Where the UFOs are

I am thrilled to announce that Preditors and Editors has awarded my site the Author's Site Of Excellence Award.

Needless to say, I am thrilled, and would like to thank anyone who had anything to do with this great honor!


Now, for the UFOs....


It makes sense to me that different aliens would use different methods to land on Earth, which is why I love to watch The Discovery Channel and also The Science Channel.

In my next alien romance (KNIGHT'S FORK) I have an Imperial war-star, or rather, one or two of its foray shuttles; a Saurian craft; and a Volnoth "stargoer" ... all with pressing, secret business on our planet.

The Volnoth vessel uses electro-magnetic propulsion, and uses large, deep oceans as inconspicuous runways.


EXCERPT FROM KNIGHT'S FORK (approx Sept 2008)


North London
Hampstead High Street
Two weeks later


“Read all abaaaht it!” a boy of papers shouted by a strange, half-tented cart from which passers-by could exchange very small pieces of folded paper for very large, folded stacks of dirty paper, which they would then unfold, and look at.

Prince Thor-quentin was fascinated. He loitered to observe the folly of mankind. His attention was captivated by more efficiently folded papers. They were colored, and wrapped in a clear foil to stop them flipping in the London street wind. Many of these colored papers showed bare-chested males, proudly displaying their favorite exercise equipment, or modest females in heat, bending over conveniently placed vehicles.

The boy of papers varied his cries of what was interesting.

“Antipodean Alarm!” he wailed. “Australian Air Force Authorities allay anxiety over alleged alien…”

So many big A-words! Thor-quentin thought.

Then, he caught sight of the grainy, blurry, black-and-white photograph. The boy of papers might call the object diving into the sea a “twisted, distorted weather balloon”, but Prince Thor-quentin knew it for what it was. A Volnoth, water-capable shuttle.

He had practiced Djinncraft before on impressionable, sacrificial virgins. He’d never imagined that he’d use Djinncraft to obtain something as worthless as a pile of dirty papers.

Approaching the boy of papers at a suitable lull in the boy’s passing trade, Thor-quentin murmured, ‘I will take. You will not cry out.”

The boy of papers promptly turned aside, folded from the mid-section and vomited into the slightly lower level of the trafficway.

Slack damn! Less force is required in this lesser gravity, Thor-quentin noted. He helped himself to a selection of the folded stacks of papers, and passed a hand over the wad of small, purplish papers, as if he might be making a fair exchage like everyone else. In addition, since he could, he took one catalogue of the local females in heat.

Viz-Igerd had come after him. He needed a better place to hide.

***

’Rhett was returning on the Underground from St. Catherine’s House, where he’d been looking up the births of girl babies in Cambridge in 1962, whether born, admitted, abandoned, or given up for adoption.

The tomes had been huge, and the print had been large, but the keeping of the “Creed Registers” had only resumed in 1962, and it was hard to know whether or not the books were complete.

He knew that Freya had been admitted to Addenbrookes on Trumpington Street. He was not sure of the date, and since she had been presumed indigent and had no name when admitted –or when discharged-- it was hard to be sure.

Because the mother had no name, the baby, which was officially admitted upon birth, also had no name.

Hopeless!

A copy of The Sun newspaper lay abandoned on the seat beside him. He glanced at it. The headline, “Antipodean Alarm!” did not alarm him. The accompanying photograph did.

“Damnation!” he murmured, recognizing the aerodynamic, aggressive-squid contours of a Star-goer with electro-magnetic propulsion systems, capable of using oceans as an underwater runway to achieve supersonic speed and necessary velocity to escape the planet’s gravity when it left. “That looks Volnoth!”


Best wishes for a very happy Easter!
Rowena Cherry