Christmas in Space!

Join me and a host of authors as we explore what Christmas looks like ... when Santa gets in a knock down drag out fight for the spirit of Christmas ... when ancient horrors escape into the world during the Yuletide season ... when humanity ventures into the depths of space. 

Find Following Yonder Star on Amazon

It's a Christmas collection unlike anything you've ever read before, featuring aliens, angels, and androids!

Follow yonder star with us in the collection of short stories, a novella, and a graphic novel that will take you from deep space to ancient Judea, from dark woods to empty streets, from the far future to the distant past. You'll discover romance, redemption, and a robot or two . . .

PART 1 - WINTER WONDERLANDS - featuring . . .

Sky Pirates plot to plunder the holidays in Jeremy P. Madsen's fantasy "Twigly and the Great Yuletide Heist"

A wealthy businessman who pushed away the love of his life wishes for a second chance after receiving devastating news during the holidays season in Parker J. Cole's magical romance "Wish Upon a Strawberry Shortcake"

PART 2 - MERRY MELEES - featuring . . .

An unidentified flying object interupts Santa's Christmas duties in Nathan Marchand's "The Christmas Invasion (or Santa vs. the Flying Saucer)"

A pack of werewolves plot to take down Santa in "Cold Moon Christmas" by The Brothers Norman

It's Santa vs. Krampus in Tim Baron and Ben Avery's graphic novel ’Twas the Night Before Krampus: A Tale of St. Nicholas

PART 3 - HOLIDAY HORRORS - featuring . . .

The ancient evils imprisoned in the trees weren't supposed to be forgotten, and they definitely weren't supposed to get loose, in The Green Men by Winston Crutchfield

Angels and demons give us a glimpse at the spiritual warfare that may have occured in the lead up to the first Christmas in Jered Gering's "Angels from the Realms of Glory"

A monster walks the land, drawn back into the world of men where there is "A Gift for the Monster" by Mike Bogue

PART 4 - COSMIC CHRISTMASES - featuring . . .

A first-time cruise director causes a disaster that leaves the ship stranded in deep space on Christmas Eve in Adam David Colling's "The Christmas Star Disaster" (part of his Jewel of the Stars series)

An explorer on a distant world has an encounter with something from before their colony's founding in Harding McFadden's "Heroes and Legends"

A smuggler finds himself stranded in deep space with a desperate stowaway, just in time for the holidays, in Ben Avery's "We Three Kings" (part of his Slipstream Universe)

The Apocalypse Will be Virtualized

Meta: Game On by Xander Black

In the world of 2065, the immersive experience of the Cybernet has replaced nearly every aspect of daily existence. It has unified global currencies. It has allowed perfectly safe social interaction in a world that experienced a global pandemic. It provides jobs, entertainment, and every sort of experience possible through the direct stimulation of the brain. Even if the worst possible thing happens and you are killed, it's just an avatar. Your body is perfectly safe. Until it isn't. 

Cyrus and Everett are in the wrong place at the wrong time, when a high-profile personality's avatar gets killed and their actual body is found dead as well. If it only happened once that would be bad enough, but the bodies just keep hitting the floor. Cyrus and Everett, of course, are completely oblivious. Add in the return of an old flame and the involvement of a couple of high-level "metas" - power players in the Neverborn game that defines the virtual world. Top it off with some questionable behavior by the algorithms running the game, and even Cyrus can tell something weird is going on. Someone, or something, is pulling strings to manipulate events in cyberspace.

This Cold War Just Got Hot

Battlegroup Z series by Daniel Gibbs

Justin Spencer thought he was signing up for a free education and a leisurely tour of duty blasting asteroids out of the shipping lanes. Instead, he bought himself a war. 

I enjoyed this series in the same way I enjoyed playing the Wing Commander video games. There is some background for the setting, the bones of a motivation for hostilities, and some cut scenes where the main characters get to know each other, but the primary draw here is the non-stop, slam-bang, seat-of-your-pants starfighter shoot-outs.

There's a lot to like about this series. The action scenes are exciting and vivid, calling to mind my favorite dogfighting video games and movies. The characters are distinct in voice, approach, and motivation; it makes them easy to follow and keeps the large cast from getting muddled. The bad guys are clearly painted, nicely despicable, and a credible threat. The consequences of the engagements are bleak and impactful. The writing is smooth, clear, and natural.

Predator and Prey

Sides by Bradley Caffee

I really liked this book. It was easy to read and engaging. The world was interesting and the end-of-the-world scenario hit uncomfortably close to home. The action moved along nicely, and the pacing of mystery and reveal kept me interested throughout the book. Tyler's plight of being tasked with saving the world in time to ask his girl to Homecoming grounded the otherwise gruesome nature of the crisis in a reminder that the target is a young adult audience. I liked Tyler as a character quite a lot. He felt very relatable and he was easy to empathize with. 

A video game app goes online and the world comes crashing to an end. In an instant, the entire population of the world is transformed into either a predator - or their prey. Everyone who plays the game, that is. As a non-player, Tyler has to navigate this semi-surreal sort-of post-apocalyptic landscape. We get a road trip. We get a glimpse at post-Zero Hour society. It's a bit dizzying in a world where not that long ago, people were getting into serious accidents because they couldn't stop playing Pokemon Go! 

Forbidden Dreams

The Red Door by Rachel Lulich

There is a red door in the middle of town. It is forbidden to look upon it. Those who are cast out of society are cast through the door and they never return. Aster has been dreaming about the red door, which is another problem, because in this community, nobody dreams. Dreams are forbidden.

This close-in view of a world focuses tightly upon Aster. When she is forced to flee and wrestle with the implications of her dreams, the world begins to open up onto a society that is frustratingly self-involved with no desire for exploration or growth. Everything about the system is designed to maintain the status quo, preventing any sort of progress by controlling the very desires of the inhabitants to imagine something more. Those in power will remain in power, and they will twist the truth however they need to in order to stay there. When change comes to the community of Hargrove, it comes riding a wave of destruction.

The story is myopically insular. Everything is so tightly focused on this single community that even the reading experience has an air of oppressive claustrophobia. The more Aster sees and experiences, the more things open up and the deeper the mystery becomes. We are left with a great many questions about the nature of the world and the truth about how the world works. The most important question, though, is that of Aster's responsibility to a community that shut her away, cast her out, and sought to destroy her. It's a significant question, as Aster alone has the ability to stave off the destruction the community of Hargrove has wrought upon itself.

The Worst Crime is Detraction

The Kingdom of Heaven by Evelyn M.Lewis

This is a thoughtful exploration of opposing ideologies and a contrast of a dystopian society vs a frontier society. The situations of the dystopian society are fairly clear references to social media culture and far left politics. The descriptions of the rural society are idealized depictions of historical frontier communities. The whole setting feels very familiar. The characters are personable and relatable, and will appeal very strongly to fans of coming-of-age stories for young women.

I was impressed with the emphasis on the crime of Detraction. There are definitely Orwellian overtones here, missing only the depiction of thoughtcrime as the worst of all evils. The indoctrination of the populace against the crime of Detraction places the MC in a continual moral quandary. Everything she is knows to be right and just requires her to conform to the desires of the state and to place the welfare of the community and of others far above herself. On the surface, to most of the English-speaking world, this goes strongly against the grain of individualism, self-motivation, and personal achievement. But it is exactly this philosophy that has guided collectivist cultures throughout the history of the world. It is no coincidence that the cover art is reminiscent of the Moscow skyline.

Death Race at the End of the World

In the summer of 2016, Warner Bros decided to try and reimagine their popular Hannah-Barbera cartoon characters as more mature versions of themselves. This line included four titles: Future Quest, which united the Hannah-Barbera actions heroes on an adventure throughout space and time; The Flintstones, looking at the stone-age Honeymooners through a modern sitcom lens; Scooby Apocalypse, where the Scooby gang meets for the first time just as the world ends; and Wacky Raceland, twisting the goofy wacky racers into post-apocalyptic speed demons in a world where it’s drive or die.

The old cartoon Wacky Races pitted 11 alliteratively named drivers and their impossible machines on a no-holds-barred cross-country demolition course with predictably goofy results. The new comic book looks like Mad Max meets Speed Racer. The cars now have an attitude of their own, driven by an AI that reflects, distorts, and sometimes clashes with the personality of their driver. These turbo-charged death machines are powered by self-repairing nanomachines and armed to the teeth. While the vehicles are clearly the product of advanced technology, the rest of the world struggles to survive clouds of voracious nanite swarms, monstrous leviathans, once-human mutants, and a blasted, radioactive landscape. The disembodied Announcer continually goads the racers forward with an agenda all her own.

The Lies We Leave Behind

Liar's Legacy by Elliot Kessler

Who suffers when you tell one little white lie? Who is it going to hurt when everyone who knows the truth of the matter is dead anyway? Why shouldn't you use your fortune to some benefit when no one stands to lose by saying otherwise? Why shouldn't you lie - if no one knows you're a liar?

As the champion of the Polemonian war, Sevdis Minare has it made. He's got fame and fortune and an easy retirement autographing copies of his book on tour. He's got it made - until Ben Novak shows up, pleading for the hero who defeated to Polemonians to come out of retirement and save his world. There's just one problem - Sevdis Minare's heroic legacy is built on lies. 

Ben's brother Caleb fights for freedom on their homeworld, leading the resistance until help can arrive. The sudden arrival of the bounty hunter Tomita finds Sevdis unprepared to rejoin the fight and Ben desperate for allies. Swept off planet by Tromita, Ben and Sevdis flee from deadly assassins. Tromita has determined that Sevdis is going to either become the hero he claims to be, or die trying. 

Who is Titantic

I’m afraid my association with Doctor Who is not as extensive or storied as it could be. I watched Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladen on PBS with the rest of my generation but I was always more interested in Star Wars and Star Trek, Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica. Still, Tom Baker is who I think of as the Doctor and the Fourth Doctor is my Doctor. I have friends who are massive Doctor Who fans and I distinctly remember when Paul McGann’s Doctor movie first premiered that we all threw a party for the advent of the Eighth Doctor.

One day, my daughter excitedly grabbed my arm and said, “Dad, you’ve got to see this show!” She turned on BBC America and there was David Tennant and Billie Piper saving the world. She explained patiently, “This is a rerun. He’s the Doctor but he regenerates into new actors. Peter Capaldi will be the Doctor soon!” I smiled, secure in the knowledge that I had done at least one thing right in her upbringing. Fueled by my daughter’s excitement, the current generation of Doctor Who stories became scheduled family time and required viewing.

Forward the Foundation

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series is most well known as the winner of the Hugo Award for “Best All-Time Series” in 1966, the only series to date to which the award has been given. Asimov himself assumed the award had been created to honor J.R.R. Tolkien and was surprised to receive it. The original short stories were published between 1942 and 1950 in the pages of Astounding Magazine. These were later collected, and additional material added to form the novels known as the Foundation Trilogy.

The impact of the Foundation stories has been felt in every form of series fiction written since its time, and most significantly in the fiction written for tabletop and electronic gaming. Until Foundation, attempts to build a cohesive mythology around an entirely fictional setting had been mostly accidental and abortive. It’s possible that Asimov’s work was taken more seriously than E.E. Smith’s Lensman series (with which it shares many similarities) due to Asimov’s emphasis on science and problem-solving rather than action, and his choice of humans as the protagonists instead of Smith’s Arisians. It also seems likely that Asimov’s writing was more approachable than Tolkien’s heavily literary style.

Book Talk! Author Catherine Gruben Smith talks about the Sojourners series.

Catherine Gruben Smith writes introspective science fiction in a post-apocalyptic world of kingdoms founded solely on surviving books.

The Sojourner's Kingdom is attacked and conquered when their foundational book - a King James Bible - is stolen. Traveling minstrels Joe and Cobeau rescue the twin brother and sister of the Sojourner's Judge, the only survivors of their family. Together, they embark on a quest to recover their stolen Bible. But all is not as it seems to be, and their bonds of faith, family, and friendship will either be refined in the fire or burned into ash.

Find out more about Catherine Gruben Smith and her books!

Atomic Robo the RPG by Evil Hat

Atomic Robo premiered in 2007 as a six-issue mini-series, quickly gaining a cult following and branching out into the two ongoing titles “Atomic Robo” and “Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures”. The story chronicles the adventures of Atomic Robo, a self-aware mechanical man created by Nikola Tesla. Each story arc focuses on a different era in the life of Robo, beginning in the 1920s and continuing to the near future. The stories imitate the pulp action novels of the 30s and 40s, with a healthy mix of Tom Swift in the recipe. Robo's foundation, Tesladyne, employs “Action Scientists”, which pretty much sums up the book's approach to storytelling. Recurring antagonists include Dr. Dinosaur (an intelligent deinonychus) and the ghost (phasically fluxed corporeal entity) of Thomas Edison. The creators premiered a free webcomic release for the entire series in January 2015 as a promotion for the tenth volume of the series, “Atomic Robo and the Ring of Fire.”

A Look at Three Robert Heinlein Novels

Robert A. Heinlein consistently tackled social themes through the framework of his speculative fiction in such a way as to force to reader to confront his own opinions on the subject at hand. Though Heinlein's work is generally considered to be “hard” sci-fi instead of space opera, the author seldom delved into the fundamentals of the science or problem solving behind the technology of his stories. Instead, Heinlein tended to focus on the evolution of society, the individual's role within society, and the responsibility of individuals towards their society. His protagonists are nearly always adventurers, philosophers, or engineers of some sort instead of natural or mathematical scientists of the kind favored by Asimov.

Three of Heinlein's most famous works received Hugo awards (Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) while the man himself was named the first Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1974.