I.G. Roberts's Blog

I've just released my latest book, in a new series. I spoke about this one at the end of Earth Borne. This series is much darker and even confrontational than the Star Man Series and I've made some decisions in the first book that have proven a bit contentious. The reasons I followed this path will become clearer as the series progresses. Now for a bit of fun. What story from history did use to inspire Sapphire . Hint: Virtually every US citizen should get this one.

Now I'm trying to decide on one of three stories for the next book. One is quite close to my heart as an Australian, but the others will kind of lead into that story. That was to be my next book but as I wrote Sapphire I realized it could do with more preparation in the story line. In any case, feel free to tell me what you think, good or bad.

I'm about 20 percent into writing the first book of a new series. The word, series is a loose description because it won't follow a single character or group through an adventure. This series The first book is called Sapphire and will be finished in around six months. is far darker than the Star Man Series and I'm trying to make the characters less good. Each story will address a specific battle or campaign of an interstellar war.

Some will follow the naval war and others are on the ground. The first book is called Sapphire and will be finished in around six months. It's culminates in a Naval battle and is intended to introduce the series.

I've just uploaded the final book in Part 1 of the Star Man series, Earth Borne. I'll resist the temptation to tell you much about the story so I don't spoil the story for you. It should become available in the next few days, once Amazon finishes their review.

I'm taking a break from this series for a while to pursue another project which I plan making darker and grittier than the Star Man Books.


The new series is tentatively called "The Currents of War" and the first book is "Sapphire,"

In a previous post I said I had a high level plot for my next book mapped out in my head. Well, now it's basically on the tools I use for plot development. I'll move things around for a couple more days to even things out and then I'll begin writing the first chapter. I plan to have Earth Borne released mid year which is a long time but for now, I still have a full time job so can't spend quite as much time writing as I'd like. On the up side, the action will start in chapter one of the next book so I hope you enjoy it when it's released. Once again, I'll release two or three chapters through the lead up to release so you can see where the story is going.

When Earth Borne is finished, I plan starting a new series. When I say series, it'll be a different style because each book will be completely stand alone. Some characters may appear in multiple books but the series won't follow the exploits of one or two people. I have ideas of running a bit of a competition with this so stay tuned.

Finally,
I have just uploaded Star Strike, Book 3 of the Star Man Series. I know it's later than I hoped, but I wanted to make it as good as I could for the people who read it. With luck, it will be available on Kindle in the next day or two. I hope you enjoy it. Please, if you read it, leave a review, good or bad.

Now to start on Book 4 of this story, Earth Borne. Three guesses what happens in Book 4. Once book 4 is done, I'm going to have a short break from this series while I pursue some other exciting ideas which I hope you will enjoy.

I promised to give you a few free chapters before I publish Star Strike. I'm finishing up the last few Chapters no and then need to do a final edit so this may have a few mistakes in it, I hope you enjoy it.

Harmon
Henry Fraser decided he couldn't put his conversation with Colin off any longer. He placed a call to Theseus. Even though Henry asked for Colin, it was Anne who took the call.
Anne said, "The Captain is sleeping Commodore. He's been awake for seventy hours straight, he was exhausted Sir. Please don't make me wake him yet."
"Alright Anne, let him sleep for now. Admiral Dalkasan wants to see him in seven hours, so you will need to make sure he's at that meeting. I'll be there as well; the Admiral is most insistent.
"Very well, Sir, I'll make sure he's there."
“Thank you, Anne. How have you been?”
“Sleep is currently in short supply Sir. We took a little damage during the battle and have a persistent air leak near the hold. We’ve had to seal off that area which means their isn’t much room for the Crew to do the mandatory exercise.”
“Anne, I know you only have four Officers there but you all need to have adequate rest or somebody will have an accident. We lost enough with the invasion, I don;t want us losing more because of mistakes made by exhausted Officers or Crews.”
“Commander Gordon has been making sure everyone has enough sleep. Sometimes, it’s hard to make him follow his own advice. He does listen to me most of the time though.”
“Okay Anne, relay my concerns to the XO will you and stay on Commander Gordon’s case.”
“Will do, Sir, Theseus out.”

FNS Sundara
Colin arrived at the correct airlock to request admittance to the Admiral's Flagship. FNS Sundara's XO met Colin there, escorting him to a meeting room where several Officers were waiting. When Colin entered, they all rose and applauded him. Dalkasan spoke at length about Colin’s achievements during the Battle for Cambridge. After Dalkasan said his piece, Henry mentioned, Julia was missing and winked at Colin. Colin knew where she was. It was then that Henry told Colin a security detail of Cambridge Marines was assigned to him.
When Henry mentioned Marines, Colin did a double take then said, "Marines?"
Henry chuckled before replying, "You won't find tougher troops anywhere in the Federation."
"I don't need security. Why would I need security?"
"Colin, there's an Alliance Special Operations team somewhere on Cambridge. You Sir, are their prime target. We are looking for them of course, but Spec-Ops people are excellent at not being seen. That is why your security team are themselves, Spec-Ops people."
Colin sat, considering Henry's requirement for a while. In the end, he concluded he didn't have a choice. Colin suspected, even if he tried to arrive on the surface unannounced, the Marines would be waiting when the shuttle landed. Besides, he'd already been the target of an assassination attempt on Sankarah and was aware he would've been dead if his security weren't there on that occasion. Colin begrudgingly decided to cooperate. After all, it wasn't the Marines fault they were assigned as his security.
His main concern was the risk these troops took by protecting him. Being an assassination target was no fun at all. It was unfortunate that Colin had upset the Peschal Alliance leadership so badly. He wasn’t even in the Federation by choice. If anybody asked, Colin would have said in all honesty that he wanted to go home to his family on Earth.
After further consideration, Colin turned to Henry and said, “Damn it Henry, all I’ve ever wanted to do since I came to the Federation was to go home. If they manage to kill me, I’ll never be able to go home. It looks like I don’t have much choice about the security.”
“No you don’t Colin. We can’t afford to lose you. Colin, people here in Cambridge believe in you. Your welfare has become a matter of morale.”
Colin look at Henry, incredulous at the statement. This didn’t make sense to him, why would his welfare have anything to do with morale? Henry saw the play of emotions cross Colin’s face as he looked on in amusement.
Henry continued, “You have no idea about how people here feel do you Colin? Don’t answer, that was a rhetorical question. Col, you need to move things on. Go to the surface and find Julia. We both know where she is, but you should be the one to retrieve her. It’s better if you and I are the only ones who know what is in my head. Go see Dave Bach in hospital too. That young man is quite the hero. He saved President Constantin’s life you know.”
Colin nodded in acknowledgement before departing for a shuttle.

Cambridge Shuttle Station
Lieutenant Kevin Stark was a busy man. Time was running out before Commander Gordon arrived on the planet. Kevin needed everything in place before the man arrived. Rescuing the young girl from the Pirates had turned into a double edged sword. On the one hand, it gave him an opportunity to covertly insert about half his platoon into the country around the Commanders home. They were looking for any Pirates left in the area after the girls rescue. Of course, that was a large band of Pirates who were killed and dispersed during the rescue. The surviving Alliance troops lost almost all their equipment as well when their base camp was raided. On the other hand, he still had a lot of organizing to do with too little time to finish. Stark was grooming Corporal Cameron Davis to take a commission because she showed enormous potential as a leader. He called Cameron into the office he was using then.
When she entered, he regarded her for a moment before saying, “Cameron, you know we are planning to send you off to Officers school, we’ve told you that. I need you to help me get the troops ready for Commander Gordon’s arrival.”
Cameron understood this wasn’t a request. She believed it was a test, to see how she handled the pressure. There was only one reply Cameron could give her Lieutenant.
“What is it you want me to do, Sir?”
“We need to do a quick but thorough sweep of the Shuttle Station. We’re looking for anyone suspicious. If they don’t look like they belong, or even if they are acting suspiciously, take them into custody until we can sort out what is what. Liaise with Sergeant Dawson to get it done. Some of the troops may not take orders directly from you. They will take orders from the Sergeant though.”
“Very well, Sir. Understood. I’ll do it right away.”
Cameron saluted Stark, then turned and hurried from the office. As soon as she was out of sight, Stark allowed himself to smile. Corporal Davis was still very young and earnest. She had the making of an excellent leader if she wasn’t killed or something else didn’t ruin her before she was ready.
Davis went looking for Sergeant Dawson. She was aware of the Lieutenants interest in her career, the Sergeant told her weeks ago. Cameron was both excited and frightened of the path her life had taken since she was accepted into the Marine Corps. She found the Sergeant supervising his fire team as they scanned the field from their vantage point in the control tower.
Cameron walked over to Dawson and said, “Sergeant, the Lieutenant wants us to run a quick but thorough patrol of the Shuttle Station looking for anything at all suspicious. He said if there is anything, to detain whoever it is until we can sort out what is going on. I think the Commander will be here soon.”
“Okay Corporal, spread the word, I’ll be with you shortly, as soon as this lot are gone.”
Cameron nodded and left to task all the other available Marines.

Hi there. My next book in the Series is Star Strike. I'm planning on having it completed within the next four or five weeks. I thought it would be good to post the first chapter here to see what people think. Next week I'll post the second and the then the third the week after that.
You can give me an idea of what you think. I haven't completed the final edit yet so there may be a couple of rough bits. Now, the first Chapter of Star Strike, and the last Chapter of Star Rise overlap a little. The story is told from a different point of view and there is more detail about some events and less about others. So, here is the first chapter of Star Strike, I hope you enjoy it.

Star Strike
Chapter 1
Cambridge Burning
Colin sat in Theseus' CCC watching the sensors as the remaining Pirate ships ran for one the Jump-Point. He was tired, they all were. The Cambridge System Defence ships, not to mention the two Destroyers Colin brought from Cotoni had nothing left to give. No Missiles, or Rail-Gun ammunition remained, and all were damaged to one degree or another. The Federation Reserve Fleet under the personal command of Admiral Soolak Dalkasan arrived in the nick of time though not before Cambridge's Cruisers, Cobras, and Taipans extracted a heavy toll on the invading Pirates. When the reinforcements arrived all the local forces had left, was to physically ram the Pirates with their remaining ships. That was no longer necessary.
Colin watched FNS Samurai begin the long loop that would return her to Cambridge Station. Commodore Nicholson and Captain Lister were both critically injured and in Stasis-Pods till they reached a proper hospital. The situation on the ground was still fluid, with roving bands of Pirate ground troops still causing havoc. Many Pirates on the ground seemed to lose interest in fighting after the Pirate ships left orbit, so the Troopers made significant headway rounding them up. Some even shot their commanders and surrendered when it became apparent their masters no longer held the orbitals. The Comms Panel lit up with a call from Admiral Dalkasan. Colin accepted the call and found himself looking at the Admiral in near real time.
Dalkasan asked, "What's your fleet status Commander?"
"We're out of ammunition and don't have a single undamaged vessel left, Sir. Some of our ships look like they're still in one piece, but they seem to be dead in space, following a ballistic course. We're unable to contact them, and they're traveling too fast for our Station Tugs to catch, we'll have to try to slow them down first so we can bring them back. I hope, the crews are okay."
"Perhaps we can help you there. We have Tugs that are configured to dock at a standard docking port. You should be able to dock them to a couple of your faster ships, then use the Tugs to catch the runaways and bring them under control. You'll need to drop your shuttles though so you can take the Tugs on."
"Thank you, Sir, I'll detail two of our remaining Taipans for that job, almost all the Cobras are barely holding together now."
"Good, we're inbound to Cambridge Station. There is no way we can catch those fleeing Pirates, so I've ordered two Destroyers to guard each of the Jump-Points for now. I’ll need to talk to Commodore Fraser and Commodore Nicholson when I'm close enough."
"Commodore Nicholson is in a Stasis-Pod Sir, but I'll see if I can raise Commodore Fraser for you. Communications with the surface have been spotty at best."
"What about your shipyard and Cambridge Station, are they badly damaged?"
"No Sir, they're intact. I think the Pirates were busy trying to pacify the planet itself first and couldn't board either of the facilities because we'd mounted obscenely powerful shields on them. They only fired a few weapons at them, mainly to test the strength of the defenses I think."

I am well into writing the third book in my Star Man series now. The plan is to release it before the end of October, but we shall see. Star Strike sets Colin Gordon up for the series’ final book where he comes to save the world.

The fourth book of the series finishes the story I planned when I began writing. Since then, several paths came to mind. I plan to follow those and continue the Star Man series. I need time to develop my ideas first though.

In the meantime, an idea surfaced for a new series. Each story in this new series, will stand alone. At the end of each book, I will throw out a challenge to my readers to recognize the inspiration for the story. Hint, I suspect many readers from the US will know the answer for the first story. The working title… No, I'll tell you that closer to the release date. For now, I hope to release the first around August next year. I will give you the title when I start writing the story, now, I’m only in the early stages of research.

Well, that's it for now. For those of you who've read my first two books, I hope you enjoyed the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. If you have read my books, please leave a quick review, either good or bad or at least give them a rating. These reviews are often educational for me, so you will help by doing them. Thank you to the people who already have.
If you want to ask me anything, please do via “ask the author”. Once again, Thank you.
I. G. Roberts