SUMMER IS COMING – I PROMISE
Time once again for String’s annual post of shameless self promotion.
Summer 2021 rental reservations have opened for our beach place on Cape Cod. It’s in North Truro, just over a mile from the Provincetown line.
Reservations can be made at the Kinlan-Grover website. For some reason the link has changed this year, wiping out the prior years’ reviews and feedback. But it’s still the same place, same amenities, and is already filling fast with repeaters from prior years. Prices vary by week, and there are significant savings in the shoulder seasons.
While I’m at it, how about something to read while you self-isolate on the beach?
Fernando’s catalog continues to grow. Of course I am biased, but I do recommend all of these most wholeheartedly.
Fractured Symmetry
The first of a burgeoning science fiction/mystery series. This collection of stories features a strong woman of action and a reclusive alien genius as the detectives. It’s fast plotted, tight and full of compelling characters, alien cultures, heroics, and intrepid investigations. With great lashings of sarcasm thrown in.
The Temple of Beauty
This collection features retro-inspired short stories, and includes both SF and fantasy, ranging across a wide variety of tones and subjects. More aliens, stealthy killers, high camp wandering heroes, and the clash of class and ideals. Some played for ironic amusement, some less flippant.
The Lady of Dungeness
The latest offering – a novella for plague times. This is an intrepid tale of perseverance, love, art, science, and separation, set in a near future that is both all too familiar and strange.
Treyavir
A novella length taste of epic fantasy in the classic style, this is the story of Reginal Maigntar, Falcon Knight and Lord of Thul, who seemed destined to live a life built on the achievements of his predecessors. Until…
FRACTURED SYMMETRY and TEMPLE OF BEAUTY
Today I brag not about my own products, but about those of the Resident Male.
Friends and family who know Fernando know that he has been writing for as long as I have known him. His first letters to me were filled with tales of his own devising. Over the years he’s continued, writing short stories, novellas, and longer works.
I have had the joy of being his Audience of One – he reads them to me as they develop, and I hear his voice on every page.
Now you can read them, too.
In his own words, from the book’s blurb:
Blair MacAlister is an expert at Judo, a credible AI hacker, and a certified pilot of craft atmospheric and interstellar. Her favorite weapon is sarcasm, or failing that, her ever-present blaster. Her boss is Terendurr the Black Stone: technical wizard, expert in the ethnography of myriad races, fancier of rare foods and wines, and even rarer fractalites. An Entharion Quadromorph, exiled from his homeworld and under constant threat of assassination, he is also somewhat irritable.
Together they investigate mysteries based on science, in a setting that brings them into contact with all the main races of Civspace: The mysterious Junn, the affable but biologically intense Raylics, the chaotic and powerful Oro-Ka, the commercial minded Keret, and the cynical Phair. At the center of their cases are transformative genetic therapies, unlikely fossils, the linked neurology of symbiotes, and more.
I am biased of course, but Fractured Symmetry is a strong collection of short stories and novellas about the same investigative team; mysteries that turn on both points of science, and insight into individuals and cultures. It’s got action, adventure, aliens both threatening and endearing, devious antagonists, and a kick-ass heroine. Plus a goodly dash of sarcasm and wit.
It’s available from Amazon for download for Kindle readers on all devices (including KindleUnlimited); and in hard-copy paperback.
He’s also got another collection of short stories on Amazon, also available for Kindle readers and on KindleUnlimited:
The Temple of Beauty is a bit more of an eclectic story collection. Its stories are retro-inspired, and include both SF and fantasy, ranging across a wide variety of tones and subjects. More aliens, stealthy killers, high camp wandering heroes, and the clash of class and ideals. Some played for ironic amusement, some less flippant.
So, if you are planning an Icelandic style book-Christmas, looking for something to entertain and amuse, or planning a mobile book-hoard to get you through holiday travel and visits, please consider adding these. I guarantee you’ll have a great ride, even if it isn’t on a giant saber-toothed rabbit.
String-Or-Nothing 