Gina Rae Mitchell

Spotlight | Red Planet Lancers (EPSILON Sci-Fi Thriller 4) by Brian H. Roberts | #ScienceFiction #Thriller #SpaceFleet #SciFi #HardSciFi | @GoddessFish @bhrauthor

A book blog tour from Goddess Fish Promotions.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Marianne & Judy at Goddess Fish for providing me with the information for this tour.

Book Details

Red Planet Lancers by Brian H. Roberts
Series: EPSILON Sci-Fi Thrillers #4
on February 26, 2024
Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller
Format: eBook, Paperback
Pages: 389

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.

Taut and fast-paced, Red Planet Lancers builds tension throughout until the exciting climax. Once you start this Earth-to-Mars rocket ride, you won’t want to stop.

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Excerpt from Red Planet Lancers

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.

Excerpt provided by the author/publisher for use in this post.

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Purchase Links for Red Planet Lancers

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Guest Post from the author of Red Planet Lancers

From Bookworm to SciFi Thriller Writer: How My Passion Shaped My Career.

When I first contemplated my contribution to this post, I was thinking it would be something like this—From Science Fiction and Thriller Fan to SciFi Thriller Author: How a Passion Turned Into a Career. Seemed catchy enough. So, to get started, I began listing authors whose work(s) I’ve enjoyed at various stages of my life. The single-spaced list filled a full page. Huh, didn’t see that coming. More troubling, the list included biographies, memoires, and classical literature, going back as far as Homer.

That’s not to say my favorite reads aren’t Science Fiction and Thrillers. They are. But as I perused my list, certain patterns and trends emerged.

I fell in love with reading at an early age. I remember sharing Mom’s lap with two sisters and a brother when she read us fairy tales and such. I learned to read before kindergarten, unheard of in the 1960s, by memorizing Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hatches the Egg and associating the sounds with the letters on the page. To this day, I can recite that book without referring to it. I also memorized Clement C. Moore’s The Night Before Christmas. It’s a family tradition for me to recite that work at holiday gatherings.

Something else happened at that same time. My grandmother gave me an illustrated book about dinosaurs. As I note in the dedication to Red Planet Lancers, that book opened the world of science and learning that enthralls me to this day.

In grade school, Mom enrolled me in a book of the month club. Two authors stand out. Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time introduced me to the concept of interstellar travel. Beryl Netherclift’s The Snowstorm did likewise for time travel.

In junior high I fell in love with Middle Earth. J.R. R. Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy gave me a profound lesson in world building. He’s a master at the hero’s journey, first used by Homer. It’s still used by contemporary Science Fiction and Fantasy authors.

In high school and college I broadened my reading to include Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein and Michael Crichton, Frank Herbert, William Golding and more, to my books-read list. My interest in science (I earned a B.S. in biology) and Science Fiction was set. And I had begun to devour Thrillers.

After college, broadened my reading. I developed a deep interest in 19^th century history, biographies and literature. Events of that century still shape us—The Corps of Discovery, slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow, racism, the Indian Wars, the Industrial Revolution—collectively and individually today. I learned that the great men and women of history were just ordinary people whose moral compass held true during extraordinary crises. Human conflict, I discovered, revolves around the control of resources, and the resulting wealth and power.

James Fennimore Cooper, Alexander Dumas, Herman Melville and Mark Twain and other 19^th century authors introduced me to the motivations and foibles of human nature. A bit of the divine and a bit of the devil reside in each of us.

My reads in the past 20 years have augmented earlier lessons-learned. Adrian Tchaikovsky provided insights into alien intelligence, simply by revealing the minds of Earthly spiders and octopuses. James S. A. Cory examined human nature when facing that we are not alone in the universe.

On the Thriller side, I’m a fan of Dean Koontz. He reveals our better angels and demons in his characters, demonstrating that our good sides will prevail if we allow them. Dan Brown lays out complex plots/conspiracies, based on historical events and documents.

I’ve come to appreciate independent self-published authors. In the Historical Thriller genre, Gary McAvoy has dethroned Dan Brown. For Hard Science Fiction, Gerald M. Kilby has several series out related to the colonization of our solar system. Andrew Moriarty’s Imperial series is excellent Space Opera sprinkled with humor. There are too many good indie Science Fiction authors to name here.

My life experiences of raising a family, community involvement, and backcountry adventure, provide a deep reservoir of insight into human nature and behavior. When I traded a career in civil engineering for writing, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the creativity and problem-solving translated directly to my writing—though admittedly without standing in the mud of a construction site, arguing with a contractor over the interpretation of plans or contract specifications.

My EPSILON SciFi Thrillers are the distillation of lessons-learned over a lifetime. You’ll find conflict over limited resources, the struggle between our better and evil sides, ordinary people performing extraordinary acts, and the opportunity for redemption for the fallen. Oh, and I do it all within a near-future where the known laws of physics still apply. Happy reading,

~ Brian

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Giveaway!

Brian H. Roberts, author of Red Planet Lancers, will award a randomly drawn winner a $25 Amazon/BN gift card.

Visit more stops on this Goddess Fish tour for extra chances to win!

Official Tour Page for Red Planet Lancers

Full Tour Schedule:

February 26: Gina Rae Mitchell
February 26: Long and Short Reviews
February 27: Literary Gold
February 27: Fabulous and Brunette
February 28: Kit ‘n Kabookle
February 28: Kenyan Poet
February 29: Sandra’s Book Club
March 1: Readers Roost

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