Today I am pleased to be part of a blog tour for fellow Catholic author Colleen Drippe and her new work of Science Fiction: Dawnstrikers.
Heroes – and heroes again.
All kinds of heroes.
Planet Fen, lost colony, is now cut off permanently from the
rest of the civilized worlds.
Unfortunately a lot of people are cut off with it: the occupying troopers and their families,
innumerable bureaucrats, scientists, technicians and even a missionary or
two. They are all outnumbered and
culturally swamped by the native colonists, a mixture of half converted
primitives and a contingent of ferocious xenophobes who want all offworlders
exterminated.
In this, the third book of the Gelen series, the bishop and
the commander at Havekgerem, both have their hands full. The former must rein in a group of Faring
Guards, fanatical, axe-wielding Lost Rythan exiles who are determined to
protect him at all costs, while the commander tries vainly to police the region
with his disgruntled troops. And in the
midst of this come the Dawnstrikers, native blackshirts blindly following their
charismatic leader as he hatches a plan to not only kill all foreigners but
also to wipe out their rival tribe. And
they almost succeed --
Excerpt
When he saw Ella Trenre’s reaction
and felt the sudden strands of patterning arising in the room, Vess wanted to
draw back from what he had done. But it
was too late. Maybe it had always been
too late, for it was as though another hand had taken his, forcing him to pull
out the scrap of skin and to give it to her.
It was the first time he had felt something like this and it frightened
him a little.
Rising
from her place on the bench, Ella stood gripping the fragment while her eyes
locked with those of her husband. Brana
Fadre came over to stand behind her and, after a moment, Vess left his brother
to join the group.
Daen,
however, remained on the bench, Spear and Ella’s child on his lap. The little girl’s eyes were round with wonder
as she let fall a piece of chiven bread onto the floor.
Even she seems to
know something’s up, he was thinking dully.
Even this baby, never called to be a gelen, never given one of the names
but only that of the Christian lady whose image was in the chapel – even this child is closer to being a gelen than I
am.
Power sang in the
air.
Author Bio
I always wanted to be a science fiction writer. But I had some other stuff to do first. So I raised four children and wrote articles
for magazines and a few children’s books.
I gardened and home-schooled the children and even spent a few years
teaching in a school. Sometime during
this time, my first science fiction novel, GELEN was published. And when the grandchildren started to arrive
(I’ve got twenty, going on twenty-one of them so far), I helped out with them
and now I’m homeschooling two of them. But I also got a lot more serious about
writing those sf novels.
I write what I want to read.
There are whole worlds in my head and when they come out on paper, even
I am surprised. Who knows where it all
comes from? I read and read and digest
everything from linguistics to archaeology, exobiology to military history –
and then it turns into stories. So far I
have five sf novels published, not counting the current one, DAWNSTRIKERS. There are more to come.
I have a vision here.
Some things I take for granted.
The universe makes sense. People
are not particularly good, but we try and most of us mean well. That there is a God and He is extremely
patient. That the laws of physics, of
science, hold good wherever you go. I
have to follow them when I write. Stuff
like that. And so the books get written
and I find they are all interrelated – same milieu, same universe as it were. So far.
Author Interview
When
did you write your first story?
At
the age of six, I wrote about a girl pirate.
I was living on a tropical island at the time and pirates were easy to
imagine. It was my ambition to be one,
actually.
Why
did you take up writing science fiction?
Actually
I have written other things, four children’s books (out of print at the moment)
and an assortment of articles on this and that.
Short stories here and there. But
I have been a science fiction fan ever since I discovered the genre, at about
the age of 9.
How
has your religion affected your writing?
While
I don’t specifically shove religion into the books, it does make a
background. I am a Catholic and there it
is. I baptize the genre I love and then
leave it to itself. The results seem to
please my readers, even non-religious ones.
How did this book achieve its final form?
Actually, this book began as a much longer book, originally
titled Children of the Moon and
contained a really lot of story. Then I
realized that it was too long, too involved.
So I rewrote it into the present form.
Maybe I’ll use some of the discarded material to make another book.
Just how does a science fiction novel get from your head to
the word processor?
Alas, I do not do much in the way world building, organizing
or whatever. A character comes to life,
some scenes appear and whole worlds just come out as needed. I make a few notes of what happens when and
then I just write it. Sometimes I have
to rewrite. But most of the work gets
done in my head before it ever hits the keyboard.
Purchase Dawnstrikers on Amazon (affiliate link).
