A Little More About The Coming New Titles In The Quantum Series

ChristinaEngela

1 year ago

Hello, friends and fans!

For the past seven years I’ve been crafting a story arc set within the Quantum Series that – starting with book 5 (“Prodigal Sun“) and spanning books 6, 7, 8 and 9 – takes the quirky characters and residents of the planet Deanna through their darkest, most uncertain times yet.

Right now, the first two books in that story arc already available since 2017, and the third (7) only just completed and awaiting publication. The last two are still currently in the works and all three books should be available within the next few months – and definitely before the end of 2023.

With these pending works nearing completion, this is the perfect opportunity give you a little more detail about the story being told across these five extraordinary books!

A brief introduction to the Quantum Series:

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Life out on the frontier of space isn’t always easy, and there are things that make living on the planet Deanna a mite more interesting than on more civilized Human colonies – including the unique locals, the weird wildlife – and diverse alien tourists, immigrants and refugees.

The Quantum Series is sci-fi, with a dash of fantasy and a pinch of thriller thrown in, set on Deanna, a backwater Terran colony on the fringes of known space – which orbits a star named Ramalama, and has two mad little moons named Ding and Dong (this is a local joke).

A cast of recurring characters must overcome diabolical schemes, sinister villains, invading aliens – Human nature – and whatever daunting obstacles they encounter in their adventures together.

Quantum fits firmly into the science fiction genre, falling somewhere in the scope of “space opera” and “adventure” sub-genres. Like much of my writing, it’s characterized by my unique (and often strange) sense of humor – but also features elements like time travel and, from time to time, more unexpected items such as vampires. I also use a lot of LGBT characters in leading roles in this series specifically.

Quantum is set in the same ‘universe’ or timeline as the Galaxii Series, and centers around an entirely new cast of characters and settings.

The original list of titles in the series includes:

The present story arc in the series comprises five titles:

The over-all storyline of this story arc is as follows:

Books 5-9 center around a sudden, hostile fascist hijacking and takeover of the Terran colony – built against the background of a slow, subtle rise in right-wing infiltrations, which had taken place unnoticed until it was too late – and which ultimately erupts into a full-blown uncivil war by the end of book 6.

A variety of heroes and villains arises from the stock of already established – and new characters, and there are more than a couple of fools between them.

The Terran governor of the colony is deposed and must go into hiding, while the new totalitarian rulers of Deanna make the absolute most of their time in charge. They round up people they deem “undesirable” and cart them away to a concentration camp called Xanadu, and immediately begin to cement their hold on power.

In the meantime, their sponsors – powerful and wealthy people back on Earth, continue to pour resources into the project. More privately built warships are being sent to Deanna to defend the breakaway colony from the Terran Space Fleet – which is still in the dark about the revolution even taking place! One special ship is sent carrying equipment dedicated to forming a sort of quantum bubble around Deanna’s solar system to isolate it from outside access – which will put them out of reach of the Space Fleet and the Terran Empire forever.

Against this background of uncertainty, the people of Deanna continue trying to make sense of everything that is happening around them, and inevitably, find themselves choosing sides. Rallying around the deposed Governor Landry, a rag-tag clutter of volunteers rapidly gathers to fight the fascists, consisting largely of retired old soldiers and inexperienced civilians willing to sacrifice all in the name of freedom. The Loyalist Militia must eventually face off against the well-drilled Deannan Republican Army in their tailored, snappy uniforms. Also drawn into the fray are familiar faces like Gary Beck, Cindy-Mei Winter, Sheriff Peggy-Ann Muller, Fred the Arborian, Albrecht (of Albrecht’s Takeaways), Giggling Harry, Jenny and Danielle Grauffis, Dr. Gleichstein und Vluffy, Time Agents Johnathan Scrooby and Guy Krummeck, Timaset Skooch and Dory, and the crew of the loderunner Celeste – and the entire Skeggs Valley Dynamite Fishing Club.

Among the new faces are Marla de Bris, Uncle Vernon and Lirian Nimah (all secret vampires); a bounty hunter called Tracey Ferris, a vampire hunter called Brandon Carver, a university professor called James Eregut McMillen – and a neo-Nazi sergeant major who bounces when he barks, called Luciferus Krant. There’s also a host of other bad guys and villains, all crawling out of the woodwork as the story progresses. Many of the characterizations of these villains are rooted in real-life individuals in politics around the world in current events right now, and if you’re astute enough, you can probably join the dots!

The villains in this story-arc are fascists or neo-Nazis – and accordingly, they hate the usual sort of people – which I’ve characterized in a more modern sense as people of color (including non-Human aliens and vampires), and non-Christians (including “unauthorized” denominations of Christianity, which in the story implies everyone except adherents of the fictitious Reformed Puritan Church), and “deviants” which includes LGBT+ people. Believe me, being part of at least two of these groups myself, writing these stories has been a terrifying journey down a pretty dark road within my own spirit itself! This alone is the main reason why it’s taken me seven years to get this far with the remaining stories – because I knew what darkness awaited me in putting it all together! Of course, the finished products will be nowhere near as dark, it was the research and the getting myself in-character to write it!

I don’t really write “gags” in my stories, but there are a lot of funny scenes to “break” the darkness, so this is definitely satire – and it definitely fits in nicely with the rest of the series. Satire is aimed at the powerful – if you’re making fun of people who are vulnerable and hurting, that’s not satire, it’s just bullying. I do take pleasure in satire.

Unfortunately, life isn’t all about good times and funny moments – so this group of books is centered around a darkness very much like the sort of darkness we see reflected in the world around us today.

It’s a very difficult thing for a writer to be able to balance satire and funny scenes with emotional dramas and horrifying experiences endured by some of the characters without the result being unrealistic or unconvincing, or being disrespectful or just callous. I hope I’ve managed to find this balance, as has been my intent all along.

One of the sub-plots running through all these stories, is that of Danielle, a young transwoman captured by the fascists and sent to their concentration camp, Xanadu. There, by means of hunger, thirst and exposure, the inmates are disposed of. The Human body can only survive about three days without water intake, making it a fairly speedy process, so thousands die pretty rapidly. This particular sub-plot revolves around her arrival at Xanadu, and the quest of some of the main characters to find and rescue her from that fate, and this runs through several of these stories.

Another of the sub-plots revolves around time-travel, and while the activities of the Time Saving Agency (TSA) and the time agent Johnathan Scrooby are already well-known to Gary Beck and Cindy-Mei Winter, Scrooby draws them in deeper in these later stories, to assist him to shorten the duration of the Deannan Uncivil War, reduce suffering and speed it all up – while not breaking the laws governing time-travel. In so doing, Gary and Mei are equipped with their own Remotes, and basically set out to speed up the whole process by inventing shortcuts and messing with the villains in amusing ways.

In another sub-plot, Marla de Bris, a 200 year old vampire (going on 20), must build – from scratch – an underground resistance movement to undermine the control of the fascists in all three major cities on Deanna, which she achieves by means of sabotage and careful use of intelligence gathering.

Another centers on the rise of the Militia, its formation and training and eventual confrontations with the well-trained and equipped private army of the fascists.

A lot of these books is a satirical – and sociological look at current affairs. In some ways, it’s a damning indictment because these stories are a warning – of how casually and lackadaisically we’ve dealt with history in the last half century. Instead of taking the events leading up to the Holocaust as a warning and heeding that warning, ignorance and prejudice has been allowed to thrive unchecked and to foment and even rise up hatefully in various places around the world – even amongst ostensibly civilized cultures and nations – where today there are political parties participating in government and law-making which work to destroy vulnerable portions of their own societies. There are even people among us today who, shockingly – at the peak of willful ignorance, don’t believe the Holocaust even happened!

Whether based on ethnicity, religion, gender, race, sexual orientation or gender identity, the Nazis are still here – and instead of being stamped out and their ilk properly educated to prevent their continuation, they’re being entertained, pandered to, tolerated and encouraged and emboldened. There’s a time for making fun of skinheads and conservatives wearing tight underwear, and there’s a time for taking action; and as long as that malpractice continues, we will continue to live in the shadow of the reality that – unlike the slogan on the Holocaust memorial which says “Never Again” – those terrible things can always happen again.

Aside from that stygian theme, there is so much of myself I’ve pored into these books that there’s more than enough entertainment, action, humor and emotion to make up for the serious undertones. It’s always nice to watch tyrants fall and villains getting their come-uppance. Karma is a biatch, and she’s very much at work in these books. As a matter of fact, there are sections of each of them that I myself found to be side-splittingly funny even while I was writing them!

There’s also a lot of “moments” in these books, things that are deep and meaningful to me. This is the essence of why I love writing so much, because each project – every individual story – is chock-full of the things that connect us to our humanity and to ourselves. As a friend of mine who was a keen people watcher and student of human nature used to tell me, people are funny animals. They are indeed.

At present I’ve been writing all three remaining books at one go. Yes, it’s tiring having to keep track of everything between all three (actually five) books – but it’s also been immensely rewarding – and a lot of fun! It’s also quite something to watch it all take shape and come together! With book 7 already finished and ready to publish, I’m now working on books 8 and 9 simultaneously, and their wordcounts go up virtually on a daily basis. Today might be an exception because I’ve been out running errands – and writing this article!