GREENSHIFT is a tale set within the world of AMBASADORA.
Mari’s rare eye color makes her a pariah within Upper Caste society, which is why she prefers plants to people… except David, the former Armadan captain who shuttles scientists around on a refurbished pleasure cruiser.
But someone else is interested in Mari and her distinctive look—an obsessed psychopath who tortures and murders women for pleasure.
When the killer chooses Mari as his next victim, the soldier inside David comes alive, but it is Mari who must fight for her own life and prove she isn’t as fragile as the flowers she nurtures.
Fighting for survival in a post-Civil War America overrun by zombies, Cyrus and Lucinda join a military group called the Odd Men Out, and together they face a terrorist army from the North in a showdown over a weapon of enormous power.
The Civil War went on far longer than anyone expected, prompting the North and South to call a truce to fight their common enemy: The Chewers—dead men come to life to attack the living. As a result, a peacekeeping force called the Office of Military Operations is created to watch over the tenuous peace.
Cyrus Joseph Spencer didn’t fight in the war and couldn’t care less about the United Nations of America that resulted from it. His main concern is making money and protecting his crew from all manner of danger. To escape a horrible tragedy, Cyrus and one of his wards, Lucinda, board a U.N. dirigible for safety. They quickly discover their situation has not improved as the U.N. team is chasing a group of rogue soldiers in hopes of stopping them from obtaining a terrible weapon.
They also have to contend with a larger threat—Drago del Vapore—a giant lizard attacking the West Coast and wreaking havoc on everything it encounters. As the two sides face off against each other and the huge beast, Cyrus feels more and more like an Odd Man Out and finds it harder and harder to stay out of the fight.
Matt Betts’ steampunk alternative history novel, ODD MEN OUT, is due for release from Dog Star Books this summer. Check out the fantastic cover art by Bradley Sharp.
The best way to learn about an alien species is not only to live among them, but to become them in both physical form and function. But could a human really learn to think like an alien, and at what cost to his humanity?
Journalist and adventurer Xavier William Lennox becomes obsessed with the rituals of the Fireflies, an alien culture of gold-skinned inhabitants living on the planet Medina. When he gets too close to their mysterious society, he’s captured, tortured, and banished for his curiosity, but vows to learn what it is that the aliens are so desperate to hide, even if it means becoming one of them.
But his curiosity doesn’t end with the Fireflies. As opportunities arise to study more alien races, Lennox undergoes a series of cosmetic surgeries so that he can blend in with their cultures. But each time his humanity is stretched until he faces his biggest challenge—trying to return to the ordinary life of a man who has experienced the universe in ways he was never meant to.
Mike Resnick’s anthropoligical science fiction tale, A MIRACLE OF RARE DESIGN, is due out from Dog Star Books this summer. Check out the fantastic cover art by Bradley Sharp.
Mari is a beautiful young woman from the polluted planet of Deleine. Her coral-colored eyes are the result of a reaction to a childhood vaccine. She seeks to make her mark in the field of science, upgrading the hydroponic botanical bays in spaceships.
When she meets Armadan ex-military pilot David Anlow, their chemistry turns to intimacy, and the virgin’s first amour becomes the one she would take as prime.
But when the slimy Dale Zapona hires Mari to upgrade his freighter ship, she accepts the on-board job against her better judgment only to find he and his henchman have something less businesslike in store for her because of her lithe body and strange orange eyes.
Like AMBASADORA, this prequel kicks ass. Miller weaves sci-fi and romance effortlessly, loading on the action and suspense. Although there’s a rough spot in the writing during a fight scene, the story is solid, the characters strong, the conflict palpable, the sex scenes hot, and the resolution satisfying. Everything in a book worth buying.
If you like genre mash-up like I do, I recommend GREENSHIFT. Miller knows how to tell a story and keep it moving til the very last page. I look forward to her next novel in the rich and imaginative Ambasadora-verse.
Do you wish you could write more? Guest blogger, Heidi Ruby Miller, author of AMBASADORA and GREENSHIFT, reveals how she increased her daily word count. Keep reading for a chance to win a copy. You’ll want to, because her spicy sci-fi romances rock with action!
Heidi Ruby Miller, author of AMBASADORA and GREENSHIFTI resolved this year to WRITE FIRST.
It was my way of seeing if I could write more. And it worked.
Believe me, I was more surprised than anyone. Over the past five years I had steadily worked out of the century club (100 words per day) to the millennium club (1000 words per day), but then I stalled. I have always been a slow writer, probably because I labor over every word and character motivation, each plot point, the cadence of individual sentences, blah blah blah.
Outlining helped me tremendously once I started graduate school. The planner that I am, I usually had a nice beginning/middle/end worked out, then went from there. When I began to do more extensive outlines (80 pages long), which detailed each scene, I had a rough first draft in no time and a direction to move with the story. That’s when the 1000 words a day came quite easily.
To jump to the next level (like Robert J. Sawyer with his 2000 words a day or Susan Mallery with her 20 pages a day) I needed a little extra mojo. Turns out the solution was simple—write first.
I decided to try my new tactic in 2012 after talking with horror writer and my co-editor of MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT, Michael A. Arnzen. Instead of New Year’s resolutions, he does focus words—words that he focuses on all year in order to make improvements in his life and career. My words were WRITE MORE, but that seemed too broad, so I decided upon WRITE FIRST.
And that’s what I’ve been doing since January 1. I wake up half an hour early to… work through a yoga routine.
Okay, I know you were expecting me to say “write,” but with as much time as I spend on the computer, I wouldn’t be able to move if I didn’t stretch and breathe first thing in the morning. But then I write. Before I change out of my pajamas or make a cup of tea or surf through all my social media sites or before my husband gets out of bed, I sit down and write for at least 30 minutes. That may not seem like much time, but it’s enough to get a few hundred words in or a few pages revised. More importantly, it brings my story front and center in my mind where it stays all day long.
It becomes a trance-like state for me during the rest of the day. No matter what I’m doing, I’m thinking about my characters, plotting scenes in my head. This compels me to sit back down in front of the laptop and keep writing. Before I know it, I’ve sometimes had 3000 words by day’s end or revised four chapters. More typically, I hit 2000 words, but that’s double what I was doing last year at this time.
Granted, I accrue this word count during various sessions throughout the day, not in one sitting—I would have a constant migraine if that were the case. But it’s working. January 2012 was my most productive month ever. So far February is falling a little shorter with only an average of 1500 words per day, but that’s still 500 more than most days last year. I blame the small lapse on the launch for my latest novel GREENSHIFT, which came out on Valentine’s Day. Obviously, more marketing time was required this month. I fully expect my productivity to kick into overdrive in March… by simply writing first.
GIVEAWAY!
Be entered to win a copy of GREENSHIFT or AMBASADORA or both by telling us in comments what you’re reading right now and leave your email address disguised something like heidirubymiller AT gmail. Winners will be drawn randomly on March 1, 2012, and announced on March 2, 2012. Good luck!
About Heidi Ruby Miller
Heidi Ruby Miller has been putting too much sex in her Science Fiction since 2005 because she believes the relationship is as important as the adventure. She loves high-heeled shoes, action movies, Chanel, loud music, and video games.
In a society where breeding and caste are sacrosanct, can you find true love? Heidi Ruby Miller proves you can—in a world with six moons that provides all the imaginative richness a sci-fi milieu can muster. The setting is fantastically painted, concrete, and nothing less than fascinating.
The Embassy coerces broken and remade Ambasadora Sara Mendoza to help squelch the techno-militant fragger rebellion by extracting information from their operative leader. But Sara learns a lot about the Embassy, the system, and her target, and her plans change when she realizes that love is not just an illusion.
AMBASADORA may be billed as sci-fi/romance, but it truly holds something for everyone. The torture scenes are horrifically exquisite, the plot intriguing, the action exciting, and the consummation scene deals out spice in spades! Sara is one tough cookie, and although Sean has a few personal problems, he’s got the right stuff for a hero. I found myself rooting for both of them because Miller not only puts them through their paces, but utterly shreds the hell out of them over the course of this broad novel. As I always say, the basis of drama is conflict, and there’s plenty on every page here.
Our world’s fame-mongering class consciousness takes on stark new meaning when extrapolated to the extent in AMBASADORA. If you enjoy visionary writing from a fresh new voice, I recommend Heidi Ruby Miller.
THE SIXTH SEED, my dark paranormal novel that’s a mash-up of sci-fi, family drama, alien abduction, and suburban horror, is now on sale for only 99 cents. Download now for a summer scare!
“Lee Howard stitches together a story where the suspense never lets up.” –Ron Edison
