VBT# Problems on Eldora Prime with Sandy Lender

Today readers is a day of VBT's we now are jumping to Problems on Eldora Prime with authoress Sandy Lender as part of The Goddess Fish Promotions.

                                                          

                                                                   
                     
                                Synopsis : Problems on Eldora Prime - Sandy Lender

When 17-year-old pilot Khiry Okerson crashes on Eldora Prime, alarms still ring in her ears. She might have solved one problem, but she courts more danger than she realizes when she liberates some unexpected hostages on a foreign planet. Will the dragons she releases become her allies? It’s more likely they’ll join the inhabitants of this unforgiving world to hunt terraformers and the Instigator’s dwindling crew.

Khiry must find a way off this rock and into the United Society for Peace and Strength’s good graces. She’s got a capable marksman on her team in the handsome and renown Kor, but Khiry still wonders how her people can escape with a captain’s treason on her hands and a political leader’s sister in her care—care she can’t guarantee.


                                                   

How Does a Fantasy Author Research a Sci-Fi Novel? By Sandy Lender

I’m a fantasy author by trade. Well…check that. By day I’m a construction magazine editor. I do the fiction writing as a second career. Neither of these makes it easy to put dragons in space.

For the 2009 International 3-Day Novel Contest, I decided to write a young adult novel that involved a spaceship, terraformers on another planet, a mechanism to kill zombie-like creatures on that planet, and outer-space weapons. Of course I had to include my fave: dragons. I called it Problems on Eldora Prime and prepped an outline as the administrators of the contest encouraged contestants to do.

The first order of business was figuring out how long it would take for a ship to travel from Eldora Moon to Eldora Prime. I decided the two would be about the same distance from each other as Earth and her moon. Hello, NASA website!

Then I needed to think about propulsion. Luckily, there are a ton of fellow nerds online who discuss rockets and engines and efficiency-of-future-rocket-fuels in forums. That provided me with enough information to design my rockets and propulsion, but I swear I didn’t bore the reader with the details!

A lot of sci-fi information is buried in my brain from too many viewings of Star Trek TNG, Stargate SG-1, Firefly, and various SyFy channel marathons, and I started tapping into the science from those shows during the sleep-deprivation part of my writing weekend for Problems on Eldora Prime. So I guess you could say I started researching for this novel years ago.

When you get right down to it, research for fantasy and science fiction ultimately requires a creative imagination. For me, access to the internet fills in the technical parts. When I put that stuff together, I ended up writing a novel of 50,000+ words in less than 72 hours called Problems on Eldora Prime.

“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

(TPPN: And aren't we all impressed , a hit novel in less than 72 hours)

                                                        

                                                       Chapter Excerpt

Lift-off


“They’re bringing out a phase canon!” Khiry announced. She pointed to the front bank of windows as if no one would know where to look. As if she didn’t speak to someone three years her senior, she ordered, “Kor, you better power up something if we’re not planning a quick surrender.”

“Why are we not off the moon?” Marlon demanded.

“Why are you not telling me what’s on board?” she demanded back.

“It’s none of your pegging business. Now get us off the ground before I have Trane fire you out the airlock.”

Khiry pulled another lever and slammed her hand down on a button with the words “fuel mix” etched below it. “I’ll try again. Let’s hope we don’t shake apart on the platform.”

She looked back at Gibson, who cringed as if he’d been hit. For a security chief, he didn’t display much bravado clinging to the doorway with white knuckles. He stared wide-eyed out the window as if he expected a plasma bolt to crash through and spang him. Khiry wondered if he was about to run away into the depths of the ship.

Over the complaint of the ship’s engines, she heard the familiar whir of the Instigator’s phase canon power up. Kor was fast. She spared a glance from her controls to him. The young man’s stoic presence set her at ease for some reason.

The high-pitched beep, double beep, beep sounded on Khiry’s console. She didn’t even glance at the red light this time. Too many fingers were needed to trouble-shoot this lift-off. Better to pretend their communications were down anyway.

“Is that USPS?” Kor asked.

“Mind your business,” Marlon snapped. “Target that phase canon. Spang it.”

“Aye, Captain. And you’ll speak at my trial?”

“We’ll get no trials,” Khiry muttered under her breath. “This gets wetter by the minute.” She knew no good could come of this day.

Whatever her personal opinions on the United Society for Peace and Strength or its Presidente Lamahl Endh back on Earth, she didn’t condone treason. To ignore a direct request to power down and submit to an investigation bordered on treason. Spanging an Authority Customs Investigation team? That didn’t just cross the line. That jumped up and down on the line while thumbing your nose and mooning someone pretty high up the chain of command—possibly Presidente Lamahl Endh himself.

Marlon leaned over her console again. He flipped the switch to speak to Red in engineering. “When you get us enough energy to get off this rock, start fixing things. My ship’s falling apart around my ears.”

“When?” the tinny female voice sassed back. “You mean if, right?”

“Make it happen!” He neglected to flip the toggle back before stepping to his space behind the stations, watching ACI vehicles move toward his vessel.

“Why are we still on the ground?”

As if she heard his furious question, the ship slowly began to rise. She shook and shuddered, screaming and wailing as if every bolt and weld would fly apart from the strain. Despite the thrust of the engines, the rise was maddeningly slow. The ACI vehicles on the moon’s surface backed away from the enormous energy and heat. Sound became all anyone knew.

Sound rattled their teeth. Sound joined the shudder of the ship to bang their brains against their skulls. Khiry closed her eyes against the pain of it, praying to God that they’d break atmosphere without falling back to the moon’s surface.

“This is gonna be a short trip,” she heard Red shout over the communications link.