Today’s special guest is sci fi author John Andrew Karr and we’re chatting about his Mars Wars series, book 1, Detonation Event.
During his virtual book tour, he’ll be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
From his home in Wilmington, North Carolina, John Andrew Karr (also John A. Karr) writes of the strange and spectacular. He is the author of a handful of independent and small press novels and novellas, and also leaves in his wake a trail of short stories.
Welcome, John. Please tell us a little bit about your series.
For decades the Space Consortium of America has searched for new ways to harvest resources beyond an increasingly depleted Earth. The ultimate plan is about to be ignited. So is the ultimate threat to humankind . . .
DETONATION EVENT
Battle-hardened Captain Ry Devans and his crew of the Mars Orbiter Station One (MOS-1) are part of a bold plan: resurrect the active molten cores of the Red Planet with synchronized thermonuclear explosions, and terraform the hell out of that iron-oxide rock for future generations. It’ll change history. So will the strands of carbon-based Martian cells that have hitched a ride on the ship.
Dr. Karen Wagner knows the microbes’ resistance to virus is incredible. It’s the unknowable that’s dicey. Her orders: blow them into space. But orders can be undermined. Two vials have been stolen and sent hurtling toward the biosphere. For Devans and Wagner, ferreting out the saboteurs on board is only the beginning. Because there are more of them back on Earth—an army of radical eco-terrorists anxious to create a New World Order with a catastrophic gift from Mars.
Now, one-hundred-and-forty-million miles away from home, Devans is feeling expendable, betrayed, a little adrift, and a lot wild-eyed. But space madness could be his salvation—and Earth’s. He has a plan. And he’ll have to be crazy to make it work.
Excerpt from Rogue Planet, Mars Wars, Book 2:
2235 A.D.
This ain’t your great-great-great grandaddy’s Mars.
The thought hit Ry Devans again as he glanced at the angry orb. The words looped annoyingly, the way a familiar but not necessarily welcome tune will sometimes do. Once or twice would have been okay, but a few rogue synapses weren’t letting it go. Yeah, there was some real upheaval going on, but he and his crew didn’t bug out of Mars Orbiter One on a sightseeing mission, no matter how compelling their looming destination had become. This Synch Event was to buy them the one thing they needed almost as much as air and water and food.
They were closing fast. Done were the power and air system checks, nuclear fusion queries and carbon feeds for the engine, shield readiness, and potential flight path hazards. The results were solid. Expected and redundant.
The pissed-off planet they were racing toward was anything but.
Devans could almost hear the marsquakes rumble, crash and form with a Godlike voice.
Look what you organics have wrought.
Well, it really was a group effort, Devans countered silently. Plus you almost killed my crew. Not to mention a forty-something pilot that looks an awful lot like the one occupying this seat.
Look. At. Me!
Networks of erupting volcanoes thrust through the Martian crust like a geological case of the shingles. Devans wondered if it was as painful for the planet as the shingles virus had been to humans prior to M274S34; only there was no healing slash Homo sapiens extinguishing Martian
microbe solution for the resurrected planet. Entire regions shuddered, shook, spewed, heaved, gushed and flowed. Some areas were constantly in the throes, others dwindled into relative silence, and still other areas were unpredictable.
Hey, you were dead. Now you are not. You’re welcome.
Where did you get the idea for this book?
The What If question arose around terra-forming Mars. Would everyone on Earth be cool with it? And then colonizing the Red Planet, who would oppose and why? What if Earth’s governments fell into the Earth First frame of mind, particularly the USA, and basically made outlaws of those adventurers on an orbiter the size of a small moon.
Any weird things you do when you’re alone?
Talk to the dog in conversation mode.
What is your favorite quote and why?
Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena. It drives home the iron notion that it is the one who strives for an outcome who deserves credit, regardless of the actual outcome, rather than any critic.
Who is your favorite author and why?
I have several depending on what I’m in the mood to read. Tolkien and Howard and Wagner for sword fantasy and horror, Mary Shelley for creating the horror of man playing God in Frankenstein, Varley for science fiction, Poe for suspense and horror, Hemingway and Steinbeck for general fiction.
One I keep returning to is Robert E. Howard. I admire his imagination in sword and sorcery tales, and his ability to immerse the reader in a setting and plot in just a few powerful sentences.
What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?
Plot and characters. Without them there is no story.
Links:
Website | Amazon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Amazon – Detonation Event | Amazon – Rogue Planet
Thanks for being here today, John.
Thanks for hosting!
Sounds like a great book.
You mentioned some of your favorite authors for your reading as an adult. As a child, did you have some favorite book authors or book series?
Thanks for hosting, Lisa.
Hi Nancy. The Brothers Grimm come to mind as a child, and comic books, but soon in the teens came Tolkien and Howard. Thanks for asking.
The book sounds very interesting. I love the cover!
Great interview and I like the excerpt, the Mars Wars series sounds like exciting reads for my dad and me both to enjoy! Thanks for sharing them with me and have a fantastic day!