SFR Brigade: Liza O'Connor

Showing posts with label Liza O'Connor. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Earth's Many Ways to Die: Natural Disasters in Fiction by @Liza0Connor

by Liza O' Connor

There is a remarkable quantity of ways that earth can be destroyed. These are the ways that I can recall off the top of my head. I am certain there are more. Feel free to write them in the comment box.

Earthquakes. We’ve always had them. Some charts say we have more than we used to, some say the opposite. But without question the planet Earth likes to shake it’s booty.

SuperVolcanoes- some say there are over 20 and some say 5. The one in USA could blow anytime....Those in the blow range will be obliterated. Ash content will turn the skies black and cover most of USA and Canada. Acid rain will poison our water supply, kill most of the fish, and make us sick. Death of all vegetation in large portions of USA & Canada will result in starvation.

Climate Changes will result in more frequent and powerful: Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Fires, Famines, Floods, Surges, Landslides, Avalanches, Destructive winds.

Ocean warming could cause Methane to rise from the ocean floor and kill all oxygen breathing creatures. Loss of ocean currents as the iceburgs melt diluting the salt that creates the currents.

Rising sea levels-Loss of viable water.

Wind storms-Loss of viable soil.

Solar flares from the Sun damage to all electronics, devastates our electricity dependent economy.

Radiation poison due to the loss of the electro-magnetic shield and the stripping of our atmosphere.

Asteroids slamming into earth.

Collison with a rogue comet from outer space.

Magnetic pole flipping: Unable to navigate waters by electronic devices, Unable to fly planes dependent upon electrical devices, Prolonged loss of Electromagnetic shield protection.

Loss of Atmosphere.

Nuclear War.

And they all end in the same way: You get a frozen, non-viable planet for millions of years.

So far, there have been FIVE mass extinctions on earth.

The worst one, 250 million years ago, had 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species die off. It took millions of years to recover.

Many scientists predict that we're on track for a sixth mass extinction and given the very many ways we can get there, I felt the need to send a fabulous group of brilliant children and scholars, plus soldiers to Titan in my book: Destination Titan.

BLURB

With Earth destined for a new ice-age, seven scientists and twenty-two brilliant teenagers are gathered in a compound deep within a mountain. There they struggle to come together as a group and complete the projects needed for their survival in the inhospitable environment of Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. However, certain factions on Earth have no intention of letting Project Einstein succeed. Keeping the group alive and productive is the hardest task Colonel Lancaster and his soldiers have ever had, but they are determined to succeed no matter how well the saboteurs have planned. The continuation of the human race depends upon it.

DESTINATION: TITAN

AMAZON

About the Author

Liza O’Connor lives in Denville, NJ with her dog Jess. They hike in fabulous woods every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow. Having an adventurous nature, she learned to fly small Cessnas in NJ, hang-glide in New Zealand, kayak in Pennsylvania, ski in New York, scuba dive with great white sharks in Australia, dig up dinosaur bones in Montana, sky dive in Indiana, and raft a class four river in Tasmania. She’s an avid gardener, amateur photographer, and dabbler in watercolors and graphic arts. Yet through her entire life, her first love has and always will be writing novels.

Check out all my books on Amazon

Be sure to click FOLLOW on my Amazon page so I can alert you to new books.

Stop by my Author Facebook Page

which I've dedicated to Sci Fi books

Wander over to my Personal Facebook Page

where I talk and share about books, politics, and other silliness.

Twitter is a great place to find me: @Liza0Connor

(That's @Liza, the number 0, then Connor)

ALL OF LIZA’S BOOKS

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

The strange inspiration that created the SkyRyder’s Series

by Liza O'Connor

Views expressed are solely those of the author and not the SFR Brigade.

The strange inspiration that created the SkyRyder’s Series

Early in my life, I became a private pilot. Then I took up skydiving and hang-gliding.

But oddly, the inspiration to create the SkyRyder stories came from a plastic grocery bag from ACME, no less. One windy day I noticed a shopping bag about a hundred feet up, flying as fast as the wind because it was fully deployed. And because the wind was blowing over a hill, the bag (and the wind) kept climbing higher until I lost sight of it.

It made me ponder a whole bunch of what-ifs as I built an apocalyptic world in my head.

What if after a terrible world war, where all enemies attacked each other’s oil fields with atomic bombs, we no longer had access to fossil fuels.

What if these atomic bomb attacks created havoc with our winds, leaving us with stationary hurricanes that cover most of what is left of the Americas, while rising sea water consumes all lower lying areas.

What if traveling by sea between the continents is impossible due to massive high wind sea storms and constant seismic activity.

What if solar panels don’t work so well due to winds constantly blowing dust on them, thus massive wind mill farms become our salvation.

What if we could harness the power of our winds and use it to our travel advantage.

What if we create a light weight, but very strong windcatcher that has a large main chute that catches the wind and can carry a person across the skies at high speed. Of course, we would need to control the windcatcher, so we’ll need additional panels to provide lift and descent capabilities in winds from 50 to 200 miles. Let’s make all these panels from immensely strong, but incredibly lightweight material, so the massive catchers can be folded into a large backpack at the end of the flight.

If we do all this, then we can have SkyRyders protect the region that a stationary hurricane covers. Naturally, the rich will relocate to the eye of a hurricane, since that is the calmest area. The rest of the population will have to endure fifty-mile per hour winds at ground level.

There is one region, called Flat Land, which the surrounding mountains geographically prevents a hurricane from establishing itself and that is where the mega rich and powerful people live. And that is where my ‘worst ever debutante’ heroine lives. The only wind she has experienced is in a wind tunnel at the mall. Becoming adept in a wind tunnel has given her far better understandings of the complexity of wind, far more than any SkyRyder knows. So after she goes from debutante to street girl to scavenger, where she teaches herself to fly, then enters the SkyRyders, her flying abilities are par none. But can she teach those skills to others?

Stationed on opposite coasts, Alisha and Logan must each face their own demons and challenges. On the West Coast, Alisha loses her rank for butting heads with her General and soon discovers the life of a private can be utter hell. On the East Coast, newly promoted General Logan discovers his soldiers do not recognize his authority to command. In an effort to retake control of the East Coast Corps, Logan authorizes unthinkable actions. When Alisha faces a life-threatening crisis, will Logan rise above his own troubles or will she discover love and rescue with her best friend Jack?

AMAZON

Scavenger’s Mission

Scavenger Falters

Scavenger Vanishes