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Post by Not Wes on Nov 25, 2018 20:57:59 GMT -5
Destiny, the next book from Wes Boyd, is now available for preorder from the Spearfish Lake Tales Store page. This is another independent novel, no connection to any other books. As a matter of fact, it's an entirely new genre for Wes, science fiction (as long as you don't consider Joe/Joan as SF, which I don't).
It's a pretty good one, too, I think.
You've already seen the cover, so here's the synopsis:
The year is 2241 and geologist Arik Kalita thinks planet Earth is getting too crowded and too regulated, so he signs on with the next sublightspeed exploration ship to the stars, one aimed at a star eight lightyears away. Coldsleep technology will allow Arik, exobiologist Leticia Ozawa, and 20,000 others to arrive still young enough to experience a long life on a new planet. However, the new planet turns out to be airless and uninhabitable. There are time limits for coldsleep. Do they head back to an Earth 450 years in their future, or do they try for another star, knowing that if it is also unsuitable there might not be another chance?
It is approximately 100,000 words (about 200 print pages) in 26 chapters.
You can preorder Destiny for as little as $19.99 through the Spearfish Lake Tales Store page
Preorders will be sent sometime on the afternoon of Sunday, December 2, 2018, Eastern Standard Time.
-- Not Wes
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Post by Boyd Percy on Nov 25, 2018 21:37:54 GMT -5
The cover looks great. I'm sure Wes would be pleased.
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Post by Not Wes on Nov 26, 2018 18:35:37 GMT -5
We're happy with the cover, Boyd, but we know Wes could have done better. Thanks.
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Post by John Robert Mead on Nov 29, 2018 8:54:42 GMT -5
This is a sub-section of SF which has little published work. There are stories dealing with the use of sub lightspeed ships for interstellar colonization, including a classic by Robert A. Heinlein concerning a generation ship which decivilized (Orphans of the Sky), the unlamented TV series "The Starlost", and Andre Norton's "The Stars are Ours" & "Star Born" duology, but very few that deal with arriving at a world that isn't habitable and the choices to be made at that time based upon how much longer their equipment will last and possible alternate destinations. Actually, I'm only aware of one. David Weber just published a novella in October, "Dark Fall" (read for free at www.baen.com/darkfall ) set in his Honorverse, the first part of which deals with a generation ship that arrives at its intended destination mere years after it is struck by several "dinosaur killer" meteorites, rendering it uninhabitable. They don't have the option of turning around, their ship only has around 75 more years until too many crucial systems will fail from age; things wear out, and they don't have the tech base to do that thorough an overhaul, and they don't have the resources to survive long enough to build up to that tech base in the time remaining, so their only option is to refuel at a gas giant in the outer system, and then head on to the nearest alternative destination, which is a multi-star system of a type that current theory says isn't supposed to have habitable planets, and just hope that it does anyway. It turns out to have a habitable planet; actually, quite a nice one, but... their initial colony site gets wiped out by a Krakatoa-type volcanic eruption less than five years after their arrival, and the survivors are too few to rebuild a tech base from scratch, so back to barbarism; by the time they build back up to civilization, all memory of their coming from off-planet has been lost. The rest of the novella deals with what happens after they are located by exploration craft from the People's Republic of Haven prior to the beginning of the Haven/Manticore War. It wraps up right before the beginning of "Uncompromising Honor", the last Honor Harrington novel that was also released by Baen Books in October of this year. If you haven't read any of the Honorverse novels, it is slightly spoilerish in the second section, as it does tie into the main sequence of events. So it's going to be interesting to see what Boyd's take on this is like. |
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Post by TalbotUK on Dec 3, 2018 8:05:14 GMT -5
David Weber just published a novella in October, "Dark Fall" (read for free at www.baen.com/darkfall ) set in his Honorverse, the first part of which deals with a generation ship that arrives at its intended destination mere years after it is struck by several "dinosaur killer" meteorites, rendering it uninhabitable. Another book that deals with a similar problem is Darkover Landfall by Marion Zimmer Bradley. |
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Post by Jim Scott on Dec 3, 2018 21:56:31 GMT -5
On Storiesonline.com there is an ongoing serial story "Flight of the Code Monkey" written by Kid Wigger. It is about a huge FTL ship on an exploratory expedition that is damaged and all are forced onto smaller emergency ships towards their destination. There they will find humans in primitive tribes and centaurs created by an outlaw genius.
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Post by Gemuser on Dec 5, 2018 6:28:32 GMT -5
I'll grant you it is a less populated sub section I'd hardly describe it as little published, for example:
1) Larry Niven's "Known Space" contains many such examples, in particularly "Mount Lookitthat" which could reasonably called the prototype for Destiny
2) Robert L Forward's Rocheworld series
3) Arthur C Clarke's Songs of Distance Earth
Just off the top of my head [late at night] there are many others
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Post by Jase on Dec 8, 2018 2:55:11 GMT -5
Wow! So far, into Chapter 2 and enjoying Destiny. I also want to thank the other posters for the other stories they've listed. This is a genre that I'd like to explore a bit more (pun not really intended lol).
While I love the Spearfish Lake & Bradford serials, I find that the Independents are quite fun as well. I have been meaning to re read Joe/Joan for some time now.
With every new tale from Wes, I remain overjoyed that Amanda, Dan, Not Wes, and many others are keeping his legacy going, and adding to it. I'm sure he'd be most pleased. Thank you all for your efforts, they are appreciated!
Best
Jase
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Post by Boyd Percy on Dec 11, 2018 14:24:11 GMT -5
If John Robert Mead sent an email to boydpercy at yahoo dot com, please send it again. I may have inadvertently deleted it without responding.
Thanks.
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Post by Bonno Bloksma on Dec 14, 2018 8:38:33 GMT -5
I waited 2 weeks on to make sure I would get a good start at this story. So sar so good, I like this story. :-)
So now we wait how the story developes, but given who wrote it I think we can assume the characters have been well developed. ;-)
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