A Wreck of Titanic Proportions in Outer Space

The sinking of the unsinkable luxury liner Titanic has inspired many a book and movie over the 102 years since ship-met-iceberg, including my own "Wreck of the Nebula Dream."  

Aside from the nonfiction accounts and straightforward romance novels set on Titanic, there have been stories featuring everything from time travel to werewolves.  Even Douglas Adams, he of “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” fame wrote a comedic treatment with Terry Jones of Monty Python in the last 1990’s, based on a cd-rom game, odd as that may sound. Reading a synopsis of the book on Amazon, however, the work doesn’t seem to have taken much from Titanic but the name.

Certainly there was nothing humorous about the sinking.

Right from the beginning though, what I wanted to write was a serious novel, set in the far future, on a space-going luxury liner. Originally I thought I’d be able to pretty much follow the pattern of what happened to Titanic for my own plot, somewhat changed to reflect the future and the “ocean of space”, versus the Atlantic.

My characters felt otherwise. I’m a very seat-of-the-pants style novelist and almost as soon as I began figuring out who would be aboard and what catastrophes might occur, I could see I was going to be loosely suggesting Titanic. Actually, that was a freeing realization, because in the 1912 sinking so many people lost their lives and there are relatives and descendants worldwide who are still affected by the ripples from the tragedy. I didn’t want to write anything that might reflect back on the real people who sailed on Titanic.

I kept the situation though – a middle of the night disaster, not enough lifeboats, no lifeboat drill, too much speed, new engines, inability to get help in a timely manner, communications issues…and men, women and children in jeopardy. I gave some nods to well known facets of the Titanic, starting my novel with a scene on board the shuttle, where a female passenger creates a fuss, having had a terrifying premonition of the disaster. In 1912 many people had documented premonitions of disaster and foreboding dreams about Titanic, and about 50 actually cancelled their passage.

 

There’s an entire deck of the Nebula Dream that’s the swimming area, complete with a beach – Titanic had an actual swimming pool, which was considered quite a novelty at the time. I have one rich passenger on my ship searching for her jewels in the damaged hold area, picking up on the theme of the women who tried to retrieve theirs from the Titanic’s purser after the ship struck the iceberg.

Of course, this being science fiction, I threw in some twists and turns abut who or what comes looking for the ship in distress (but no spoilers from me!)….

I’ve always thought it was especially poignant that so many children perished when Titanic sank, so I included Paolo age 8 and Gianna age 3 as two of my characters, representing in my mind all the little ones who didn’t survive in 1912. I made sure my hero Nick,  and every other person in the group, was  devoted to getting the children safely off the Nebula Dream.

Speaking of Nick, when I was thinking about who the hero should be, I asked myself who I’d want there with me if I was in such a perilous situation. A Special Forces soldier sounded about right! Once I figured out why he’d be traveling on such a luxurious vessel, the plot fell into place.  Mara Lyrae,the heroine, is a high powered business executive, who worked her way up from entry level to the heights of intergalactic corporate power, but hasn’t forgotten anything she learned along the way.  She also does not buy into “women and children first” when it comes to herself. She’s in the thick of trying to rescue others. There was at least one business woman on the Titanic, Lady Duff-Gordon for example, who was a well-known fashion designer of her time.

Even I couldn’t ensure that all the passengers survived in the book, any more than everyone survived the Titanic sinking…but there’s a Happily Ever After ending for some people. Because this is a romance after all.

Much as I like writing in seat-of-the-pants style, it soon became apparent I’d better sit down and design my starship, so I’d know which deck had what and could explain to the Readers where Nick and the others were going at any given time. I still have that hand drawn schematic, not that it’s exactly a thing of beauty!  But this was one time I really did have to do the details before the writing.

The story for WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM:

2013 SFR Galaxy Award and Laurel Wreath Winner

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

Available from  Amazon Barnes & Noble  All Romance eBooks iTunes Google Play   Kobo

Audiobook, narrated by Actor Michael Riffle – Available Now at Amazon and iTunes

Where Readers can find me:

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How I Fell Into Self Publishing or Blame It On The Titanic

I didn't actually set out to self publish. I had sold my first novella to Carina Press - a paranormal romance set in ancient Egypt - and was all caught up in the work of editing, learning the ropes of promo and getting better at navigating social media in late 2011, when I realized that 2012 was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. This become relevant because I had a completed science fiction adventure novel with romantic elements, which I'd set aside when Carina bought the Egyptian novella. And the book, WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, was loosely based on Titanic, but set in the far future, in outer space.

Uh oh, sounds like a book that an author would definitely want to have out there in the world for Readers to discover during the 100th anniversary hoopla, doesn't it? Because the 101st anniversary of anything just doesn't command as much attention. At this point it was December 2011. There was literally no time  to submit the manuscript to anyone, not even Carina, much less to go through a publisher's editing and release process. So, self publishing is where I went!

I commissioned a cover from the wonderful Fiona Jayde, I had the book edited during January, formatted in late February and released in March of 2012. I put together my own small blog tour, did promo where I could, wrote LOTS of blogs about all aspects of Titanic...had terrific encouragement from Heather Massey at The Galaxy Express in particular, and along the way I discovered I really loved self publishing. I'm kind of a control freak by nature, I write fast and my Muse likes to pick and choose what stories to tell.

Don't get me wrong, I love Carina and they've been excellent to work with...but it's very satisfying to choose your own cover art and to get new books out on your schedule, rather than on the publisher's schedule.

PROs of self publishing in my opinion:

• Total control of the book, from cover to edits to distribution
• Ability to publish as often as I have a high quality product ready to offer the Readers. I'd hoped to get four books out this year (counting my second Carina book), only got three plus an audiobook of WRECK. I do have a day job. I learned a lot this year, about self publishing in general and about managing my "schedule of releases". Going to try for four new books released in 2014.
• Advice and guidance from a wonderful community of other self published and/or hybrid authors. If you're even thinking of dipping a toe into self publishing, I recommend joining the Yahoo group established and moderated by Marie Force  - here's the link http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/selfpublish/info . She and many other authors share advice and information generously. I've learned SO much from the group...
• Ability to write whatever story you want to tell (although you might not draw a large number of readers if no one else wanted to read the particular tale you've penned) and see it published.

CONS:

• It's a business. That works for me because I have a degree in business, plus years of experience in contracts, and all the many details of being your own publisher don't daunt me. But it is very different than having a publisher handling all the tracking, the copyrights, the ISBN's, formatting, uploading, pricing, Netgalley, pirates, whathaveyou. Some people love doing it all themselves, others not so much. The business deducts from your writing time...
• I think there's a benefit to being part of a publisher's group of authors, especially if they cross promote each other or if the publisher does visible promo, or is well known. But that being said, you can find your own community in self publishing, as with the wonderful SFR Brigade we have here...

I'm sure others can add pros and cons to this list but those are at the top of my mind. I self published ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE, which also became an Amazon Best Seller in SFR, and the most recent paranormal, DANCER OF THE NILE. For now I'm firmly entrenched in the self publishing world and loving it. Never say never, I wouldn't mind being more of a hybrid author, but right now I'm concentrating on my own little "publishing empire" (don't I wish it was an empire LOL, more of a tenacious colony at the moment).

You can find me: Blog  @vscotttheauthor   Facebook

I'm happy to try to answer any questions about my experiences in self publishing and I'll check back on the comments after the day job!

New SFR: Escape From Zulaire

Cover Artist: Fiona Jayde

I'm pleased to announce that my new, self published science fiction romance Escape From Zulaire was released last week. The story takes place in the same universe as  last year's SFR Galaxy Award winner Wreck of the Nebula Dream, but the two novels aren’t otherwise connected. My heroine in the new book, Andi Markriss, works for the same galactic shipping company that Mara Lyrae was employed by in WRECK, but that’s the only tiny connection. Good old Loxton Galactic Trading – they like to hire strong willed, independent women who stay cool in a crisis.

Here’s the story:

Andi Markriss hasn’t exactly enjoyed being the houseguest of the planetary high-lord, but her company sent her to represent them at a political wedding. When hotshot Sectors Special Forces Captain Tom Deverane barges in on the night of the biggest social event of the summer, Andi isn’t about to offend her high-ranking host on Deverane’s say-so—no matter how sexy he is, or how much he believes they need to leave now.

Deverane was thinking about how to spend his retirement bonus when HQ assigned him one last mission: rescue a civilian woman stranded on a planet on the verge of civil war. Someone has pulled some serious strings to get her plucked out of the hot zone. Deverane’s never met anyone so hard-headed—or so appealing. Suddenly his mission to protect this one woman has become more than just mere orders.

That mission proves more dangerous than he expected when rebel fighters attack the village and raze it to the ground. Deverane escapes with Andi, and on their hazardous journey through the wilderness, Andi finds herself fighting her uncomfortable attraction to the gallant and courageous captain. But Deverane’s not the type to settle down, and running for one’s life doesn’t leave much time to explore a romance.

Then Andi is captured by the rebel fighters, but Deverane has discovered that Zulaire’s so-called civil war is part of a terrifying alien race’s attempt to subjugate the entire Sector. If he pushes on to the capitol Andi will die. Deverane must decide whether to save the woman he loves, or sacrifice her to save Zulaire.

***********

So the idea for ESCAPE’s plot is based in a real life incident that happened in India in 1857. The events in India during this period go by many names, depending who’s telling the story, but one common term is the Sepoy Rebellion. I was always fascinated how so many British women and children in India at the time were caught totally unaware, suddenly in the middle of a really awful war, and the people they trusted and looked to for help were the very ones determined to kill them. I always wondered how it would feel to be in the middle of such a situation and what I’d do.

My novel is not a retelling of the Sepoy events in any way. Unlike WRECK, which was loosely based on the sinking of the Titanic, ESCAPE only takes the very basic idea and then runs with it. When the book starts, the heroine knows things aren’t quite right, she’s a guest at an isolated compound hundreds of miles from safety…and then one afternoon Sectors Special Forces Captain Tom Deverane shows up and the situation goes downhill from there.

Available on AMAZON  Nook  Kobo   Print on Demand paperback coming soon.

You can find me at Blog  @vscotttheauthor   Facebook