Speedwing

by Dave Bara

Sixteen-year-old Ethan Cochran is a lot like any other high school kid his age; he plays football, he has a girlfriend, he goes to proms. But when he graduates two years early, instead of going to college or learning the family business, Ethan does something a bit different; he volunteers to be a fighter pilot in the Colonial Sector Navy. Once in the Navy Ethan finds things aren’t exactly the way they were portrayed back on Earth. The alien Kalian are aggressively pushing humans off of their original twelve colonies. WorldGov, a coalition of business and government that runs the Earth and keeps it a paradise, is out in the colonies exploiting their resources and leaving environmental disasters behind. And the colonists? They aren’t really the happy pioneers portrayed on TV, more like grumpy conscripts. Despite his reservations Ethan is commissioned to pilot the navy’s most powerful weapon of defense against the Kalian, the SPEEDWING. Together with his friends Meredith and Sono they fight to defend the Earth from these aggressive invaders. Things take a turn for the worse when Ethan is shot down and captured by a Kalian. Only then does he discover more unpleasant truths; his “alien” captor is a friend, and the Kalian are all too human.

214 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Dave Bara was born at the dawn of the space age and grew up watching the Gemini and Apollo space programs on television. He dreamed of becoming an astronaut one day. This soon led him to an interest in science fiction, especially on television. His early years were filled with dozens of episodes of the original Star Trek, Lost in Space, The Outer Limits, and The Twilight Zone.

He began to read science fiction voraciously in his teens, with authors like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frederick Pohl, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Gordon Dickson, and Joe Haldeman being among his favorites. This led him to try his hand at writing, which he continued all through his college years, even using a novel project as part of his undergraduate degree studies. During these years the story concepts for what would become The Lightship Chronicles series began to take form.

Dave's writing is influenced by the many SF novels he has read over the years, but most notable were books like Dune (Herbert), The Mote In God's Eye (Niven and Pournelle), Dorsai! (Dickson), The Forever War (Haldeman), Tau Zero (Poul Anderson) and the Foundation novels (Asimov), among many others.

Dave looks forward to bringing SF fans many years of exciting and interesting writing, heroic characters, and soaring adventure in the years to come.

Look for IMPULSE: The Lightship Chronicles, Volume I on February 3, 2015 from DAW Books in the US and Del Rey Books in the UK and Europe. Volume II, STARBOUND, should be coming later in 2015.

Reviews

[Scott James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heinlein Redux? Not exactly, but if you've read classic science fiction novels, you'll recognize what drove Dave Bara to write this book.

Earth is at war, and has been for long enough that the current generation has forgotten who, and why we're fighting. A young pilot ventures out into the galaxy to prove his skills, and ends up finding himself along the way.

Speedwing is for anyone who's ever looked up after reading a book and imagined. Bara has a tight grasp on the tech, and keeps you interested throughout. My only complaint? It ended. Hurry up and write another one, Dave!