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GENeration eXtraTERrestrial
An avant-garde installation artist, a rural farmer, a suburban housewife, a spinster librarian, and a diva of stage and screen: What could this diverse group possibly have in common? Each of them claims alien abduction, but that’s not all. They also insist they are carrying alien babies.
Research scientist, Dr. Grace Brown, must officially examine these “nut cookies.” Her boss has blackmailed Grace into the task. He hopes to sabotage her reputation with this fool’s errand and be rid of her. He soon learns it’s not smart to tangle with a super-achiever, just as Grace learns not to assume things are always as they appear.
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GENeration eXtraTERrestrial is a contemporary epic in ten parts. ePisode 1 is free. It contains a hyperlink that will take you to the location on the web where the link to ePisode 2 is hidden – it may be on a character’s blog, a related site… definitely somewhere surprising.
Each following ePisode contains a similar hyperlink to the next hidden download, and so on – like an internet treasure hunt. Meanwhile, you will enjoy seeing what the GENeration eXtraTERrestrial characters are up to while you search. Perhaps you will even have a chance to interact with them – you’ll never know what you’ll discover until you check it out.
Research scientist, Dr. Grace Brown, must officially examine these “nut cookies.” Her boss has blackmailed Grace into the task. He hopes to sabotage her reputation with this fool’s errand and be rid of her. He soon learns it’s not smart to tangle with a super-achiever, just as Grace learns not to assume things are always as they appear.
________________________________________________
GENeration eXtraTERrestrial is a contemporary epic in ten parts. ePisode 1 is free. It contains a hyperlink that will take you to the location on the web where the link to ePisode 2 is hidden – it may be on a character’s blog, a related site… definitely somewhere surprising.
Each following ePisode contains a similar hyperlink to the next hidden download, and so on – like an internet treasure hunt. Meanwhile, you will enjoy seeing what the GENeration eXtraTERrestrial characters are up to while you search. Perhaps you will even have a chance to interact with them – you’ll never know what you’ll discover until you check it out.
560 pages, ebook
First published November 1, 2010
About the author
Aurelio O'Brien
24 books5 followersAurelio O’Brien grew up in a blended family with seven siblings in the ideal suburbia of Sunnyvale, California.
With an aerospace engineer for a father and a family full of odd, creative, assertive, and clever siblings, there was no end to the fun and madness, and so, no shortage of material to later draw upon as a creative artist and writer.
Aurelio’s own odd mix of talents and interests led him to a successful career as an illustrator, animator, and graphic designer. In his mid-forties, he began a literary career as well with his first novel, EVE. This was soon followed by GENeration eXtraTERrestrial, I Was a Teenage Cheerleader, Family Trees, and finally, Forth & Back.
With an aerospace engineer for a father and a family full of odd, creative, assertive, and clever siblings, there was no end to the fun and madness, and so, no shortage of material to later draw upon as a creative artist and writer.
Aurelio’s own odd mix of talents and interests led him to a successful career as an illustrator, animator, and graphic designer. In his mid-forties, he began a literary career as well with his first novel, EVE. This was soon followed by GENeration eXtraTERrestrial, I Was a Teenage Cheerleader, Family Trees, and finally, Forth & Back.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 13, 2011
Many novels have been written about aliens coming to Earth. What happens after they become part of society, and the media spotlight moves elsewhere?
Grace Brown is a serious scientist in the field of extraterrestrial life. Her boss blackmails her into working with Diane and Tab, a photographer and writer for a tabloid newspaper. The three travel throughout America, meeting people who say that they were impregnated by extraterrestrials ("Knocked Up By An Alien!"). Their stories are not as easy to dismiss as Grace had hoped. To get back at her boss, Grace brings them all back to her employer, where they happen to give birth all at the same time.
Born to a male farmer from Kansas, Brock looks like a walking plant who eats rocks. It's how he gets his daily minerals. Gray looks like your average alien (gray skin and big eyes) who needs a drink of alcohol every day, the way that humans need water every day. He also has a hydraulic skeleton; his arm and leg bones slide inside each other, so he can make them longer or shorter at will. The triplets, Flora, Fauna and Manfred, have wings and hatch from eggs laid by a New York socialite. Alpha looks like an average child, except for the third eye in the middle of her forehead that allows her to see auras. Charlie is a super-genius with a full head of hair and set of teeth, right out of the womb. Realizing that his mother has died in childbirth, Charlie crawls to her head and hugs her while he weeps.
After the media circus fades, the Genxters deal with the usual growing-up issues. There's alcoholism, gender issues and making their way through school. Gray becomes a natural athlete; he is cut from his high school football team when the other teams refuse to play with him on the team. One day, the metabolisms of the triplets go into overdrive. They can't eat enough, and they gain a lot of weight. They spend the next couple of years each encased in a chrysalis, from which they eventually emerge. They each lose their wings because of a certain adolescent rite of passage. Charlie dresses like he just stepped out of a book on Edwardian attire. He starts a website so that the group can stay in touch. He becomes very interested in finding out where he, and the rest of the group, come from, so he scrutinizes signals from the stars, looking for any signs of intelligence.
This is a really interesting novel, but it is not just a novel. There are several websites mentioned in this book that really exist. Yes, it is very much worth reading.
Grace Brown is a serious scientist in the field of extraterrestrial life. Her boss blackmails her into working with Diane and Tab, a photographer and writer for a tabloid newspaper. The three travel throughout America, meeting people who say that they were impregnated by extraterrestrials ("Knocked Up By An Alien!"). Their stories are not as easy to dismiss as Grace had hoped. To get back at her boss, Grace brings them all back to her employer, where they happen to give birth all at the same time.
Born to a male farmer from Kansas, Brock looks like a walking plant who eats rocks. It's how he gets his daily minerals. Gray looks like your average alien (gray skin and big eyes) who needs a drink of alcohol every day, the way that humans need water every day. He also has a hydraulic skeleton; his arm and leg bones slide inside each other, so he can make them longer or shorter at will. The triplets, Flora, Fauna and Manfred, have wings and hatch from eggs laid by a New York socialite. Alpha looks like an average child, except for the third eye in the middle of her forehead that allows her to see auras. Charlie is a super-genius with a full head of hair and set of teeth, right out of the womb. Realizing that his mother has died in childbirth, Charlie crawls to her head and hugs her while he weeps.
After the media circus fades, the Genxters deal with the usual growing-up issues. There's alcoholism, gender issues and making their way through school. Gray becomes a natural athlete; he is cut from his high school football team when the other teams refuse to play with him on the team. One day, the metabolisms of the triplets go into overdrive. They can't eat enough, and they gain a lot of weight. They spend the next couple of years each encased in a chrysalis, from which they eventually emerge. They each lose their wings because of a certain adolescent rite of passage. Charlie dresses like he just stepped out of a book on Edwardian attire. He starts a website so that the group can stay in touch. He becomes very interested in finding out where he, and the rest of the group, come from, so he scrutinizes signals from the stars, looking for any signs of intelligence.
This is a really interesting novel, but it is not just a novel. There are several websites mentioned in this book that really exist. Yes, it is very much worth reading.
April 10, 2011
This isn't just a book, it's an experience. When I first mentioned this book in a previous blog, I hadn't fully appreciated exactly how detailed this book really was. I knew it was interactive, but I didn't realize how much work O'Brien had put into this. It's pretty cool, to be honest.
Each chapter has links to various websites, all of which are "in universe". I'd tell you what they're all like but that would ruin the surprise. I'll just say that it was pretty neat to see a website correlating with various different plot points of the book.
How is the book itself? Well, it's incredibly entertaining. O'Brien has a very good writing style that was easy to follow along with. I'm not really a reader of sci-fi anymore but then this book doesn't entirely fit within the genre. The story goes where it will & becomes whatever it wants to be at any specific point in time & it works. I loved the characters, especially the genxters themselves. It was just fun to follow their stories as they grew up & tried to discover exactly why they were put on earth to begin with.
The story is great & I have no doubt that it'll find a nice wide audience. This is a wonderfully polished book, to be honest. Sci-fi fans will adore it & non-fans will still love it because it's such an approachable read.
If you're curious, there's two ways to get the book. Either you can purchase the entire book up front or you can purchase it episode by episode. Both cost about the same amount so it's pretty much up to you as to how you go about it. You can find the first episode (for free!) on the author's website (click on the book image to go there), so there's really no risk involved in at least checking it out.
4.5/5
(Review copy donated by author)
Each chapter has links to various websites, all of which are "in universe". I'd tell you what they're all like but that would ruin the surprise. I'll just say that it was pretty neat to see a website correlating with various different plot points of the book.
How is the book itself? Well, it's incredibly entertaining. O'Brien has a very good writing style that was easy to follow along with. I'm not really a reader of sci-fi anymore but then this book doesn't entirely fit within the genre. The story goes where it will & becomes whatever it wants to be at any specific point in time & it works. I loved the characters, especially the genxters themselves. It was just fun to follow their stories as they grew up & tried to discover exactly why they were put on earth to begin with.
The story is great & I have no doubt that it'll find a nice wide audience. This is a wonderfully polished book, to be honest. Sci-fi fans will adore it & non-fans will still love it because it's such an approachable read.
If you're curious, there's two ways to get the book. Either you can purchase the entire book up front or you can purchase it episode by episode. Both cost about the same amount so it's pretty much up to you as to how you go about it. You can find the first episode (for free!) on the author's website (click on the book image to go there), so there's really no risk involved in at least checking it out.
4.5/5
(Review copy donated by author)
January 23, 2011
This is my new multi-part all-eBook novel. ePisode 1 is FREE. GENeration eXtraTERrestrial
____________________________________________________
An avant-garde installation artist, a rural farmer, a suburban housewife, a spinster librarian, and a diva of stage and screen: What could this diverse group possibly have in common? Each of them claims alien abduction, but that’s not all. They also insist they are carrying alien babies.
Research scientist, Dr. Grace Brown, must officially examine these “nut cookies.” Her boss has blackmailed Grace into the task. He hopes to sabotage her reputation with this fool’s errand and be rid of her. He soon learns it’s not smart to tangle with a super-achiever, just as Grace learns not to assume things are always as they appear.
_____________________________________________________
GENeration eXtraTERrestrial is a contemporary epic in ten parts. ePisode 1 is free. Each following ePisode is priced like an app - 99 cents a pop. ePisode 1 contains a hyperlink that will take you to a story-related site on the web where the link to the next ePisode is hidden – it may be on a character’s blog, a related site… definitely somewhere surprising.
Each following ePisode contains a similar hyperlink to the next hidden download, and so on – like an internet treasure hunt. Meanwhile, you will enjoy seeing what the GENeration eXtraTERrestrial characters are up to while you search. Perhaps you will even have a chance to interact with them – you’ll never know what you’ll discover until you check it out.
____________________________________________________
An avant-garde installation artist, a rural farmer, a suburban housewife, a spinster librarian, and a diva of stage and screen: What could this diverse group possibly have in common? Each of them claims alien abduction, but that’s not all. They also insist they are carrying alien babies.
Research scientist, Dr. Grace Brown, must officially examine these “nut cookies.” Her boss has blackmailed Grace into the task. He hopes to sabotage her reputation with this fool’s errand and be rid of her. He soon learns it’s not smart to tangle with a super-achiever, just as Grace learns not to assume things are always as they appear.
_____________________________________________________
GENeration eXtraTERrestrial is a contemporary epic in ten parts. ePisode 1 is free. Each following ePisode is priced like an app - 99 cents a pop. ePisode 1 contains a hyperlink that will take you to a story-related site on the web where the link to the next ePisode is hidden – it may be on a character’s blog, a related site… definitely somewhere surprising.
Each following ePisode contains a similar hyperlink to the next hidden download, and so on – like an internet treasure hunt. Meanwhile, you will enjoy seeing what the GENeration eXtraTERrestrial characters are up to while you search. Perhaps you will even have a chance to interact with them – you’ll never know what you’ll discover until you check it out.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews