Book series ought to deliver what the author promises in the first book of such a group. The two trilogies introduced here are already complete, each with three volumes published and available. You can begin the adventure confident that the end of the story is already written, completed and set in print.
Both these trilogies were written before most of the world caught up with the initial thoughts that inspired them.
Generation Mars is a trilogy set on an Earth facing calamity and on newly colonised Mars in the relatively near future. We’ve all seen pictures sent from the red planet by unmanned spacecraft now travelling, exploring, and even lightly mining its surface. We’re familiar with the red dust that light winds on the planet sometimes turn to small storms. That element of the red planet inspired the book’s titles.
Blood Red Dust, book one, introduces the genetically enhanced group of ‘perfect’ human specimens sent to colonise and populate the distant world. The story is presented in the words of numerous commentators, collected and organised as the brainchild of a later university student, to recreate the early history in the form of her doctorate.
War Over Dust, book two, is a more traditionally told story describing battles between the commercial and the idealistic settlements subsequently developed on Mars. Here, industrial greed vies with the more generous values of a growing group of highly intelligent, non-materialist settlers in a fight for supremacy.
Return To Dust, the final book, examines the conflict between the humans on Mars and the ultra-developed Artificial Intelligence entity that has kept their home habitable for many years. When that advanced logical force develops self-awareness, it threatens the entire human community.
A Seared Sky is an epic adult fantasy story told, in 3 volumes, of an imagined world similar to Earth climatically and geologically, but peopled by diverse groups with opposing traditions of right and wrong. There’s a small but significant element of ‘magic’ in the form of a restricted type of telepathy available to a chosen few.
Joinings, book one, introduces the main players as some are sent on a forced pilgrimage from their small island across wild seas to the mainland their ancestors left centuries before due to religious disagreements. Others, left behind on that little gem surrounded by a vast ocean, have to deal with the new, ambitious, overlord who is consumed more with the love of power than by any concern for justice.
Partings, the second volume, continues the pilgrimage after an unexpected encounter creates a vital partnership between some of the pilgrims and the powerful leader of a different tradition. Meanwhile, tensions on the island build as rival powers battle to impose their own ideas and rules on a population steeped in a tradition they are unaware is deeply corrupt.
Convergence, book three, sees the whole world under threat from a powerful group determined to subjugate the entire population for personal gain. Only one individual, a young woman forced into the original pilgrimage against her will, has any hope of defeating the greedy, destructive, would-be overlords.
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Whatever route you take to the adventure, enjoy the read!
Stuart Aken 