Taldra: Science Fiction Adventures - A #SciFi #Novel by Duane Simolke

Duane Simolke wrote The Acorn Stories, a collection of tales set in a fictional West Texas town. He also edited and co-wrote the fundraiser The Acorn Gathering: Writers Uniting Against Cancer. His writing appeared in nightFire, Mesquite, Caprock Sun, Beyond: Science Fiction & Fantasy, and many other publications. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.

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About the Book

The Taldra novels focus on gays, people of color, and powerful women.

“Edge-of-your-seat action, scenes that detail the turmoil and terror of an alien attack and an inside look at love and acceptance for humanity’s differences.” —Tome Tender

In an alternate reality, Earth is Valchondria. The one-world government consists of Leader, the Supreme Science Council, and a police force called “the Maintainers.”

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure introduces the Iroquois scientist Taldra. One of her sons becomes trapped on the other side of a time portal while the other loses himself to the religious cult Degranon. Can they find their way back to each other before the Degrans destroy Valchondria?

In Sons of Taldra: A Science Fiction Adventure, alien shapeshifters and the secrets of the Maintainers threaten humanity. First published in 2016 as an eBook, Sons of Taldra now appears in this collection with the revised, third edition of Degranon.

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Keep reading for an excerpt:

Lorfeltez stopped speaking. The audience grew still and quiet. The Maintainers had arrived. They filed through the crowd like a swarm of insects, freely pushing and shoving with all the authority their office granted them, elbowing several people, and pushing a few out the doorways.

Part of the crowd disappeared as if the weight of the entering officers forced them outside. However, many of them failed to move away in time, and the Maintainers grabbed at their collars or even punched at them, before finding the sources of the disruption.

A female Maintainer yanked the holo-projectors away, knocking them to the floor, then used the handle of her sleep rifle to destroy them, sending hot metal parts and wires everywhere. One of the wires gashed a woman’s arm, sending out a small spurt of blood. Before even noticing her, the Maintainers handcuffed all five men, even while the crowd continued to shift madly about, trying to escape. One of the Maintainers assisted the injured woman, holding his hand over the cut on her arm.

Dr. Lorfeltez saw an elderly red woman in the audience, frail to the point that she had obviously lived beyond the virus’s benefits. One of the Maintainers waved his laser pistol around to scare away the remnants of the controversial gathering. He threw the metal cylinder up in the air and let it drop glove-like around his left hand.

His barrel pointed directly at the old woman. At least the other citizens could move quickly from his senseless demonstration of power, even if some of them ran in too many different directions for everyone to escape.

As he swung around again, the barrel struck the old woman on the forehead and knocked her to the floor. The crowd almost trampled her, but the handsome stranger pulled her up and helped her escape.

Lorfeltez had wanted to intervene as well, but another Maintainer stood beside her, aiming a laser pistol at her. The Maintainer was an extremely tall black woman, but barely more than a teenager, with hair shooting out from her headband, reminding Lorfeltez of a docle flower, one of the few remaining flowers on Valchondria’s overly industrialized landscape. The absence of stripes on her uniform revealed her as a trainee, but she carried herself like a Top Maintainer.