J. Scott Coatsworth visits the clubhouse on the DSP Publications' The Stark Divide (Liminal Sky #1)blog tour! See our review HERE! Check out today's visit which includes and exclusive excerpt!
Publisher: DSP Publications
Author: J. Scott Coatsworth
Cover Artist: Aaron Anderson
Length: 284 Pages
Format: eBook, Paperback
Release Date: 10/10/17
Pairing: MM
Price: 6.99, 16.99
Series: Liminal Sky (Book One)
Genre: Sci Fi, Space, Gen Ship, Apocalypse, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer
Blurb:
Some stories are epic.
The Earth is in a state of collapse, with wars breaking out over resources and an environment pushed to the edge by human greed.
Three living generation ships have been built with a combination of genetic mastery, artificial intelligence, technology, and raw materials harvested from the asteroid belt. This is the story of one of them—43 Ariadne, or Forever, as her inhabitants call her—a living world that carries the remaining hopes of humanity, and the three generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers working to colonize her.
From her humble beginnings as a seedling saved from disaster to the start of her journey across the void of space toward a new home for the human race, The Stark Divide tells the tales of the world, the people who made her, and the few who will become something altogether beyond human.
Humankind has just taken its first step toward the stars.
Book One of Liminal Sky
Guest Post:
Excerpt – Eddy Tremaine
For my guest post, I thought I’d share a scene from “The Stark Divide”:
Eddy Tremaine backed the Ford F1050 hauler back into the mouth of the cavern. The beat-up old truck belched a cloud of black smoke in complaint. His hurried conversion of the vehicle’s electrical system to run on biofuel had been a limited success.
It had gotten them up the mountainside, and that was all that mattered.
Davian Forrester, his ex, stood behind the truck, guiding it and its precious cargo back into the darkness inside the shallow cave.
Eddy had been sure he was going to lose the load a couple of times on the way up the mountainside, as it shifted on the truck’s flatbed around some of the hairpin turns, but the moonjumper had stayed attached to the truck, and soon they’d have it hidden away securely.
The old Ford’s radio had picked up the satellite news transmissions on the way up from the valley floor. Things were going downhill out there fast, and battles had already broken out between the North American Union and the Cino-African Syndicate along the Pacific Coast. Eddy didn’t figure it would be much longer before there was a full-scale war.
Another war. The last ten years had been a nonstop series of them.
He was done fighting.
“That’s it,” Davian called from the rear of the truck. “There’s a ten-foot drop-off back here.”
“Got it,” Eddy shouted back. He set the brake and got out to gauge the parking job he’d done. The front of the truck was beneath the roof of the cavern, far enough back that only the bumper would be visible from above. It’ll have to do. “I’m gonna start unpacking the jumper.”
“Okay,” Davian called back. “I’ll get things started with lights and power.”
Reconnecting with Dav had been a godsend. He couldn’t have accomplished all of this on his own.
Davian was setting up the solar lights in the cavern next to the truck. They’d brought four industrial-strength light suckers. Each one had a “funnel” that channeled sunlight down a thick fiber-optic cable and diffused it into usable light, and a power trap that siphoned off some of the power to charge a battery that provided a reduced illumination at night.
While Davian set up the lights, Eddy began to uncover the Moonjumper. He removed the heavy plastic tarps that had hidden the little ship from view, folding them up and setting them aside. The craft had a 270 degree field of vision through a wraparound plas window, and a skylight window up top. The metallic panels of the little ship were dull with age, and the plas looked scratched and worn too. This is going to work. This has to work. Somehow they would make it work.
The Moonjumper line had been retired from active service by AmSplor in the 2090s. Eddy had picked this one up at auction from the New Richmond Air and Space Museum a month before, for a song. He hoped to God she was still space-worthy. She’d been out in the elements for at least a decade as a showpiece for the museum.
He’d flown one like it once or twice before at air shows in the South, in Birmingham and New Little Rock. He hoped he could remember how to handle it, if they could make it space-worthy again.
Something was bugging him—his sixth sense. He’d learned to trust his body’s signals during his two tours in the Hong Kong urban battle zone, back when he’d been called Evelyne. He saw no need to change that habit now. He looked at the bright day outside uneasily. “I’m gonna set the fuzzer and then grab some branches to put over the front of the 1050,” he called to Davian.
“Okay. I’ll finish getting her uncovered.”
Eddy grabbed a bag from behind the driver’s seat. He peeled it apart at the magnetic strip and took out the four fuzz balls—small silver spheres that together would create the fuzz field. He set each one equidistant around the edge of the cavern entrance, in front of the truck, activating them as he placed them. When the fourth one came online, the fuzz field sprang into place. It was like a pool of water hung in three-dimensional space, reflecting what was around it and distorting and hiding what lay behind, both visually and electromagnetically.
From the inside, all he could see was a slight film in the air.
He went to retrieve his hatchet. He wanted to cover up the front of the truck with some branches so it would pass at least a casual visual inspection, just in case the field failed.
Eddy was about to step through the fuzz field when his instincts stopped him again, the small hairs standing up on his forearms.
Davian was hauling something around back inside the cavern, making a scraping sound.
“Dav, be quiet a minute,” he hissed, peering up into the sky. He stood completely still and searched for the source of his unease.
After twenty seconds, he saw it, a kuripa drone slipping around a ridgeline into the valley below. It was casting back and forth slowly, as if looking for something or someone.
“Drone,” he whispered to Davian, who had come to stand next to him.
The thing resembled nothing so much as a giant robotic cockroach, its wings fluttering in the mountain breeze with a green metallic sheen. He hadn’t realized the Chafs had gotten so bold, sending their battle drones into eastern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. If he’d been outside the field when it flew by….
He held his breath as it passed within a hundred feet of their hideout. Those things were equipped to sense heat patterns. He hoped to God it didn’t notice the tire tracks that led up to the cavern. Fortunately, it was a warm day, so the truck’s heat signature was probably all but wiped away by now.
At last the drone passed over another ridge and was gone.
“We have to be careful. Only short trips outside of the cavern, and always, always check for drones first.”
Davian nodded. “How long until we can get this beastie operational?”
Eddy glanced back at the dark form of the Moonjumper. “Three days? We’ll do the best we can.” He hoped it would only take three days. God help us if we can’t make her work.
Buy Links Etc:
DSP Publications (paperback):
https://www.dsppublications.com/books/the-stark-divide-by-j-scott-coatsworth-416-b
DSP Publications (eBook):
https://www.dsppublications.com/books/the-stark-divide-by-j-scott-coatsworth-415-b
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Stark-Divide-Liminal-Sky-Book-ebook/dp/B074G2NJP6/
Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-stark-divide-j-scott-coatsworth/1126901106?ean=9781635338324
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-stark-divide
iBooks:
https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-stark-divide/id1266474103?mt=11&at=1l3vtqV
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35834187-the-stark-divide
QueeRomance Ink:
https://www.queeromanceink.com/book/the-stark-divide/
Author Bio:
Scott spends his time between the here and now and the what could be. Enticed into fantasy and sci fi by his mom at the tender age of nine, he devoured her Science Fiction Book Club library. But as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were in the books he was reading.
He decided that it was time to create the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at his local bookstore. If there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
His friends say Scott’s mind works a little differently – he sees relationships between things that others miss, and gets more done in a day than most folks manage in a week. He loves to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something unexpected.
Starting in 2014, Scott has published more than 15 works, including two novels and a number of novellas and short stories.
He runs both Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that bring queer people together to promote and celebrate fiction that reflects their own lives.
Author Links:
