I just published my fifth science-fiction novel, Goddess of the Gillani. Ever since I was twelve years old, I've wanted to publish a book. It didn't matter if it was fiction or non-fiction or even some random poetry; any book would do as long as it could sit on my bookshelf along with all of the other books. About a year-and-a-half ago, my dream finally came true with the release of The Chaos Machine. A book that was intended to be much longer, it languished for seven years as I poked and prodded at it, never quite getting anywhere. At the beginning of the summer of 2016, my wife asked me, "Are you ever going to finish the damned thing?" I promised her that it would be done by the end of the summer and so I put in the hours to try and make it happen. By the time that August rolled around, I had churned out over 85,000 words into something that was nowhere near the end of my story, as I envisioned it. However, I was able to bring things to a somewhat satisfactory ending and it was finally published on August 14, 2016.
I had tried to make the book into a standalone novel that had no sequel, but a number of people wanted me to continue the story, so I wrote a second novel called Second Contact. While the focus of the first novel was the historic influence of aliens on human society since 5,342 BC, the second one explored the influence of humanity on these same aliens 5,342 years from now. This novel centers around the antics of a nineteen-year-old human and her discovery of an alien probe. An incident that ultimately leads to her upending the alien Empire that had languished for millions of years. How mankind's transition came about between the two novels was never adequately explained, because I still hadn't managed to get around to the main idea behind the original book.
The third, and final, book of what is now The Chaos Trilogy, explains how humanity advanced from the first novel to the second. Both novels referenced the "Final Blackout," when a coronal mass ejection from the sun destroys all of our electrical and electronic devices and the third book, Mankind 2.0, begins with this event. Unlike other post-apocalyptic novels, however, mankind survives thanks to the introduction of alien technology that is provided by The ACME Corporation. Referenced many times in the first two novels, ACME's origins are finally explained along with the ultimate solution to man's long-term survival. It also clarifies that the original aliens are all clones, having lost the ability to reproduce naturally some three-and-a-half million years ago.
In response to demands for more stories about Cassiopeia Evanland, the nineteen-year-old protagonist of Second Contact, I wrote a sequel called Colony Ship New Hope (New Haven or Bust!) in which she discovers a four-million-year-old colony ship that had never awakened thanks to a technical glitch. In the process of helping these aliens establish a foothold on a new planet, it is learned that they are the ancient ancestors of the current Empire and, unlike the current clones, can still reproduce the good old-fashioned way.
In response to feedback from these two Cassiopeia Adventures, the Goddess of the Gillani picks up where Colony Ship New Hope left off. Not everyone is happy with the changes brought about by Cassiopeia and, as a result of deliberate sabotage, she finds herself in a galaxy far, far, away after a Bad Jump. As she learns, however, she is not the first to arrive from another part of the Universe. Some 300,000 years earlier, another alien had landed in her escape pod and was treated as a goddess by the native tribes she encountered. When Cassiopeia arrives, she is mistaken for the goddess due to her uncanny resemblance to the Ancient.
All of the books of The Chaos Series are available on Amazon, of course.
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