September 2nd: Launch
September 3rd: Halfskin and Clay by Tony Bertauski hosted at Beck Valley Books
September 4th: The Glory by Mister JMI hosted at Nocturnal Predators Reviews
September 5th: Parched by Georgia Clark hosted at Mythical Books
September 7th: Grand Finale Blitz
Guest Post by author Tony Bertauski
We’re often convinced if we just get this, whatever this
is, our suffering will end. Yet with all of today’s advancements, why does
utopia still seem to be something achievable only after death while dystopia
our human inheritance?
Can technology change this?
Suppose that medical bioengineers invent a synthetic stem cell, a biomite,
that can replace any cell in your body. Biomites are like microscopic computers
and, unlike our organic cells, they are infallible. No more kidney failure, no
severed spines or blood disease. No cancer. Pharmaceuticals become obsolete. As
our percentages of biomites rise, we become stronger, we become smarter and
prettier. We become better.
If tempted by the promise of perfection, can we resist? As a
society, probably not. What are we when our bodies are replaced by synthetic
replications? Are we our memories? Our brain? Heart? What if we retain one
single organic cell?
Are we still human?
If biomites exist, governments will see the danger of unlimited
access. Laws will be imposed to prevent people from excess and abuse. The
Halfskin Laws will decree a human composed of 50% biomites is no longer human.
Halfskins will have no legal rights and will have their biomites shutdown.
They won’t be murdered. Merely deactivated.
Halfskin (Halfskin #1)
YA, Sci-Fi, Fantasy
YA, Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Biomites are artificial stem cells that can
replace any cell in your body. No more kidney failure, no severed spines or
blood disease. No cancer. Pharmaceuticals become obsolete. With each dose of
biomites, we become stronger, we become smarter and prettier.
We become better.
At what point are we no longer human?
Nix Richards nearly died in a car accident when he was young. Biomites saved his life. Ten years later, he’s not so lucky. The Halfskin Laws decree a human composed of 50% biomites is no longer human. Halfskins have no legal rights and will have their biomites shutdown. It’s not called murder, merely deactivation.
Cali Richards has been Nix’s legal guardian since their parents died. She has lost far too many people in her life to let the government take Nix. She is a nanobiometric engineer and will discover how to hide him. But even brilliance can succumb to the pressure of suffering. And technology can’t cure insanity.
Cali
We become better.
At what point are we no longer human?
Nix Richards nearly died in a car accident when he was young. Biomites saved his life. Ten years later, he’s not so lucky. The Halfskin Laws decree a human composed of 50% biomites is no longer human. Halfskins have no legal rights and will have their biomites shutdown. It’s not called murder, merely deactivation.
Cali Richards has been Nix’s legal guardian since their parents died. She has lost far too many people in her life to let the government take Nix. She is a nanobiometric engineer and will discover how to hide him. But even brilliance can succumb to the pressure of suffering. And technology can’t cure insanity.
Clay (Halfskin #2)
Jamie wants to be a halfskin.
Her life has become dull and pointless. If she had more biomites, the synthetic stems cells that promise hope and healing, she could take control of her life. But Jamie’s body is already 49.9% biomites. The rest is clay—her God-given organic cells. Anymore biomites and she becomes a halfskin. And halfskins are shutdown.
But there is a way.
Black market biomites, called nixes, can’t be detected by the government. She’d have to sacrifice her clay, but nixes can make her halfskin without anyone knowing. But first, she has to find them.
Nix Richards can help. He’s the first halfskin to escape the government and Jamie has something he wants. He’ll need her to help him find a fabricator to build a human body. He’ll betray anyone to get it, even those closest to him.
This psychological thriller will keep them second-guessing every move while they elude Marcus Anderson and the governing agency that seeks to rid the world of biomites. But in the end, they’ll all discover just how deep the betrayal goes.
About the Author
During the day, I'm a horticulturist. While I've spent
much of my career designing landscapes or diagnosing dying plants, I've always
been a storyteller. My writing career began with magazine columns, landscape
design textbooks, and a gardening column at the Post and Courier (Charleston , SC
My grandpa never graduated high school. He retired from a steel mill in the mid-70s. He was uneducated, but he was a voracious reader. I remember going through his bookshelves of paperback sci-fi novels, smelling musty old paper, pulling Piers Anthony and Isaac Asimov off shelf and promising to bring them back. I was fascinated by robots that could think and act like people. What happened when they died?
I'm a cynical reader. I demand the writer sweep me into his/her story and carry me to the end. I'd rather sail a boat than climb a mountain. That's the sort of stuff I want to write, not the assigned reading we got in school. I want to create stories that kept you up late.
Having a story unfold inside your head is an experience different than reading. You connect with characters in a deeper, more meaningful way. You feel them, empathize with them, cheer for them and even mourn. The challenge is to get the reader to experience the same thing, even if it's only a fraction of what the writer feels. Not so easy.
In 2008, I won the South Carolina Fiction Open with Four Letter Words, a short story inspired by my grandfather and Alzheimer's Disease. My first step as a novelist began when I developed a story to encourage my young son to read. This story became The Socket Greeny Saga. Socket tapped into my lifetime fascination with consciousness and identity, but this character does it from a young adult's struggle with his place in the world.
After Socket, I thought I was done with fiction. But then the ideas kept coming, and I kept writing. Most of my work investigates the human condition and the meaning of life, but not in ordinary fashion. About half of my work is Young Adult (Socket Greeny, Claus, Foreverland) because it speaks to that age of indecision and the struggle with identity. But I like to venture into adult fiction (Halfskin, Drayton) so I can cuss. Either way, I like to be entertaining.
And I'm a big fan of plot twists.
Her life has become dull and pointless. If she had more biomites, the synthetic stems cells that promise hope and healing, she could take control of her life. But Jamie’s body is already 49.9% biomites. The rest is clay—her God-given organic cells. Anymore biomites and she becomes a halfskin. And halfskins are shutdown.
But there is a way.
Black market biomites, called nixes, can’t be detected by the government. She’d have to sacrifice her clay, but nixes can make her halfskin without anyone knowing. But first, she has to find them.
Nix Richards can help. He’s the first halfskin to escape the government and Jamie has something he wants. He’ll need her to help him find a fabricator to build a human body. He’ll betray anyone to get it, even those closest to him.
This psychological thriller will keep them second-guessing every move while they elude Marcus Anderson and the governing agency that seeks to rid the world of biomites. But in the end, they’ll all discover just how deep the betrayal goes.
About the Author
During the day, I'm a horticulturist. While I've spent
much of my career designing landscapes or diagnosing dying plants, I've always
been a storyteller. My writing career began with magazine columns, landscape
design textbooks, and a gardening column at the Post and Courier (My grandpa never graduated high school. He retired from a steel mill in the mid-70s. He was uneducated, but he was a voracious reader. I remember going through his bookshelves of paperback sci-fi novels, smelling musty old paper, pulling Piers Anthony and Isaac Asimov off shelf and promising to bring them back. I was fascinated by robots that could think and act like people. What happened when they died?
I'm a cynical reader. I demand the writer sweep me into his/her story and carry me to the end. I'd rather sail a boat than climb a mountain. That's the sort of stuff I want to write, not the assigned reading we got in school. I want to create stories that kept you up late.
Having a story unfold inside your head is an experience different than reading. You connect with characters in a deeper, more meaningful way. You feel them, empathize with them, cheer for them and even mourn. The challenge is to get the reader to experience the same thing, even if it's only a fraction of what the writer feels. Not so easy.
In 2008, I won the South Carolina Fiction Open with Four Letter Words, a short story inspired by my grandfather and Alzheimer's Disease. My first step as a novelist began when I developed a story to encourage my young son to read. This story became The Socket Greeny Saga. Socket tapped into my lifetime fascination with consciousness and identity, but this character does it from a young adult's struggle with his place in the world.
After Socket, I thought I was done with fiction. But then the ideas kept coming, and I kept writing. Most of my work investigates the human condition and the meaning of life, but not in ordinary fashion. About half of my work is Young Adult (Socket Greeny, Claus, Foreverland) because it speaks to that age of indecision and the struggle with identity. But I like to venture into adult fiction (Halfskin, Drayton) so I can cuss. Either way, I like to be entertaining.
And I'm a big fan of plot twists.
Giveaway Time !!
$15 Amazon Gift Card (INT)
Ebooks of Halfskin and Clay (INT)
Signed copy of Parched (US Only)
Ends September 14th
a Rafflecopter giveaway
For those interested in receiving a copy of The Glory by Mister JMI to review email: ficfoxpub@gmail.comThe first in a new series, The Glory is a fun, funny and exciting character-driven sci-fi adventure that follows Adam Whitlock, a young, brilliant, fiercely determined boy who gives up everything to join the United States Space Force in hopes of becoming captain of the fabled and prestigious warship, The Glory.
On his rise to the top, Whitlock gains a great friend and ally in Nathaniel Oaks, as well as a bitter rival in Omar Baptist. Despite his extraordinary talent and dedication, Adam Whitlock’s path is riddled with opposition from naysayers and nonbelievers.
Meanwhile, Admiral Douglas C. Calhoun is tasked with quelling the rising tensions between mankind and the Kelzmisians, a group of alien races, as their long-standing Cold War is about to turn hot.
Stargaze. Trail Blaze. THE GLORY
Sharon x
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It would be fun to be in a story with Aliens
ReplyDeleteIt could be fun. Futuristic sounds safest.
ReplyDeletealiens
ReplyDeletealiens and robot
ReplyDelete