Pre-Order ‘Saving Paludis’ for 99 cents plus a look at Serpentine the Seer
Pre-Order Saving Paludis at 99 cents
Exciting news. Saving Paludis is now on Amazon Pre-Order. You can be one of the first to read my latest Sci-Fi novel, to be published June 8. You can grab it here: Pre-Order
This ensures you get the book for the bargain price of only 99 cents before the full publication cost kicks in on June 8.
You can also get it from NetGalley.
Happy Reading.
Serpentine and Saving Paludis
There are many strong characters in Saving Paludis, but perhaps the strongest and the strangest is Serpentine the seer. This is not so much based on the fact that he is a seer, more so on the vibrancy and the depth of character he brings to the role.
From humble beginnings
He is born of humble beginnings. Born, in fact, on Suffek, a planet of fire and brimstone, where his mother lived in isolation from the rest of the universe for many long years. He can be described thus:
With his high, wide forehead tapering down to a small weak chin, currently supported by his long-fingered hands, and long legs bent to support his crouching body, he resembles a human-sized mantis about to spring. He is completely bald and his head reflects the high sun as he rises to stretch his tall frame skywards.
On Earth, Serpentine would have undoubtedly been called a freak, even withstanding the genetic variations that the human species has undergone since leaving the mother planet. He is amazingly tall, almost two and a half meters, his beanpole body topped by a triangular head with a small nose and mouth and large, soulful brown eyes. He thinks his eyes give him his power, but in truth it is more likely the circumstances of his birth.
His birth left a lot to be desired. Serpentine is, in fact, the only human to be born on Suffek, that planet of smoke and steam and human distress. In that near past, an electrical storm of such savagery had been raging that all power had been cut, and his mother had undertaken the very rare event of delivery by completely natural means.
Her screams tore through the impenetrable darkness, to disperse among the hung-over, dust-laden Suffek atmosphere and thence to the corners of the universe, the only sounds of their kind for hundreds of years. The intense ionization of the outside air permeated the room, filling the black space with a strong ozonic stench, and the first thing that the germinal senses of Serpentine reacted to was the flash of white lightning that sped through the skylight, and momentarily lit his place of birth. It was there, and then it was gone, highlighting his mother’s sweat and his own spidery frame.
Serpentine’s mother was from Centurion and, dispirited with that environment’s militant lifestyle, and finding herself pregnant from a single liaison with a stringy, yellow-eyed Cassiopeian, she had left for the welcome solitude of Suffek. There, unlike most humans, she had found some peace and stayed. She worked there for five years, raising Serpentine with love but little social interaction until, with his education in mind, they had migrated to Paludis.
The psychic abilities of young Serpentine became apparent by the time he was ten years old, but far from making him a celebrity, the rest of society, suspicious and rife with prejudice, made him an outcast.
However, by the time he was fifteen and already two metres tall he had helped the police on several occasions, enjoying the momentary plaudits and cocking a snook at those who feared him. Mostly he used his psychometric powers to locate missing people, usually students. Parallel to his psychic endowments, Serpentine developed a strong interest in the fauna and flora of Paludis and would often spend days on his own in the wilderness areas, far away from the cities.
Following the death of his mother when he was eighteen, and in the grip of terrible grieving, Serpentine made the biggest decision of his short life. He hated the city with its tall ring of buildings, the people and their mundane bigotry, the entire corrupt system and it’s pandering to the dictates of Earth. He perceived himself as a gifted human, ignored by society until his special gifts were required; and as a child of the Muskan Paludis, rather than of the planet his own race had forged. Thus, two months after his mother’s death, he left his old life behind and sought the peace of the wilderness.
Serpentine’s role in Saving Paludis
Serpentine plays a huge role in the events on Paludis. History will describe him as someone who rose from notoriety to ethereal fame during the Paludis – Earth conflict. He becomes a significant player on the world’s stage; ubiquitous, stubborn and often full of remorse. Is it possible he can love? That’s a secret the book holds; suffice to say it is essential to the plot.
Love him or loathe him, Serpentine grabs at the heart strings. From humble beginnings to saving Paludis, he is powerful and omnipresent following his introduction midst the foothills of Trenkesh-Naisom.
I hope you can share his adventures.
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