I’m delighted to announce the release of my illustrated novelette, “Landscape of Darkness.” It’s light reading, a space opera to curl up with coverlet and a cup of tea on a cold Winter evening.
The physical book launched as a soft-cover through Amazon today, January 15, 2018. It will also be out as an eBook and as an audio book. The physical book has full decorations and illustrations, the eBook will have limited decorations due to formatting. The audio book will come out when I find the right voice to read the book. I was thinking of reading it myself but this story can’t be read by a woman. Why? For the same reason that C.L. Moore reading her wonderful, Shambleau, was a mistake. A story with a male hero needs a male voice to read it. I know what I want, I just need to find the right guy.
But that’s the future…back to the present. I’m eager to hear what people think of Landscape of Darkness. I believe that there’s still a place in the world for old-fashioned adventure stories with heroes who aren’t metahumans, mutants, or super-spies. My hero, Sam Mercury, is a cop who just happens to live on another planet. Sure, he has futuristic tools, but then, he does live two hundred years in the future. LOL
I’ve made a book trailer, my first so please don’t laugh too hard…
The book starts out like this…
The cargo ship from Terra arrived late, and port haulers hasten to unload her before the scheduled storm. Sam Mercury wonders if he should call weather control and demand a delay. It’s early afternoon. Through the long horizontal windows he surveys the landing field, where tri-fin rockets stab upwards and bulky cigar-shaped craft recline on launch cradles on the tarmac. His eyes rise automatically to the graceful skyline of Neohatten beyond…
You can read the first three chapters for free on the Lucina Press website
https://lucinapress.com/catalog/landscape-of-darkness/landscape-of-darkness-sample-chapters/
And if you like it you can buy the book on Amazon
One last thing, before I collapse in a post-release day stupor. I’d like to make a comment about Art. Artists know when a piece is right. They can feel that it’s finished and any more will push it over the edge and into the trash can. But being complete and right doesn’t mean that the piece debuts at the right time. I’ve been early quite a few times and missed the mark. I certainly hope this book hits right. I’ve done my best. Now it’s up to you, the readers, to tell me whether it is indeed the right time.
To the Stars!
English