This week is Self-Published Authors Appreciation Week, an entire week dedicated to appreciating self-published authors! This special week takes place between July 21st to July 27th and was started by Jodie over at the Witty and Sarcastic Bookclub blog. You can find out more about SPAAW on Jodie’s blog, as well as ways to take part.
For the second day of spotlights, we settled on Science Fiction as the genre to focus on. It’s a broad genre, but neither I, nor Tru, claim to be well read in it, so we’ll aim wide.
Want to take part? You can support self-published authors by leaving a book review or shouting about your favourite self-published books on social media. Don’t forget these hashtags: #SPAAW #SelfPublishedAuthorsAppreciationWeek
These are Nils’ picks for the day:
A Classic Series Spotlight for…
Golden Age of the Solar Clipper
The Golden Age of Sail has Returned — in the Year 2352
When his mother dies in a flitter crash, eighteen-year-old Ishmael Horatio Wang must find a job with the planet company or leave the system–and NerisCo isn’t hiring. With credits running low, and prospects limited, he has just one hope…to enlist for two years with a deep space commercial freighter. Ishmael, who only rarely visited the Neris Orbital, and has never been off-planet alone before, finds himself part of an eclectic crew sailing a deep space leviathan between the stars.
Join the crew of the SC Lois McKendrick, a Manchester built clipper as she sets solar sails in search of profit for her company and a crew each entitled to a share equal to their rating.
Nils’ Comment
Golden Age of the Solar Clipper is something as unusual as slice-of-life space opera, and it’s an oddly comforting read. There’s usually little to no action, nothing much happens, and the story just does its thing. Even so, I couldn’t help but get lost in the series (12 books), and I believe I’ve read most of the spin-offs as well (another 6 books, at least).
Find Quarter Share, the first book in the series, on Goodreads.
About the Author
Nathan Lowell was born in Portland, Maine, in 1952. He grew up in an agricultural community in rural Maine and spent time working on fishing boats along the coast. His first literary success came with the publication of a poem while still in elementary school. That early success was followed by forty years of attempt, rejection, failure, and ultimately giving up on the dream of writing science fiction.
In 2007, with the rise of podcast fiction, he started writing again. He completed his first successful novel – Quarter Share – in January, 2007, and podcast it through Podiobooks.com over February and March, 2007. Since then he has written more than twenty novels, several short stories, and a novella. His podcast novels have been finalists in the Parsec Award five times, and he’s won Parsec Awards for Speculative Fiction (long form) twice — 2010 and 2011.
He’s been a full time, self-published author since 2012 and was elected to the board of directors of the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2018 as Chief Financial Officer.
He holds a BS in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing from SUNY/Buffalo (92), an MA in Educational Technology (98), and a Ph.D. in Educational Technology with specializations in Distance Education, Interactive Media, and Instructional Design (04). He lives in Colorado but travels the world online.
You’d think, being a novelist, he could come up with something more interesting than this, but apparently not.
A New-Part-in-Series Spotlight for…
Stories from Earth to the Unknown
Blackburn Station is dead.
The generations’ long feud with their rival station is over. The Greystone Alliance can finally return its attention to where it was always meant to be, defending humanity from the unknown threats of space.
Wren Carvell has always been diligent in her duty to protect humanity’s future and increase the survivability of the Alliance. She has been stalwart and unquestioning of her leadership, but when the order to destroy Blackburn Station is executed, she wavers.
In the destruction’s aftermath, Wren is put in charge of the team responsible for hunting Blackburn Station’s few survivors and she must decide what her morals and her dedication to her Alliance is worth…
Nils’s Comment
I read Blackburn Station for the second installment of the SFINCS novella competition, and while the book didn’t make it to the finals, it was still my favorite and one of the best novellas I’ve read. I was delighted to learn that a sequel had been released, and I very much look forward to digging into it.
Find Blackburn Station, the first in the series, on Goodreads.
About the Author
Karen is a Minneapolis author. The long Minnesota winters taught her the value of a good story. Growing up on authors like Piers Anthony and Ursula K LeGuin she developed an interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy that has shaped her writing today. Throughout her life, Karen has had a small handful of adventures that help her craft the stories she writes, ranging from her time abroad, to becoming a mother, or her years spent as an Army Officer, working on a mass casualty response force, and her time in cybersecurity. Always on the hunt for strong female leads, Karen decided to write some of her own leading to the Warriors of Helsvern series. THE GOLDEN VALIA is her debut novel and the first book in the Warriors of Helsvern.
