Hello lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host Robert
Sells and his new book, “Revelations”!
For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click
on the banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the
end of this post to enter to win a $40 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!! Also, come back daily to interact with Robert
and to increase your chances of winning!
This book is on SALE
during the book tour for ONLY $0.99!!!
See below for more details.
Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!
Revelations
by Robert Sells
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GENRE: Science Fiction
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BLURB:
Aster
Worthington spearheads the First Contact Team who are unraveling a message from
an alien race. The altruistic extraterrestrials promise free energy and an
excited Earth builds a massive structure called the Dome to house the alien
enterprise
Seven
years later, no "free energy" and strange things are reported in and
around the Dome. When Aster and her colleagues mount an expedition to
investigate the interior, they are shocked to find it filled with humanoids
having insect-like deformities. It becomes obvious their true purpose is to
take over our planet. Now Aster and the scientists are trying to come up with a
defense to fend off the invasion. A defense that is tied to a 2000 year old
document hidden by the church. But, will it be too late?
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EXCERPT THREE:
Trapped in the Dome
Her
eyes snapped open and wide-eyed, searched the area close to her. She scooted
back up. Any of those damn centipedes around? None. She was safe. At least from
those creepy, crawly things.
Then
a clacking sound. Those horrible feet, ending with hooves, not feet, the
tapping sound on cement. She let out a gurgle of hysterical laughter. Here come
the bad guys again! She pinched herself hard to try to get control and took a
shaky breath. Don’t lose it now. You’ve made it this far. She got up and moved
lightly along the wall and, at the junction, steered away from the clacks.
Don’t know where in hell I am. She hummed lightly under her breath, repeating
it several times, then giggled. No, but I do know that I’m in Hell, don’t I?
How about that, Daddy? You were right all along. Your scientist daughter is
rotting in Hell, just like you said I would.
She
walked for about an hour, winding her way through the corridors, hugging a wall
and trying not to be seen, carefully stepping over the gray cauliflower-fungi
peppering the ground. Always steering away from those clacking sounds. Looking
for centipedes and either killing them or walking away from the larger ones.
They didn’t seem to have eyes, but somehow the centipedes could detect her.
Smell? Sound?
Finally,
bowing to her fatigue, Aster Worthington, famed astronomer, sagged down and sat
with her knees pulled up to her chest. She just couldn’t go any farther.
Exhausted, all she could do was keep watching left and right.
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GUEST POST:
Book Cover for Revelations
While
the day in the Arizona desert boasts stark red and brown beauty under a
cloudless sky, the night offers a truly breathtaking vista. Hand-in-hand my
wife and I, bundled up in jackets, walked behind our vacation home and stared
in wonder at what seemed to be a snapshot of the greatest firework show ever.
Looking up at the star-studded sky, she nudged her head against my shoulder and
said, “Isn’t it beautiful, Rob?”
I
agreed and then explained how the stars actually created their light, fusing
hydrogen into helium with gamma ray bullets carrying away highly energetic
photons. The gamma rays zing back and forth hitting protons inside the core of
the star and like photon pinballs they gradually make their way out of the
star. Exhausted from their billion-mile trip inside the star, what was once
highly destructive gamma rays degraded into life-embracing photons of visible
light. Depending on what star you watched it would take years, perhaps
centuries for this light to finally reach Earth and be admired by two people in
love. I smiled down at my wife. Damn! Was I romantic or what?
“You
take all the poetry out of the night.” And, she stomped away and I was alone
with the stars and desert.
So,
my cover. There is a visual beauty to it, for sure. But there is a deeper
beauty if you understand the components of the picture. Please hear me out and
don’t walk away.
The
center piece of the cover is a radio telescope. These massive structures see a
different sky than our eyes… they see the infrared part of the spectrum. Those
pinpoints we call stars appear slightly larger, smeared out. Strangely some
that are bright to our eyes, our dim to the radio telescope. Conversely, there
are regions of the sky black to our eyes, but glowing with infrared. For the
purposes of my book, radio telescopes have a better chance at picking up
intelligent messages from outer space because they are sensitive to a region
that is unencumbered by stray radiation from stars or our own atmosphere. If a
sentient species from another planet wanted to send a signal to us, it would be
broadcast to us in this narrow, relatively unused set of frequencies.
My
fourth book, Revelations, starts with a radio telescope, tuned to this “quiet”
zone, getting a “loud” signal from a nearby star system. This message is
couched in the binary language of computers, hence the ones and zeros you see
in the sky above the telescope is filled with ones and zeros.
So,
what sort of message might another civilization send? Greetings? Probably. A
description of them and their world? Certainly. Gifts? Maybe. But before we
find out, we must decipher the message and that is not an easy task. Unlike
languages on Earth, alien messages have no Rosetta stone, no commonality in
behavior with us, no history of culture. Just binary numbers telling an unknown
story from an alien race. My novel’s first few pages show how such a message
can be untangled and, at the same time, it introduces the reader to the main
characters.
Now,
look carefully just to the left of the telescope. A double helix. The blueprint
for every form of life. Instructions to make proteins, organs, and a living
body. Unbeknownst to the scientists, deep in the message is a hidden part… a
DNA replica for alien life forms. Clearly the aliens have a nefarious purpose
for doing this.
With
the Message as the means for linkage between an alien civilization and
humankind, the story accelerates into a clash between two sentient species, two
entirely different views on how to behave.
Just as American natives, numbered in the millions, had no hope against
a few thousand European invaders, we are hopelessly out-gunned by a species
older and wiser.
Turn
the book over and the back cover hosts a series of buildings, actually a large
cathedral. Throughout the novel, there is an inevitable clash between science
and religion regarding the alien discovery. Ironically, our salvation to the
clash was hidden in the Bible, specifically the last book called Revelation.
So,
the cover visually tells the story, but, as they say, the “devil is in the details”.
I’m smiling now. After you read the book, you’ll know why. Anyway, thanks for
not walking away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR BIO:
Robert Sells has
taught physics for over forty years, but he has been a storyteller for over
half a century, entertaining children, grandchildren, and students. He has written the award-winning novel, Return of the White Deer, historical
fiction about Penda of Mercia. His second fiction book, Reap the Whirlwind, was a thriller about the dawn of artificial
intelligence and the subsequent decline of humanity. His third book, The Runner and the Robbery, was a young adult novel about a
teenager and his grandfather who had Alzheimer’s disease. Revelations, a science fiction novel, is his fourth book.
He
lives with his wife, Dale, in the idyllic village of Geneseo, New York with two
attentive dogs who are uncritical sounding boards for his new stories. He is intrigued by poker and history, in love
with Disney and writing, and amused by religion and politics.
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CONNECT WITH ROBERT:
Facebook:
Goodreads Author Page:
Goodreads Book Page:
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS
& BOOK SALE INFO:
**Revelations is on SALE for ONLY $0.99 during the
book tour!!!**
Amazon Kindle eBook:
Amazon Paperback:
The Book Depository Paperback:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFO:
Robert will be awarding a $40 Amazon or B/N GC
to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this
blog. This does not cost you anything,
it just helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Robert ~ Good morning! Welcome to FAB! It is so great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting my newest novel, Revelations. I would be delighted to answer any questions.
ReplyDeleteHappy Friday, thanks for sharing the great post :)
ReplyDeleteI liked the excerpt, thank you.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the release!
ReplyDelete--Trix
Well, much as I hate to admit it, my favorite character is Aster Worthington. She is the main character is the story. Described as "bright, beautiful, and blond", she is a conflicted person. To the public and most of her colleagues, she is competent, friendly, and confident in herself. But she comes from a difficult childhood and it haunts her and makes her wary of deep relationships. As the story progresses, her friends see her crumble, the walls of her personality come down. In fact, she runs away from the problems that assail her and the world. She is brought back by a person who she despises. Over time, she builds her confidence back up and actually ends up stronger than before. She falls in love with her antagonist. Then, like it so often does, especially in stories (and real life), fate steps in and beats her down again. Now, the new Aster has to stand up and survive and totally collapse.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all for you nice comments.
ReplyDelete:-)
ReplyDeleteHow long did it take you to write your book?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you most enjoy about writing?
ReplyDeleteCaryl, I enjoy telling a story. When I taught physics, I would tell the college students stories about the lives of famous scientists. Even when in college, I would tell stories to my younger cousins... usually scary horror stories with the lights turned off. So, what I enjoy most is the telling of the story. Of course, now, I have to be more careful about the story. It has to flow easily, make sense, and be believable. And, the characters have strong (and yet have their weaknesses). So, telling a story now is a bit more involved.
DeleteCaryl, I enjoy telling a story. When I taught physics, I would tell the college students stories about the lives of famous scientists. Even when in college, I would tell stories to my younger cousins... usually scary horror stories with the lights turned off. So, what I enjoy most is the telling of the story. Of course, now, I have to be more careful about the story. It has to flow easily, make sense, and be believable. And, the characters have strong (and yet have their weaknesses). So, telling a story now is a bit more involved.
ReplyDeleteBernie, please understand that I'm not a writer by trade or education. My training was in science. So, I'm sure there are better ways to write than the torturous way I have chosen. I start with an idea and few characters and then simply launch myself into the story. Writing and writing, not editing or even questioning. After my first draft... it usually takes a few weeks. Then I rewrite, changing the words, the scenes, even the characters. I do this rewrite thing many, many times. My last book required me to rewrite it about 25 times. But, each time, it gets better and better. Silly errors are eliminated, better words are used, scenes enhanced. All the while, when I walk or nod off to sleep, I'm thinking about this scene or that character. Does it make sense, would she really act that way. I'm satisfied (finally) with the product. It took me about two years.
ReplyDelete