Half-Breed: A Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Mystery

by Scott Michael Decker

Amber Calico, Kathy Mongrel, and Theresa Appaloosa haven't had easy lives. Growing up under the dominion of the Emperor Chingis Khan, they look like their human conquerors, their Terran sires having left their mothers pregnant in the aftermath of the Terran conquest. When each half-breed is summoned to Earth aboard a transpod—the very vehicle that gave humans the tactical advantage needed to subjugate the entire Perseus Arm—they're happy to leave their home planets, scorned throughout their lives by their own people. At their departures, their mothers give them each an amulet, saying, "Your father wanted you to have this." But their transpods malfunction, sending them each wildly astray. Amber Calico lands on a desolate moon, occupied by a pirate base, its leader the former commander who led the assault on Amber's homeworld, Felly. Kathy Mongrel finds herself on a cloud-shrouded ammonia-atmostphere planet, near the home of the lieutenant colonel whose navies forced Kathy's homeworld, Canny, to capitulate. Theresa Appaloosa crashes on a grasslands planet, the retirement home of a two-star general whose deep remorse at having slaughtered the people of Theresa's homeworld, Equy, caused her to retire. Each half-breed woman discovers that the Emperor Chingis Khan has died. In nearly every still-shot and video, he wears an amulet identical to the one their mothers gave them. The Emperor's death throws the Empire into turmoil and the succession into doubt, the Heir Kublai Khan only an infant. "Nothing happens in the Emperor's universe except by design," one of the half-breeds is told, "His design." And the three women converge on Earth, soon discovering to their great dismay that they share the same father—the Emperor himself.

329 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 7, 2014

About the author

Scott Michael Decker, MSW, is an author by avocation and a social worker by trade. He is the author of twenty-plus novels in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, dabbling among the sub-genres of space opera, biopunk, spy-fi, and sword and sorcery. His biggest fantasy is wishing he were published. His fifteen years of experience working with high-risk populations is relieved only by his incisive humor. Formerly interested in engineering, he's now tilting at the windmills he once aspired to build. Asked about the MSW after his name, the author is adamant it stands for Masters in Social Work, and not "Municipal Solid Waste," which he spreads pretty thick as well. His favorite quote goes, "Scott is a social work novelist, who never had time for a life" (apologies to Billy Joel). He lives and dreams happily with his wife near Sacramento, California.

Reviews

[Charles Miske · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is surprisingly good. Kept me reading all the way to about the end, then I got distracted.

DISCLAIMER: If you don't "get" furries or the obsession with them, you may not like this book much.

Not sure what furries is? Look it up. In the context of furry-human getting it on. Okay, back? So yeah.

The ending kind of leaped in with a Deus Ex Machina wrap-up, but it was okay. Still left it open to several more books.