (Orbital Vehicle & Atmospheric Lander) However, this name might be a bit misleading, because instead of the oval shape...
January 25, 2017
Thought's from the pen....
Dragon's, magic swords, and hero's. What do they all have in common? Like many science fiction/fantasy books these are core themes in my trilogy. Hopefully mine have a unique take on their respective roles they play and that the readers will find them so. All three are key to my story, and each has a deeply rooted reason as to why they fit as I have placed them. Today's point however, is more of an analogy than a small window to the story. The sword I've chosen is a 1500 year old Samurai Kata...
