I’ve written several trilogies. The “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy is the most recent; it’s basically a continuation of the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, and “Revenge at Last,” a novella in the free PDF download of the same name, almost made Morgan’s trilogy into a series (and still might, depending on my energy reserves). Three other trilogies,, “The Last Humans,” “The Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries,” and “Clones and Mutants,” are quite different. One difference is that they have strong female protagonists (the last one, several).

I considered “The Last Humans” trilogy in a previous article; it’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Another difference then can be found in the type of sci-fi. Mary Jo’s adventures are more thrillers than mysteries; and most of the sci-fi is found in the MECHs, cyborg warriors representing tech that China, Russia, and the US all want to steal and are willing to employ evil agents to do just that. Mary Jo prevents that from happening in three different novels. (Mary Jo is an alias for Maria Jose, by the way) “The Clones and Mutants” trilogy is also a sci-fi thriller where new biological advances replace the robotic ones of the cyborgs.

The sci-fi is all different in these three trilogies, but the general lesson is always the same: There are evil people whose greed and desire for power are willing to make good people suffer to obtain it; so, if no one steps up to stop those villains, they will succeed. That important lesson is one we should all learn in real life during these troubling times when an evil and wannabe fascist dictator has grabbed power in our country and is making many of its good citizens suffer. We need more virtuous heroes and fewer evil fascist villains.

What Penny Castro (protagonist of “The Last Humans” trilogy), Mary Jo Melendez, and the clones and one mutant show in these three trilogies is that ordinary humans can step up and overcome terrible odds to defeat the forces of evil. This of course is a major message in a lot of fiction. My “ordinary humans” are also smart women who are mostly Latinas, and that belies the macho beliefs of ignorant American fascists like our DoD secretary that women can’t fight for what’s right and the far-right opinions in our country that “others” who aren’t extreme far-right WASP zealots like them don’t belong in America.

Of course, this is fiction, storytelling that should entertain anyone who’s not a fascist MAGA supporter. Guess what? I’ve known plenty of women who have exactly the positive characteristics of my fictional heroes. My characters have flaws like everyone does, of course—they’re very human, unlike many zombies in the MAGA hordes, but they also have courage and skills. That’s more than the DoD secretary or any other member of our wannabe fascist dictator’s administration has. If there is a God, He’ll be on these women’s side, not the side of the fascist devils led by the Orange Devil. Fiction must seem real, and fiction about heroes can become real if the real heroes in our society receive our support.

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“The Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries.” In the first novel, Muddlin’ Through, Mary Jo is framed and must struggle to prove she’s innocent. In the second novel, Silicon Slummin’ and Just Gettin’ By, Russia and the US are all after the MECHs (“Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans”) and she’s pursued by a stalker. In the third, Goin’ the Extra Mile, China goes after the MECHs. Readers will wonder how this all ends. All three novels are available wherever quality ebooks are sold (even on Amazon). These are all “evergreen books,” stories as exciting and prophetic as the day I finished the manuscripts.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Long ago when I began to write the first parts of Survivors of the Chaos (the first novel in the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy”), I had a premonition that fascist oligarchs like Elon Muskrat, the big Bezos bot, and the other tech fascists attending Trump’s inauguration and kissing his McD’s butt, were plotting to own the world. Later even Hollywood movies like Blade Runner, Alien, and Avatar echoed that fear of fascist capitalism I had and Putin and Xi have now popularized in the autocratic world. (I also predicted that China would found the first colony on Mars. The Muskrat has some stiff competition for that and for many other tech initiatives.)

Do I take comfort in saying “I told you so”? Not really. What temporarily saved Earth in the sci-fi universe of “Chaos” from exploitative fascist capitalism was a very intelligent manipulator of the fascist oligarchs of her time, a little but energetic lady who outsmarted all the oligarchs to establish star colonies in three different nearby star systems. That bold move eventually saved Earth from ET invaders much more dangerous and violent than the human oligarchs! (That story is told in Sing a Zamba Galactica, the second novel in what some have called my Foundation trilogy—I’ve always been an avid fan of Isaac Asimov, another scientist who decided to become a sci-fi writer.)

Sci-fi authors who write anything decent point out possible futures and warnings to their fellow human beings, at least to readers who pay attention, in order to warn us about getting our acts together if we want to survive in a hostile Universe made all the more so by scurrilous humans who often create hells on Earth for everyone and, in the future, off Earth as well. We’re very much in that dangerous place today.

I predicted all this in 2011 in Survivors of the Chaos. The details are slightly different, but the real tragedy for human beings in 2025 suffering under Trump and his oligarchs and the other fascists in our world is much worse. Yes, I told you so, but I didn’t quite see how bad it might become…and readers didn’t heed the warning!

Maybe it’s not too late? We still sometimes pay attention to Brave New World, Darkness at Noon, and 1984. I’ve seen Trump’s machinations called Orwellian. Sci-fi warnings are forever… unless the censors of Fahrenheit 451 take over and erase them!

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The “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection.” In the first novel, Survivors of the Chaos, Earth gets a respite from fascist capitalists because the leader of space exploration efforts in the solar system cajoles Earth’s oligarchs into supporting programs to create colonies in three nearby star systems. In the second novel, Sing a Zamba Galactica, first contact is made with some strange ETs who become good allies in a fight against another group of ETs bent on destroying all other intelligent life to control all of near-Earth space, but a collective intelligence appears that complicates things. In the third novel, Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand!, a psychotic and sociopathic human industrialist and mega-billionaire causes chaos and  havoc as he attempts to create a stellar empire where he’s the absolute ruler. (Any semblance with Earth’s current fascists was intentional, of course!) This ebook bundle of all three novels is available wherever quality ebooks are sold (even on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Despite the attacks from Bezos and his bots that screwed up the Amazon listings of the first two novels in the series, the post-apocalyptic novels found in “The Last Humans” trilogy don’t do badly at their job in portraying a possible and terrible future most of us who are sane wouldn’t want. In that sense, they are a warning of things to come.

Consider the worldwide contagion that wreaks havoc in the first titular novel The Last Humans  (Black Opal Books 2019). Readers won’t learn its source yet, but it’s bioengineered by a US adversary (readers find out which one in the second novel), That lethal contagion that first hits the west coast of the US propagates around the world like Covid did. (After the book was published. A beta-reader even a year earlier thought that was unlikely, but then Covid came along and supported my thesis! And Covid might have been bioengineered as well in that lab in Wuhan, most recently posed by the US CIA! We’d have to grill fascist President-for-Life Xi about that…as if that SOB would admit the truth!) That’s the first prediction for the future this post-apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy posits..

In the aftermath of the apocalypse in that first novel, my protagonist Penny Castro travels around SoCal trying to survive attacks by feral humans, wild dog packs, and the fascist remains of the US government. (They’re bent on retribution in the second novel; and in the real world, we now know there might be a lot more fascists who’ve come out of the closet since 2019.) That SoCal landscape is mostly an arid and fire-burned inhospitable place. I don’t mention how those fires occurred, but the recent ones in SoCal propagated by 100 mph Santa Ana winds certainly qualify. And Penny and her newly acquired family’s trek from the coast over California’s coast range of mountains to I5 was the same one I took many times going home from college to my parents’ home in the Central Valley for the holidays. That’s the second prediction for the future.

What hasn’t yet come true in that first book is the takeover of the desalination platforms by fascist villains who want to control California’s water. As far as I know, these platforms haven’t even been built yet or even planned, but lack of potable water will soon become critical worldwide. (Our fascist president might even support such a measure since he’s so damned worried about water!) California, SoCal in particular, has a huge population, and most of the state would be a desert without irrigation. In fact, the air force base, where Penny’s family ends up as refugees seeking asylum (labeling them criminal migrants and refugees wasn’t even considered because the agri-workers the state’s economy needs died from the contagion as well), sends out tanker trucks to transport water from the San Joaquin Valley’s irrigation pumps.

The other two novels in this trilogy have “predictions” that might come true as well, but those first two mentioned here from that first novel (i.e. two out of the three) isn’t a bad start. Just a sci-fi author’s luck…and my desire to tell a few good post-apocalyptic tales. Sci-fi predictions can also be warnings, of course. Future plagues and consequences of global warming (including blizzard-like snowstorms in southern Texas and Florida!) are clear and present dangers that we shouldn’t ignore (unless you’re our repeat fascist president)..

But back to Amazon’s screw-up: If you go to my web page “Novels and Short Fiction,” you will be able to read about what happened to those first two novels in this trilogy, thanks to the fascist oligarch Bezos and his bots. To this date, Amazon has never fixed this problem despite my pleas to do so. Until they do, readers will have to work a bit harder to buy and download these ebooks. This cock-up is one reason I no longer list my new ebooks for sale on Amazon. In general, your best bet as a reader is to use Barnes & Noble or some other online ebook distributor, not Amazon. (With Bezos joining the other oligarchs kissing the president’s fat butt now, you’ll be a lot more patriotic if you don’t do business with Amazon at all. Your choice.)

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“The Last Humans” trilogy. In the title novel (paperback and ebook published by Black Opal Books), Penny Castro survives an apocalypse. It’s a worldwide bioengineered pandemic that kills millions. She also manages to create her adopted family and unreluctantly fights for what’s left of an ineffective and fascist US government. In A New Dawn (ebook published by Draft2Digital/Smashwords), what’s left of the US government seeks revenge against the plague’s creators, forcefully recruiting Penny and her husband for their plans. In Menace from Moscow (ebook also published by Draft2Digital/Smashwords), she and her husband are forcefully conscripted again, this time to recover nukes from a US submarine in a watery grave just off Cuba…but the surviving Russian government also covets them. (All three ebooks are available wherever quality ebooks are sold, but the third novel isn’t on Amazon.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

“I’ve no use for fascists, no matter how they’re labeled.”—Detective Rolando Castilblanco in The Collector (Carrick Publishing, 2014).

Sometimes readers send me more personal critiques of my stories, although the more public reviews can be snarky as well. Any author has to have a thick skin, of course–there are a lot of trolls out there!—but both kinds of critiques, the personal and public ones, often make me wonder if maybe I should call for someone to do a mental health intervention, maybe offering to send the critical troll with a straitjacket?

A prude who complains about too much sex and strong language is more amusing than harmful. An author can just reply (not recommended for a review), “Hey, you don’t have to read the story!” Someone who complains that the story is out of touch with reality deserves the same answer; obviously they’ve never read Weir’s The Martian or Rowling’s The Deadly Hallows.

Political critiques often have a different tone, sometimes even threatening violence. We live in a very polarized society, so a political theme can make some readers angry and others cheer (for the latter, just send money). In fact, in these times, if an author assumes their readers cover the entire political spectrum (a big assumption because the extreme left and right only read what’s spoon-fed them in their echo chambers…if they even read—MAGA maniacs aren’t known for that because most, like their hero fuehrer, can hardly read or write), there’ll usually be a lot of people upset. (For example, an anti-Semitic ass might have a problem with Sullivan’s Beneath a Scarlet Sky, although I’d bet the author or his publisher carefully chose that title to avoid controversy.)

What the Big Five publishing conglomerates do to avoid this is to mostly publish pablum, of course, i.e., books that avoid all controversial themes and politics. The authors they choose to publish hide their opinions and must be willing to geld themselves to create this pablum. Big Five authors, in other words, with only a few exceptions like Gerlis and Sullivan, must work hard to make sure they write nothing of consequence. They have to treat all topics with kid gloves. “Offend no one” begins everyone’s business model when dealing with these hypocrites.

This always reminds me (showing my age, I guess) of Lucille Ball not being able to say the word “pregnant” when she was exactly that during her fifties sitcom. Or the couple portrayed in that otherwise hilarious Dick van Dyke show sleeping in twin beds. What we have now from the Big Five and their authors is still hypocritical political censorship!

I can’t believe that serious readers approve of this practice. But PR and marketing efforts—especially the thousands spent by the Big Five pimping their pablum—are effectively convincing even serious readers to purchase their fluffy fiction, and they never realize that more serious literature even exists.

Okay, maybe I’m naïve if I consider what I write to be “serious literature.” But I’d be willing to bet that any reader would be hard-pressed to find the quote found at the beginning of this post in a Big Five book! Neither Baldacci nor Patterson nor any other old mare or stallion in the Big

Five’s stables of “sure winners” (who jealously guard their privileged stalls, by the way!) would dare write that and run the chance of bringing a publisher’s wrath down on them! Hell, even most US news media avoids using the word “fascist”! Clearly my anti-fascist themes were on display even long before Trump turned the Good Ole Piranhas into the Fascist Party of America.

I don’t read pablum; never have, never will. So, as a consequence, I rarely read any Big Five fiction story. (I might do a non-fiction book, especially if I get it as a gift.) I suggest you do the same, if only to broaden your horizons. To paraphrase Tom Clancy (whose only decent book was Hunt for Red October, by the way, because the Big Five ruined him as well, once they got their talons into him), fiction must seem real. Pablum isn’t real; it’s a swindle. Be selective in your reading!

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The Collector. This novel considers stolen art and how it might be used to finance human trafficking and sexual exploitation. NYPD homicide detectives Chen and Castilblanco have to deal with yet another complex case. They get some help in Europe from Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden (as a prequel to Esther’s own long series). There are some winners in this raw mystery/thriller, but not many. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (even on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

It’s not just about TikTok. Sure, the Chinese are using it, one, to brainwash its users, especially America’s youth; and two, to collect data about Americans to facilitate that brainwashing and other insidious things. But I saw that early on and never signed up to use it. (I’m paranoid. I don’t believe the fascist MAGA maniacs are the only ones out to get me. Xi’s assassins might be planning their revenge against me for writing Fear the Asian Evil, although the title hides the fact that it’s about Chinese perfidy. LOL.)

Much earlier, though, predating TikTok and Truth Social by years, I began to post on Facebook and Twitter. So-called PR and marketing experts were telling authors even back then that social media was “the thing,” i.e., a wonderful tool to reach out to potential readers. (Now I tend to think that too many people emulate Trump—i.e., they don’t read much and can’t understand what they read.) Some of these “experts” even went so far as to say that a “Facebook page” was more important for authors to have than a website. What BS!

In any case, I continued to participate on Facebook and Twitter (even when the latter became X), but less and less as time went on. I finally realized just how much they provide clear evidence for Musk and Zuckerberg’s fascist tendencies. Walking in with the kitchen sink ended my days on X long before Musk became the super-fascistic cheerleader for Trump’s plan to destroy American democracy. Seeing Zuckerberg’s obvious lack of enthusiasm for stopping Putin and friends’ interference in the 2016 election (fact-checking will now be left to the users) was also sufficient motivation to suspect that SOB’s MAGA proclivities, now in full display as he visits Mar a Lago along with Musk to kiss Donald Jackass Trump’s butt.

It took me less than a half hour to give those two fascists the finger and end my association with their anti-democratic, evil, and oppressive social media creations. Frankly, I can’t understand why any author who lives in and loves democracy and its free speech features that allow us to stick it to fascists and all their autocratic and Machiavellian machinations would use any social media, but especially Facebook and X. An author might as well be bound and gagged and rotting in a prison cell!

What about that famous dialogue authors should have with potential readers, you ask? Forget about it! First, let your artistic creations be your weapons of choice, not social media. Second, it’s not worth losing your integrity (as the Big Five publishing conglomerates and their so-called but rarely “non-political” authors do)—let’s call it “losing your soul to fascism”—by pandering to people who don’t give a rat’s ass about what’s right and wrong, only greed and power. (That’s basically the definition of fascism, of course.) Be true to your art, in other words, and kick Musk and Zuckerberg in their goolies. (Oh right! Like Trump, they don’t have any, at least not in the moral sense.)

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Fear the Asian Evil. This last novel in the “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy begins with the shooting of one of Steve’s sergeant’s sister-in-law. The investigation leads Steve’s team to a Chinese plan to destabilize the UK in the Bristol port area. Intrigue and suspense await the reader. (And don’t worry: All novels in my series can stand alone.) Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (but not on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I’m at a point in my life when it’s obvious that there are many more days in my past than those remaining in my future. In other words, I’m beyond my expiration date or shelf date and must prefer for the inevitable. Maudlin thoughts entering the new year 2025? Maybe. In my stories, human mortality is always part of the plot, though, so it’s difficult to not be morbid at times, especially when I kill off a character!

N Scott Momaday taught me to love poetry, but I could never create any of my own that I considered consequential. (Penny Castro’s poem to her husband, old friend, and adopted children in Menace from Moscow might be my best attempt, but there are a few others sprinkled throughout my books.) Professor Momaday would pace back and forth up on the stage in front of his large lecture class—I was only one of him many students—indicating possible meanings for the poetry after he read it. I was able to conclude even back then, though, that what makes poetry great is that almost every poem can contain multiple yet significant meanings for listeners and readers.

At least, most of the so-called “classics” have that characteristic. (And also those who aren’t classics! In Penny’s case, readers must recognize that her poem’s meaning covers all three novels in “The Last Humans” trilogy.) For me, Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is about the mystery of our lives and the deaths we can never avoid. It differs from the “Rage, rage, against the dying of the light” found in Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” which is more like philosophical advice we probably should all follow to deal with our human mortality: We probably only have one life to live, barring reincarnation, so we should make the most of it! Frost’s poem is more about how to follow Thomas’s advice; “sleep” is simply a metaphor for “death.”

And that’s where I am in 2025: I’m going to rage against death as long as I’m able before I take that long sleep, The miles I’ll travel are represented by my storytelling, which I’ll continue as long as possible. I realize the day will come when it’s not, if only because my touch-typing skills will have diminished too much as the arthritis in my joints increases.

I fully realize that I’m a prolific writer whose readership is practically non-existent. That’s okay; it always has been okay. I’ve mostly done my storytelling on my own terms, mostly ignoring agents, acquisition editors, and pundits (like MFA professors, literary critics, and reviewers—the good, the bad, and the ugly). I’m still telling my stories as I want to tell them, and hopefully I’ll be able to write many more that no one reads…before I sleep!

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“The Last Humans” trilogy. In the first novel (written before Covid, but it could have been taken as a warning for the consequences of that real worldwide pandemic), The Last Humans (Black Opal Books, 2019), Penny Castro, an ex-USN SAR and current LA County Sheriff’s Deputy forensics diver, surfaces to find all her deputy-comrades dead. An enemy of the US has attacked the West Coast with a bio-engineered contagion, and it has been carried on the prevailing winds around the world after its initial dispersal (Covid might have been bioengineered as well, of course—ask the Chinese about that Wuhan lab!), creating a worldwide apocalypse that kills millions, although there are a few other survivors like Penny. She struggles to stay alive in this post-apocalyptic world, creating an adopted family in the process.

In the second book, A New Dawn (Draft2Digital, 2020), readers learn who was responsible for that biological attack when Penny and her husband are forced to take part in a revenge plan that what remains of the US government organizes as payback. Contrary to that plan’s goals, though, Penny and friends have something more peaceful in mind. Achieving that isn’t easy, though.

In the third and final novel of the trilogy, Menace from Moscow (Draft2Digital, 2023), the now reformed US government has some nobler goals: Disarming the nukes that went down in a US submarine that sank off the coast of Cuba. Unfortunately, some of the surviving Russians have more nefarious plans for those nukes. Can Penny and friends stop them?

This trilogy represents some of the most personal stories that I’ve written in my long career, if only because so much of the action takes place in my native California, the greatest and still democratic state left in our country (and an economic powerhouse comparable to many other countries!). I grew up there, and I know the state intimately. While some of my other novels are influenced in this manner (i.e., contain settings where I’ve actually lived, not just visited), these three novels are special in this sense. Of course, those Californian landscapes aren’t post-apocalyptic landscapes…not yet anyway!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

“From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsing with laughter. Someday I intend to read it.”—Groucho Marx

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I’m certain I’ve posted about this topic before and certainly wrote about it in the end notes of A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse (most of my novels have end notes although I expect that few readers read then). But from The Time Machine to The Time-Traveler’s Wife speculative fiction novels have played fast and loose with the contradictions of time travel. Hollywood screenwriters do no better: Why is there a warp-drive limit that sends Kirk, Spock, and friends back in time to save the whales?

James Hogan tried to make improvements in his The Proteus Operation, but only a few other writers have dared to go “when” no man has gone before in a way that satisfied my scientific biases. For that reason, I avoided time-travel stories in my sci-fi writing for a long time. Until A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse where, naturally, a woman dares to go where no man has gone before, although, to at least follow the trends, I made it a rom-com to get a jump on any critic like Groucho, who was about as scientific as his cigar.

A story where a protagonists return to the past to right some wrongs (Hogan’s book is a classic example) loses a lot of its entertainment  value when it seems more like fantasy than hard sci-fi, interpreting the latter as meaning not violating a plethora of scientific data and laws. In other words, hard sci-fi must at least seem a reasonable extrapolation of current theories, proven or not, and not the magic of Harry Potter.

I also avoided writing a rom-com story for a long time. Most of the books in that genre are pure fluff, an unbelievable  story about a Cinderella-like (or Cinderfella-like) protagonist that’s light on plot and characters that I can relate to. (Niffenegger’s The Time-Traveler’s Wife is typical, but it’s not intended to be a comedy, just an incredibly sappy story.)

It then occurred to me that I could combine time travel and rom-com and make the result more believable. Writing such a story turned out to be challenging. Take Dr. Who, the mad male scientist who jumps around the past and future using an old red (and magical?) British-style telephone booth. Okay, the latter might be considered the “com” part of a rom-com, but just try to put a little more meat into the science and the plot!

To make this history of a novel short, let’s just say that my story is more akin to “back to the future.” My protagonists jump from one future to the other in the multiverse of universes that are all technically part of their original universe’s future, although some “look like” variations of our past. (The timelines don’t have to be in sync, you know.) My mad scientist is a female, her techie lover a black genius, and the red telephone booth is replaced by an old dentist’s chair. (The BBC will never broadcast a series based on my novel because of that, I’m guessing.)

Because the jumps are always towards some future relative to their starting point, the novel avoids all the scientific contradictions and paradoxes. In other works, they originate in the hypothesis of a single timeline, of course; but once my protagonists leave their current universe, they can’t return! In particular, they can’t change the history of where they started; they can only change the future of where they end up. Blows your mind, right!

Of course, I had to add comedy and romance to make a sci-fi rom-com. The result is the funniest, most political, most irreverent, and most romantic novel I’ve ever written. (Okay, that’s no surprise because it’s the only one!) And I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

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In celebration of the holidays (quite a few to end this year!), this will be the last post appearing here in my author’s blog for 2024. Who knows what 2025 will bring, right? In any case, please enjoy a safe and wonderful time with your family and friends. Happy holidays!

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A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. Gail, with her doctorates in applied physics and electrical engineering as preparation, decides to invent a time machine. She hires another technical genius Jeff (Gail calls him Igor) to help with the circuits, sensors, and power sources. Their adventures traveling through the universes of the multiverse last a lifetime. A stand-alone sci-fi rom-com available wherever quality ebooks are sold, this novel just might tickle your funny bone more than Groucho ever could.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Kayla is the kick-ass young female protagonist in Origins, the first novel of the “Denisovan Trilogy.” AB Carolan hasn’t yet written the other two, but he says he’s working on them. Personally, I think Origins can stand alone as one of the best “ancient civilizations”-type sci-fi mystery and thriller novel, a wonderful, adventurous, and grand mix of fiction, sociology, and archaeology,,,but I’m biased, I suppose. [wink, wink]

Eons ago on Earth (our real Earth, not a fictional one), different groups of hominids branched off the human evolutionary tree; one recent group discovered is the Denisovans. Carolan embedded these true science facts (not “fake news” or “alternate facts”!) into a new sci-fi universe he created as a way to explain the history of these different groups.

The plan for these novels is quite an ambitious one and requires Carolan to keep up with new archaeological discoveries, but Origins can stand alone very well as a novel that will appeal to young adults (Carolan’s forte) and adults who are young-at-heart. Mysteries, thrills, and lots of action await the reader as Kayla discovers bit by bit how and why she differs from ordinary humans.

Most “modern humans” in our real world have bits and pieces of DNA inherited from Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals, “Hobbits,” and Denisovans. Most of our DNA comes from the first group (AB “explains” this), but some modern humans in differing locales have also inherited some from the other three. Where did all these hominids come from? What happened to them?

AB Carolan provides fictional answers to these questions as he creates a literary roller-coaster ride that puts poor Kayla through the wringer. She must try to stay alive on her way to discovering why she’s being pursued by an evil senator and his violent followers.

The two other novels that are planned are about a more mature Kayla out among the stars, but as I wrote this article I couldn’t help noting how prescient this first novel is relative to our country and the world’s current problems. Unfortunately, our world’s real villains aren’t from the stars: They’re our fellow humans!

This “stand-alone” nature of Origins means, though, less disappointment for readers if they wonder about how Kayla’s adventures continue “out there” among the stars of our galaxy. Some will consider it too much of a teaser, but AB adds the two first chapters of the second novel Allies to this first novel. Did readers complain about not yet knowing the full scope of the second Star Wars movie after the first? (And all those movies are more fantasy than sci-fi, at least not the hard sci-fi thrillers like those planned for the “Denisovan Trilogy.”) You can also mitigate some of your disappointment by writing AB using my contact page at this website to tell him to get his butt in gear and finish the trilogy. He’s usually just having a chinwag in a Donegal pub accompanied by a pint of ale or lager, maybe with a lot of creative world-building going on in his mind, but I can get readers’ messages to the old leprechaun.

All that said, is this novel appropriate for young adults? All of Carolan’s books treat themes adults are concerned about…or should be. Their protagonists just happen to be young girls and women. But both AB and I believe young people should know about all the evil some older people are doing and could avoid doing so these young people don’t repeat our awful and stupid mistakes and  can make things better. The “age of youthful innocence” can no longer exist in this complicated world we live in! No amount of book banning can change that. This Denisovan girl Kayla Jones is a hero for our times.

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Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

In a previous post, I’ve considered my strong female adult characters, Esther Brookstone, Mary Jo Melendez, and Penny Castro, protagonists from three different series, but what about those strong young ladies from AB Carolan’s novels, the “ABC Sci-fi Mysteries for Young Adults” [wink, wink]. My Irish collaborator from Donegal, Ireland, designed those stories to take place in the same sci-fi universe as my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” (which also has a plethora of kick-ass adult heroines who predate Esther, Mary Jo, and Penny). That didn’t limit that old Irish leprechaun that much: My sci-fi universe is huge and allowed my author-buddy to cover a wide span of space and time.

Let’s consider his three young ladies:

Sashibala Garcia. In The Secret Lab, this tween shares the spotlight with the mutant cat Mr. Paws. Shashi and her gang, “The Fearsome Four,” live on the ISS (International Space Station) in the future as Earth below goes through that period on my alternate future-history timeline known as the Chaos. The five uncover a conspiracy that involves the creation of other mutant animals for evil purposes. It’s a lot of danger and intrigue for the cat and gang to handle, but they handle it all well.

Asako Kobayashi. A long time later in that same sci-fi universe, this young protagonist from The Secret of the Urns lives with her parents in a small Human colony of scientists studying the ETs native to the moon of a Jupiter-sized planet. These ETs turn out to have a sad and secret past, but their immediate problem is with the Human miners who want to exploit the moon’s rare earth deposits, a plan that could very well destroy the ETs’ environment. AB makes it tough for Asako and her friends. Do they prevail?

Della Dos Toros. Much later still, in Mind Games, the father who adopted this young girl is murdered. They lived as outcasts on Sanctuary, one of three original Human colonies first mentioned in my novel Sing a Zamba Galactica. The father and daughter share a secret: They are empaths with ESP powers. In trying to use those powers to find her father’s killers, Della must travel from Sanctuary, her home planet, to Earth and New Haven, another of the first three colonies. She and her friends uncover a plan to take over all the planets in near-Earth space under the ITUIP umbrella (Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets) as danger lurks in three different worlds.

These three novels are a lot more profound than Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars, but their motivation is the same: AB wanted to introduce young readers to the mystery and thrills of science fiction. What I’ve discovered at book events where I offer and/or talk about Carolan’s stories is that adults who are young-at-heart also like these novels. The fact that the three heroines are different but very special young women doesn’t seem to diminish that enjoyment. Way to go, AB! [wink, wink]

“So…what about Carolan’s Kayla Jones, the kick-ass protagonist in Carolan’s novel Origins?” you ask. She’s a very special character too. I’ll consider her next week.

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AB Carolan’s “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries for Young Adults.” Each novel in this series will entertain young adults and adults who are young-at-heart alike. They’re ideal for the first group, appropriate to tweens through teens that are more likely to make good book reports if they actually enjoy the books they read. AB Carolan might be an old leprechaun [wink, wink], but he’s young-minded and full of mischief. Like many Irishmen, he can spin a good yarn…as if he were a relative of the famous bard Turlough O’Carolan. (Have no fear. He writes in English, not Gaelic.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Yeah, I’m a bit old-fashioned. I know I’m supposed to be more PC and use “hero” for both male and female characters as if they were neutered zombies, but what’s wrong with implying that a smart, kick-ass character has female charm as well? Screw any naysayers out there who complain, I say. At least I’m not a pervert like a certain newly re-elected orange devil! (What’s wrong with people?)

In any case, onward: Among my many novels, there are three female characters who are my favorites. Before I describe them (somewhat repetitive, I suppose, if you’ve read my prose), let me make a confession: I’m not a misogynistic ass like many men (especially certain politicians whom many of us, like half the American voters, love to hate). I admire brainy women of strong character and have often said in mixed groups that include supposedly macho men that the world would most likely be better off if such women were in control. (I don’t know why the US can’t be like other countries in that sense: Angela Merkel would have done a much better job than Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher than Ronald Reagan, and so forth. I might not agree with their political positions, but I don’t agree with any of Trump or his sycophants’—zero, zilch, nada!)

That said, all three of my favorite female heroines I’ll describe are indeed brainy women of strong character (in contrast to any of the female toadies the orange devil will put in his administration). Let’s take them in descending order of age:

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Esther Brookstone. Throughout the nine-novel “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, this older English lady belies the nickname Miss Marple that her colleagues in Scotland Yard gave her. My Esther is a lot sprier than Christie’s character, also sexier and more sagacious. I liked her best in the mystery/thriller Son of Thunder where, despite having a third husband (she loved them all!) who was an atheist Swiss banker, this daughter of a vicar strives to prove that the Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli—he most likely painted the “Birth of Venus” with Amerigo Vespucci’s nude daughter serving as model—never traveled to Turkey and consequently couldn’t have found St. John the Divine’s tomb.

Does she fail? You’ll have to read the novel to find out.  (The reader can think of this novel as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code done correctly…because there are no historical errors!)  Her Dutch boyfriend from the first novel Rembrandt’s Angel, Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden, is along for part of the adventures in Son of Thunder, but the story is mostly hers, as she becomes a thoughtful female Sherlock in comparison to the first novel.

Mary Jo Melendez. This ass-kicking lady gets involved in all kinds of trouble in the sci-fi thriller Muddlin’ Through (as well as in the other two novels that follow in the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries” trilogy). She is framed for the murders of her sister and brother-in-law and the stealing of some “secret weapons” from the defense lab where the ex-USN Master-of-Arms works as a security guard. Her adventures are motivated by her desire to prove her innocence and revenge her relatives’ murders; they take her around the US, Europe, and South America. Despite her toughness, she can be a bit fragile…but I think that just makes her more human and caring.

Penny Castro. This ex-USN SAR sailor and LA County forensics diver fights to survive in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller The Last Humans, the first novel in yet another trilogy. She’s intelligent, creative, and resourceful and survives when most macho men would throw in the towel. She’s not the last human on Earth, but she initially thinks she is; yet she fights on, even against the fascist remains of the US government.

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I created Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden as an answer to the question: Why didn’t Agatha Christie ever put Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot together to solve a mystery? (Bastiann looks like the actor who played Poirot so often for the BBC.) That’s kind of a whimsical reason, especially considering that Esther Brookstone isn’t anything like the fragile old Miss Marple. (She’s younger at the beginning of the series and a stunner when she was earlier working as an MI6 spy in East Germany.)

Mary Jo Melendez in Muddlin’ Through and Penny Castro in The Last Humans gave me an opportunity to revisit some of my haunts when I was younger—Penny in SoCal and Mary Jo in Colombia. Esther Brookstone in Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder allowed me to revisit some others (Peru, Germany, Italy, and a few other European countries). Although you might have some doubts by now, I lived or worked in or visited none of these places where my kick-ass femme fatale characters strutted their stuff! I let my characters have rough-and-tumble adventures they endured as they saved the world as I sat back in my desk chair at my laptop enjoying their escapades…just as much as you will!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!

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“Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. Esther and Bastiann have a lot more adventures than those described here. This is a nine-book series where two of the novels are free PDF downloads (see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page). This series is a spin-off from the “Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” series and spins off to the “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy, That’s a lot of mystery/thriller stories for you to enjoy!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!