cover curated by @Adrianna_over_here
the 9th edition of Meet The Authors brings you more great interviews and reading recommendations. This edition will begin with the March 2022 issue and continue to the present.
Find similarities and maybe some di...
A woman with quantum powers to affect reality and the elite soldier who loves her become pawns in a power struggle between a militaristic oligarchy and murderous insurgents in this original debut SF novel. Carter, the author of The Lost Valor of Love (2017), sets her tale in 2086 on a doomed Earth, wracked by extinction, climate change, and war. An unnamed, two-term U.S. president who catered to those with wealth and power only accelerated the decline. Under his aegis, Global Command brutally protects his utopian restriction zone of Alpha and Omega cities that shelter in their domes behind a massive barrier thousands of kilometers-long in the far north of Canada and Greenland. Now, GC has become just as power-hungry as those they replaced, and are intent on wiping out the United Freedom Fighters who will not stop until they too have access to the utopian world from which they have been excluded.
In a ruined London, Cassandra Vallis is a hostage of the UFF who force her to work as a sex slave to glean intel from GC soldiers. But Ryan Maddox, one of her marks, truly loves her, and even though Cassandra returns his feelings, she is forced to betray him to his death. Unwilling to lose their asset, Global Command resurrects Ryan's consciousness inside the ultimate transhuman weapon, a self-regenerating cyborg. His mission is to retrieve the woman he still loves from the clutches of the UFF, but she believes he is dead and what he has become is nothing like he was before. This operatic story bravely goes to unexpected places while delving deep into overarching themes of love, loss, longing and a connection that resists the power of politics, time, and the cosmos.
Excerpt:
The door opens and closes again. For a beat, I am afraid Ryan will turn the light on. He doesn't. Gratitude floods me. He stops in front of where I am huddled against Miro. The scent of strawberries reaches me.
His weight comes down onto the foot of the bed. I can see nothing at all, but I can feel him there, a mountain sheltering my valley of sorrow.
'I heard you cry,' he murmurs. His voice is still rough with sleep. I wonder if this a fault in his programming or if they left something human to him, either out of kindness, or cruelty. I suspect it is cruelty. He waits. Uncertainty seeps from him.
I don't reply. I leave him out there, alone, to finish what he has begun. My fingers return to stroking Miro's nose. She trills in her sleep and snuggles deeper into the blanket. Contentment surrounds her. Guilt destroys me. I ease away from her, plagued by dark thoughts.
It would have been better for us to die in London, I would have believed I would have found Ryan on the other side. I would have felt hope even when faced with none. But even this has been taken from me. He's a machine, both dead and alive. I wonder what happens when he shuts down, does his consciousness flee, freed from its chains, or die with him, locked forever in the maze of his circuitry?
His hand touches mine. Dissonance shatters me. His hand is wrong, but his touch is his own—reverent, tender. He turns my hand around and places the handle of the tea cup against my fingers. They curl around it automatically. Warmth seeps from its ceramic walls. I wrap my other hand around it and let its presence comfort me. I inhale. It is beautiful. Perfect. Like the meadow they had where I grew up filled with flowers, bees, and butterflies. Only this is better. Because he made it. I sip. Swallow. Somehow, I feel less shit.
I take my time drinking the tea. He waits. Every now and again I hear him running his hands against his thighs, the material rasping against his rough hands. His insecurity impales me.
I relent.
'I had a vision.'
He catches his breath. Silence cocoons us. I feel like I cannot say it, but I must. I reach out to him, blind, and find his arm. His biceps are enormous. He hauls me towards him. With my free hand, I find his jaw and turn his head to the side. I place my lips against his ear. I don't want them to hear. This is only for him. For us.
'In three months,' I whisper, 'everything will be destroyed.'
'How,' he asks, so low I wonder if I have imagined it.
I shrug, knowing he can see me, despite the tomb of the night. 'Everything will burn,' I breathe. 'Everything.'
He falls completely still. The air circulation system clicks on again. Cool air slides between us.
He turns and his arms find me. I let him hold me. I want him to kiss me. I don't want him to kiss me.
The theme of apocalyptic climate change is very current, and the late 21st century world is a believable extrapolation of our current situation. The world-building is terrific. The grim future is presented as a believable outgrowth of our current time, and the technology is realistically imagined and implemented. The characters are skillfully drawn and emerge as real people. Their goals are not the typical motivations of sci-fi characters. The story is surprising and unexpected at many points, and will definitely catch readers off guard in a good way. -Judge, Writer's Digest 2021 Self-published ebook Awards
