Introducing My Upcoming Sci-fi Series
Probability Shadow, Book 1 of “Against the Glare of Darkness,” is scheduled for release this fall, by Chickadee Prince Books. It’s a high stakes drama set in a far future, where an unspeakable threat changes the balance of power across an entire interstellar civilization.
It’s also the story of singular characters, whose cozy assumptions are shattered for good. Among the major players in the drama are:
THE QUISHIKS — multidimensional beings, whose utter control over the force of Probability itself enables them to reshape reality. Existing outside of time, they draw strength by draining the mental energy from every sentient being in their path. As Probability Shadow gets underway, they’ve just escaped from their prison inside the Fremdel event horizon. Soon their deadly scheming sets the stage for a massive interstellar conflict. Their adversaries include:
UNGENT DRAAF — of the Grashard Sidereal Caucus. A distinguished crustacean, Ungent is Ambassador to the enigmatic Dralein, a species of sentient rodent with highly unusual minds. His original mission on Bledraun, the Dralein homeworld, is simple. But soon the Quishiks’ meddling leads him to discover their deadly purpose. With the help of YALDRINT, his trusted AI, he dedicates himself to defeating the Quishiks, by allying himself with an unlikely army of misfits, including:
SHOL — a Krezovic teenager who, until recently, has lived on the streets of a dozen minor planets. When a string of hard luck lands him on Bledraun, he becomes Ungent’s reluctant student and unflinching ally. As a member of a genetically engineered human subspecies, he has no love for the established order. Unknown to him, his fellow Krezovics, GRAUTH and DROLET conspire with dark forces to further destabilize local politics. During Shol’s stay on Bledraun, he meets:
TRINITY HUDSON — the teenage daughter of a prominent member of the human delegation to Bledraun. Her budding relationship with Shol is a joy, but as the story unfolds, Trinity must confront the biases of her culture. It’s a culture she shares with two other members of the Terran Protectorate:
CAPTAIN HARLAN MARS and COMMANDER GILLIAN CAVENDISH — of the Terran Protectorate ship Sweet Chariot. Harlan, an old acquaintance of Ungent, is career military personnel but, like Gillian, looks askance at the Protectorate’s rapacious empire-building. Charged at first with ferrying the human delegation to Bledraun, Harlan and Gillian are drawn into the political crisis fomented by the Quishiks. Like every operative in the Terran Protectorate, they are under the heel of the ANN COMMISSION, a confederation of artificial intelligences who control the flow of data throughout the human empire and skillfully exploit it to increase their influence.
To coordinate their military strategy on Bledraun, Harlan and Gillian must rely on:
EUCH-CHAUDRON DRASHNA and DVER-CHAUDRON DADREN — leaders of the Bledraun world government. Lately, Dadren has been forced to take full responsibility, as Drashna is preoccupied with her critically ill child, Caronya. Drashna’s concern for her daughter has led her to form an unethical alliance with a consortium of shadowy symbiotes, who alone hold the cure to Caronya’s illness. Drashna’s contact among the symbiotes is:
WARVHEX — head of Stealth Ops for the symbiotes, who pursues a double agenda. She hopes to defeat the Quishiks on her own, then use her victory as a bargaining chip to further the symbiote cause. Long dispised as mere parasites, the symbiotes crave full recognition as a sovereign power by the Interstellar Council. When her assault on the Quishiks fails. she’s forced to reach out to an unlikely partner, the biomechanoid captain of the Terran Protectorate probe ship Mighty Fortress — who has recently discovered the Quishik’s appearance at the edge of the Fremdel event horizon:
CAPTAIN/27/ENOS/EXPLORATORY — the impossibly handsome biomechanoid captain who deduces the presence of the Quishiks by analyzing unusual energy readings emanating from the Fremdel event horizon. He later develops a “doomsday” weapon to eliminate the Quishiks which promises to exact horrific damage on local space-time. Throughout, he’s both abetted and distracted by:
LIEUTENANT CRICKET ANDERSEN — his chief navigator, whose amorous interest in Captain Enos begins a cascading rewrite of his core programming. Unknown to her, she’s about to become the pawn of a vast intergalactic force:
THE OOTRAY — a vanished civilization. Their AI remnants on Bledraun believe Cricket has a critical role to play in defeating the Quishiks. Accordingly, they fill her mind with visions of her childhood homeworld and lure her down to Bledraun, where she meets Ungent. From that point on the action takes a series of surprising twists.
You’re invited to see this story unfold in print and e-book when Probability Shadow appears on October 1, 2018.
It’s also the story of singular characters, whose cozy assumptions are shattered for good. Among the major players in the drama are:
THE QUISHIKS — multidimensional beings, whose utter control over the force of Probability itself enables them to reshape reality. Existing outside of time, they draw strength by draining the mental energy from every sentient being in their path. As Probability Shadow gets underway, they’ve just escaped from their prison inside the Fremdel event horizon. Soon their deadly scheming sets the stage for a massive interstellar conflict. Their adversaries include:
UNGENT DRAAF — of the Grashard Sidereal Caucus. A distinguished crustacean, Ungent is Ambassador to the enigmatic Dralein, a species of sentient rodent with highly unusual minds. His original mission on Bledraun, the Dralein homeworld, is simple. But soon the Quishiks’ meddling leads him to discover their deadly purpose. With the help of YALDRINT, his trusted AI, he dedicates himself to defeating the Quishiks, by allying himself with an unlikely army of misfits, including:
SHOL — a Krezovic teenager who, until recently, has lived on the streets of a dozen minor planets. When a string of hard luck lands him on Bledraun, he becomes Ungent’s reluctant student and unflinching ally. As a member of a genetically engineered human subspecies, he has no love for the established order. Unknown to him, his fellow Krezovics, GRAUTH and DROLET conspire with dark forces to further destabilize local politics. During Shol’s stay on Bledraun, he meets:
TRINITY HUDSON — the teenage daughter of a prominent member of the human delegation to Bledraun. Her budding relationship with Shol is a joy, but as the story unfolds, Trinity must confront the biases of her culture. It’s a culture she shares with two other members of the Terran Protectorate:
CAPTAIN HARLAN MARS and COMMANDER GILLIAN CAVENDISH — of the Terran Protectorate ship Sweet Chariot. Harlan, an old acquaintance of Ungent, is career military personnel but, like Gillian, looks askance at the Protectorate’s rapacious empire-building. Charged at first with ferrying the human delegation to Bledraun, Harlan and Gillian are drawn into the political crisis fomented by the Quishiks. Like every operative in the Terran Protectorate, they are under the heel of the ANN COMMISSION, a confederation of artificial intelligences who control the flow of data throughout the human empire and skillfully exploit it to increase their influence.
To coordinate their military strategy on Bledraun, Harlan and Gillian must rely on:
EUCH-CHAUDRON DRASHNA and DVER-CHAUDRON DADREN — leaders of the Bledraun world government. Lately, Dadren has been forced to take full responsibility, as Drashna is preoccupied with her critically ill child, Caronya. Drashna’s concern for her daughter has led her to form an unethical alliance with a consortium of shadowy symbiotes, who alone hold the cure to Caronya’s illness. Drashna’s contact among the symbiotes is:
WARVHEX — head of Stealth Ops for the symbiotes, who pursues a double agenda. She hopes to defeat the Quishiks on her own, then use her victory as a bargaining chip to further the symbiote cause. Long dispised as mere parasites, the symbiotes crave full recognition as a sovereign power by the Interstellar Council. When her assault on the Quishiks fails. she’s forced to reach out to an unlikely partner, the biomechanoid captain of the Terran Protectorate probe ship Mighty Fortress — who has recently discovered the Quishik’s appearance at the edge of the Fremdel event horizon:
CAPTAIN/27/ENOS/EXPLORATORY — the impossibly handsome biomechanoid captain who deduces the presence of the Quishiks by analyzing unusual energy readings emanating from the Fremdel event horizon. He later develops a “doomsday” weapon to eliminate the Quishiks which promises to exact horrific damage on local space-time. Throughout, he’s both abetted and distracted by:
LIEUTENANT CRICKET ANDERSEN — his chief navigator, whose amorous interest in Captain Enos begins a cascading rewrite of his core programming. Unknown to her, she’s about to become the pawn of a vast intergalactic force:
THE OOTRAY — a vanished civilization. Their AI remnants on Bledraun believe Cricket has a critical role to play in defeating the Quishiks. Accordingly, they fill her mind with visions of her childhood homeworld and lure her down to Bledraun, where she meets Ungent. From that point on the action takes a series of surprising twists.
You’re invited to see this story unfold in print and e-book when Probability Shadow appears on October 1, 2018.
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