His health had dwindled and his marriage collapsed. But as he’d delved through the boot-load of artifacts, he’d found in their details a new lease on life. Invigorated, he’d regained his zest to make LifeGames great again.
Watching the trade winds fleck white horses off the tops of swells, Henry marveled anew how fortunate he had become. Quite why, he did not know, but only days before his death, Ken had lodged a new Will and Testament with his private attorney; that Will made Henry his sole heir.
Naturally, Ken’s estranged family had crept out of the woodwork and challenged the peculiarity of it. But by the time it came to court under an urgent interdict, Henry had experience a change of heart; gone was his amicable sense of playing it fair… if Ken wanted him to have full control of the empire he’d built, far be it for him to denounce that. It was the first time Henry had actively wondered how Ken would handle a situation like this, so he’d brought certain pressure to bear on the scavengers trying to steal his rightful good fortune, and they’d neatly dropped the action.
Time Dilation was another fabulous “what would Ken do?” question he’d asked himself. Happily, it was back achieving results beyond even those Ken had posted before he’d lost his way. The company had doubled in size since his death.
Henry’s thoughts now turned to Nancy and her sidekick Catherine; hysterical bitches that they were, making up stories and going to the press about things they simply weren’t smart enough to understand. Fortunately only the Tabloid press would print such tripe. Fortunately, all of the legitimate press were LifeGames clients and knew better.
“Women…!” He huffed and laughed. Their accusation that he’d become just like Ken was a sentiment he was beginning to see as a compliment. The way they were carrying on, he’d probably have to deal with them as Ken would have dealt with them.
THE END
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In 1995 while sitting on a beach near the village of Nerja in southern Spain, a story jumped into my head; I picked up a pencil and began to write furiously. Nobody was more amazed than I was when, a mere 2 weeks later, I put the pencil aside—the holiday was over, but there it lay, a complete and quite complex novel with all kinds of interesting plot twists.
What to do with it?
I typed it out and then went and did other things, business mostly. Indeed, for twenty more years I did other things.
Then, after publishing my second novel (first), “A TROJAN AFFAIR – The S.K.A. at Carnarvon”, I started thinking about that first novel; I gave it a read and thought, “Hey, this is good.”
So… here it is.
My blanket gratitude to the thousands of people in life and on social media who have helped me to grasp new ways of looking at the world.
A special “thank you” to my darling, Kirstin Engelbrecht, for once again putting up with me in all ways and so much hard work; and for prompting me to resurrect this. Most particularly, thank you for working like, dare I say it… a demon… to get this done.
To the many many Beta readers who gave feedback thank you; Colleen Balfour, Anneke Bright, Luzelle Poppie Davids, Peter J. Earle, Caity Farley, Barbara George, Tanja Kirkham, Jill Goldschmidt, Glenn Goldswain, Sian Lilford… there are so many I have heard snippets from; but I’m in a rush to get this out before the festive season takes hold, I’ll certainly include you in the next reprint. Special thanks to Carel Hauptfleisch whose enthusiasm for the story and edits were invaluable. I’m most grateful to Roy Herold for your excellent input.
A huge special thanks you Alastair Crewe for your conception and design of the cover—I think it looks absolutely fantastic; as the book finds traction, the reward will flow back to you.
About the Author
Michael Smorenburg
Born in 1964, I grew up in a fabulously stable family with incredible siblings and an embracing community. I also landed with my derrière firmly in the proverbial butter in another way; home was a piece of paradise; the beach community of Clifton, Cape Town, South Africa.
Today, Clifton is world renowned as a playground of the super-rich, but back then it was all a boy could want; a wild and bounteous southern ocean on the doorstep flanked by towering mountains on all sides, and precious few rules in between.
It was there that I fell in love with adventure and nature, and these in tern prompted in my endless questions about what made everything tick. It set me on a course to understand science.
In my mid 20’s, the travel bug bit, and when my head cleared, it was the millennium and I found myself living in San Diego, California, founding an online marketing company—but Africa has a heavy gravity, and I was drawn back home, where I have happily remained.
Humans are, of course, the universe finding out about itself. We are of nature; we are matter… the stuff of stars, all too briefly made conscious and self-aware. Each of us is privileged to add our small voice to the symphony of life.
“A Trojan Affair – The S.K.A. at Carnarvon” (and my other books) is my small contribution into that great chorus.
Wherever you may be in time and place, it’s been a very great privilege to entertain and now chat to you.
Please do keep the conversation moving.
www.MichaelSmorenburg.com
Book details follow:
“A Trojan Affair” is my first novel–it explores actual unfolding events.
Here’s the book’s blurb
The silent heavens stretched above a pious town, locked in the grip of drought, have become valuable beyond measure—the fracking bounty below its feet… irresistible.
When Dara, 17, half Indian and raised in Oxford, England, arrives in the heartland of a Calvinist bible belt—a place his astrophysicist mother has come to build the biggest infrastructure in the history of science, the $2.5-Billion SKA radio telescope—he becomes the lightening rod for the town’s anger and suspicion of outsiders.
Based on actual unfolding events, A Trojan Affair is a contemporary geopolitical thriller where science, religion, politics, greed and racism collide, tearing a community apart and setting generations against one another.
“The Praying Nun” is my third novel–actually, at just 126 pages, it’s a novella.
It is the true account a slave ship that wrecked with 400 aboard just behind the waves in one of the world’s mot beautiful bays, now a playground of the super-rich: Clifton.
The wreck was discovered and salvage-registered by a friend of mine when we were still teenagers. At that time we had no idea what the wreck was – but in 2015 it was Identified as a slaver by the Smithsonian in Washington, DC—where the cherished artifacts like the ones we lifted are on display.
Here’s the book’s blurb
A TRUE STORY OF DISCOVERY AND EXCAVATION, 1985
A LOVE STORY OF TERROR AND TRAGEDY, 1794
1794—Naked and shackled, Chikunda, a newly wedded man who cannot hold his tongue is heaved aboard the slaver São José off the coast of Mozambique, bound for the slave markets of Brazil.
Once below decks, down in the stinking holds with 400 naked captives, he instinctively knows that it will all be over… Faith, his new bride, will be lost to him.
Chikunda desperately needs a plan… and Chikunda always has a plan.
But on this voyage, fate has other plans.
“Ragnarok” is my fourth novel–A Top Secret high-science experiment rips a hole in spacetime, and through that portal come some of the most feared warr
iors in history.
Here’s the book’s blurb
Ragnarok… Armageddon… Worlds Collide
Tegan Mulholland is a Hollywood Exec flying Paris to LA.
Off the coast of Newfoundland an event will change her life.
South of Australia, on the other side of the globe, a secret NASA Warp Drive test backfires—a column of spacetime warps in an unexpected way and two passenger planes ahead of Tegan’s wink off the radar.
As the world deals with the seismic events and recriminations that follow, an instinct for connecting dots convinces Tegan that the sudden spate of brutal massacres along the Newfoundland coast is far more sinister than the Hells Angel turf war the authorities are claiming.
The key to the truth lies in the hands of Pete, the charming arms-dealer she sat next to on the fateful flight… the man Tegan has secretly fallen in love with.
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