This is my stop during the blog tour for Dying for Space by S.J. Higbee. This blog tour is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. The blog tour runs from 14 till 31 December. See the tour schedule here.
Dying for Space (The Sunblinded Trilogy#2)By S.J. Higbee
Genre: Science Fiction
Age category: New Adult
Release Date: 14 December 2017
Blurb:
Cadet Officer Elizabeth Wright just wants to make her father proud, while the mercenary warlord is looking for her to replace his dead family…
I finally get the opportunity to become a serving officer and fulfil my childhood dream, as well as get to know my biological father, General Norman. And when I first clap eyes on Restormel, the HQ of my father’s space mercenary outfit, it’s the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen.
But appearances can be deceptive. There are dark secrets hidden in the twisting corridors and blood-soaked cells beneath the training grounds and banqueting rooms. Secrets that seep out. Secrets that demand fresh victims, because whatever else happens, they can’t be allowed to see the light of day…
You can find Dying for Space on Goodreads
You can buy Dying for Space here on Amazon
First book in the series:
Dying for Space – the world
Dying for Space starts on Monday, 23rd March 2359 during a training run. I don’t mention it in the book, but I do have a manuscript charting the complete timeline with every scene dated and timed.
Since Elizabeth joined the Cadet Officer training programme nine months earlier, she has settled in well and feels good about the future. But on this Monday evening, everything is about to change because her father, General Norman, returns from fighting a nasty little war against a competing mercenary outfit on the planet Ceres. He comes back triumphant and full of future plans. Unless colonies and space stations pay protection money to outfits like Norman’s mercenary outfit, the Peace and Prosperity Corps (known as the P’s) they are prey to any passing pirate with a moderately fast ship and a couple of mazer cannon. In fact, piracy has become so popular, the outlaws have now fashioned their own highly defended stronghold – Erato, from which they operate.
The factor that so unbalanced Sector Two was caused when the enigmatic aliens, the Eaoughts, or Eaties, as they are often nicknamed, threw up a cordon around their home planet in the Wolf system and gave notice that they wished all humans to leave. Given there was a secret research station and two planets within that exclusion zone, along with a very inconvenient chunk of major shipping routes, the governing bodies involved turned to Earth to act as intermediary. This proved to be a disastrous decision, as the Earth-based diplomats had only the sketchiest idea of what was going on in the furthest reaches of Sector Two as it was over two months’ away by faster-than-lightspeed travel on cargo ships not designed for passenger comfort. Consequently, the talking heads involved had left the tedious business of actually visiting the area to underlings and didn’t listen to them when what they said proved too inconvenient.
Deadlines came and went and the negotiations dragged on for five long years – until the Eaoughts lost patience and in 2352, they invaded Homespace and blew up Mercury, flatly announcing that unless all humanity left the exclusion zone within six months, they would suffer a similar fate. The scrambling mess that ensued can’t be dignified by the term, resettlement – it was far too disorganised and piecemeal. Hundreds of lives were lost as ships not equipped to carry refuges and their belongings did just that. It is rumoured that part of the exclusion zone is littered with floating bodies and their belongings as ships flushed out their stinking holds when overloaded life support systems stopped working.
Those in Sectors Two and Three witnessed this with mounting horror and fury as Earthcorps troops, who could have stepped in and prevented much of the mayhem, were ordered back to Homespace to protect the millions living on Earth and around it. While General Norman has watched all this with mounting satisfaction, realising that so long as his force can create a semblance of order, he is poised for a very prosperous future. He now just needs a living relative to pass it on to – a biddable, loving daughter sufficiently like the one who died to assuage his grief – a role he sees Elizabeth fulfilling. The problem is, Elizabeth envisages quite a different future for herself…
You can buy Running Out of Space on Amazon
Elizabeth Wright has yearned to serve on the space merchant ship Shooting Star for as long as she can remember – until one rash act changes everything…
Dying for Space – the world
Dying for Space starts on Monday, 23rd March 2359 during a training run. I don’t mention it in the book, but I do have a manuscript charting the complete timeline with every scene dated and timed.
Since Elizabeth joined the Cadet Officer training programme nine months earlier, she has settled in well and feels good about the future. But on this Monday evening, everything is about to change because her father, General Norman, returns from fighting a nasty little war against a competing mercenary outfit on the planet Ceres. He comes back triumphant and full of future plans. Unless colonies and space stations pay protection money to outfits like Norman’s mercenary outfit, the Peace and Prosperity Corps (known as the P’s) they are prey to any passing pirate with a moderately fast ship and a couple of mazer cannon. In fact, piracy has become so popular, the outlaws have now fashioned their own highly defended stronghold – Erato, from which they operate.
The factor that so unbalanced Sector Two was caused when the enigmatic aliens, the Eaoughts, or Eaties, as they are often nicknamed, threw up a cordon around their home planet in the Wolf system and gave notice that they wished all humans to leave. Given there was a secret research station and two planets within that exclusion zone, along with a very inconvenient chunk of major shipping routes, the governing bodies involved turned to Earth to act as intermediary. This proved to be a disastrous decision, as the Earth-based diplomats had only the sketchiest idea of what was going on in the furthest reaches of Sector Two as it was over two months’ away by faster-than-lightspeed travel on cargo ships not designed for passenger comfort. Consequently, the talking heads involved had left the tedious business of actually visiting the area to underlings and didn’t listen to them when what they said proved too inconvenient.
Deadlines came and went and the negotiations dragged on for five long years – until the Eaoughts lost patience and in 2352, they invaded Homespace and blew up Mercury, flatly announcing that unless all humanity left the exclusion zone within six months, they would suffer a similar fate. The scrambling mess that ensued can’t be dignified by the term, resettlement – it was far too disorganised and piecemeal. Hundreds of lives were lost as ships not equipped to carry refuges and their belongings did just that. It is rumoured that part of the exclusion zone is littered with floating bodies and their belongings as ships flushed out their stinking holds when overloaded life support systems stopped working.
Those in Sectors Two and Three witnessed this with mounting horror and fury as Earthcorps troops, who could have stepped in and prevented much of the mayhem, were ordered back to Homespace to protect the millions living on Earth and around it. While General Norman has watched all this with mounting satisfaction, realising that so long as his force can create a semblance of order, he is poised for a very prosperous future. He now just needs a living relative to pass it on to – a biddable, loving daughter sufficiently like the one who died to assuage his grief – a role he sees Elizabeth fulfilling. The problem is, Elizabeth envisages quite a different future for herself…
You can buy Running Out of Space on Amazon
About the Author:Born the same year as the Russians launched Sputnik, I confidently expected that by the time I reached adulthood, the human race would have a pioneer colony on the Moon and be heading off towards Mars. So I was at a loss to know what to do once I realised the Final Frontier wasn’t an option and rather lost my head - I tried a lot of jobs I didn’t like and married a totally unsuitable man.
Now I've finally come to terms with the fact that I’ll never leave Earth, I have a lovely time writing science fiction and fantasy novels while teaching Creative Writing at Northbrook College in Worthing. I’ve had a number of short stories, articles and poems published – the most recent being my story ‘Miranda’s Tempest’ which appeared last year in Fox Spirit’s anthology Eve of War. I recently signed a publishing contract with Grimbold Publishing for my science fiction novel Netted, which is due to be released in 2019.
I live in Littlehampton on the English south coast with a wonderful husband and a ridiculous number of books. I can be found online chatting about books at my book review blog https://sjhigbee.wordpress.com/ and you’re very welcome to pop onto my website www.sjhigbee.com and my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/sjhigbeeauthor/.
You can find and contact S.J. Higbee here:
- Website
- Blog
- Goodreads
Thank you for taking part in the Dying for Space blog tour:)
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