The Oort Chronicles Vol 1
by
Pages: 442
Size: 6.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 354
Size: 6.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 354
Braxton Thorpe has discovered a threat to the entire Solar System, but he has a problem: he's dead.
Frozen at death, he awakens to find himself uploaded into an electronic matrix. Exploring beyond the matrix and the larger GlobalNet, he discovers the Oort, a distributed electronic entity older than humanity, with an unnerving secret: aliens wiped out nearly all life on Earth once, and are coming back to do it again.
The mathematical entity that is Thorpe has to find a way to convince humans of the threat, and in time to do something about it. But how, and what?
If you've read Niven's A World Out of Time or Taylor's We Are Legion, the opening of Icicle will only seem familiar. Buckle up for a wild ride; you ain't seen nothing.
Publisher: Fresh Ink Group
Illustrators:
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Tropes: Alien Invasion, Asteroid Miner, Body Modifications, Clones, Cryosleep, Enemy to Ally, First Contact, FTL, Immortality, Interstellar Travel, Space Battles, Space Pilot
Word Count: 94000
Setting: Solar system (Earth, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud), Mars, Aster system--84 lightyears distant
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
Tropes: Alien Invasion, Asteroid Miner, Body Modifications, Clones, Cryosleep, Enemy to Ally, First Contact, FTL, Immortality, Interstellar Travel, Space Battles, Space Pilot
Word Count: 94000
Setting: Solar system (Earth, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud), Mars, Aster system--84 lightyears distant
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
PROLOG TO THE NOVEL
LOS ANGELES—THE PRESENT TIME
Braxton Thorpe lay dying. Nothing he could do about it. Cancer in his prostate had spread to his lymph nodes and then metastasized throughout his core. His eyes sought the red laser-projected time on the ceiling: 8:04 PM. Perhaps two hours remained. His mind was still clear, but he had no idea for how long. He rechecked the time: 8:22. No memory of those eighteen minutes. His organs were shutting down; his brain was next; he was losing control. His last fleeting thought was of his younger self and a pretty girl with flowing golden curls riding bikes through a meadow of fragrant wildflowers. It was time.
READ MOREA man dressed in a white smock stood quietly near the foot of Thorpe’s bed. He looked like a doctor. He was schooled like a doctor who had specialized in neurosurgery and, indeed, had physician’s credentials, but he also carried advanced degrees in neurochemistry, physiology, physics, and electronics. His team waited patiently in the room next door.
The man watched Thorpe’s life monitors intently. Thorpe’s vitals had been weak most of the afternoon. Now they were barely detectable. Minutes remained. He signaled his team. The door opened. A young man and woman dressed in nondescript scrubs wheeled a seven-foot stainless steel box through the door to Thorpe’s bed. The moment the monitors flatlined, they quickly picked Thorpe up and placed him face down into the open container. Silently, with practiced hands, the young woman inserted two large hypodermic needles into vessels servicing Thorpe’s brain—an artery and a vein. The young man activated a quiet pump that circulated a vitrifying fluid throughout Thorpe’s brain, cooling it rapidly while preventing water in the brain cells and blood from crystallizing.
The two young people sealed the stainless-steel box and rolled it into a waiting ambulance-like carrier while the man in the white smock signed necessary papers and handed them to the hospice supervisor.
***
A thirty-minute high-speed drive through nighttime Miracle Mile, lights flashing, siren wailing, then a Beverly Hills side street without the siren, and then through gates that opened upon their approach and closed behind them, to a subdued Beverly Hills estate, an unobtrusive two-story sandstone building that housed, Cryogenic Partners LLC.
The young man and woman rolled the stainless-steel box into the cryogenic operating theater and left to prepare for surgery. They returned shortly with the cryogenic surgeon, the man in the white smock, who was also prepped for surgery.
“Move the Icicle to the operating table,” he told them.
They did and then draped Thorpe with sterile covers, leaving only his neck exposed.
With sure, expert scalpel strokes, the surgeon removed Thorpe’s head from his torso while retaining the cryo-fluid pump connections. Then he gently placed Thorpe’s severed head into an insulated box and shifted the pump connectors. The young man and woman carried the box into the cryovault at one end of the theater, attached it to cryo-fluid lines, and secured it to a shelf. The surgeon personally checked the fittings and the container labels, and then he sealed the vault.
Cryogenic Partners staff cremated Thorpe’s remains and filed necessary paperwork.
COLLAPSEDr. Dave Edlund, USA Today Bestselling Author The Peter Savage Thrillers on Editorial review on Amazon book oage wrote:Icicle: A Tensor Matrix, is the first book in the Oort Chronicles by Robert G. Williscroft - a story that holds no bars in its opening prologue. Right from the off we are thrown right into the action as our protagonist, Millionaire, Braxton Thorpe, dies of prostate cancer and is whisked off to have his head cryogenically preserved. And just like that...BOOM!...we head forward in time by 100 years, straight into the 22nd Century, where Braxton wakes and has to come to terms with his new *ahem* life.
This is a bold opening gambit from Williscroft, and one that works so well due to the 'matter of fact' drive in which he pushes the story forward. One could be forgiven for drawing comparisons to The Matrix or Tron, where similar themes are explored - however - it is our sincerest belief that Williscroft actually trumps the aforementioned with this thrilling new take on uploading one's consciousness to a digital mainframe.
Despite being told in third-person prose, you feel every moment of pain and anguish that Braxton goes through. In fact, anyone has had paralytic sleep, will find a rather eerie parallel in some of the moments our protagonist goes through; being aware of one's body, but physically not being able to move.
Let's make no mistake, this is Science Fiction - and really good SciFi at that, but Williscroft's evident knowledge of technology and science, shines through to make this feel more like a foreshadowing of what will come to pass, rather than a throwaway piece of fiction. Every technological detail is described in such detail that it's almost tangible to the reader, which makes this feel all the more intimate a read.
If all that wasn't enough, there's interstellar travel, wormholes, aliens and the threat of inter-planetary war, which, together with Braxton's personal and wider quest, adds up to one hell of an adventure. Not bad for a dead man!
Natalia Ignatyeva on Amazon reader review wrote:An exciting and fast-paced sci-fi adventure that is sure to entertain and stimulate the reader's curiosity...Icicle is guaranteed to keep devotees awake well into the early morning hours.
V. Babcock on Amazon reader review wrote:A friend suggested that I read “Icicle: A Tensor Matrix.” I am so happy I took his advice. I am not a mathematician. From the title, I thought the story would be about some high-level math stuff. It turned out to be a story about real women and men and even a real tabby cat. And about exploring the Solar System, and about good aliens and bad aliens, and international politics, and love—something I do know about.
“Icicle” takes place in the near future. The world is much like ours, but the differences are intriguing. There are real people and pets, but they can be uploaded to become e-persons and e-pets—and it makes perfect sense. There is an Internet called GlobalNet, but it is run from orbit by ServerSky, consisting of billions of little chips. They don’t use money; instead, they use blockchains, something like BitCoin. They use Launch Loops instead of rockets to get to Space. And eventually, they use something like teleportation for distance travel. To go somewhere, you just walk through a door—called a MERT Portal.
I loved Daphne, Kimberly, and Daphne’s tabby Max. And then, there’s Braxton Thorpe, who had his head frozen when he died (the “Icicle”), who woke up in an electronic “Tensor Matrix.” Daphne, Kimberly, Max (the tabby), and several others get uploaded into their own “Tensor Matrixes” to join Thorpe. I’m female, and while I strongly believe that women and men are equal, I also know we have differences. Williscroft’s female characters know this as well. They react to their world as women, and I really liked this. Together, they explore ServerSky. Then they discover an unworldly intelligence—the Oort. They learn of an existential threat to humanity, an invasion of alien marauders that could destroy both humans and Oort. They work together to prepare for it.
The story ends with a Solar-System-wide battle between the invaders and the combined forces of Humans and Oort. You don’t really know what will happen right until the end. I have become a fan of Williscroft and genuinely look forward to the next book in “The Oort Chronicles.”
Impressive science that makes this fiction eerily possible. If you want mind blowing science fiction that brings the future to here and now, read this book. How will we reach light speed? With the power of the sun and a few worm holes. What killed the dinosaurs? An asteroid pushed our way. I can’t wait to read the next book. Getting to Mars is nothing!
