Prepare yourself for a book series that takes you 'out of this world' - all you have to do is open up a book or a kindle!
We have lift off! Those of you who have been following my site for the past few years may know about my scifi-romance-action-comedy-philosophy series 'Kindred Spirits'. It's a book series that will (eventually) cover the next thousand years of intergalactic contact, with twelve very different (and very alien) alien species trying to get along and the flashpoints in history when things go awry. Some of you have even been kind enough to read it. Well if you haven't (or if you have read your old copies so many times you've worn them out!) then fear not because they've never looked so good. The first seven volumes are being re-issued in Kindle and paperback formats with brand new illustrations bringing the aliens to life properly for the first time (not forgetting that the kindle editions are free to Kindle Unlimited readers, while books 1 and 5 are available in special 'colour' paperback editions!)
There are 8 books in the series so far: Book 1 'Endurance'
Romeo and Juliet. With Clandusprods. Only she’s already dead – and he’s dying.
A match quite
literally made in Heaven? Divine intervention? The last great exploration of
humanity? Or characteristic bad luck? Lizzie ends her life, only to find it has
only just begun, stuck in the mind of a species she has never met before. But
is the person she was put with the one she was always born to be with or just
another of many mistakes in her life? Will the discovery of each other’s
planets be good or catastrophic in the future of their two species? Will they
endure and go on and win? Is cooperation and collaboration the answer? Or are they both doomed to a life of failure after
all? More than just another novel, ‘Endurance’ is a mad house, a love song to
the act of writing and a hope that one day it might just save us all.
Book 2 'Insurgence'
War and Peace. With Mrasianarts. Only she’s on an alien planet – and someone wants her and her fellow off-worlders dead.
A hundred years after the events of ‘Endurance’ and the ten intelligent species in the known galaxy all outwardly respect each other – but some of those in charge on those ten planets are having a hard time accepting this brave new world and are still caught up in their petty global affairs. When just existing is enough to start an act of rebellion, being an off-worlder playing in a peace orchestra seems to be enough to start a revolution. That’s what worries the Mrasianart authorities who turn the deep-thinking world of Mras on its head with petty fears and injustices through their glorified telepathical internet, ‘the universal’. Earth girl Eleanor’s long journey across the galaxy from Earth to her new home is far more exciting than she ever expected, full as it is with love for a local named Auberon, violence, cultural tests, exams, knitting Clandusprods, corruptible Belobrat peace delegates and giving birth to the universe’s first ever humrasian. Together the Peace band find themselves socking it to the man – or in this case one particular alien – in a desperate fight to avoid deportation or worse. It’s all quite an adventure; one Eleanor isn’t sure she wants to take after what happened to her back home but which leaves her never quite the same simple Human again. ‘Insurgence’ is, like prequel ‘Endurance’, another mad house, a love song to the art of music this time and a hope that one day it might just save us all.
Buy it by clicking here
Book 3 'Province'
Buy it by clicking here
Book 4 'Ensconce'
Swallows and Amazons. With eleven species unsupervised in interstellar space.
A hundred years on from ‘Province’ and peace feels much easier. Even The Agrosians have become less aggressive. Well, slightly. The discovery of red weed, a new substance mined from all eleven inhabited planets, by unscrupulous adults spells bad news though – for the universe in general but specifically for the group of eleven children who have been sent to a new international school on Orpheus. They all seem to have something wrong with them, but not everything was meant to be cured and some things can never be, certainly not with red weed. New girl Robin fears her dyspraxia will stop her getting any friends, but when her friends are an introvert invertebrate Camalosian who never speaks, an insecure Belobrat, a cynical Habridat, a Glabdiharbit with multiple phobias, a Doosbury Giant with an eating disorder, a polite Agrosian, a co-dependent Clandusprod, an unbeliever Mrasianart, a Maggrumph bully and a Mekkion who keeps blowing emotional fuses she feels less out of place than she did on Earth. Though their teachers want to keep them enclosed in their Great Hall the children want to explore the universe, starting with the first ever International Games that’s just taking place on Decreeta. Will the children learn to get along? Can they trust any of the adults who seem to get stranger every day? Who will listen to them if they can find out what’s going on? Will they survive corruption, shuttle-flights, ice planets, burning buildings, bombs, pyramid sellers, Doosbury Operas, their own teachers and the scariness of approaching adulthood in one piece? More than just another novel, ‘Ensconce’ is yet another mad house, a love song to childhood and the hope that one day if adults actually stopped moaning and listened to their off-spring then it might just save us all.
Buy it by clicking here
Book 5 'Abundance'
Space comes in fifty shades of black. Twelve aliens, six couples, one dating service and one reality TV series both in desperate trouble.
Buster the Belobrat thinks he knows about true love so can’t understand why viewers are leaving his new reality TV show ‘Love Planet’ in droves. Nova the head of the Human branch of the Intergalactic Dating agency knows exactly where he’s been going wrong and sets out to teach him using six examples from her company’s history; six couples made up of the twelve species that exist in the known universe: An argibraffe pet who falls in love with a Spice Girls tribute singer in a tale of treachery, deceit and sleeping Habridats. A Camalosian actor in a long running science fiction series who falls in love for his maggrumph colleague while both run up and down corridors with everyone’s favourite Time Rodent. An Agrosian and a Belobrat who are meant to be signing their divorce papers but who end up with several second chances instead. A clumsy Clandusprod and a faulty Mekkion who start long distance and end up as close as any couple can be. The voyages of ensigns Yoko Glabdihardit and Hamish Habridat, new trainees on the Well Fed-eration’s mission to boldly track down recipes where nobody has tracked them before. A Mrasianart ‘Medium’ who deals in futures and his ‘Extra Large’ Doosbury Giant friend who lives for the present, where neither of them want to remember their past. But is Buster all that he seems? For that matter is Nova? And why are there two pages of sponsorship advertisements?!? This collection of six short stories makes a date with twelve of these beings and how love changed all their lives – and in the Doosbury Giants’ case their lunches - forever. For what could be more universal in such a varied universe than love? More than just another collection of short stories, ‘Abundance’ is yet another mad house, a love song to love and the lengths that the universe goes to in order to put the right people together at the right time and that might yet save us all.
Buy it by clicking here or the slightly pricier but way more colourful edition here
Book 6 'Obedience'
Are we doomed to repeat our past? Or will Dotty find the reset button, despite being ‘only’ a pet?
Dotty the spotty pet argibraffe thinks she knows what the future holds: walking round the park, a bit of digging in the flower-beds, doing what she’s told (mostly) and living in the moment. However she has a secret obsession when her Human owners aren’t looking: the history broadcasts on the holovision. Soon Dotty finds that her life has changed, that she’s been enrolled as the first argibraffe student at Clandusprod Community College under the dotty Mrasianart Professor Edulearn, that the park is on an alien world and the dig is on an abandoned planet full of mysterious remains. A combination of events involving a crazed Human tyrant with a device that can turn whole worlds upside down, a talking crystal skull that only Dotty can hear and the attempted murder of her and her new friends means that soon Dotty isn’t just studying history but making it. In an era when even humanity has stopped taking humanities can a sentient pet really obtain a degree – especially when other species are kicking up such a fuss about it? Can Dotty trust her new and often, well, alien flatmates and be truly independent without her owners? How will Dotty’s team fare in the intergalactically-admired TV Quiz Universally Challenged with Maggrumph host Jeremy Paxgrumph? Can Dotty ascend just when the rest of the universe is descending into chaos? Will the twelve intergalactic species ever break free from a cycle of destruction and rebuilding, learning the lessons of the past so as not to repeat them in the future? Can someone who wasn’t even allowed on the furniture a week ago really save the entire known universe? And just where do a lost civilisation of cosmic dinosaurs fit into all this? The sixth volume in the ‘Kindred Spirits’ series, ‘Obedience’ is another mad house, a love song to history and how our ever present past can lead us to answers in our future, even when asking questions we never thought to ask.
Buy it by clicking here
Book 7 'Experience'
It is never too late for true love - even if takes a few centuries!
Moana was still a baby when the ITGang television show decided to use him in a series commemorating the first children born into an intergalactic world after the shock of interstellar contact, throwing him into a whirlwind of yearly television appearances meant to promote intergalactic brotherhood and friendship, with nine readymade pals to call his own. But, being a Maggrumph, Moana doesn’t make friends easily and feels the odd one out and the viewers don’t really take to him either. While the other children of all the other species are doing really well with their lives Moana feels stuck: he has no family, no career, no exciting prospects – just a life of drudgery on the restrictive world of Maggrumphus. Moana doesn’t think he’s anything special and maybe he isn’t, but that doesn’t mean his life is empty. He’s right at the heart of all four flashpoints in the universe’s connected intergalactic history: by an accident of birth forever linked with the time Enwin and Lizzie revealed to the universe the presence of life on other planets, the riots led by the Intergalactic Peace orchestra on Mras that led to the death of Auberon, the Agrosian wars fought by President Eleron and the discovery of the poisonous red weed created by unscrupulous companies by the children of Orpheneous. And he’s far from the grump everyone thinks he is: he’s a poet, a romantic, in something there’s not a lot of call for in a world of grumpy Maggrumphs. But things change when he meets a Clandu-hybrid. Will they change quick enough to make up for all those years of solitude though? Will Moana’s other dreams ever come true? Will he get the life he craves and find the fulfilment he always dreamed of, with the love of his life and their nine very different adopted children and pet argibraffe on a whole new planet, or will life just get in the way? More than just another novel, ‘Experience’ is yet another mad house, a love song to ordinary life and the hope that one day we can all manifest what we’re looking for.
Buy it by clicking here
Plus, even if you've read the whole bang lot, there's a new volume in town never begore published. Book 8: 'Experience'
Can Sparky the Mekkion face her fears, dry her deadly tears and re-programme her peers?
Sparky can see the whole of her life laid out before her for the next millennia – that’s how Mekkions like it after all, with a really good job overseeing update ‘patches’ on the intergalactic translation service the Universal, a routine to keep her safe from surprises and a universe that a thousand years on from interstellar contact seems at last to be settling down. She’s as grounded as they come, not least because her wheels cause her to sink lower to the floor than most Mekkions and more interested in profits than prophets. But when her new Boss, an uncaring uncouth Doosbrat named Melon Rusk, takes over her precious ‘Universal’ that’s brought such peace and community and starts using it to attack the new-oldcomers in the universe, the Space Dinosaurs, Sparky discovers her new calling and it’s one that lies in an unseen dimension of faith rather than her reliable logic. Will she be able to save her new friends from persecution? Can she work out what Melon’s plan really is? can she stop Maggrumph Ronald Grump from taking power? Will she ever work out that her pterodactyl boyfriend has feelings for her? Will she ever discover the memory she had removed and feel the feelings she’s suppressed for so long? And will she ever find her life’s porpoise? (Not a typo!) More than just another novel, ‘Maintenance’ is absolutely another mad house, a love song to spirituality and how we are all more than just cogs in a machine, offering hope that one day if we listen to what’s in our hearts and souls rather than seeing the world that’s right in front of us it might just save us all.
Buy it by clicking here
Or if you prefer things in Doosbury Giant XXXL size why not buy the lot in two handy omnibus editions 'Convergence One' (available here) and 'Convergence Two' (available here) - in Kindle only I'm afraid (that would be a forest in terms of paperback pages!)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment