Tag Archives: bookworms and booya

I posted another book on my bookshelf, Bookworms and… Booyah! It currently shares the limelight of the revision process with Searching for Sara, my historical romance.

This usurper of my time is the first volume of a young adult sci-fi series started in 2002. The series came about as a challenge to write light-hearted fiction. To that point I preferred angst, drama, and bittersweet romances. Writing science fiction never occurred to me, as I believed I didn’t have the mind for the research necessary for a plausible setting.

The premise?

Timid Sally Regal is a candidate (think ROTC) of The Quad. In fact, she has been a candidate for six years, the longest ever in Quad history. Her one motivation for pressing forward has been her secret crush on war hero Zanic Delsen. At the beginning of the book she is soon to turn 19 and lives under the oppressive knowledge that if she doesn’t pass her final exam, she will be forced to return to the colonies… as a failure in love and life. If she could bolster her courage enough to at least confess her feelings to Zan, leaving wouldn’t be so bad. The challenge is finding the right time… and the perfect words.

The setting?

Sorry. Had to say it.

But yes, it does take place in space. In a solar system and galaxy similar to ours. Several planets have asteroids rich in minerals important for the production of energy. Because of this, their history is riddled with wars over mining rights. Centuries ago, guilds were setup to regulate the mining and to control the rights and permissions of the different companies involved. The largest producer of these minerals (as yet unnamed) was Altara, a planet with the largest ring of asteroids. Because the quota of allowed miners had been met, an eccentric Altarean lord began slaughtering the smaller claim holders, taking over their claims and then filing for their rights when they did not renew. This began the last war, which lasted less than 1 year.

The Quad was begun half a century before in response to a request for protection. The Quad is a network of military-trained men and women contracted to protect a solar system of mineral miners. When the young men and women graduate from candidacy, they become CaBal and receive assignment to a specific miner colony and its respective Quad Station. Through service and honors, they could even be indoctrinated into The Ninth Law, the CaBal elite.

Once I dove into discovering the characters of Sally Regal, Zanic Delsen, Janine Larabie and all the rest, I couldn’t be satisfied with just the first book. Unfortunately, the series was based on a video game, so I had to begin this revision in order to phase out the copyrighted material and craft a completely unique backstory (see above). It has been fun to revisit these characters, even if most of them do have new names and appearances.