I just noticed a new trend in my most current books: Heartstone: The Time Walker (waiting for cover art) and book 5 in the Dave Brewster Series, entitled The Accord (currently around 50% complete). While I am not a vegetarian or anything like that, both of those books raise questions about the morality of consuming other living things.

In both novels, the food of choice is other humans, which I hope we can all agree is totally disgusting. In the following paragraphs from Time Walker, the bad guy, Os, justifies his appetite for humans by comparing it to the desire to eat any kind of living food:

“You suck the life force out of others to keep yourself alive,” Baku replied. “That seems pretty horrible to me.”

 Os laughed at the thought. “You think you are so pure and innocent, but almost all life feeds on life. The tubers in this stew were alive until you ripped them from the ground and sliced them up. When you wish to eat meat, you slaughter the animal, gut it and cook it in a pot. You take life so you can extend your own, just like me. We are all guilty of the same crime, but my method is not so barbaric. On my new planet, there live six billion sentient Beings. I can survive by taking only a fraction of a second from each every day. Those creatures have natural lives around one hundred years long. My nourishment may cost them an hour or two. No one is killed and sliced into steaks for me.

That bit of dialogue hit the paper without me even thinking about the words. Afterward, I wondered where that choice of words came from. Is someone trying to tell me something? Well, I don’t really know, but it’s an interesting thought that carries forward into The Accord. The bad guys in that book are not as kind to their prey as Os. And other than those few words above, Os is not so kind himself, which you’ll see when the cover is available. Please let me know what you think? And I hope you check those books out when they become available. Thank you for joining the adventure!

I belong to a LinkedIn group for Sci-Fi Readers, Writers, Collectors, and Artists at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=45166&trk=anet_ug_hm

This Month, I uploaded my first story to meet their Microstory guidelines of 4,000 characters or less. I’m attaching it here for your review. I really hope you enjoy it. My story is about love, piano keys, and a contradiction, which you can also follow in my new books:

Heartstone: The Time Walker

The Accord: Dave Brewster Series

Karl

Here is my new story: 8seconds

Writing these stories has given me a unique opportunity to look at the role faith plays in our lives. Since my books look at life on Earth as well as other planets, many of which have highly advanced alien societies, I’m left to imagine what their religions and beliefs would be. Our little planet has been home to many great people whose beliefs gave rise to the world’s religions. I suppose it is possible those same souls appeared on other planets, probably in native bodies. Gallicean prophets would be featherless bird-like creatures living on ice islands floating over gas giant planets. Maklan saints would be crystalline spiders who can teleport themselves across space.

Alternatively, the founders of religions on those planets could be new and radically different. The one thing that binds them all together is their belief in something greater than themselves. Faith is an important part of my life and I was not about to leave it out of my writing. I want my heroes to be men and women of honor, integrity and faith, although the specifics of what they believe are deliberately left out. The goal is to demonstrate how their belief systems help them to overcome incredible odds to defeat evil and save their friends.

To be sure, my books are about adventure without the boundaries of our current scientific knowledge or the vastness of space. While there is some debate in the Dave Brewster Series about the line between physical and spiritual reality, that is never the focus of the plot. I view the inclusion of spirituality as just another way to show the similarities among people and other civilizations who live throughout this amazing universe.

HeartstoneChapter

The link above will download a copy of Chapter 5 of Heartstone: Sentinels of Far Sun. This is the chapter where our hero, Bill Marshall, first discovers what a Heartstone is. Please let me know what you think. If it sounds interesting, you can purchase the paperback on this website, or the paperback or e-book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

TearsChapter40

This link downloads Chapter 40 of Tears of Gallia, the 4th book in the Dave Brewster Series. This chapter deals with a Brotherhood attack on the Gallicean system, and the abduction of our hero. As above, please let me know what you think. Tears official publication date is June 1, so look for it soon. Both editions are already on Amazon today.

On June 1, 2013, I will have the honor to attend the Local Author Meet and Greet at the Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore at 7051 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard in San Diego. I will be joining a select group of great authors of Sci-Fi and Fantasy books to present our efforts to the local community. I am thrilled with the opportunity to showcase my books in such a wonderful place. I hope you will join us for this special event between 3pm and 5pm on Saturday, June 1.

There will be special pricing and I will be very happy to discuss my books and autograph any copies you may wish to purchase. I look forward to meeting as many current and potential new fans as possible.

I will present the first four books of the Dave Brewster Series and book one of the Heartstone Series. Copies of book four might be late (Tears of Gallia?), but I will happily send Tears of Gallia to those anxious to see what happens to Dave Brewster next.

If you have any questions or comments about this event, please review the bookstore’s website at www.mystgalaxy.com or call them at 858-268-4747.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Dear readers,

I have spent some time updating my site. Each book deserves to have its own page. Now when you click on either the Dave Brewster Series or Heartstone Series links, you will find a page showing the covers and titles of each. Clicking on them will take you to a more detailed description and some of my thinking behind each work.

I encourage you to post on any page with your comments about my books or any other ideas you might have. I appreciate all feedback and will try to answer all your questions promptly.

Thanks again for reading my works.

My next books deal with traveling backward in time. In both, the antagonist is desperate for revenge against our heroes who stopped them from fulfilling their evil schemes.

Book 4 of the Dave Brewster Series is called Tears of Gallia. The villain travels to the future to strand Dave on a remote planet in the distant past. But that is just the backup plan. Then he travels into the past to kill Dave when he was an out-of-work accountant, long before he ventured into the stars.

Book 2 of the Heartstone Series is called The Time Walker (a little obvious I admit). In this book, the bad guys are willing to change the history of the world to make sure Bill Marshall cannot complete the journey that defeated them in Book 1, Sentinels of Far Sun.

I am keenly interested in cosmology and quantum mechanics. It seems every time we learn a steadfast rule, someone proves it wrong. Can we travel to the past, or do the laws of Nature or God keep that from happening? Just today, I learned of 2 new studies that question whether the speed of light is really constant. I can’t imagine how much our view of reality will change if light turns out to have an accelerator and brake pedal.

Dear readers,

The e-book for Heartstone: Sentinels of Far Sun has been uploaded to both Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. If your Kindle or Nook is hungry, please check them out. It takes a bit for those sites to approve what I sent, but they should be for sale tomorrow or Monday at the latest.

As always, I appreciate your reviews of my works, as well as any ideas for new stories or improvements. E-mail me at karl@karljmorgan.com. Thanks again.

Dear friends,

E-book versions of The Second Predaxian War and The Hive are now available in the Amazon Kindle Store and the Barnes+Noble Nook Store.

Thank you for your continued readership. Let me know what you think about my books by posting a comment on my website, or e-mail me at karl@karljmorgan.com.

Last night, the San Diego Public Library held an event to recognize San Diego County authors. It was my pleasure to be there. There were over 200 people in attendance and the variety of folks and their works were amazing. It is great to be considered one of their peers.

We each received a medal (ooh!) and our books will be on display in the library throughout the month of February. This was the 47th annual event, and I think this is a great thing for them to do. I certainly enjoyed meeting many authors there, including David Brin, who was there with his latest work.

Here are a couple pix from the event. Thank you for your continued readership.