Ghosts of the Void By Timothy Burns
A YA Sci-fi novel, published July 2013
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When the solar system passes through a vast cloud of dark matter, strange things start to happen. Electronics go haywire, unbreakable materials suddenly break, and enigmatic, ghostly creatures are sighted. To the inhabitants of Earth this is bad enough, but on Mars, where properly-functioning technology means the difference between life and death, this spells disaster on an unimaginable scale.
Jared Miller, a psionically talented problem solver, barely survives his journey to the Red Planet on his mission to discover just what these mysterious ghosts of the void are and what they want. There, he meets Bo Greene, a prospector who scours the barren wasteland in his six-legged walker in search of mroom, the only life native to Mars. Along with Bo's ex-wife Anissa, Anna the witch and several others, Jared and Bo find themselves transported to the distant future where Mars is green and vibrant but the inhabitants are under the domination of alien overlords and their sadistic psionic henchmen.
Survival becomes their primary goal as they seek to save two worlds, but in the end they face the terrible dilemma of having to choose which to save and which to condemn to non-existence.
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~ INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR ~
Can you tell us your main inspiration behind this novel?
One day I was reading about dark matter and I thought about how interesting it would be if the material that makes up the vast majority of everything in our universe hosted life-forms. These would be nothing like us, of course, and so my imagination took off and "Ghosts of the Void" was born.
Was self-publishing your first choice? What was the most nerve wracking part of the process?
Yes, it was. This is my second novel, and for my first I spent months querying agents and publishers to no avail. While I am still sending off submission queries hoping to get noticed by one of the biggies, I took this book straight to print myself.
As a self-published author, did you choose to edit your novel yourself? What was the biggest change you made to the story and/or characters?
It would be nice to have the ability to pay a professional editor but I am operating on the proverbial shoestring budget, so yes, I did my own editing. I did, however, approach this task with the intention of not showing any mercy just because I know the author. There were several scenes that really didn't fit with the personalities of the characters that got cut, as well as early references to plot points that never got developed later on that had to go.
Do you have any unusual writing habits that aide your process and/or character development?
Well, I don't know about that. Some people would say that I am a very unusual person in most everything I do, but nothing specific comes to mind as far as my work practices go. I am always observing people, as most authors do, and beyond that I have always made mental notes as I read other writers about what techniques and plot devices worked for me or turned me off.
Is there one passage or scene from your novel that you are most fond of?
It's a little long, but the TV interview scene is my favorite part of the whole book. Enjoy!
~ EXCERPT ~
Anissa knew she was up next. When she stood up so did Debbie, who fluffed her mother’s hair while saying, "You’ll do great, Mom. And quit worrying about your outfit; you look great."
That wasn’t what she thought, but it was too late to do anything about it now. She had decided to wear a pair of dark slacks and a white sleeveless blouse with a ruffled collar. Just enough, she thought, to make her look attractive without overdoing it.
She hadn’t known when she chose her wardrobe that she would be following such a knockout wearing a low-cut evening dress.
The program resumed with neither anchor showing any evidence that the previous segment had affected them in any way. Douglas introduced Anissa, citing her degree in exobiology and the highlights of her nine years of work for Telenet, then asked, "So, Dr. Byron, are the rumors true? Has a new day dawned on the entire mroom industry?"
Smiling broadly and doing her best to keep from thinking about all she had just learned about the Du’kal, Anissa put on her best front and answered, "Yes, Douglas, the rumors are true."
Telenet’s vice-president himself had met with Anissa late yesterday afternoon and carefully outlined what she was and was not allowed to say. She prayed that she wouldn’t make any mistakes now because of how much turmoil her mind was in.
"Telenet Interplanetary is thrilled to announce that the first-ever strain of domesticable mroom has been discovered. Yesterday afternoon I myself had the unique honor of being the first person in history to harvest a new growth off of a planted sample of mroom."
And there go Telenet stock prices all the way to Phobos. The vice-president had insisted she imply that Telenet already owned the magic strain, and she was sure she knew why.
"Congratulations, Doctor," Michelle said sweetly. "And who is the lucky prospector who brought in this incredible find?"
Again, she had no latitude in what to say here either. Not if she wanted to keep her job and collect the reward for developing the strain.
"The discoverer has requested to remain anonymous at this time."
"That’s really too bad. Still, congratulations to you also, whoever you are. So tell us, Dr. Byron: what will this mean for the industry as a whole?"
Safer ground here. "I think it safe to say that full-scale farms will spring up in the very near future. Also, the price of nicc crystals should drop once production begins in earnest. Mind you, I am not an expert on these aspects of the industry, so these are only my guesses."
"That’s quite alright," Douglas said. "As a matter of fact, we have our own market analyst, Tom Biggs, standing by, and we’ll hear from him up next. But first, Doctor, is there anything significantly different about this new strain of mroom from a biological viewpoint?"
Did he know something or was he just guessing? Had VP Cohrs said anything about how she should answer such a question? In a flash of panic, Anissa realized that she couldn’t remember.
Knowing that she had to say something, and right away, she decided that the gist of her instructions had revolved around driving up stock prices while giving the impression that Telenet would be the only company developing the new strain.
"Yes there is. It is a great deal more complex in its genetic structure, with more than three times the number of gene-equivalents than every previous sample ever tested. It is, in actuality, an entirely new species. We are awaiting word from its discoverer so that a new name can be officially declared."
She did recall that the name ‘deep mroom’ was not to be used; just that much might give away more information than the company wanted made public.
"I’m sure we all eagerly await hearing what that might be," said Michelle. "Have you found anything yet, any, ah, expressions of this new genome?"
This’ll boost your sales even higher, Cohrs. "Several of then, actually. The most radical of them is a structure that contains not only the colony’s own unique nicc crystals but also seems to have captured small fragments of many other colonies of both types as well."
"And do these all share information?"
"We believe so."
Douglas again: "Unbelievable. The implications of that are astounding, to say the least. I am sure Telenet is already working on new applications for such a natural data-sharing capacity. Telenet does own all the rights to this new species, do they not?"
No! Ask anything but that! Do you know something? Did one of the other communication companies pay you to drag that out of me?
Thoughts whirled through Anissa’s head faster than grains of sand in a springtime Martian dust storm. She was stunned speechless, and it must have shown.
Michelle smilingly jumped on what she probably thought of as a major coup for her news program. "Your expression says it all, Dr. Byron. You cannot tell us that Telenet owns the new mroom, can you? I didn’t think so. Well, Douglas, that puts an entirely new spin on things, doesn’t it?"
"It does indeed, Michelle. Thank you, Dr. Byron. Good Morning Mars will be back with market analyst Tom Biggs to discuss just what this stunning revelation might mean. Don’t go away."
As soon as the on-camera light went off Anissa exploded up out of her chair, screaming at Douglas. "You set me up! How could you? Who paid you?"
She would have gone on, but a pair of production assistants grabbed her arms and forcibly removed her from the set. By the time she met Debbie at the doorway to the green room she had settled into a state of almost total passivity.
She wasn’t even out of the studio complex before her multi rang. She didn’t bother to answer it; she knew she’d just lost her job.
~ GIVEAWAY ~
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Ghosts of the Void. Only valid entries will apply!
My favorite Indie Read so far this year...huh. I think it would have to be the Clockwork Bluebird by Ravven. It was a really cute, fun read!
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