One of my first literary loves was classic science fiction. I ate it up every chance I could get. I loved science-based science fiction more than any other genre. Anything that came out of the Golden Age of Science Fiction could be found in my room. Yes, I read fantasy like the Dragon Riders of Pern and Star Trek, but the work of the grand masters is what stirred my well-read heart. I loved the classic writers, Asimov, Heinlein, Clark, Bradbury. My bookshelves were filled with their work.
I've heard that Golden Age SF was too simplistic, but what's wrong with linear narratives, heroes solving problems and saving the world in a space-opera style? I love writing in that style, and I try to emulate the style of the grand masters. I try to emulate their language. There are no astronauts in my books because that word wasn't invented until after the Golden Age of Science Fiction. The guys in the rockets are "spacemen." There are no computers, PCs, or laptops because they didn't exist when the Grand Masters were at their height. My high-tech equipment is called terminals connected to a room size computational device, and they have access to a two-way wrist radio because Chester Gould gave one to Dick Tracy in 1931.
I wrote my Scarlett Saga Star-Wars style. The Star Wars saga started with Episode 4, A New Hope, then came back around to episode 1 and that's what I did with Alan Scarlett. Episode 1 is titled Alan Scarlett and the Scarlett Virus, a novel length origin story of my space hero Alan Scarlett.
Imagine yourself born and raised in a colony on Mars. Bradbury Canal is a research colony and isn't designed for kids, but there you are, ten years old, and your parents get killed under very mysterious conditions. That's the situation that Alan Scarlett finds himself in when he and his sister Christa get taken in by their mysterious Uncle Ray. The three of them have one desire: find the man or men who killed their parents and bring them to justice, but what were Alan and Christa's parents doing?
Why would somebody want to kill a pair of xenobiologists? Harrison and Laurel Scarlett were simply studying ancient Martian virus and bacteria fossils. Then the mysteries began to pile up. The heavy lift freighter NSS Lake Baikal disappeared, leaving no trace of its crew, cargo, or passengers, including Uncle Ray's wife and stepdaughter. Not long later, the Eastern Bloc's Martian colony of Kōngchéng, with hundreds of people living there, went silent.
The surviving Scarlett children grew up with one thing in mind, find the man that killed their parents and 100 other Martians with them. Both got their doctorates at a young age, Alan got his in Astrophysics and enrolled in the Naval Academy. Christa got a degree in "Art History" and found work at a "Museum" in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, and as far as anyone is concerned, that's the truth.
As for Alan, he went straight from flight school to space school to advanced command school and was given a squadron of highly talented spacemen. Their mission: Rebuild the Western Alliance Navy (the west's fighting force in space) but also: wipe out something that's called The Scarlett Virus.
A rollicking romp through space as Alan Scarlett, outnumbered and out gunned, leads his men and women into combat. This full-length novel is Book #1 of the series and Book #2 is on its way! It can be found here at Bookapy!