The Belt Loop -- First Review

First Of What I Hope Will Be Many In A Series!, August 30, 2011

By 

jt kalnay (cleveland, ohio) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: The Belt Loop (Book One) (Kindle Edition)

Horatio Hornblower and Lucky Jack Aubrey have company in the person of Captain Haad. In our distant future, Captain Haad commands a fast patrol craft in the most distant regions of the universe. After encountering a previously unknown lifeform, Captain Haad fights epic battles of discovery and good old fashioned ship to ship cannon bashing. With a supporting staff of brilliant cryptographers, stowaways, exobiologists, and fighting marines, Haad is ready to take on all comers, no matter what form they take. Get ready to start an obsession with a Napoleonic era captain who strides the quarterdeck of a high-tech, sci-fi, Star Trek bridge. I can't wait for the next installment in the series.

JT Kalnay
Author of The Pattern and Mina's Eyes
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Thanks, JT. Book Two is already in the ole pipeline and should be ready to read sometime in late October. I have consciously tried to write this first book with the thought of an epic series spanning many volumes, taking some of the characters from adolescent years to becoming ship captains in their own right many story years down the road. The problem is, since the Belt Loop is such a violent place where death comes in many forms, it's hard to keep the characters alive. Oh well, I know of at least a half-dozen that will make the trip without losing too many body parts.

In the Meantime. . .

Wow, very exciting two weeks. My new novel went live, I participated in a blog tour and got two 5-star reviews for my second novel, The Hand Is Quicker.

What am I doing now? Well, writing, as if you couldn't guess. What am I writing? I have two books in the works: The third Danny DeVille novel and Book Two of my space opera series. Right now I'm encouraged to continue the Belt Loop series and get another deep-space adventure published before the end of November. The initial response to Book One in this series has been positive and I am anxiously waiting for my first review. But the work goes on, and I will still try to keep my fans interested enough to join me in another far-fetched tale centered around what I know least about: The Universe.

One Universe: Some Assembly Required. © 2007 R. Jones
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See more of my artwork at http://DeeVade.deviantart.com/

Another 5-star Review

Viva Las Vegas, August 26, 2011

By 

Elizabeth Jasper "-Liz" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hand Is Quicker (Kindle Edition)

One of the stars of this show is Las Vegas, 2078. The buzz of the city, the gambling, crime, violence and the futuristic, yet realistic descriptions kept me right there as the action unfolded. Danny DeVille is an excellent MC, whose intelligence, insight and experience puts him in the right place to investigate the financial problems being experienced by the biggest, newest and most exciting casino on the block. With his close-knit team of operatives and support staff, DeVille's detective agency soon gets to grips with the villains and the story takes off in a fast-paced, imaginative and well described series of encounters with various opponents. Who is friend and who is not? Why can't these look-alike killers be killed themselves? Who is behind the conspiracy that reaches into the upper echelons of Las Vegas corporate life - and even higher than that? With the action moving from land to sea and back and with time travel adding a little relish to the plot, this book is a must read for SF fans.

Professional writing, strong plotting and excellent pacing, along with intricate and unusual twists to the story make this book hard to put down. Highly recommended.


-Liz

Lying in Wait

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Gee, I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks to Elizabeth Jasper for her evaluation of "The Hand Is Quicker". http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YTMNUS

Book Review

Hand is Quicker but DeVille is Slicker, August 25, 2011

By 

jt kalnay (cleveland, ohio) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: The Hand Is Quicker (Kindle Edition)

Robots, time-travel, and futuristic weapons combine with old-fashioned greed and revenge in this fast paced detective story. Follow retro-detective DeVille and his team of loyal misfits as they unravel the threads to a decades long conspiracy hatched by the intended target of a failed mob hit. A conspiracy that threatens to set friend against friend until no-one knows who to trust. Set in the near future in Las Vegas, readers will recognize the emotions and experiences of Vegas, winning, losing, loving, and dying. Readers will also recognize the universal themes of trust and doing what simply has to be done. This is the first book by Robert Jones that I have read, but it won't be the last!

JT Kalnay, Author of The Pattern & Mina's Eyes.
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Thanks to Mr. Kalnay! It's always comforting to hear what others have to say about your work, especially other authors. I will continue to create "fast-paced" reads for my fans and hope to have the next Danny DeVille installment available by the first of the year.

The Hand Is Quicker is available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YTMNUS

Guest Post by Martin King

I am happy to participate in the 100blogfest tour! Return with us now to those Golden Days of Yesteryear, where you had to be the First Kid On Your Block to have the latest TV toys. The following is by Martin King:

I remember so many great TV programs when I was a kid. The likes of
Star Trek everyone remembers because its longevity. But what about
some of the others? But more importantly back then, it wasn’t all
about the TV program and how good it was for the audience, but it was
all about the toys.

I remember owning a SS Enterprise ship that you could press a button
and it fired round discs. Then there was a sci-fi show, now I think
I’ve got it right, called UFO. They had these space ships that looked
like a sort of helicopter, but instead of having two runners, they had
a third one at the front.

They also had a huge torpedo missile at the front and you pressed a
button to fire it. I had one of them that I swapped some rubbish car
with this kid for. What an easy swap. But that was the best thing
about sci-fi toys, they always seem to have extra working gadgets on
them compared to most other toys.

I could talk about so many great programmes and toys, but my all time
favourite had to be Space 1999. I loved that show, but better still
were the Eagles. And I had a full set of them. They had to be the best
toy ever.

You could disconnect it’s undercarriage and fly the ship off
separately. But also there was this one type I had that had these
toxic barrels on with magnets on the top. A winch and rope was
connected to the craft and you could lower it down and pick up the
barrels, amazing stuff.

Just as a side point, I remember there was a recall or something
because the little plastic barrels had paper wrapped around them with
toxic symbols. Apparently the paint they had used was toxic. My mate
sent his back and got a replacement – plain boring plastic barrels. I
kept mine, they looked better!!!

These blogs are all about fun and sharing. Thank you for reading a
‘#100blogfest’ blog. Please follow this link to find the next blog in
the series: http://martinkingauthor.com/blog/7094550076

Sin City

I get asked a lot, "What's it like to live in Vegas?" Well, actually I live in Henderson (about 7 miles from downtown) and it's a nice bedroom community with many positives. I know, Las Vegas leads the nation in just about every bad category there is (forclosures, crime, car thefts, etc.) but so far, in my 12 years here I have not suffered through much on the negative side.

Actually I kind of like the place. I have lived in many cities (Denver, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Ft. Washington, Maryland) but I find this one seems to agree with me. I like hot weather (sometimes it's so hot you can see Superman in a taxi) and the dry air is easy to breathe. The conditions outside limit what you can do in the summer, but, hey, the heat propels me into my office to draw and write. Las Vegas was the driving impetus for my first two books and I enjoyed the mental challenge of trying to depict what this place would look like 65 years from now.

While Las Vegas is not for everyone, I call it home. Look for the next Danny DeVille future Las Vegas installment around the first of the year.

The Belt Loop is Published

Wow, waiting for a book to be published is reminiscent of waiting for a child to be born. You know it's coming, but you just don't know when.

Anyway, the new book is out and I hope you will take the time to read it and post a review on Amazon or leave me a comment here.

Link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005HRNKA8

Bobby The Demon © 1991

The New Book

Captain Uri Haad is plunged into one of the most terrifying voyages of his Colonial Navy career. His ship, the CNS Corpus Christi, stumbles upon a derelict alien vessel out in the void of Orion's Belt -- The Belt Loop as it is known by the sailors of the Third Colonial Fleet out of Elber Prime. He launched a Search and Rescue mission to the hulking derelict after his scans detected surviving life forms. What started as a mission of mercy quickly turns into a nightmare of epic proportions and as the horror spreads to his ship and crew, Captain Haad must make life and death decisions to avoid his own destruction and possibly an interstellar war. This taut deep-space adventure bridges the gap between distant suns and gives us a glimpse into the workings of the Twenty-eighth Century Colonial Navy. Approximately 95,000 words.

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Well, here it is! As you can tell by the blurb above, the "Loop" is one dangerous place. The text is completed and in the final editing throes. Look for the book to be available in the Kindle store sometime around August 21st, barring any unforseen misfortunes on my part.

Hats off to Christopher A. Jones for another great cover. See more of his artwork at:
http://mawnbak.deviantart.com/

Now I have to go back to Las Vegas in the year 2079 and figure out how I'm going to get Danny DeVille out of the mess he's found himself chest-deep in. The third book of the future Vegas series has the working title of The GOD Machine and should be ready for publication before the end of this year. Assuming, of course, that I don't take time off to continue the Belt Loop saga.

Update

Here we are in the final stages of the new book. The "pounding the keyboard" part is almost done. I talked to my illustrator and he assures me the rushes on the cover will be done sometime next week.

Writing speculative fiction and science fiction is not an easy thing to do. The idea behind The Belt Loop was born many, many years ago and was put in a drawer along with a lot of other writing projects. Trying to get a good balance between characters, story line, plot twists, and a redemptive conclusion can take the life out of a project that was not well thought out in the first place.

How do the characters interact? What is the emphasis of the story? Is it just a lot of words to describe the action or do the words really have meaning and carry the tale to a logical conclusion? Will there be a sequel to feature the main characters again? Is the story believable, assuming the reader can suspend his or her disbelief to take into account all of the "science" in the fiction?

These are all questions I ask myself as I'm creating. If I can't answer "yes" to all of them, I do a little tampering with the tale until I can.

Next week begins the real drudgery: The Edit. I tend to edit as I go when I write and use my spellcheck and other tools but my eye tends to insert things that are not really there and my head seems to read what I meant to say instead of what I actually wrote. Generally, I will proofread a fresh manuscript about ten times and once satisfied I print out a hard copy and read it again. Lots of time involved but I'm compulsive like that and committed to putting out the best product I'm capable of. Hope it works.

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Fabric Of Space © 1999 R. Jones

In the story I wanted to "invent" a new kind of space travel that used a high-energy field to "push" space into folds as if it were a carpet being bunched against a wall. This folded space can be navigated from fold to fold thus greatly reducing transit times from planet to planet without going through the hackneyed "hyperspace" that most of the future starships seem to be able to access at will in a lot of stories. This folding technology as employed in my new novel produces a very realistic approach to interstellar travel and creates realistic timelines for unfolding events in the process. (I think I just made a pun.)

Next post: The New Cover (I hope).