Brief Synopsis:
On a human development on Mars in the future, Jim Meade, Runabout and Zero-G fighter, gets involved in the shady dealings of the warlords who exercise plenty of power within the Martian settlements. The Coalition provides a sense of government and civil order that most residents respect. However, one officer of the Coalition requests the Jim Meade help find and rescue her father out of a virtual reality prison, Enzeli, claiming he was innocent of the crime that led to his sentencing. This eventually leads Meade to uncover a sinister plan by the Ambassador Corcoran to use a super computer to control the destinies of everyone on Mars. Learning that one of the warlords had planned to assassinate the Ambassador, Meade is torn over thwarting the Ambassador's plan and protecting her life at the same time. Meanwhile, he takes on outlaw status as the trouble he walks into leads to some unfortunate events that turns public opinion against him. Filled with all the butt-kicking action amongst a world of science fiction, this story is Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, and Chuck Norris rolled into one.
Review:
Well, I love this kind of science fiction and action and R.J. Johnson keeps this story a non-stop roller-coaster. If you couldn't get enough of Total Recall and Demolition Man with a touch of Indiana Jones, than this story is all for you. The Zero-G fight scenes kept me on the edge of my seat and the reader is left with the satisfaction that the antagonists get the butt-whipping they deserve. Reading the Kindle version, I found it to be free from glitches that can sometimes affect poorly formatted e-books. There were a few typographical errors, word omissions, and misplaced words in the text, but not enough to detract from the enjoyment of the story.
So, there you have it. Action and thrill-seeking readers--add this to your reading list ASAP. Be good to yourselves.
Now for part 1 of a short story that I will add to my collection for kids. It's called The Cupid Effect. If you'd like to read it entirely, I have a link to the Word document through Google Drives. Just click this.
The Cupid Effect (part 1):
Dear Diary,
Today I thought Ethan smiled and waved at me
at lunch time. But, he was only smiling
and waving to Ben who was coming up behind me.
Ethan is so cute and I love him.
Why doesn’t he love me? Sometimes
he’s nice, but other times he acts like I’m not even there. I have to find a way to get him to fall in
love with me.
Alyssa
closed up her diary and zipped up the case it came in. This was the one place she kept her thoughts
regarding the world as she experienced it.
She made notes about the other girls at school, including a list of who
she believed were good friends, who were so-so acquaintances, and who were just
never her friend in any way. For the
boys, she recorded them according to their cuteness, braininess, and level of
meanness and obnoxiousness. However, one
boy had stolen her heart, although he wasn’t even aware of it. This one boy had an entire section devoted
just to him. Ethan Rodgers, with his
blonde hair, blue eyes and his tendency to allow girls to play along with him,
was someone she daydreamed about regularly.
She
once asked her mom, “I’m nice to Ethan, usually, but he always says that he
hates me. I try to be silly around him
because he likes to be silly. Should I
just ask him to be my boyfriend?”
“Alyssa,
you’re only in third grade. Boys are
funny when it comes to girls. You just
have to be patient. You don’t need a
boyfriend, anyway. You’re way too
young.” Alyssa knew she was too young,
but her feelings for Ethan were hanging there day after day.
Dear Diary,
My mom says I’m too young for a
boyfriend. But, I still love Ethan. Why can’t I be old enough? She says to be patient with Ethan because he’s
a boy and boys are funny when it comes to girls. How can I be patient? And, I’m a nice girl
and funny, too. I wouldn’t even make him
play with my dolls or anything. I just
wish he would say, “Alyssa, I love you.
Can I always sit next to you at lunch?”
Then, I’d say, “Yes, yes, yes!
You can always sit next to me!”
And, we would laugh together and I wouldn’t talk about marriage until
the third day. Give him a chance to get
use to me.
Sitting
on her bed brushing the ends to her dark brown hair that dipped passed her
shoulders, she hummed a tune she heard on the car radio while in her mind she
was thinking of all the fun things her and Ethan could do together. Alyssa would treat him like a friend and
they’d go get ice cream, splash around in a pool, race each other on sleds and
maybe her mom would let him sleep over. No, no, no, she thought. He’s a
boy. My mom wouldn’t let him sleep
over. Or maybe…she’d let him if she saw
how wonderful he was.
Her
eyes brightened as she thought of an idea.
Alyssa planned to use some of her craft string to create a necklace for
Ethan with hand drawn images from his favorite computer game. He really liked the game of Craftkin and she paid attention to how
he described it to his buddies at lunch time.
Whenever she could, she always tried to sit close enough to him so she
could overhear his conversations for any clues or ideas to use to attract his
attention to her. Finding a sheet of
white paper she borrowed from the stack meant for her family’s inkjet printer,
she drew characters from the game. Not
only that she sketched items that could be gathered within the course of play
and after she had about ten pictures, she cut them all out in a circle except
at the top she left flattened. They were
roughly the size of an American half-dollar coin. Using the one straight-edge side of the
pictures and a glue stick, she attached them around the necklace string so that
the circle part dangled below. When she
finished, she tied the ends together in a slip knot so Ethan could adjust it to
fit his neck. Giddy with excitement she
dashed out of her room and down the stairs to find her mother, but she wasn’t
in her house.
Finding
her older sister, Beth, lounging on the couch, texting her friends on her
smartphone, Alyssa probed her.
“Beth. Where’s Mom?”
“What? I don’t know.
What’s that in your hands?”
“It’s
just a necklace. It’s for Ethan.”
Beth
rolled her eyes and laughed at her. “I
don’t understand how you can like a boy so much. When I was in third grade, I never really
thought about them, except when they were being gross and disgusting.” Being twelve, Beth was much wiser about the
world than Alyssa. “The way you talk
about him…it’s almost creepy. Like
you’re stalking him.”
“What’s
stalking? You have boyfriends. How is this different?”
“Well,
for starters, I’m older than you and I’m in middle school. I also don’t talk about my boyfriends over
and over as if I’m obsessed with them.
If you give that to Ethan, you might as well make a wish for it to
magically change him because boys in third grade care nothing about
girls.” Beth was about to go back to messaging
her friends. “Oh…I know where Mom
is. She’s out in the yard watching some
meteor shower. Talking about wishes made
me remember. Anyway, she called you
‘cause she knows you love science stuff.
You must’ve been writing about Ethan in your diary.”
“How
do you know I write about Ethan or anything?”
Alyssa smirked in embarrassment from her sister knowing her private
thoughts.
“You
leave your diary open sometimes and I put folded laundry in your room for you
to put away, and I’ve read through it.” Beth
typed another phrase into her smartphone and sent it to yet another
friend. “I read how you hoped Adrianna
would choke on a grape because she called you a nerdette. You really mean that? You want her to choke to death?”
“Not
to death. Just enough to keep her from
talking for the rest of her life. I’m
not a nerdette.”
“Uh…sorry,
Sis, but you kind of are. You love math
and science, which is bad enough, but you’re good at it and you’re a girl. Girls usually don’t love math. And, you daydream a lot and are exceptionally
quiet. Then, there’s your unhealthy
obsession for Ethan. It’s not a bad
thing to be a nerdette. But, expect
people to poke fun sometimes. Anyway,
you better go out and catch those meteors.
Who knows, maybe your wish will come true.”
Alyssa
stood there contemplating what her sister said. She hated that Beth looked through her diary
and saw how she felt about Adrianna on that day. Adrianna was definitely on her “no friends”
list. Hopefully, her mom wouldn’t find
out because she might get in trouble.
From now on, she would lock up her diary. Something was on the tip of her tongue to say
to Beth, but the words refused to leave.
Turning towards the front door, Alyssa vacated the house, and tried to
find her mother.
“Mom? Where are you?” Alyssa cried out.
“In
the backyard. Hurry…it’s starting to
cloud up.” The backyard was the darkest
part to the house at night, but with the lights of the city, there was nowhere
a person could go to get a total view of the stars. Alyssa did see the front of clouds advancing
from the northwest. Rounding the corner
to the backyard, she passed through the open gate to greet her mom at the
farthest point away from the house.
Little
streaks of light crossed the sky at random moments. Her mom said to her, “What you do is that you
see one, close your eyes and make a wish and don’t tell anyone about it? Just keep staring at the sky.”
That
was what Alyssa did and one of the brightest meteors of the shower glowed
brighter than the moon. In her mind,
Alyssa made her wish. I wish Ethan will
fall in love with me if he puts on this necklace I made for him. Alyssa wanted to believe in this celestial
magic, as she had for most of her childhood.
However, she had an ever-so-emerging rational side where a more mature
Alyssa began to dismiss ridiculous notions such as magic. The little girl piece of her so much pleaded
with the cosmos to let her wish come true.
She would be one happy brunette if Ethan were to fall in love with
her—or at least become friends with her.
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