Blog Tour: RED PLANET LANCERS by Brian H. Roberts

 

RED PLANET LANCERS

by Brian H. Roberts

 

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GENRE:  Science Fiction Thriller

 

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BLURB:

 

How far will you go to save a friend?

 

After sweeping Dallas Gordon and the American base from Earth’s moon, Emperor Zhang Aiguo launches an armada to conquer Ep City and control Mars.

 

Ruthless Colonel Song Dajing leads his Emperor’s flotilla to defeat EPSILON’s isolated Mars colony. He brings the same armaments he used to defeat Dallas Gordon on the moon, plus a high yield missile to annihilate Ep City and its occupants. The US Space Force, occupied with plans to take back the moon, refuses to intervene.

In a race against time, Dallas Gordon must organize a mercenary squadron and pursue Song before he can deploy his weapons on the defenseless colony. Ep City commander Genady Antonov must prepare his civilian workforce for the coming invasion and plan for the unthinkable should Gordon fail to reach Mars before Song does.

 

Taught and fast-paced, Red Planet Lancers builds tension until the exciting climax. Once you start this Earth-to-Mars rocket ride, you won’t want to stop. Order your copy today!

 

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Excerpt Three:

 

As the squadron squeezed in on the rovers, a dense cloud of dust erupted, obscuring the wheeled transports from view.

 

Dallas said, “The rovers are using rotating brushes. Pang Xianjing used them to erase his tracks. Song is using them to generate a dust screen.

 

“Fire into the cloud,” barked the exasperated commander.

 

As they did, rovers nosed out of the dense screen. An orange glow announced missile launches. The transports backed into the cloud. Brilliant green beams lanced across the distance, but to no effect.

 

“Missiles away!” shouted Dallas. Streaks of orange leapt in all directions. The ASSETs’ AI briefly disengaged from their primary targets and attacked any missiles within their thirty-degree field of fire. Missiles that escaped, suddenly veered toward the nearest Water Bug.

 

The hair on Dallas’s neck stood on end. “Evasive, evasive!” he screamed. He jerked his Bug up and away from two missiles, barely maintaining control.

 

Six klicks away, Sake’ rolled her Bug just as a missile streaked by. The rocket’s scream was deafening as it passed. She turned and the projectile disappeared in a green flash.

 

Her echelon was not so lucky. Both Dusty and Big Seal took direct hits before they could react. “Big Seal!” shouted the wing leader. “He’s hit!”

 

“NO, NO, NO!” Dallas tracked the smoking ruin of the Navajo’s water Bug as it tumbled to the ground, raising a rusty cloud of dust on impact.

 

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What was the most challenging thing about writing this book and how did you overcome it?

 

I’m a plotter. When I write a book, I don’t just sit down at my keyboard and bang away. I like to build things from the bottom up. I use an excel workbook to detail the backstory for my main characters and outline the plot, determining what happens when. Once I sit down, I know what each chapter will contain, making the writing effortless.

Red Planet Lancers has a number of plot lines, each weaving through the others, coming to their conclusions at the end. Normally it takes me about a month to flesh out my characters and lay out the plot. But I had a number of plotlines that were dead-ending for me. For the first time in my career, I experienced writer’s block. Or more accurately, plotter’s block.

The months began to tick by—two, three, four. I was getting frustrated. Then one night I woke up at 3 AM. Seeing the entire book in my mind’s eye, I rushed out to my desk—after putting some clothes on, it’s cold in Central Oregon in January—grabbed a stack of scratch paper and started writing down my thoughts. I ended up with about five pages of hand-written notes. When I dotted my last “i” and crossed my last “t”, I headed back to bed. It was the best I’d slept in weeks.

The next day I typed my notes into my outline. After that the writing flowed. My characters faced a superior adversary, fell in love, squabbled, problem-solved and betrayed one another. How did it end? You’ll have to read Red Planet Lancers to find out!

 

 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

In his first life, BRIAN H. ROBERTS worked as a contractor and civil engineer in bustling Seattle. In his spare time he read novels by the greatest names in science fiction: Andy Weir, Frank Herbert, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and so many others. As he read these authors’ works, he was inspired to write Sci-Fi Thrillers to engage and entertain readers like him.

As with so many of us, life intervened. Raising a family, work, remarriage and finally retirement all placed demands on his time. Desiring a change – and time to write – he and his wife traded big city life for the outdoor adventures of Central Oregon. His writing draws deeply on his lifelong loves of science/technology and adventure sports. The EPSILON Sci-Fi Thrillers is Brian’s first series.

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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/RED-PLANET-LANCERS-EPSILON-Thriller-ebook/dp/B0CQTJ848W/ref=sr_1_1

 

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GIVEAWAY

Brian H. Roberts will award a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

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