Altered Seasons: Monsoonrise - A #SciFi #Novel by Paul Briggs

Paul Briggs learned to read and write when he was two, the same time he was learning to talk. He spent the next twenty years learning that nobody talks the same way they write, or vice versa.

He lives in Easton, Maryland, has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is the author of two middle-grade science fiction novels, "Locksmith's Closet" and "Locksmith's Journeys." He is working on the concluding volume of the trilogy, "Locksmith's War." Paul has also written several short plays, two of which ("The Worst Super Power Ever" and "The Picture of Health") have won awards.

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About the Book

An unexpected chain reaction in the climate creates a new weather pattern, bringing devastating floods every autumn after the droughts and heat waves of summer. Follow five people in their struggle with this new environment.

Carolyn Camberg is trying to save America.

Henry Pratt is trying to save his administration.

Isabel Bradshaw is trying to save her family.

Walter Yuschak is trying to save freedom.

Sandra Symcox is trying to save the world.

Who will survive? Who will succeed?

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Keep reading for an excerpt:

“So you’re the analyst,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Isabel Bradshaw, sir.” Her mind raced. Had Martineau called her in here because he didn’t trust Eveland and the others anymore? Or was it just that the news was so bad he needed to hear it from as many different people as possible before he accepted it?

“Get over here.”

Sketch of Isabel

Isabel stepped over to his desk, trying to ignore the unmistakable aroma of real coffee coming from the cup on his desk. Then she glanced at the computer screen and made an involuntary noise in the back of her throat that sounded like “eep.” The screen was divided into four parts. The silver-haired man watching from the upper right, bronze-framed reading glasses perched on his nose… You have got to be kidding me, she thought. She’d just barely managed to work herself up to speak in front of the governor of Louisiana and the head of the Corps, and now they’d brought in President Pratt himself… and whoever those other three guys were? But then, the ORCS really was that important.

Martineau quickly introduced them. They were the secretary of the interior and the mayors of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

“It’s an honor,” she said in a voice that came out a lot smaller than she’d intended. From the looks of the wall behind him, Pratt was on Air Force One right now. She thought about telling him she’d voted for him, but decided not to.

“You’re the one who’s been collecting the info and running the simulations?” said Martineau.

“Yessir.”

“Tell everybody what the situation is.”

“All right,” she said. “With near one hundred percent certainty, the water will crest over the top of the Low Sill tomorrow. As of noon today, we estimate a sixty-four percent chance some part of the ORCS fails.”

There was a long, long silence after that.

“This is the worst-case scenario, right?” the governor finally said.

Isabel glanced at Martineau, hoping he’d say something. He looked expectantly at her. She glanced at Roth and Horrocks. Roth kept his face neutral. Horrocks shook her head.

Crap. They hadn’t told him. Isabel sighed. For her next trick, she was going to make her career disappear. At least she had a hell of an audience.

“Actually, sir, this is the best-case scenario,” she said.

As one, Eveland and Hickman rose to interrupt.

“What she means is, it’s an aggregate of possible—”

“Our analysts are trained to think in terms of—”

“Quiet,” said Martineau, not loudly but firmly.

As one, Eveland and Hickman shut up.

Martineau stood up and clapped a hand on Isabel’s shoulder. “I want everybody but this young lady out of the room now.”

Locksmith's Journeys by Paul Briggs

Paul Briggs learned to read and write when he was two, about the same time he learned to talk. He then spent the next twenty years learning that most people don't talk the same way they write.

He lives in Maryland, has a master's degree in journalism, worked for a daily paper for 12 years and is also an editor, proofreader and ghostwriter. He is the author of several short plays, including the award-winning "The Worst Super Power Ever" and "The Picture of Health."

In his spare time he is a stage actor.

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About the Book

In the second book of the Locksmith Trilogy, 12-year-old Lachlan Smith and his family and friends travel back and forth between the present and the future in hopes of preventing the extinction of the human race. It becomes increasingly clear that they will need help if they're to succeed — but who do they turn to for help? And how can they do this while keeping the time portal a secret?

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Keep reading for an excerpt:

“I know this is going to sound like a dumb question,” said Tara, “but… if we were actually going to solve this mystery and save the world… why can’t we just look in the future and see how we did it?”

“Nothing wrong with the question,” said Gary, “but the answer is, it doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why not?” said Brandon.

Gary looked a little embarrassed. “I haven’t had much luck explaining this stuff to people,” he said. “I’m not sure if I can help you understand.”

“Can I make a suggestion?” said Lock.

“Sure.”

“This time, try leaving the cat out of it. It doesn’t help.”

“Okay. Give me just a minute. Let me think.”

They waited. After a long moment, Gary spoke again.

“If you think about it,” he said, “we see into the future all the time. When you walk down the street, or ride your bike, you look ahead, and you’re seeing where you’re going to be a few seconds from now.”

“Yeah,” said Tara, “but that’s not really seeing forward in time, that’s just… seeing forward.”

“Time and space are all part of the same thing,” said Gary. “Like, the event horizon of a black hole is where time and space rotate into each other. That’s why nothing can get out — once you’re in, the past becomes up and the future becomes down.”

“I thought it was because there was… too much gravity down there or something,” said Lock.

“That’s another way of saying the same thing,” said Gary. “Wait… is any of this making sense?”

The rest of them shook their heads.

“Okay,” said Gary. “My point is… suppose you’re riding your bike and you see a pothole in the street up ahead, right where you’re about to go. You don’t just go ahead and hit it, right?”

“No,” said Tara. “If you see it in time, you go around it.”

“Right. And when you move, it’s not in front of you any more. You’re not going to hit it. It hasn’t disappeared — it’s still real — but your worldline doesn’t intersect with it anywhere. And if you were never going to go down that stretch of road again…”

“Yeah, but if you’re on a bike, you can stop or turn around,” said Tara. “You can’t stop going forward in time.”

“But you can still steer,” said Gary. “We do it all the time — we just don’t realize we’re doing it. Philosophers call it ‘free will’ only they’re not sure if it exists or not. But what Lock and I found out is, you can change the future. But you can’t go to the future and see the changes you make until after the point where you’ve already made them in the present. Does that make sense?”

There was a long pause.

“So… the end of the world is… like… a really big pothole?” said Brandon.

Locksmith's Closet by Paul Briggs

Paul Briggs learned to read and write when he was two, about the same time he learned to talk. He then spent the next twenty years learning that most people don't talk the same way they write.

He lives in Maryland, has a master's degree in journalism, worked for a daily paper for 12 years and is also an actor, editor and proofreader. He is the author of several short plays, including the award-winning "The Worst Super Power Ever" and "The Picture of Health."

"Locksmith's Closet" is his first novel.

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About the Book

In the first book of the Locksmith Trilogy, 12-year-old Lachlan Smith discovers a portal to the future in his bedroom closet. Going through, he and his friend Gary discover a world where all humans disappeared decades ago. When they learn that the future can be changed, they set out to discover what happened and prevent it from happening. Meanwhile, a mysterious man has appeared who claims to be the true owner of the Smith house and the portal and will stop at nothing to get them.

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Keep reading for an excerpt:

And so, a few minutes later, Gary was looking over the panel. Lock had told him about Hance having the closet locked, and about the weird noise behind the panel. It was strange how totally unscary everything looked by daylight.

“That guy must have been planning all along to get back in here,” said Gary. “See? The nail heads aren’t flush with the wood. They stick out a little bit, so you can get the claw under them. A little more hammering, and they’d have gone all the way in and it’d be a whole lot harder to get them out. As it is, it should be pretty easy.”

When Lock put the claw of the hammer on one of the nails, it came halfway out at the first tug. “Looks like you’re right,” he said.

One by one, the nails came out. Lock lifted the panel off the floor, looked down and… stared in disbelief. He was looking down into another room — but not one on the first floor of this house.

Almost all he could see of it was the floor — but that was a whole world of weird by itself. It was made of timbers that looked ancient and half-rotten, and there were mushrooms and lichens growing out of it. Stranger still, it wasn’t flat, it was V-shaped, at such a deep angle that it would be very hard to walk on it.

Strangest of all was that Lock could see, now, what had been making the scraping noise. It was a tree branch — the tip of what looked like a healthy red maple branch. It was coming from somewhere off to the side, in the direction the light was coming from. Also, there seemed to be ivy growing on the ceiling — Lock could see it around the edges.

For a moment — for a very long moment — Lock and Gary just sat there staring. Then Lock touched the branch. It was still real. It felt perfectly normal. It was just where it was that was wrong. And the air coming out of the hole was warm and damp, and smelled very fresh. Lock guessed that this room was open to the outside, that the tree branch had grown in from there, and that it had been the wind brushing it back and forth on the wooden panel that had made that sound. But… how was any of this possible?

Just to confirm this was real, Lock picked up a nail and dropped it into the hole — and here he got the biggest surprise of all. Instead of falling all the way down, landing on that strange floor and rolling into the center, it fell only a couple of feet, then slowed to a stop, hung in midair for a split second, then flew up again. It actually went back up into the closet, rising a few feet into the air, then dropping through again… then rising again… like a yo-yo without a string.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Lock caught the nail and put it down on the floor. It was creepy to see something as basic as gravity not working right. He looked around, half expecting things to start floating away.

“I’ve figured it out,” Gary finally said.

“You have?”

“Yeah. Wherever this portal goes to” — Lock realized that that was really what this was, a portal to somewhere else — “that’s not the floor down there, it’s the ceiling. So when the nail drops to the other side of this hole, it’s going up, not down — so it starts falling the other way.” Gary stuck his hand through the portal and waved it around, a look of concentration on his face.

“Yes,” he said at last. “That’s what’s going on… I wonder what’s really on the other side.” He looked at Lock, as if waiting for him to volunteer to step through it.

Do I really want to do this? thought Lock. What if it suddenly stops working while I’m in the middle of it? Maybe we could put a camera on a stick or something… But somehow he couldn’t say these things to Gary. He prepared to put a foot through, but Gary stopped him.

“Head first, dude,” said Gary. “Otherwise when you come out the other side, you’ll be upside down. Here, I’ll show you.” Gary took a deep breath and dove into the portal as if it were a swimming pool. Then he scrambled up out of it on the other side.

Diving headfirst anywhere always felt wrong to Lock, like he was just asking for a cracked skull. But he wasn’t about to let Gary show him up. He took the plunge.