by
- Cold Cosmos: Book One - Last Night On Earth
- Cold Cosmos Book Two - Payment to Perdition
Size: 5.00 x 8.00 in
Pages: 212
Cold Cosmos is a fun and epic space opera science fiction story. Think Cowboys and Aliens meets Farscape and Firefly, with a hint of Hitchhiker's Guide and some Orville.
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Tropes: First Contact, FTL, Humanity is Good, Interstellar Travel, Reluctant Hero, Sentient AI, Sentient Spaceships
Word Count: 56000
Setting: Earth, Space
Languages Available: English
Tropes: First Contact, FTL, Humanity is Good, Interstellar Travel, Reluctant Hero, Sentient AI, Sentient Spaceships
Word Count: 56000
Setting: Earth, Space
Languages Available: English
“Let me get this straight.” I leaned forward and rested my forehead in my hand. “Somewhere on this planet…”
“Asteroid. Panadaras is a heavy metal asteroid, hollowed out and converted into a ship,” Ginn said, correcting me.
“Got it. Somewhere on this asteroid, there is a shadow thing.”
“A shade. Are you even paying attention? He’s a shade. You’ll recognize him because he looks like he’s always in the shadow, even in the brightest light. As you approach him, you’ll notice the air surrounding him is colder than normal.”
“Like a ghost?”
“No, for the umpteenth time, he’s a shade. You’ll have a hard time focusing on him, because of the time fluctuations.”
I shook my head. “Time fluctuations?”
READ MORE“Shades have limited control of time surrounding them. If attacked, they can move faster than you can see. They also are rumored to be able to stop a person’s heart or other important organs upon touch.”
“Right. When I see a strange shadow, you want me to strap on a temporary dil…”
Ginn’s eyebrows raised in anger. “Temporal diode.” She produced a metallic sleeve from a drawer. “This goes on your forearm. The clamps will self-adjust.”
“Fine, then when I have this guy in my sites, I need to grab him while wearing that thing. Then some bushwhackers swoop in to capture him and drag him off.”
Ginn’s face contorted as if she was getting frustrated with this conversation. “What you call bushwhackers are migrun security officers, but that’s the general idea. The diode will alert them upon initiation with your location, so all you need to do is hold on. The migrun are willing to pay off the arenea and cover several cycles of rent.”
“I see. So, what did this guy do? Why’s he wanted?”
“He’s a shade, Idiom. These things aren’t natural.”
“You turn into some mutant bear thing and Slowhand has six limbs, but a shade isn’t natural? Can you tell me he killed somebody, stole their beans, or ate their cat or something?”
“Idiom, when you encounter the shade, you’ll get a glimpse of your fate, and it’s always a horribly painful experience.”
“Why do the migraines want him?”
Ginn raised her arms as she talked. “They’re called migruns and how would I know? To scare their kids? I don’t know, and truthfully, I don’t care.”
“Do you trust them?”
“Nobody trusts the migruns.”
“Yet we’re capturing and handing over a spook to them.”
“A shade.”
“Whatever. Do you have a clue where I can find him? Point me in the right direction at least?”
Ginn pressed a button on the table, and a three-dimensional image appeared out of thin air. “This is Panadaras.”
“Looks like a rock with fire shooting out its backside.”
“That’s actually a decent description of it. The top seven levels are all migrun military controlled. Completely off-limits to us as well as the shade. The bottom four levels are called common areas.”
“That doesn’t even cover the top half of this rock. What’s below the lowest level?”
“Grinkun mines, for the most part,” Ginn said.
Vincent Delaney on Amazon wrote:Okay, let me start off by saying I LOVE SCIENCE FICTION WESTERNS!!! I grew up on shows like Bravestarr, so any story that puts cowboys into space is right up my alley.
The story starts off normal enough, with our hero Idiom Lee fighting bear-like creatures and cheating at cards, but soon the story blasts off, and Idiom finds himself in WAY over his head in an adventure reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy and Firefly.
I'm hooked, and I cannot wait for the next installment in this series. I just hope the entire main cast returns for the sequel!
David Swanson's performance (and it IS a performance, not a simple narration) is stellar! The only place it's lacking is in his female voices, but I'm willing to let that slide considering the amount of accents and vocal effects he juggles in this production.
If you're hankerin' for a good ol' rootin'-tootin', six-gun-shootin' space opera, this one's for you.
Opened the book this morning and finished it before dinner. Non-stop action and a must read for sci-fi fans! Great character development!
