About Goodbye to the Sun:
A nonstop thrill ride across an unstable galaxy, combining moral struggle with character-driven adventure...
Tucked
away in the blue sands of Kol 2, the Motes are on the brink of cultural
collapse. Razor, a bold and daring pilot, leads a last-ditch gambit
against their local oppressors, the Targitians. The plan - abduct
visiting Ambassador Keen Draden and use him as a bargaining chip to
restore her people’s independence in the Sagittarius Arm. But when the
operation unravels, Razor is forced to renegotiate terms with the
arrogant diplomat.
Light years away on Heroon a radical
resistance blossoms. The alluring rainforest planet haunts Keen. All his
problems started there during the Patent War, but it’s where Razor’s
troubles may find a solution. The moral tide ebbs, exposing an
impossible choice that links their futures together more tragically than
they ever thought possible.
Goodbye to the Sun: a space opera inspired by the Greek tragedy, Antigone.
"GOODBYE TO THE SUN is an excellent debut novel set in a unique, compelling universe filled with complex politics and relationships. The action scenes explode off the page." - Michael Mammay, author of the PLANETSIDE series
Excerpt:
SIX
“There’s wind,” Keen said, stumbling in the growing dark. A current pushed gently against his back, billowing his sweat-soaked robe. The voice of Kol 2 whispered, fluttering the white fabric in the silent desert evening. He’d noticed it at the top of the last sand ridge. It was only a wafting breeze, no more than a whisper. Between the fall and rise of the next dune, it rose to a soft but constant nudging on his backside. The air was almost polite, a welcomed interruption in the otherwise dry and hot barren twilight.
Unless he’d gotten their directional bearing mixed up, something didn’t make sense. The Wind Tides blew towards Targite across the open dunes, not away from it. It should be at his face.
The bluff was close. Altiron fell below the horizon and the glowing remains of a rose sunset dissolved into darkness. In all directions, the vast desert spread like a night sea. Stars dappled the crepuscular sky. Their glimmer grew denser as Keen arced his head up and back, away from the fading light. He recognized the Perseus constellation, observable from most solar systems in the Sag-Arm, and the Pistol Star. It glittered to his right, low to the horizon, its size and orange twinkle unmistakable. Keen tracked left, about halfway up from where the sand met sky. 700 light-years away, orbiting snugly around Nushaba, was Heroon.
Beyond the visible stellar curtain lay the great unknown. Keen’s ancestors were on those vessels, drifting on a galactic current in uncharted space. A fleet of ships, its passengers in cryostasis, held the promise of answers to questions posed by curious, long-dead innovators. The exploratory armada was the Second Span’s last principal feat before civilization in the Arm collapsed into ruin and near extinction. Now, with the Third Span in full bloom, a stable society had returned and demonstrated the potential of species endurance. If life, human or otherwise, existed elsewhere in the galaxy perhaps the armada would find it.
Keen knew the odds. The chances of encountering anyone in the vast emptiness and returning eons hence to a still-living world were as small as the significance of humanity to the scale of the cosmos itself.
He lowered his head back to the liminal landscape of rolling dunes. Razor was a shadowy silhouette, standing on the last rise before the looming rock outcropping.
Keen trudged up the slope.
“There’s wind,” he repeated when he reached her.
“It’s the drawback,” she said. “The front will be here soon. Keep moving.”
“Give me a minute.” He bent over panting, his hands on his knees.
“We stop, we die. The fissure is on the far side of the bluff.” She moved on without waiting for him.
“Sake of the Arm,” he said, gasping for breath. “I’m too tired.”
Keen dropped to the sand, legs resting on the downward side of the dune, and wiped his face with a sleeve. Ahead, in the twilight, the bluff’s jagged outline loomed. A second, higher ledge appeared behind it, blocking out the last glow of Altiron’s sunset. The rock structure was more extensive than he’d first realized. Something about that didn’t make sense unless he’d been fooled earlier in the daylight by a heat mirage.
The drawback breeze faltered. Keen’s robe fluttered about, intruding on the desert silence. The hair tingled on the back of his neck. If he’d been on Heroon with its dense undergrowth, he would’ve sworn an unseen presence was about. His head swung around, seeking a source for the anxiety. In all directions lay nothing but dunes in the night.
His robe slammed back, pushing hard against the front of his body. The wind reversed. Like a fast-moving object colliding with a wall it jolted him back to attention. A distant rumbling filled his ears.
Tide wave.
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Bookshop.org
About Jonathan Nevair:
Jonathan Nevair is a science fiction writer and, as Dr. Jonathan Wallis, an art historian and Professor of Art History at Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia. After two decades of academic teaching and publishing, he finally got up the nerve to write fiction. Jonathan grew up on Long Island, NY but now resides in southeast Pennsylvania with his wife and rambunctious mountain feist, Cricket.
No comments:
Post a Comment