Category: Science Fiction Publisher: Mill City Press
ISBN-10: 934937355
Type: Fiction
Pages: 212
Copyright: December 1, 2008
ISBN-13: 9781934937358
The Lost Civilization of Aries is the first book in the Constellation Chronicles series. It follows the story of a young man named Glenn and his quest to find an all-powerful element called the Nova.
A blinding fireball rips across the night sky and slams into a field in the remote town of Rigel, New Mexico. Glenn Sawyer, a broke and disillusioned 18-year-old, witnesses and investigates the crash, finding a surreal craft and an even stranger monkey-like creature named Paako, who secretly follows him home and stirs trouble. As Glenn captures Paako and attempts to return her to the crash site, he discovers unexpected company, and learns that his remarkable journey—filled with adventure, evil, and cast of captivating characters—has only just begun.
Excerpt
(This is an excerpt, but the formatting looks better if you visit the book's website.)
Prologue
The visions from the stars will return…
Ramesh sits on the sandy banks of the Euphrates River, his
toes submerged in numbing water, and gazes out at a blanket
of darkness. The river, quiet and black, flows steadily past
him and a strong breath of wind catches the edge of his shawl,
billowing it into the cool night air. He dips one cupped hand
into the water, fills it, and brings it over a blank clay tablet.
He must be prepared, he thinks, pouring the liquid over the
soft clay. The visions will return…and so will the voices.
As Ramesh smoothes the tablet with his rusty-brown fingers,
the white specks above shimmer like a million diamonds set
inside an ebony dome. The stars will later have names, as will
the cities in ancient Mesopotamia, but not during the years
when Ramesh lives in the land between two rivers. His mudbrick
house, comprised mostly of reed, sits less than fifty feet
east from the Euphrates and more than fifty miles from the
Tigris. Both rivers converge farther south, about sixty miles,
and empty into the Persian Gulf, near scattered dwellings that
will serve as the seeds for the city of Uruk.
With a reed stylus in hand, he etches three thin lines at the
top of his clay tablet. The engravings are perfect—completely
symmetrical. He studies the sketches for a second, and then
presses a brown thumb over the lines, erasing the markings.
The clay is ready.
Soon the images will flood his mind and he’ll see the strange
and terrifying pictures again: fire-spitting birds; shape-shifting
creatures; surreal, floating buildings. The visions make little
sense to Ramesh, perhaps just foolish dreams, but he knows
they have a pattern. Like the yearly floods from the Euphrates
River that irrigate his crops, there is a specific time for each
of the events.
The first image had come three months ago. He saw a giant
bird crash to the earth. The bird had come from one of three
stars, which, to Ramesh, looked like a ram when connecting
them together. He saw a crowd gather around the crash and
heard voices from inside the strange bird speaking a foreign
language.
A month after that, in a line of ten stars that resembled a
bull’s head, it was a swarm of fire breathing locusts. There
were thousands of them, too many to count, and they had
come for something called the Nova.
Nooooovaaaaa
That’s what the voice whispered in his ear—a desperate,
bloodthirsty cry that terrified Ramesh. Like the images,
the word was meaningless to him, but it was still a part
of the mysterious puzzle he’d seen and heard in the starry
heavens…all of which he was recording in cuneiform on his
clay tablets.
A ram. A bull. A figure of two men.
Ramesh waits by the river, wet clay tablet by his side, wool
shawl draped over his left shoulder. His toes wade in the chilly
current; his fingers idly twirl the reed stylus.
He sits and watches the shimmering stars with remarkable
patience.
The visions will return.
They always do.
Snake Eyes and Boxcars is a collection of fourteen sci-fi/paranormal stories. Two of the tales are written in the first person and the other twelve authored in the third person writing style. The newly published work is author Jay Dubya's twelfth sto
