Excerpt: Escape from Area 51

I love the idea of aliens. I love the idea of Area 51 even more. (In fact, the Hell’s Belle’s Blood Ops base is at Area 51. The aliens are just a cover story to hide the paranormal entities.) 

I love that the Nevada airport is filled with alien keychains and giant blow up alien heads. I even loved that 90s teen soap Roswell! 

So, yes, I love aliens. And there’s a book series for that! 

Escape from Area 51 is the third book in The X+Y Files series by Wayne A.D. Kerr.  This middle grade adventure is billed as X-Files for kids, with characters Xander and Yzzie the kid-friendly version of Mulder and Scully.

And I have an excerpt! 

But let's start with the description.

A trip to the top secret military testing base, commonly known as Area 51, was a dream come true for UFO obsessed Xander Bookman - until a strange voice invaded his thoughts. Could the voice really be coming from a joke telling alien, named I-pod, who desperately needs help to escape from the most secure site on the planet?
Of the many who tried, only one man had ever successfully breached the heavily guarded facility. A brilliant Soviet spy managed to the impossible, but he never made it home. One got in; zero got out.
Until now...
Join Xander and Yzzie on their most daring adventure yet.

And now, for all you knock-knock joke lovers, meet Escape from Area 51!

Excerpt 

 “I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be human,” I-pod said. “All your emotions, especially love and hate - these concepts are very confusing to my kind.   For several years, as I scanned those minds that I could get into, I believed that emotions distracted humans from reaching their potential.  So much time and effort is spent on pair bonding, finding someone to love, seemed so inefficient to me.  But then something strange happened.  Every morning one of the guards would come to work and tell everyone that he came into contact with, what he called the joke of the day.  I was amazed at how much joy they got from this.  They’d laugh and so would he each and every time he told it.  But to me they were just words strung together.  He told a hundred dumb blonde jokes and stories about people or animals that walked into a bar, but I just didn’t understand the humor, until one morning.”

‘What happened?’

“He repeated a knock knock joke, that his son had learned in school the day before.”

‘I like knock knock jokes…’

 “Here’s the joke that taught me the meaning of funny,” I-pod said.  “Knock knock..”

‘Who’s there?’ Xander responded.

“Atch.”

‘Atch who?’

“Bless you. I’ll come back when you’re feeling better,” I-pod said.

‘Good one,’ Xander chuckled. ‘A bit of a groaner, but funny.’

“I know,” I-pod told him, “but it awoke a part of my brain that I didn’t know was there.  At first, like all the other jokes I didn’t get it.  Then a few days later, one of the other guards sneezed, and it clicked.  Atch who, achew, Atch who, achew repeated over and over in my head.  I laughed for the first time.  The rest of that day I replayed every joke he’d told in my mind.  That was one of the most enjoyable days of my life.  Once I understood humor, the other emotions began to make sense to me.” 

‘I sometimes mess up the punch line when I tell a joke,’ Xander admitted. 

“I know 4,091 jokes,” I-pod said,  “including over a hundred ‘why did the chicken cross the road’ jokes.”

‘To get to the other side…’ Xander couldn’t help but think of old the punch line.

“’Egg’xactly,” I-pod responded. “But, do you know why the duck crossed the road?”

‘I don’t know.  Why did the duck cross the road?’

“Because it was the chicken’s day off,” I-pod laughed.

‘Chicken’s day off. I get it.’

“Why did the turtle cross the road?”

‘I don’t know,’ Xander said. ‘Was he racing the chicken or a rabbit, maybe?’

“Good guess, but no cigar. The turtle crossed the road to get to the shell station,” I-pod laughed again.

Xander giggled out loud.  ‘I know one you may not have heard.  Do you know why the one-armed man crossed the road?’

“No, why did the one-armed man cross the road?”

‘To get to the second-hand shop.’

“Second-hand shop,” I-pod repeated. “To get a second hand!”

I-pod’s laughter rang through Xander’s mind.

“Thank you Xander, now I know 4,092 jokes,” I-pod told him.

Author Interview: S.C. Green, The Sunken

I want S.C. Green to be my bestie. Not only is her steampunk dark fantasy The Sunken completely kick ass, she’s also very cool. Below we talk steampunk, dinosaurs and metal music. And check out her Spotify playlist for The Sunken at the end for some steampunk for your ears! 

Tell me about The Sunken.

The Sunken is the first in a four-part series set in an alternate Georgian London, where dinosaurs never became extinct. Christianity has been outlawed, instead replaced by several "Industrian" sects, religions centred around science and engineering. Each of these sects vie for power in the Engine Ward, a district of London. Nicholas Thorne has just returned from France under a cloud of shadow, and he seeks refuge in the Ward from his secret power; he hears the thoughts of animals inside his head, and he believes that by entering the Ward and surrounding himself in steel and iron, he will be able to free himself of their constant noise.

So he goes to work for his childhood friend, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who is rising in popularity as an engineer, against all odds. When Isambard wins a contract with the King to build a high Wall around the city, Nicholas is stoked for his friend. But his glee quickly turns to terror when they discover that the King is hiding something terrible in Windsor Castle, and that the Wall is part of a more sinister plan.

Steampunk + dinosaurs = AWESOME! What inspired this idea?

I've been pretty obsessed with dinosaurs since I was a kid. I even found a mosasaur bone once. I had been thinking for a long time about writing a book set in a historical setting where dinosaurs still survived. When I started getting the idea for an alternate history industrial revolution book, adding the concept of dinosaurs made me really excited, so I did it. I liked the idea of looking at a world that had grown alongside those creatures and how that had played in to their history and their geography and their mythology.

Was there anything you struggled with while writing The Sunken? How did you over come it?

The whole series was very research-intensive. I read a ton of books and even spent a couple of years volunteering at a steam heritage trust learning more about locomotives. It was pretty cool though, because I've even been able to drive a steam locomotive, which is certainly not something you do every day!

What drew you to the steampunk genre?

I've kind of always been into it, but didn't know what it was called. Some of my favorite authors are people like China Mieville and Philip Reeve, who write steampunk even though they might not call it that. I also love Victorian literature, in particular, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne, so any modern work referencing them appeals to me. I've never really been a fan of epic fantasy taking place in some far off, earthlike "world" where everything is just medieval Europe with wizards and funny names, but I love the idea of thinking about what our world would be like if technology have evolved in a slightly different way.

What’s your favorite metal t-shirt?

Oh, tough choice! Probably tied between my Blind Guardian tour shirt from Wacken Open Air, 2011, which I got at the festival in Germany. Blind Guardian are one of my favorite bands and to be in the crowd while they were playing at a German festival, with my husband and some of my closest friends at my side, was pretty amazing. The other one is pretty old and faded now, but it is an Opeth "Ghost Reveries" shirt from their 2007 NZ tour. It was the first international metal show my now husband and I attended together, and it was pretty bloody incredible. Plus the design is really awesome.

Now that The Sunken is released, what’s next for you?

Oh, so many things! I am frantically working away on the second book in the Engine Ward series, The Gauge War (3/4 done!) I'm also starting work on a dystopian series set in a near-future city (that's NaNo this year), and a short faerie story to tide readers over till The Gauge War comes out. The short story might be released end of this month or beginning of next.

Do you have any writing rituals?

Not really. I write for a living, so I'm pretty much butt in chair, hands on keyboard all day, every day, no matter what's going on or what I feel like. I take a break at lunchtime to, well, eat (otherwise I forget), do exercise and do chores around my property (I live on a lifestyle block, so there's always something to be done!). I try to write 1000 words of fiction every day - I don't always succeed, but the habit is there.

Any favorite place to write?

Recently, my husband and I finished building an eco-house on 4 acres of land in the country. My office is in the attic and it is my favorite room in the house after the bathroom (we have a REALLY cool bathroom! It's all black with a huge granite sink that looks as if it were hewn directly out of the earth by dwarves). Right now I'm sitting at my desk typing this with hot chocolate and two cats sleeping beside me and the rain is pounding on the roof outside. It's pretty amazing.

What 5 books are on your bookshelf right now?

Right now I'm reading Philip Pullman's Northern Lights. On my pile is Claudius the God (sequel to I, Claudius. I've read both before but felt like a dose of Roman debauchery.); Uncle Tom's Cabin (I'm halfway through), and a Pablo Neruda poetry book (I'm visiting South America next year so I'm reading up!)

What do you recommend people see/read/hear?

See: I am really looking forward to the new Hunger Games films. We don't have a TV, so I don't watch a lot of stuff, but currently we are re-watching Poirot and Sherlock episodes. I love detectives.

Read: China Mieville, Emma Bull.

Hear: Blind Guardian for fantasy geeks, Jordan Reyne for dark celtic/steampunk moodiness, Beastwars for pure NZ sludgey goodness. Amon Amarth for sexy viking beards.

Here’s a brilliant playlist for The Sunken. And go pay a visit to SC’s very cool website Steffmetal.

Cover Reveal: To the Stars

It’s my first Cover Reveal! This one looks good. 

Written by Tiaan Lubbe, who is a South African teacher and theater director by day, To the Stars is a dystopian sci-fi adventure about a girl, a boy, and the end of the world. 

Here’s the description:

When the world finds out its inevitable end will come in sixty years, it seems like all hope is lost. Until a man steps from the darkness. He offers salvation, but demands total control. The world accepts.
Sixty years later, the old saviour’s son is leader and watches over the last proceedings of his father’s plans – Seven Ark ships called the Astrum Portas.
Noah is the next leader. He doesn’t want to be.
Zara is the girl he’s in love with. She doesn’t know it.
Three lives become complicatedly intertwined when a bomb on the Astrum Porta unexpectedly throws them into a whirlwind of secrets, forbidden love and violent clashes all while the looming apocalypse approaches rapidly. 

Look for it on September 23!