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Friday, May 10, 2019

Revelations by Robert Sells - Book Tour - Book Sale - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!


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.

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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:

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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.

13 comments:

  1. 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! :)

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  2. Thanks for hosting my newest novel, Revelations. I would be delighted to answer any questions.

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  3. Happy Friday, thanks for sharing the great post :)

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  4. I liked the excerpt, thank you.

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  5. Good luck with the release!

    --Trix

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  6. 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.

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  7. Thanks to all for you nice comments.

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  8. How long did it take you to write your book?

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  9. What do you most enjoy about writing?

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    1. Caryl, 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.

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  10. Caryl, 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.

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  11. Bernie, 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.

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