Alien Plague
by Chris Koehler
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GENRE: Science Fiction
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BLURB:
Dr Avery Hutton lives in good times. All of humanity now lives under the Global republic, a democratic government that works hard to protect the rights of their citizens, expand orbital infrastructure and explore space. The last of which is helped by the relatively new Warp Drive, allowing probes to travel to and from the nearest stars over the course of a few years.
This is part of Avery’s job, helping organize the missions form the ground, his specialty being the analysis of microorganism form other star systems. But this most recent mission will change everything. For while every return mission previously had gone well, and few issues were observed, this time one of the returning samples is a bit… nastier than any previous sample. This time something has returned that could wipe out all life on Earth.
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EXCERPT
“You’re worried management has gotten complacent?” I asked “And this will be the one time it matters?”
Diane nodded.
“Also, the Beta Strain does appear to be particularly tough,” added Tone.
I nodded in agreement. It took an insane amount of effort to kill Beta Strain microbes. They just don’t seem to care, still active in environments where comparable Earth microbes might try to escape with suspended animation. They survived in suspended animation where Earth microbes, or the microbes of the other strains we found, died.
A Word With the Author
1. Did you always want to be an author?
Pretty much, if not always, then a very long time. I think I first thought about this when I
was in middle school. I would occasionally daydream of a science fiction world, while that particular world may never come into being, the idea has stuck with me. I remember going to a kid’s author fair around that time (as in authors who were kids, there was a competition), maybe earlier, and I considered doing a novella as a high school senior project. In college, I took a creative writing class to help turn this into a reality, though it took me some time after to get a move on and actually do it. So if not always, then close enough.
2. Tell us about the publication of your first book.
Publishing Alien Plague was difficult. As my first and, so far, only
published book took years after I first started writing it in 2016. Part of that was trepidation, I did not feel ready. I only did it more recently after I joined the Carolina Forest Authors club. Side note, I recommend that any aspiring author gets into an author support group asap. If you need inspiration, editing, advice, or just someone to stand over your shoulder to make sure you actually do something, they can provide it. Anyway, after joining they helped advise me on final edits and pushed me to get it out there. After that, I went with simple self-publishing on Amazon.
3. Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?
I am going to give it to Douglas Adams. Though many other authors compete for the title, I think he wins with The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The book series is iconic and generally humorous. Nothing is ever taken too seriously and the book makes fun of everything it can. Even the exposition is humorous, and it can make a section where the book spoils itself for the next few pages and makes a big deal that somebody bruised their upper arm, but won’t say who, and made the whole thing work. Even the Exposition, hated by audiences everywhere, is made funny by Douglas Adams.
4. What's the best part of being an author? The worst?
The part I enjoy the most and would say is the best, right now, is coming up with ideas,
and getting them onto paper. To imagine the worlds I want to make, and then to give that imagined world some reality on paper. It feels very good to give people a description of what I imagined and to let them work with it themselves. The worst part is getting your name out there. To find a way to get people to, you know, read what you have written. When you are part of seven or so billion people it is easy to lose your voice in the crowd. So the toughest and least fun part, by far, is finding an audience.
5. What are you working on now?
Well, I have some things on the back burner that I might drag back up at some
point. But most of my effort now is being directed to a work in progress that involves mad science, sheep, and a bunch of silly names. I hope that I might finish that and send it out at some point soon. I also want to make a short story and publish that somewhere; I have most of that one done but am still working on it. I don’t want to name these projects, partly because names might change, and party because one of them doesn’t have a real name yet. But I have plans for the future.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
I am a new author and this is my first book. I started working on this story around 2016 and have been refining it ever since.
I first got interested in writing years ago, I took part in a junior writing fare, and wrote as a volunteer from a teenage perspective at a local newspaper. My parents loved Science Fiction and Fantasy and passed on that love to me.
While this is my first book, I hope it’s not my last, I hope you enjoy it!
Book available here:
https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Plague-Christopher-Koehler-ebook/dp/B09ML694GW/
https://www.audible.com/pd/B0B4V82JZH/
You can find my Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/CKoehlerAuthor
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION
Chris Koehler will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
