Tag Archives: Mars

Planetary Anthologies “Mars” and “Sol” Available for Pre-Order Now!

sol

Promotional image for the Sol planetary anthology

Fantastic, and totally unanticipated news. As I’ve previously mentioned HERE and HERE, my short stories “The Three Billion Year Love” and “The Pleiades Dilemma” are being published in the Planetary Anthologies “Mars” and “Sol” respectively.

I just found out that the entire Planetary series is available for pre-order now at Amazon.

Sure, “Mars” won’t be available for download to your Kindle device until August 18, 2020, but you can reserve your very own copy by pre-ordering it from Amazon right now.

And while you won’t be able to get your (virtual) hands on a digital copy of “Sol” until November 10, 2020, you can also immediately pre-order it by clicking the link.

Continue reading →

Updated Publishing Schedule for the “Planetary Anthology Series”

sol

Promotional cover image for the Sol planetary anthology

A few days ago, I made an announcement about two of my short stories being featured in the Tuscany Bay Books Planetary Anthology Series. I came upon an updated publishing schedule for each volume in this collection and thought I’d share:

  1. : PLUTO: https://amazon.com/dp/B081S745L7
  2. : LUNA: https://amazon.com/Planetary-Anthology-Luna-Tuscany-Bays-ebook/dp/B08462M5W8
  3. : URANUS (March 3, 2020): https://amazon.com/gp/product/B084GXDBJK
  4. : Mercury – April 14, 2020
  5. : Venus – May 26, 2020
  6. : Earth – July 7, 2020
  7. : Mars – Aug. 18, 2020 – Features my short story “The Three Billion Year Love”
  8. : Jupiter – Sep. 21, 2020
  9. : Sol – Nov. 10, 2020 – Features my short story “The Pleiades Dilemma”
  10. : Neptune – Dec. 22, 2020
  11. : Saturn – Feb. 2, 2021

Continue reading →

Rising from the Ashes: Two SciFi Tales Accepted for Publication!

pas poster copy

Promotional image for Tuscany Bay Books Planetary anthology series

Once upon a time, there was an indie publisher called Superversive Press. It was based on the quaint idea that science fiction, fantasy, and even horror didn’t have to present an unending stream of tales rooted in subversiveness, nihilism, and fatalism. This downward spiral was certainly the direction science fiction began taking in the 1960s, and then became firmly cemented in by the 1970s (and since I’m an old school fan and have been reading SciFi since that period AND am currently reading a history of science fiction from the 1960s through the 1990s, I should know).

I’ve become acquainted (online) with a number of “superversive” authors and editors for the past several years, and since my initial decision to begin writing fiction, have always wanted to be published by and with them.

Continue reading →

The Colony Trees

tree

Photo credit: Sarolta Bán

Sonia watched the last of the trees lift up and fly away. It had been her fantasy ever since she was five and first heard that Mars hadn’t always been able to support life.

She had joined the junior Arbor Society when she was eight, became a regional counselor at twenty, and now at thirty-five, she was the assistant manager for the entire Martian Forestation project.

In her right hand was her husband Andrew’s left, while on her other side, five-year-old Billy, and his nine-year-old sister Charlotte were huddled against her.

Continue reading →

A Woman’s Wings

thermistor

© Provided by Popular Mechanics – found at msn.com

Only 3,062 more kilometers until she beat her own personal best and was once again mentioned in the record books.

Amelia Earhart tried it on Earth in 1937, and her flight’s disappearance remains one of the great mysteries in aviation history.

It was Jerrie Mock who succeeded in becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the Earth solo in 1964, but she only did it once, and she had to land to refuel.

Since then, the Earth had been orbited too many times to count and it hardly mattered anymore.

But Shelley Parker invented a new challenge. She was an engineer and pilot, and right now, she was in the realization of her greatest design, the Hermes, a solar-powered fixed-wing aircraft specifically created to fly in the Martian atmosphere.

Shelly had already completed one full circuit of Mars at the equator without landing, and in just over 3,000 kilometers, she would finish her second.

“Eat your heart out, Jerrie.”

I found the above photo in the news and decided to make my own personal “photo flash fiction challenge.” I decided to find out if 23,464 km was roughly the distance between any two points, but that proved difficult. The circumference of the Earth is 40,075 km, so that’s a little more than halfway, but then I saw that the circumference of Mars is 12,263 km. I did a little quick math and saw that it would take only an additional 3,062 km to circle Mars twice at the equator.

So I invented my intrepid aviator Shelley Parker and decided to have her advance the cause of women like Amelia Earhart. This also helped me discover who the first woman was who made a solo flight around the world, and that was almost thirty years after Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared.

Additionally, I learned something about the proposed designs of aircraft intended to fly in the atmosphere of Mars, which is much thinner than our own.

Oh, my word count for this story is 154.

Time’s Window Expanded

whale

© Alamy

Physicist and Mission Specialist Jamie Benjamin and her team of three arrived at the orbiting Mars Base Camp exhausted after their nearly two-hundred day trip from Earth to the red planet. But they were astronauts and had to fulfill their grand legacy of being stoic pioneers. Jamie could almost feel Neil Armstrong looking over her shoulder as she stepped through the airlock and boarded the station.

“Welcome to Base Camp, Dr. Benjamin.” Commander Donald Sharp, in operational command of Base Camp and coordinator of Mars Manned Missions smiled and extended his hand.

Continue reading →

Time’s Window

gale crater

Gale Crater – Mars

“Temporal Shift Unit is powered up, Commander Sharp.” Physicist Jamie Benjamin and her team had spent a week assembling the complex machinery in Gale Crater, which was believed to be one of Mars’ long dried up lakes.

“If this device works as well as it did in the tests on Earth, we could very well see what this crater looked like over three billion years in the past, Benjamin.”

“I suggest we all anchor ourselves to a specific spot, Commander.” She was speaking to the entire team who had been living out of their twin solar-powered rovers for the past ten days. “When the unit activates, it will seem like we’re 5,000 meters underwater.”

“Proceed.”

“Activating projector…now.”

The thin air around them rippled and twisted, and then it was as if they were at the bottom of the ocean, which was expected. The true marvel was that they weren’t alone.

“Life.”

The What Pegman Saw flash fiction writing challenge was an unusual one this week. Normally, writers are prompted to craft a story no more than 150 words long based on some Google Maps view on Earth. Today, J. Hardy Carroll uses a virtual reality tour to take us to the planet Mars. I ended up somewhere in Gale Crater, scanning a 360 degree view provided by the Curiosity Rover.

Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, it is strongly believed the crater was a water-filled lake. I decided to manufacture a little “virtual reality” of my own to give astronauts a look at what the crater was like all those billions of years in the past. As you can see, they found something startling and wonderful.

To read other stories inspired by this prompt, go to InLinkz.com My story is 150 words long.

The Old Astronaut

spacesuit

© A Mixed Bag 2012

I finally made it. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Never thought I’d get the chance to visit. I always wanted to see all these exhibits. I spent my childhood, my whole life really, admiring astronauts and their accomplishments. I used to spend hours pretending I was wearing a spacesuit, just like the one I’m standing in front of now.

It doesn’t look as impressive in real life, but then, it’s just an empty suit. What makes spacesuits heroic are the men and women who’ve worn them, who were blasted into space, who walked on the Moon. I was in high school when Neil Armstrong wore this suit and declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I wish I could have had my shot at even sub-orbital space. I can afford a tourist’s ride on SpaceX now, but I’m too old.

My grandson’s not, though. Next month he and five other astronauts will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station, and from there, they’ll board the Ares One spaceship to Mars. I’ve got my shot into space because my grandson will always be in my heart. Thank you, boy.

I’m writing this in response to the Sunday Photo Fiction – March 12th 2017 hosted by Al Forbes. The idea is for authors to use the photo prompt above to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words. My story is exactly 200 words long.

Oh, I really did grow up with the NASA manned space missions, from Mercury, to Gemini, to Apollo, and beyond. I even got a chance to see and touch (I wasn’t supposed to touch it) one of the Apollo command modules once, although I’ve never been to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum (I wish). I’ll never go into space, but my grandchildren’s generation will. To the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

To read other tales based on the photo, go to InLinkz.com.

The Five Billion Year Love

ancient mars

Image: NASA.gov

Juan Villanueva’s name was often mentioned in the same sentence as Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk, and yet all he really wanted was to be alone. The thrill of starting one company, amassing a fortune from his work, and then selling it for another fortune had lost its allure, at least since Carrie died.

Carrie, his beloved Carrie. How could he go on without her?

But he did, because that’s what Villanueva was all about, overcoming challenges, even grief and death.

Continue reading →

Rocketship to Mars

flight to mars

Image: From the 1951 film “Flight to Mars”

The four glittering, silver tail fins of Space Ship Ares One settled firmly on the red sands of the planet Mars as Colonel Bradley Graham flipped the toggle switch cutting the rocket thrust.

Then he picked up the microphone and depressed the transmission button on the side. “Space Ship Ares One to Earth Space Control. We have landed on the planet Mars. Repeat, we have landed on Mars.”

It would take minutes for the radio waves carrying his message to make the trip from Mars to Earth, but Graham vividly imagined the cheers of the crowd at Space Control and all of the Americans watching on their televisions or listening on their radios when they finally heard his voice from across the void.

“Okay, let’s get to it. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Continue reading →