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Fugitive
Deep in the Fringe on a tramp freighter, Jewel Aurora is about to discover that there are much worse things than being forced into a marriage to secure her parents’ fortune. On the edges of human space, where no one can be trusted with your back, the young woman is about to stumble upon a fortune that star nations will go to war to possess. It’s a treasure that has already killed two sets of colonists who tried to claim it. And if anyone learns she and her crewmates have found it, it is absolutely certain to attract the attention of the two influential families she turned fugitive to escape—assuming, of course, that she and her shipmates are not the third set of victims to die on a cold little world far from the core of galactic civilization.
162 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 6, 2021
About the author
Gilbert M. Stack
96 books77 followersGilbert M. Stack has been creating stories almost since he began speaking, and publishing fiction and non-fiction since 2006. A professional historian, Gilbert delights in bringing the past to life in his fiction, depicting characters who are both true to their time and empathetic with modern sensibilities. His work has appeared in several issues of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Michelle, and their son, Michael.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 21, 2022
Goodreads has an interesting policy that lets authors review their own books. Rather than use this space to tell you how absolutely wonderful my novel is (take my word for it—it’s fantastic), I’d like to use this opportunity to talk about how I came to write the novel and what I hoped to accomplish with it.
For me, two of the themes I like best in science fiction literature are the exploration of the unknown and the clash of cultures. Like most authors, I usually have at least a half dozen story nuggets bouncing around in my head and eventually two or three of those nuggets will stick together to form an idea big enough to build a novel around and that’s what happened here. I took a young heroine, Jewel, from an extraordinarily wealthy and politically influential family who has successfully run away from home to avoid an arranged marriage, and put her in the middle of an extraordinary mystery in deep space—one that has the potential to shake the entire galaxy.
Now, before I go on about the mystery, I’d like to expand on the idea of the arranged marriage that is the impetus for everything that happens in this story. If you stop to think about it for a few moments, you will recognize that an arranged marriage is a fundamentally frightening concept especially when the intended bride and bridegroom have never even met. Man and woman are expected to bind themselves to each other for life in the most intimate of ways without having even the slightest clue if their personalities are compatible. Now add to the mix that my bride and bridegroom are from two completely opposite cultures—one hedonistic in the extreme and the other extraordinarily spartan—and you have an even more disturbing situation. Throw in horrendous consequences on a galactic scale if the marriage is not forged and you have psyche-breaking pressure being brought to bear on the young couple.
That is what Jewel is running from. Raised in an intensely capitalistic and libertine culture in which the elites think only of their own best interests, she is unable to come to grips with the sacrifice being asked of her and runs away—smack into a problem that threatens not only her continued freedom but ultimately peace in the galaxy. All of this might not matter if she were truly a daughter of her culture, but she was raised with this idea foreign to her peers that she has a duty to her family and cartel that requires her to worry about the well being of others. And while the idea wasn’t strong enough to keep her from running away, it continues to influence her actions, a nagging conscience which keeps her from being the completely self-centered daughter of her self-interested parents.
The problem I had when I sat down to write Fugitive was that the opening mystery that was intended to set the stage and introduce Jewel kept growing in scope and importance until it became a novel all its own—changing the overarching story into a series in which I could take the time to fully explore the issues that inspired the first book.
For me, two of the themes I like best in science fiction literature are the exploration of the unknown and the clash of cultures. Like most authors, I usually have at least a half dozen story nuggets bouncing around in my head and eventually two or three of those nuggets will stick together to form an idea big enough to build a novel around and that’s what happened here. I took a young heroine, Jewel, from an extraordinarily wealthy and politically influential family who has successfully run away from home to avoid an arranged marriage, and put her in the middle of an extraordinary mystery in deep space—one that has the potential to shake the entire galaxy.
Now, before I go on about the mystery, I’d like to expand on the idea of the arranged marriage that is the impetus for everything that happens in this story. If you stop to think about it for a few moments, you will recognize that an arranged marriage is a fundamentally frightening concept especially when the intended bride and bridegroom have never even met. Man and woman are expected to bind themselves to each other for life in the most intimate of ways without having even the slightest clue if their personalities are compatible. Now add to the mix that my bride and bridegroom are from two completely opposite cultures—one hedonistic in the extreme and the other extraordinarily spartan—and you have an even more disturbing situation. Throw in horrendous consequences on a galactic scale if the marriage is not forged and you have psyche-breaking pressure being brought to bear on the young couple.
That is what Jewel is running from. Raised in an intensely capitalistic and libertine culture in which the elites think only of their own best interests, she is unable to come to grips with the sacrifice being asked of her and runs away—smack into a problem that threatens not only her continued freedom but ultimately peace in the galaxy. All of this might not matter if she were truly a daughter of her culture, but she was raised with this idea foreign to her peers that she has a duty to her family and cartel that requires her to worry about the well being of others. And while the idea wasn’t strong enough to keep her from running away, it continues to influence her actions, a nagging conscience which keeps her from being the completely self-centered daughter of her self-interested parents.
The problem I had when I sat down to write Fugitive was that the opening mystery that was intended to set the stage and introduce Jewel kept growing in scope and importance until it became a novel all its own—changing the overarching story into a series in which I could take the time to fully explore the issues that inspired the first book.
August 9, 2021
Jewel is a young, spirited woman on the run from a wealthy, controlling family. She's on a freighter with a ragtag, profit-minded crew, one of whom is hard to resist. They suddenly finds themselves face to face with a score big enough to change the balance of economic power amongst the known races in the galaxy. That is if the score, or one of those economic powers, doesn't kill them first.
Mr. Stack does a great job starting the story strong with a fast, snappy plot and smart dialogue that only lets up to provide some space for character development and backstory. He built a galaxy here, one that I enjoyed learning more about as the story went.
Mr. Stack does a great job starting the story strong with a fast, snappy plot and smart dialogue that only lets up to provide some space for character development and backstory. He built a galaxy here, one that I enjoyed learning more about as the story went.
March 20, 2022
Good sci fi adventure
The worldbuilding is interesting, the story held my attention and is well -written, and Jewel is a good main character. The body count is high, and the ending is a cliffhanger, but book 2 is available.
The worldbuilding is interesting, the story held my attention and is well -written, and Jewel is a good main character. The body count is high, and the ending is a cliffhanger, but book 2 is available.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews