Songs:
"The Darkest Hour" written and recorded by Ralph Stanley
"I Will Survive" written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, recorded by Gloria Gaynor
"Harvest Moon" written and recorded by Neil Young
Coming soon:
Tangerine by Wodke Hawkinson. Set in a future time when aliens are a natural part of everyday life and travel to distant planets is commonplace.
Alone, Selected Short Stories, Volume Three by Wodke Hawkinson. More genre-spanning short fiction.
Available now:
Catch Her in the Rye, Selected Short Stories Volume One by Wodke Hawkinson 99 cents on Kindle.
Blue, Selected Short Stories Volume Two by Wodke Hawkinson 99 cents on Kindle.
Half Bitten by PJ Hawkinson. A tale of vampire revenge.
James Willis Makes a Million by K Wodke. A book for young readers about a boy who starts his first successful business at only eight years old. 99 cents on Kindle.
Contact information:
Author Website: wodke-hawkinson.com
Authors/Readers Website: findagoodbooktoread.com
Blog: http://wodke-hawkinson.com/blog1/
Facebook: Wodke-Hawkinson
Follow us on Twitter: @WodkeHawkinson
Enjoy this excerpt from Wodke Hawkinson’s
upcoming novel, Tangerine.
The moon’s jump terminal was much like a large airport, only on a grander scale. Hovering above the building was the enormous E-H Transporter. Sleek and ovoid, it gleamed with the sheen of an opal. Ava stood speechless before it, gaping like a tourist seeing the great pyramids for the first time. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight. Ships of all sizes were being uploaded into the E-H. The giant transporter reminded Ava of a hive with busy bees swarming around it. Closing her mouth, Ava moved into the terminal where, due to her employment with Alliance, she was spared the usual agony of pre-flight check-in. She and Pisk moved past long lines of travelers, and went directly to the boarding station.
If she thought the outside of the transporter to be impressive then she certainly found the inside to be the opposite. Barren hallways led to the center of the transporter. Here, voyagers would stand in waist-high aisles in the order they entered. Seats could be dropped from the partitions if needed, and were being used here and there as the passengers waited for the uploading to end.
Air conditioning was not supplied, deemed unnecessary for a flight lasting less than a second. However, it seemed the designers of the ship had not considered the loading time. Ava was standing behind a rather heavyset man who reeked of body odor. Unable to move backwards, or even turn to the side due to the press of people from every direction, Ava took shallow breaths as she covered her mouth with her hand and prayed they would soon get under way. Pisk buried his face in her neck.
In answer to her prayer, a recorded voice announced that they would now make the jump. A mere nano-second after this announcement, the same mechanical voice welcomed them to the primary moon of Tangerine in the 32nd sector. Amazing, Ava thought, never felt a thing. She had heard stories about earlier jumps when travelers felt as if they were being pushed through the floor. Modern jumps had thankfully advanced to the point where dimension shifts were unnoticeable.
Ava followed the odoriferous man from the ship, through many hallways, and portals, until she stepped out into a sight even more amazing than the transport station on Earth’s moon. A sprawling city, alien in nature, stretched before her like a scene from a movie, only this scene was real, and she was part of it. The buildings before her were not tall, rising no more than twenty stories; but what they lacked in height they made up for in mass. Some were as long as three football fields while others were no larger than a satellite banking facility. All were made of a material unfamiliar to Ava, and ranged in color from dirty white to deep bronze. Looking over the city from her vantage point on the docking station’s balcony, Ava noticed the city expanded from that point and radiated out like the spokes of a wheel, with the buildings getting smaller in the distance.
Wow,” Ava murmured under her breath.
Turning, she scanned the interior wall of the docking station. Iron ramparts ascended high above, and stretched far on either side. Multiple levels of docking ports dotted the wall, each opening onto a platform spanning the length of the wall and interspersed with glass-enclosed lifts within which Ava could see people zipping up and down.
A burst of light caught Ava’s attention and drew her eyes upward. A meteor shower was in progress. As the meteors hit the protective shields of the complex, they were repelled, emitting an array of spectacular colors and drawing ohhs and ahhs from observers.
As the stellar show ended, Ava continued gazing up, marveling over the unseen force that protected the living beings within its shelter. Invisible to the eye, the shield could deflect massive projectiles from the outside while maintaining an artificial environment within. These force fields had a strange quality; they allowed nothing to move them from the outside but were completely flexible from the inside. It has not been determined to what degree a shelter could flex, as the maximum had not yet been reached.
Ava noticed that vids in the area were offering information about the jump site and the surrounding city. She stepped near and jacked her headphones. Watching the vid she listened to the commentator. Pisk placed his ear next to hers so he could listen too. They learned how the station dealt with waste of all kinds, turning it into useful material, including fuel for ships and supplementation of the city’s power supply. Businesses offering a range of goods and services from the practical to the whimsical, including hotels, entertainment venues, and souvenir shops from multiple galaxies, stood ready to meet the needs of the interstellar traveler. Information kiosks were situated throughout the terminal.
Scanning ahead, Ava looked at the different views of Tangerine. One shot showed the planet from deep space. She thought it resembled a big dip of sherbet hung suspended in blackness, its huge moon a generous dollop of cream, and its second smaller moon a mere dot. Although uninhabited by “intelligent life,” the planet offered a variety of indigenous flora and fauna that would fascinate and intrigue any scientist.
Ava disconnected from the vid, and looked skyward again. Floating above the city, like an oversized balloon, was the planet Tangerine. Gazing at the glorious shades of orange, Ava felt strangely drawn to visit the planet now, but that wasn’t to be. While Tangerine was on her list of assignments, she wouldn’t visit it until later. Her first mission was in the galaxy, Alfea, four jumps from her present site. The first stage of those jumps was being announced now. She took one last longing look at the planet before she and Pisk entered the portal to the transporter to make their next jump.
Arriving on Xenorel’s moon, Ava took possession of her ship and was cleared for flight. Pisk settled into the co-pilot’s seat, his large eyes on Ava. Following the coordinates given her by flight command, Ava maneuvered away from the moon station. Moving past large barges and ships smaller than her own she gloried in the feel of being in control; of having no one to answer to directly, at least not here and now.
After exiting the main congestion, Ava found nothing but space in front of her.
“Look at that, Pisk,” Ava breathed in awe. “All that space just waiting for us.” She and her companion soaked up the view for a few minutes. Finally, Ava asked, “Ready?”