Gravity Storm
Page 24
"We're sure you'll do an amazing job," said Jack. "And we look forward to paying a return visit under happier circumstances when you're further along with your negotiations to align with the Etheric Empire."
"Yeah," agreed Tc'aarlat. "They're not too bad, as all-powerful, galaxy-wide invaders go!"
"I see you've adopted your mom's political colors," said Adina.
Mas Val glanced down at her dress, then nodded. "They kinda suit me, I guess. Thank you for everything you've done for Alma Nine."
"You're more than welcome," said Jack. "And, if you ever need us again, we'll be waiting in the shadows to hear from you."
The trio fell silent as Solo cut the communication link, then continued her preparations for take-off.
"The Shadows," mused Adina aloud. "I like that."
"Actually, I do, too," said Tc'aarlat. "You know, in a kind of 'always there, yet remaining hidden' kind of way."
"Sounds good to me," said Jack. "OK... Solo, please send word to Nathan Lowell that we are now officially known as The Shadows."
"Certainly, Captain Marber," responded the E.I. "But not until Tc'aarlat listens to my request to fasten his safety belt so we can take off!"
"This again?!" spat Tc'aarlat, pulling the belt across himself and fumbling through his cape to locate the buckle. You know, Solo... Keep this up and you'll very quickly start to - as you humans like to say - rub me off the wrong way!"
The Yollin scowled as the other two Shadows' laughter filled the air. "What did I say this time?" he demanded.
Jack winked to Adina. "Are you going to tell him, or shall I?"
FINIS
Author Notes - Tom Dublin
February 2018
Hello! I’m debut author, Tom Dublin.
Actually, that’s not true at all. Forget I said it.
I’ll start again...
Hello! I’m UK-based author, Tommy Donbavand. However, as most of my 100+ published books to date have been for children and young readers, I’m calling myself Tom Dublin as a pen name so that kids can’t accidentally stumble across these novels and read anything inappropriate.
Such as one character calling another a ‘cockwomble’ or a ‘grade-A ferret fister’, or a line of dialogue claiming ‘a chubby secretary broke his dick’.
See what I mean?
So, for all of my indie books aimed at adult readers – including the novels I write in the Kurtherian Universe - I’ll be Tom Dublin. And I don’t mind you knowing that one bit.
I’m incredibly grateful to Michael Anderle for the opportunity to write the Shadow Vanguard series, and to Craig Martelle for ensuring I didn’t stray from the path and write anything that fans of the Age of Expansion wouldn’t enjoy.
That opportunity came when Michael found out that I was in poor health.
In March 2016, I was diagnosed with inoperable stage four throat cancer, and I quickly underwent intensive courses of both radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Almost immediately afterwards, I contracted double pneumonia and sepsis, and was rushed into Intensive Care where my family was informed that, unless I started to respond to treatment, I had approximately two hours left to live.
I even remember experiencing the whole ‘white light’ situation. It was that close.
Thankfully, I did respond, spending a week in ICU, and then another month on a cancer ward for further tests and treatment.
When I was finally allowed home, I struggled to both speak and eat. I was very overweight when first diagnosed – tipping the scales at 312 pounds. Over the next year, I would lose 189 of those, ending up at just 123 pounds and resembling a badly wrapped skeleton. As you can imagine, this left me very weak indeed.
I slowly began to recover, gradually putting weight back on, learning to walk again (albeit with the use of a cane), eating small amounts of soft food and undergoing speech therapy until I could make myself understood.
But, there was nothing that could be done to revive my career.
I’d lost almost all of my children’s book work, and I could no longer visit schools to teach creative writing and help promote a love of reading for pleasure.
Suddenly, life was even more of a struggle.
Then Michael contacted me, and asked if I’d like to write in the Kurtherian Universe, and I jumped at the chance.
It took me a lot longer than I’d hoped to write this first book, Gravity Storm, not least because – after being cancer free for over a year – I was told the disease had returned, this time in my lungs.
However, now that I’ve nailed down my three main characters – Jack, Adina and Tc’aarlat – their ship and E.I. Solo, and the way they receive their missions from Nathan Lowell, I’ll be able to write the next books much faster.
I will be going into treatment for my lung cancer at some stage, but I promise not to make you wait too long for further adventures from The Shadows.
You may also be interested to learn that I have previous experience of writing in a successful sci-fi universe. As a lifelong fan of Doctor Who, I was thrilled to be commissioned by BBC Books to write a novel to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the TV show, back in 2013. The result was Shroud of Sorrow, featuring the Eleventh Doctor, as portrayed by Matt Smith, and his companion, Clara.
I even wrote a series of my own with both vampires and werewolves among the main characters! Scream Street is a collection of 13 books aimed at 7 to 11 year old kids which has now been adapted by the BBC as a stop-motion animated TV show! And it looks great!
Scream Street currently plays in the UK, Australia, Central America, Germany and many other countries worldwide. The producers are still negotiating with several US broadcasters, and I’ll be sure to announce which channel the show will appear on as soon as I know myself.
In addition to writing more Shadow Vanguard books, I’ll also be launching my own indie published series this year (2018). If you’d like to hear further details as they become available AND receive a free short story giving you a taster of what is to come, please visit my Tom Dublin website and sign up for my, er... his newsletter here...
www.tomdublin.com/free
Finally, I’d like to thank you for reading this book. I’m incredibly grateful that you chose to spend some of your time in the company of The Shadows.
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to hit me up online. You can find me on Facebook under my real name, on the Tom Dublin page, and in the excellent Kurtherian Gambit Group For Fans And Authors.
I always do my best to reply.
Tom Dublin (and Tommy Donbavand)
February 2018
PS – BIG shout out to Kurtherian gambit fan, John Reilly, who was the inspiration for the character of Jon Rey in this book. Sorry for the grizzly death, man.
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Written February 9, 2018
First, THANK YOU for not only reading this book, but these authors notes as well!
I was able to meet Tommy D. last weekend in Runnymede-on-the-Thames just outside of London last weekend.
Two things: the first is Barry Hutchison (Tommy’s best man at his wedding and an author himself) is flipping tall, which makes Tommy D. seem short by comparison. (Don’t worry, Barry makes me look short as well.) The reason I bring Barry up is because he was instrumental with me reaching out to Tommy.
Tommy Donbavand is a freaking legend in his area of expertise, and had written for Doctor Who. I didn’t want my offer to see if he would care to write in the Kurtherian Universe to be understood as anything less than an offer to see if he would like to write in a genre where he wouldn’t need to go to schools as part of the sales pitch efforts.
You know, for adults.
And, who the hell was I to ask someone of his stature? So, I chickened out.
I called his best friend and pitched Barry, first.
It went something like this:
Mike (on Facebook): Barry, this is Michael Anderle. I was wondering if I could chat with you for a moment
on the phone or Skype regarding Tommy’s situation?
Barry (on Facebook): Sure (or something nice like this… the exact words are fuzzy. Barry’s Scottish, so who the hell knows…but, I translated it as ‘sure.’)
We setup a call, and I get Barry on the phone to talk a bit about Tommy, and I pitch Barry with my offer to see if he thought Tommy would be interested. Now, I wanted to help but let’s be real, I didn’t want to be embarrassed either because…
Once again, TOMMY DONBAVAND.
Barry thought Tommy would be receptive and the rest is now history. He accepted my offer and if you have read Tommy’s notes, you know what he went through before he was able to write again.
Now, let’s fast forward to Craig Martelle, the Age of Expansion manager.
A few weeks ago, he and I had been discussing Tommy’s challenges and he told me that he was expecting Tommy’s book soon. Both he and I were waiting, anxiously, to see what Tommy had written.
The challenge is neither of us knew if Tommy’s skills were transferrable, or how much we might have to tweak the story and soon enough, we had our answers.
Craig texts me in Slack, “Got Tommy D’s script. It’s fabulous!”
And that, was that. There were a few tweaks to change some characters that needed to be switched out, and we are blessed to have a freaking wonderful author here in the Age of Expansion.
Now, for that second thing (that I mentioned above.)
When I met Tommy this past weekend, it was towards the evening and I meet him and Barry in the back of the room (it was full of authors) and Tommy says ‘hi’ and ‘I’ll see you later’ because he has run out of energy, and has to go to his room. However, he promises to be back the next day, because he is ABSOLUTELY going to heckle Barry during his presentation.
I can’t remember any heckling, but I trust that he might have done it.
The thing is, Tommy is shorter than I am. But, his charisma even through the situation with lost weight, lost energy and EVERYTHING… is still jaw-dropping amazing to me.
I parted company with him as he went to his room, and I remember thinking that I really, really wished he would be around that evening during the after dinner meetings that would be going on so I could speak with him.
Just from that two minutes of introduction with him and Barry.
It’s kinda nuts as I think back to it. This man, whom I don’t know well, has me wishing I could just sit and talk with him and wondering just what stories he would be able to tell me.
Now, we have one here, and I’m damned proud to know it is in the Kurtherian Universe.
Thank you for reading this story, and I hope you enjoyed this and then the next one, and the next one after that and so on, and so on…
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Connect with the Authors
TOM DUBLIN
Website: http://www.tomdublin.com
Newsletter sign-up page: http://www.tomdublin.com/free
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tomdublinauthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomdublinauthor
MICHAEL ANDERLE
Website: http://kurtherianbooks.com/
Email List: http://kurtherianbooks.com/email-list/
Facebook Here: https://www.facebook.com/TheKurtherianGambitBooks/
Books by Tom Dublin
Kurthurian Gambit Universe - Shadow Vanguard Series
Gravity Storm (01)
Scream Street Series
Fang of the Vampire
Blood of the Witch
Heart of the Mummy
Flesh of the Zombie
Skull of the Skeleton
Claw of the Werewolf
Invasion of the Normals
Attack of the Trolls
Terror of the Nightwatchman
Rampage of the Goblins
Hunger of the Yeti
Secret of the Changeling
Flame of the Dragon
Wail of the Banshee
Gloves of the Ghoulkeeper
Shiver of the Phantom
Negatives Attract
A Sneer Death Experience
Unwanted Guests
Looks Like Trouble
Fangs: Vampire Spy Series
Operation: Golden Bum
Codename: The Tickler
Assignment: Royal Rescue
Target: Nobody
Project: Wolf World
Mission: Lullaby
Snow-Man Series
Hot Hot Hot!
Stone Age!
What A Drip!
Windy-Pops!
It's A Gas!
Cold Front!
Hot! Hot! Hot! The Play
Space Hoppers Series
Mudmen from Mars
Silence on Saturn
Undead of Uranus
Nursery on Neptune
Victory for Venus
Panic on Pluto
Jailbreak on Jupiter
Monsters on Mercury
End-Game on Earth
Time Trek Series
Rampage Through Rome
Nightmare Near the Nile
Chaos in Camelot
Emergency for England
Frantic in France
Grief by The Globe
Skirmish at Sea
War Over Waterloo
Doctor Who
Shroud of Sorrow
Tommy Donbavand's Funny Shorts:
My Granny Bit My Bum
Duck
Night of the Toddlers
Viking Kong
The Curious Case of the Panicky Parrot
Invasion of Badger's Bottom
Dinner Ladies of Doooooom!
There's a Time Portal in My Pants
Other Books
Princess Frog-Snogger
They Came From Class 6c!
Our Head Teacher is a Super-Villain
Cyber Shock
The Terrible Tale of Melody Doom
Once Upon a Time
Zombie!
Uniform
Wolf
Virus
Save the Day
The Sand Witch
Blast to the Past
My Teacher Ate My Brain
Home
Kidnap
Ward 13
Dead Scared
Copy Cat
Just Bite
Raven
Annie
Ringtone
The Girl in the Wall
MC Cesar
Graphic Novels
The Head is Dead
The Colony
Non-Fiction
Shakespeare
Making a Drama Out of a Crisis
Quick Fixes For Bored Kids
More Quick Fixes For Bored Kids
Quick Fixes For Kids' Parties
Boredom Busters
13 Steps to Beating Writers' Block
Tommy V Cancer
101 Stunning Story Starters
Too Ghoul For School Series
(Writing as B. Strange)
Terror in Cubicle Four
Silent But Deadly
School Spooks Day
Attack of the Zombie Nits
A Fete Worse Than Death
The Creeper Files Series
(Writing as Hacker Murphy)
Root of All Evil
Terror From The Taps
Books by Michael Anderle
For a complete list of Kurtherian Gambit Universe
books please click this link.
Kurtherian Gambit Series Titles Include:
FIRST ARC
Death Becomes Her (01) - Queen Bitch (02) - Love Lost (03) - Bite This (04) - Never Forsaken (05) - Under My Heel (06) - Kneel Or Die (07)
SECOND ARC
We Will Build (08) - It’s Hell To Choose (09) - Release The Dogs of War (10) -
Sued For Peace (11) - We Have Contact (12) - My Ride is a Bitch (13) - Don’t Cross This Line (14)
THIRD ARC
Never Sub
mit (15) - Never Surrender (16) - Forever Defend (17) - Might Makes Right (18) - Ahead Full (19) - Capture Death (20) - Life Goes On (21)
THE SECOND DARK AGES
* with Ell Leigh Clarke *
The Dark Messiah (01)- The Darkest Night (02) -
Darkest Before The Dawn (03) - Dawn Arrives (04)
THE BORIS CHRONICLES
* with Paul C. Middleton *
Evacuation (1) - Retaliation (2) - Revelations (3) - Redemption (04)
RECLAIMING HONOR
* with Justin Sloan *
Justice Is Calling (01) - Claimed By Honor (02) -
Judgement Has Fallen (03) - Angel of Reckoning (04) -
Born Into Flames (05) - Defending The Lost (06) - Saved By Valor (07) - Return of Victory (08)
THE ETHERIC ACADEMY
* with TS PAUL *
ALPHA CLASS (01) - ALPHA CLASS - Engineering (02)
TERRY HENRY “TH” WALTON CHRONICLES
* with Craig Martelle *
Nomad Found (01) - Nomad Redeemed (02) -
Nomad Unleashed (03) - Nomad Supreme (04) -
Nomad’s Fury (05) - Nomad’s Justice (06) - Nomad Avenged (07) - Nomad Mortis (08) - Nomad’s Force (09) - Nomad’s Galaxy (10)
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS