This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Description of Mars Wars
For decades the Space Consortium of America has searched for new ways to harvest resources beyond an increasingly depleted Earth. The ultimate plan is about to be ignited. So is the ultimate threat to humankind . . .
DETONATION EVENT
Battle-hardened Captain Ry Devans and his crew of the Mars Orbiter Station One (MOS-1) are part of a bold plan: resurrect the active molten cores of the Red Planet with synchronized thermonuclear explosions, and terraform the hell out of that iron-oxide rock for future generations. It’ll change history. So will the strands of carbon-based Martian cells that have hitched a ride on the ship.
Dr. Karen Wagner knows the microbes’ resistance to virus is incredible. It’s the unknowable that’s dicey. Her orders: blow them into space. But orders can be undermined. Two vials have been stolen and sent hurtling toward the biosphere. For Devans and Wagner, ferreting out the saboteurs on board is only the beginning. Because there are more of them back on Earth—an army of radical eco-terrorists anxious to create a New World Order with a catastrophic gift from Mars.
Now, one-hundred-and-forty-million miles away from home, Devans is feeling expendable, betrayed, a little adrift, and a lot wild-eyed. But space madness could be his salvation—and Earth’s. He has a plan. And he’ll have to be crazy to make it work.
Read an Excerpt from Destination Event, Mars Wars, Book 1
The barren red face of Mars grew before them.
The space shuttles of two centuries earlier had orbited Earth at roughly
five miles a second. Doubling that speed, even tripling it—and in a hurry—was within easy capability of the PS-class shuttles.
Devans threw in a series of mild doglegs to make it a little interesting
for Wagner. He had to admit, the youth had staying power. An hour later and Wagner hadn’t even taken a bathroom break. Two blips showed up on the main hologram of the planet below. They marked tunnel locations T1 and T2 as yellow-highlighted lines that shot straight down. Both had tiny right angles at the ends where the bombs were housed.
As they approached the space over T1, the surface camera feeds showed nothing but a mass of gray-and-red dust. Very little wind speed. It was thick but gentle, like a snow globe after its been shaken.
“Raise shields, Nuro,” Devans said. “Shannon, how about splashing our entry on the big monitor here and the feed to the crew?”
The shuttle’s shields warded off the entry heat and they entered the
anemic Martian atmosphere.
“Withdraw shields, Nuro.”
“Withdrawing.”
“Nice sandstorm,” Devans said, gazing at the roiling wall hundreds of
feet high.
“Dust storm!” Trent Wagner said over his shoulder as he leaned back and
forth on the table as if shredding the galaxy’s longest wave. “This is the tail
end of it!”
“How long until cleared?”
“Two or three.”
“Couple, three hours, not so bad.”
“Weeks,” Wagner said.
“And here I just had this thing washed. Let’s go to the dark side for
now.”
The sun cut a divide on the red planet’s surface. PS-9 easily outdistanced the storm and raced over the desert surface to the dark side. The second blip beckoned them on the navigation screens. Near total darkness pushed against their vessel lights.
This was the eve of the moment they all had labored for…One last manual check and they would attempt to resurrect Mars with synchronized thermonuclear explosions at the core.
At least, that was the plan.
Read an Excerpt from Rogue Planet, Mars Wars, Book 2
2235 A.D.
This ain’t your great-great-great grandaddy’s Mars.
The thought hit Ry Devans again as he glanced at the angry
orb. The words looped annoyingly, the way a familiar but not necessarily welcome tune will sometimes do. Once or twice would have been okay, but a few rogue synapses weren’t letting it go. Yeah, there was some real upheaval going on, but he and his crew didn’t bug out of Mars Orbiter One on a sightseeing mission, no matter how compelling their looming destination had become. This Synch Event was to buy them the one thing they needed almost as much as air and water and food.
They were closing fast. Done were the power and air system checks, nuclear fusion queries and carbon feeds for the engine, shield readiness, and potential flight path hazards. The results were solid. Expected
and redundant.
The pissed-off planet they were racing toward was anything but.
Devans could almost hear the marsquakes rumble, crash and form with a Godlike voice.
Look what you organics have wrought.
Well, it really was a group effort, Devans countered silently. Plus you almost killed my crew. Not to mention a forty-something pilot that looks an awful lot like the one occupying this seat.
Look. At. Me!
Networks of erupting volcanoes thrust through the Martian crust like a geological case of the shingles. Devans wondered if it was as painful for the planet as the shingles virus had been to humans prior to
M274S34; only there was no healing slash Homo sapiens extinguishing Martian microbe solution for the resurrected planet. Entire regions shuddered, shook, spewed, heaved, gushed and flowed. Some areas were constantly in the throes, others dwindled into relative silence, and still other areas were unpredictable.
Hey, you were dead. Now you are not. You’re welcome.
Read an Excerpt from Annihilation Plan, Mars Wars, Book 3
The debris would be recovered by the drones for re-purposing.
No one on MOS-1 wanted human bodies to be stripped of their space suits by drones.
The machines would take them to Mars entry, however, for incineration.
Devans flew just past the next drifting form. He twisted into a one eighty to allow the ion jets to act as space brakes, then angled the small funnels to keep himself at the same rate and direction as the deceased.
He held an arm out and touched the suit.
The helmet had been atomized on a diagonal. He could not determine the gender of the victim inside. The identification chip was either gone or damaged.
This one’s even worse than the last one, he thought.
A glow spot grew in the corner of Devans’ eye. At first he thought it was notification of a mindtext,
as they came with tiny dots in the periphery. But this was on the wrong side of his mindtext queue.
“Ry, duck and move! NOW!”
He knew Burroughs’ tones well enough to react first, ask later.
His hand blurred to hit a double max jet burst downward and sideways.
A concentrated cluster of laser beams lit up the inside of his helmet and hummed through his suit
speakers.
He didn’t stop there.
He arced up and he drew the spatz pistol holstered at his side.
Where, where?
Another flash and he hit a jet burst upward this time. The beam went low, anticipating a maneuver
similar to his first.
“Crew, back to ship!” Devans said. “Gwen, fire a volley at the origin.”
PS-17 shifted and fired, the beams trailing out into darkness.
“Shannon, where the hell is it?”
“I can’t see it!” her voice was frantic. “INCOMING, RY! Go, Go, Go!”
He zipped away on a spin, returned fire though he had yet to make visual, even with the face shield’s
enhanced zoom.
“They must be cloaked,” he said, dodging two more beams.
PS-17 lit up the originating area with a barrage of streaking plasma rounds. He saw a single splatter that
had appeared as nothing.
He aimed and fired at it, shouting coordinates.
“Get in the ship, Ry! They’re after you!”
If true, then PS-17’s shields were as about as impervious as human flesh to a spatz beam, and he’d be putting the crew at greater risk. However, his little suit jets were micro thrusters compared to the fusion engine of a shuttle, and the crew and all the ‘rebels’ of MOS-1 had already been hurled into the risk vortex that accompanies war.
The space crazy had an answer.
“Nah, I’m good out here.”
Interview with John Andrew Karr
What is the sweetest thing someone has done for you?
Provided encouragement during my early efforts at writing.
How would you spend ten thousand bucks?
Some marketing of my books, some savings, some having fun.
Where do you get your best ideas?
Observations and asking What If.
For example, what if humans attempted to jump start Martian cores to begin to terraform the Red Planet? What if there was a large orbiter around Mars to accomplish this, and a specific crew who checks the tunnels before Detonation Event. What if the majority of Earth’s governments become anti-space in the meantime?
And so on.
What comes first, the plot or characters?
Plot. Characters pop up once the general plot is created.
What does your main character do that makes him/her special.
He doesn’t give in. He fights back in strategic ways when possible. If that is not possible, he goes space crazy on the enemy.
About Author John Andrew Karr
From his home in Wilmington, North Carolina, John Andrew Karr (also John A. Karr) writes of the strange and spectacular. He is the author of a handful of independent and small press novels and novellas, and also leaves in his wake a trail of short stories.
Amazon Author
Page: https://www.amazon.com/John-A-Karr/e/B003DVNQ8G%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
Twitter:
@johnandrewkarr1
Instagram/Tumblr: johnandrewkarr
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgMXLJ0MK2Q
Detonation
Event: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D6BDQBC
Rogue Planet: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XFMCD21
One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.
Enter to win a $50 Amazon/BN GC – a Rafflecopter giveaway
Goddess Fish Promotions
February 17, 2022 at 6:45 amThanks for hosting!
sherry1969
February 17, 2022 at 7:47 pmSounds like an interesting book.
Eva Millien
February 17, 2022 at 8:17 pmGreat interview and I enjoyed the excerpts, Mars Wars sounds like a thrilling, edge of your seat read for me! Thanks for sharing with me and have a spectacular day!