The Colony by RM Gilmour

Cover image (Goodreads)

When Lydia is pulled through spacetime into Jordan’s plane of existence, she finds herself immersed in a world controlled by the Guardian, an artificial intelligence. The Guardian’s sole purpose is to protect the power source that runs the planet; but it does so at the cost of all who live outside of its city.

Sheltered in the Colony, beyond the city’s borders, Lydia is befriended by an advanced race of hunters and warriors, who do all they can to protect her and themselves from the Guardian. To survive in this new world, she must find courage and strength, and learn to face her fears. But to save her soulmate and the colonists from the Guardian, she must overcome those fears and embrace her inner strength.

I was drawn to The Colony by reading an extract online—not a very long extract, but it convinced me that here was an interesting main character, dropped into a challenging situation. I was hooked.

RM Gilmour's story begins in a familiar Earth, but quite rapidly shifts to a wider focus. "Our" Earth is only one among a small set of alternate parallel worlds. The inhabitants are recognisable, but each has pursued a slightly different line of development, both biological and technological. There is a complementarity about the various groups; like any other kind of diversity, this has the potential to go well for the separate groups, or to go really badly. There are a lot of echoes of today's world, as a diverse group of people plucked from their own context tries to establish a kind of refugee existence.

The central character, Lydia, would be interesting in any story, but her complex and painful back story fits particularly well in this setting. She is constantly having to reassess who can be trusted and why, and whether she can rely on her own perceptions of the situation. Her personal history does not predispose her to depend on others, nor to feel that she herself is anything other than a destructive influence. Ironically, this very capacity for destruction proves to be crucial for the plot, once properly directed.

The story takes many twists and turns—it is at times a love story, an abduction, a rebellion, or a desperate defence against unthinking aggressors. It is to the author's credit that she has handled these possibilities without the story becoming bogged down and confusing. Since we follow Lydia throughout, these changes seem natural developments as her own awareness grows.

The book provokes thought about important personal issues. The one I grappled with most was what draws two people together. The book proposes that it is our similarities which make for compatibility and love. I feel it is more to do with complementarity and difference, but I appreciated the fact that the book tackled the question head on.

In terms of editing, there were a few more slips than I had expected, chiefly around homonym words such as your / you're. A few of them had me puzzled for a moment, but none of them interfered with my great enjoyment of the book.

The Colony ends with the defeat of the enemy, once its identity has been finally clarified. However, the closing words suggest that the victory has brought new risks, almost before the dust settles, which I am sure will be explored in a second story.

In short, The Colony is an engaging and stimulating book, providing a new twist on the theme of parallel worlds. Well worth reading.

The author's website can be found here.

Book Excerpt: Citizen Magus by Rob Steiner

A few weeks ago, we revealed the cover for Citizen Magus, the first book in a new series by Rob Steiner. Today, Steiner has granted us permission to reveal the first chapter of the story. Enjoy!

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CITIZEN MAGUS
by Rob Steiner

CHAPTER ONE

My name is Remington Blakes, but people in 6 B.C. Rome call me Natta Magus.

Why?

For starters, I am a fully trained, licensed, and insured magus from twenty-first century Detroit in the American Union. Second, I needed to feed myself somehow after I got stranded in ancient Rome, so I set up my own magus shop on the Aventine Hill. What Roman would hire Remington when they could hire (cue epic echo) Natta Magus. It means something like "artisanal wizard" in Latin, so I guess you could call it a marketing decision. But there were times like now, running through Rome's crowded streets on my way to stop a magical murder, that I wondered if there were safer ways to earn money. Like joining the legions.

Gaius Aurelius Vitulus, my Praetorian friend—perhaps my only friend in Rome—stopped ahead and gave me an impatient frown. I once saw him make a corrupt quaestor spill his guts with just that frown. He was a few inches shorter than my six-foot two-inch frame, but he had the intimidating build of a twenty-something man who spent the last ten years in the legions. When I caught up to him, he said, "The sun is setting, and we're still a mile from the temple."

"I'm going as fast as I can," I growled. "These damned sandals are killing me." Eighteen months in Rome and I still longed for the rubber-soled sneakers I wore back home.

"Your dawdling will kill Celsus Maximus," Vitulus grunted, and began weaving his way again through the crowds and labyrinthine Roman alleys.

Vitulus was dressed like any other citizen of the equestrian social rank—a white woolen tunica with two narrow, vertical red stripes down the sides—but his bearing and the well-used, pearl-handled gladius on his belt made the crowds part for him. The gladius was a gift from his father upon his ascension to manhood on his fourteenth birthday. I once asked Vitulus why he didn't brush the stains off the pearl handle, and he said that the stains remind him the gladius was a tool and not a bauble. I tried not to think of how many men he'd killed with it during his days in the legions.

I'd known Vitulus for about a year, and all I can tell you is that by contemporary Roman standards, he's a huge Boy Scout. He values honor above all other virtues, always keeps his promises, will fight to protect the innocent, but won't hesitate to kill his enemies. A year ago I had helped Vitulus and his boss, Praetorian Prefect Salvius Aper, with a "delicate matter" involving supernatural forces. They'd come to me ever since with more "delicate matters" that gods-fearing Romans didn't want to believe in.

Take the case of Celsus Maximus, the famous gladiator whose murder we were racing to prevent. Now I abhor slavery like anyone from my time, so when Vitulus came to me for help in finding Celsus, I turned him down. I had hoped that Celsus had escaped the bloody gladiatorial games that Romans loved. But then Vitulus told me that a clay tablet had been left in Celsus's empty quarters. It said that Celsus would be killed unless "Remington Blakes, the one you call Natta Magus," shows up alone at the Temple of Sterquilinus outside the Porta Ostiensis by sundown. It warned of dire consequences if I brought anybody with me.

Well that piqued my interest. Only two people in ancient Rome knew my real name. Vitulus was one. The other was the all around bastard who abandoned me in ancient Rome in the first place, my former friend and mentor from the twenty-first century, William Pingree Ford. He'd been using his magus powers in Rome over the last eighteen months to try and change history, and I'd done my best to clean up his messes. But he always stayed a few moves ahead of me. I had to catch him, so I could not only stop him but make him send me home.

Was it a trap? Maybe. He'd passive aggressively tried to kill me last year by sicking daemons on me, though I think that was more to distract me from his real plot to kill Caesar Augustus. I stopped him, but that's another story.

No, this was the best lead I'd had on him in months, and I couldn't ignore it.

Which is what worried me.

"I don't understand how Celsus could be captured," Vitulus said as I came even with him again. "He's a cunning warrior."

I dodged a flock of sheep heading to the Forum and blinked the sweat out of my eyes. My Detroit Wolverines baseball cap, which helped me focus my magic, was soaked in sweat from my jog through Rome's stifling and close streets.

"Magic beats might every time, my friend," I said. "If William is behind this, then Celsus may not have had a chance. We need to—"

I stubbed my open toe on a stray rock and unleashed a string of modern curses. Vitulus eyed me with amusement.

"Is that how you curse in 'Anglish'?" he asked.

"English," I said, limping next to him. "Latin curses don't feel as good." And I hope I'm not here long enough for them to do so. "As I was saying, we need to figure out why William would kidnap Celsus of all people and use him to lure me to this temple."

"If your former mentor wants to kill someone famous," Vitulus said, barely breathing hard, "he couldn't have found anyone more famous than Princeps Augustus himself. Celsus has over a hundred kills in the arena in just the last year alone. He rarely ever gets wounded, and he's refused the wooden sword of freedom four times. He's the most remarkable gladiator in over a generation."

Listening to Vitulus rattle off Celsus's kills reminded me how I'd rattle off the stats of my favorite Wolverine ball players. It was kind of disgusting and once again illustrated the huge cultural gulf between my friend and I.

"Yeah, well, a good sword arm is no match against a well-formed sleeper spell," I said.

We rounded the corner and almost ran into a wedding party. The bride's father, dressed in a brilliant white toga, led the procession. Female slaves marched behind him and in front of the bride, throwing multi-colored flower petals at her feet. A deep-yellow veil covered her head, and she wore a white robe bound at the waist with a woolen belt. Her attendants and family marched behind her, likely on their way to the groom's house and the next stage of their ceremony.

These processions were common in Roman streets, and my heart cracked a little each time I saw one. I had missed my own wedding in the twenty-first century two months ago. I'm trying, Brianna, I thought. All my will and focus is bent on getting home to you. I missed her so much that I saw her reflection in every pool of water I passed. Her long brown hair always pulled back in a ponytail; her circular, wire-framed spectacles perched on the end of her nose; sparkling green eyes; mischievous grin; the goose flesh on her soft skin when I touched—

Focus, I had to focus. Daydreaming about Brianna had almost killed me during my recent jobs with Vitulus.

We passed the procession and stepped onto the brick-layered Via Ostiensis, where I felt like I could breathe again. For an empire renowned for its efficient roads and imperial administration, the Mother City was a maze of meandering, claustrophobic alleys and haphazardly built wood and brick tenements. Even native Romans got lost if they tried navigating the unlit streets at night.

"Have you given more thought to my invitation?" Vitulus asked as we continued jogging.

I winced, expecting this after passing the wedding. "Still thinking about it."

"What's there to think about? It's my wedding. I'm meeting Claudia's family tomorrow to negotiate guests, so I want to add your name to that list. I don't know about your Detroit, but here in Rome it's considered an insult to refuse a wedding invitation, especially from a friend."

Oh, it's insulting in my time, too, I thought. But how could I explain to him that passing a stranger's wedding procession made me want to sit in my shop all day writing sad poetry and sighing. Watching a friend get married would be a figurative gladius shoved into my heart.

"I know, and you deserve an answer," I said. I licked my lips. "I have to decline. You know I can't make any oaths that would tie me to this century or it'll be all the more difficult for me to get back home. Accepting a wedding invitation is an implied oath that I will be at a certain place at a certain time. What happens if I discover a way to get home tomorrow?"

Vitulus gave an exasperated laugh. "Then I'll release you from your 'oath'!"

"Yes, but what if you're not around to do that? I can't take that chance. I'm sorry."

Vitulus continued jogging in silence, his teeth clenched.

Accepting a wedding invitation wasn't considered an Oath with a capital "O" in any magus class I'd ever passed. Only strong Oaths, like marriage vows might keep me here longer than I wanted. I'd even turned down Salvius Aper's clientela offer, essentially giving me a full-time job in the Praetorian Guard, because I'd have to swear oaths to serve him that might conflict with my Oaths. Swearing an Oath is like putting a tattoo on your soul. It's there for life. Sure there are ways to remove it without fulfilling it, but they hurt like hell. So if you even think you might not follow through with an Oath, it was best not to swear it in the first place. If I went back to the twenty-first century without fulfilling it, my aura would be forever tarnished, and then good luck finding a job or making another friend again.

So even I knew my excuse was lame.

We exited the Porta Ostiensis on the south side of Rome and jogged another half-mile before stopping. Vitulus pointed to a hilltop with a small circular building on top. It was a few hundred yards away and surrounded by plowed grain fields. The building had a red-tiled roof and square windows that ran along the entire circumference. It looked more like a tool shed than a temple.

"The Temple of Sterquilinus," he said, "the god of fertilization. Most people go to the Temple of Ceres these days, so it's fallen into disrepair."

"So he's the god of manure?"

Vitulus shrugged, and then said, "I still think it's foolish for you to go alone."

"Probably," I said. I mentally checked the enchantments that held my ball cap to my head and my components belt around my waist were set. The familiar tingle in my hairline and my hips said they were. "But the letter said he'd kill Celsus if I didn't come alone. And William couldn't have chosen a better spot to ensure my loneliness."

Vitulus's hand tightened on the pearl hilt of his sheathed gladius as he studied the temple. "If you think this is a trap, then why are you going? Why risk your life for a gladiator you've never met?"

"Because this is the best lead I've had on William in months." I put a hand on his shoulder, and he turned his eyes back to me. "And I want to go home."

He nodded reluctantly.

"Besides," I said, "William has had plenty of chances to kill me over the last year and a half. If he wanted me dead, I'd be dead. He wants something else from me."

"Then may Fortuna walk with you," Vitulus said.

I nodded to him, turned my black Wolverines ball cap around so the bill was pointed backwards, and started toward the temple. This prepared my body to cast a spell at a moment's notice.

The Temple of Sterquilinus may have been forgotten, but the manure he represented sure wasn't. It was planting season, so the stench and crunch of desiccated dung beneath my sandaled feet made my nervous walk toward the temple all the more unpleasant. When I arrived at the base of the temple hill, I noticed the walking path that I could've taken from the Via Ostiensis to the temple door.

"Son of a..." I muttered, and then kicked the manure and dirt off my sandals and bare feet. Only a bath later would get them clean. William would just have to deal with my smells.

I walked to the top of the hill, glancing to the west as I did so. A sliver of orange sun still shone above the hilly horizon. I had made it here before sundown. I hoped I wasn't too late for Celsus.

The entry into the temple had no door and was dark. Nothing like an abandoned, spooky temple to raise the hairs on your neck. My Wolverines baseball cap would block my presence from any lurking spirits that might try to feed on my magic, so I wasn't worried about them. It was the living that concerned me, and William in particular. What I said earlier about my belief that he didn't bring me here to kill me was well reasoned...until my lizard brain threw spark grenades at that logic.

Maybe he's tired of you stopping his plots and wants to kill you now in the middle of a manure-sown field. Maybe he's finally lost what's left of his mind. He admitted in our last meeting months ago that he wanted to erase the knowledge of magic from twenty-first century humanity. In my future, magic was ubiquitous and powered the world; erasing it would plunge the world into a dark age that I couldn't imagine. For someone who wanted to do that, murdering a former student wasn't too far-fetched.

Well I wouldn't get any answers by standing outside soaking up manure reek. I marched through the open entry and into the dark temple.

The meager light from the windows and a second open entry across from me helped me see a dozen wood benches surrounding a stone altar in the middle. A large man with a shaved head wearing a brown tunica stood before the altar with his back to me. That was not William, unless he'd grown three inches and put on fifty pounds since I last saw him.

"Celsus Maximus?" I asked, my eyes scanning the rest of the empty room.

A throaty chuckle came from the large man. I shifted my eyes to him and every cell in my body seemed to ice over. There was something terribly wrong with him.

"That is not my name," the man said in a Germanic accent. "The Romans gave me that name when they enslaved me."

He turned around. I first noticed the small body he held in his massive arms. It was a dark-haired girl, no more than thirteen. Her face looked serene, but the left side of her neck was a jagged mess of dark red flesh, muscle, and exposed white bone. A second girl lay near the man's feet. She was younger than the first and her eyes were closed, but I saw no wounds and she was still breathing.

My eyes fled from the two girls to the man's face. His entire mouth and chin were bright red, and his teeth were impossibly large, gray, and jagged. "My name is Octric," he said, "and I no longer kill for the pleasure of a Roman mob." Blood oozed from between his teeth when he grinned. "Now I kill for my own pleasure."

©2015 Rob Steiner

To learn more, check it out on Amazon.

Cover Reveal and Kindle Scout Campaign for Citizen Magus

Rob Steiner has started a new series: the Journals of Natta Magus.



Here to tell us more about the book and its Kindle Scout campaign is Rob Steiner.

I’m really excited to announce a Kindle Scout campaign for my new novel, Citizen Magus.

Remington Blakes, a magus from a 21st century where magic powers the world, has a big problem. His former mentor, William Ford, stranded him in ancient Rome without a memory as to how or why. Well a guy has to eat, so he’s forced to eke out a living as a magus-for-hire among Rome’s plebeians. But when Ford conjures daemons to kidnap a senator’s young daughter, Remi tracks him to the Germanic frontier to not only rescue the child, but learn the terrible secret behind why he left Remi in Rome.

The campaign works like this: Readers can nominate my book for a publishing deal with Kindle Press. If Kindle Press picks up my book, your nomination will earn you a free copy once it’s published. The more nominations I get, the better my chances for a deal and a free ebook for you.

Nominating is easy, quick, and a great way to support new authors (check out the other campaigns on the Scout site, too). Please see my campaign page for more details.

Thanks in advance for your support!

Odd's Door by W. S. Lacey

Roger North and Lewis Spender, students and friends in the early Twentieth Century, are on a mission. In order to win acceptance into a club of rational thinkers, they must solve a seemingly paranormal mystery. Spender has chosen the case of the insane playwright, Adelard Odd. One person reading Odd's writings was struck blind, and three other people disappeared while in his room at the Quartersoake asylum. Once at the asylum grounds, the two men find out soon enough that Odd's door, a door ostensibly leading to nothing, is an axis mundi that involves those entering in a myriad of shifting universes. North and Spender are soon separated; Spender is held up as a king in the civilization he happens upon. North reappears with one eye colored silver; he is now able to see past and future and is also gifted with sight in the subjunctive mood.

They reunite and contend with multiple realities, described with a Douglas Adamsesque matter-of-factness. Trying to escape from a land run by paisley-clad Greeks, they briefly encounter Odd, who is a ruler, and who initiates a destructive impulse that lands them back on terra firma.

But the rational thinkers' club is a ruse. Spender is really on a mission to find out what happened to his mother, one of the three people to have disappeared through Odd's door on her own Odd-yssey. This Oedipal journey (we meet the Sphinx not once, but twice) subsequently leads to an island off Tunisia. They soon realize that dealing with doors such as these is dealing with Death, and they try to avoid killing or being killed as they search for Spender's dematerialized mother, aided by the sinister, scarred Dr. Holroyd.

This is very enjoyable reading. Lacey is a superb writer. The reader will encounter wonderful old words like “grimoire” and “catafalque.” The allusions to mythology (I probably missed some of them) are enticing. Do not fear Doors, but allow yourself to be immured in this story.

The Participants by Brian Blose

Amazon link

Meet Hess and Elza. Like Nick and Nora, Harry and Sally, Pat and Tiffany, they're a memorable couple, trading wisecracks and getting out of difficult situations. The difference with Hess and Elza is that they're linked eternally, through countless Iterations of worlds. They are Observers, a handful of humanoids sent by a Creator to observe His/Her/Its world (though, if this Creator is so omnipotent, why does “He/She/It” need anybody to do the observing for “Him/Her/It”?). Other Observers go through their Iterations as different genders, but Hess and Elza are always a man and a woman. They constantly snipe at each other, each accusing the other of “participating” in the world too much. They seem to be the only Observers with empathy. Like other Observers, they can die, but are dead only temporarily. Every time one pops up in a different Iteration, they seek the other. It is much more difficult in preliterate and even pre-Internet worlds. Other Observers, who do much more shape-shifting, seem jealous of them, and some who see themselves as having more executive privileges seek out opportunities to submit them to torture (imagine torturing someone who never dies). The worst-case scenario? “Dying” and being buried, left to lie quietly underground, perhaps for centuries. This is why Zack, Hess' alter ego, a convenience-store clerk, is afraid of the dark.

This book pulls the reader in; it has been written with a lot of imagination. Who are the best Observers? The ones who watch passively, or the ones who participate out of an overwhelming empathy? What would a blind Creator desire?

Quantum Fashionistas by Libby Cone

Full Disclosure: Yes, Libby Cone is a fellow reviewer here at the New Podler Review of Books. She'd told me about the story over the summer and I was intrigued. She sent me the finished story a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed it so much that I offered to review it.

You can shout "shenanigans" if you want, but I believe future reviewers will bear me out.

In "Quantum Fashionistas", we're introduced to Sharon, a middle-aged actuary for an insurance company. The twist here is that the company works across multiple universes. Yes, breakthroughs in quantum physics have enabled travel from one universe to another, provided one can afford the cost. Sharon is one of a select few people who can handle multiverse travel without losing her wits. Still, she's replaceable and constantly frets about her pension.

While on assignment in sigma-Germany, she gets a call from her boss explaining that they have a special assignment for her. Unfortunately it involves time travel, an even riskier form of transport in which she could find herself transmuted into a different form entirely. In fact, her roommate is a refugee from another time and quantum reality and is stuck in alpha-Manhattan with her.

Sharon soon finds herself caught up in a struggle between opposing forces and prays that she can complete her assignment before playing Russian Roulette with quantum realities leaves catastrophically altered.

This is a clever story. Libby has mixed quantum physics with the insurance industry and spiced it up with high fashion. While she might play fast and loose with the scientific details, the basics are dead on. The reader is encouraged to not sweat the small stuff and just enjoy the ride.

My complaint, if you can it that, is the length. At just under 8,000 words it's too long for a short story and too short for a novella. The pace feels rushed. Neither Sharon nor the reader can catch their breath as we're whisked from one destination to another. Libby has crammed so much into this story that it begs to be taken to longer form where the reader can digest what's going on. This would make for a great series of novels.

In summary, Libby has taken a fresh approach to multiverse fiction. By knocking the concept of multiple universes down to the mundanities of everyday business, it spares the reader the dizzying implications that quantum physics throws at us. "Quantum Fashionistas" is a highly enjoyable read and worth checking out.

"Quantum Fashionistas" is available for the Kindle.

Ether

Ether
by Kristine Williams

Daniel's uncle Frank was a man with a penchant for the fantastic. He was certainly a source of great stories that Daniel fondly recalls from his childhood. But there were also props, toys and objects that his uncle claimed were proof that his fantastical stories were true after all.

When Daniel inherits his uncle's house, he does not expect to receive a key that opens a doorway into an alternate reality and adventure. But when Daniel uses the strange key on the key ring to the house, he falls out of his reality and right into the path of oncoming traffic. The traffic altercation brings Daniel and Ian Foster to the attention of Sheriff Murphy, who interprets Daniel's disoriented behavior as proof of his otherworldly status. He's had plenty of experience, for there were others, visitors from Daniel's world, who had come passing by on their travels through Ether. Daniel has a problem, however; in order to get back home, he must use the key, but his key is left back in his reality, still stuck in the door lock. His only hope now is to find another key, hidden somewhere in Ether.

Soon, Daniel faces his new reality and a quest for the second key, traveling through Ether courtesy of Ian Foster and his balloon ship, which is not completely unfamiliar to Daniel—he had seen it before, a model of it in his uncle's house. Their journey takes them to a giant forest, where people dwell inside trees hollowed out by enormous worms. Daniel takes part in a worm hunt and earns a tooth keepsake from the beast.

Each environment they pass through offers some sort of danger. In the swamp there is the Tree of Lives, a particularly nasty things that uses the sense of the victims for its own. And in the maze there is the mold that can make you forget your name, then more, until you forget to live. Then there are the zombified, who have lost their memories due to the spores, roaming the maze aimlessly until they die.

Ether is an imaginative adventure story that's worth checking out if you love Dr. Who or watched Sliders or the Stargate series. Though smaller in scope, Ether still manages to be entertaining for those who love the idea of traveling between different worlds.