Sanctuary Contract Is Released!

The second book in the Portal Authority Contract series is now up for preorder on Kindle, in ebook and paperback.

The Sanctuary Contract features new uses for nuclear devices, a larger and more challenging job, and even a little romance to prove I do have a soul, after all.

As far as the hardness of the science, there were tests done on both sides of the Iron Curtain in excavating underground cavities for various purposes. It is very easy to wind up with a cavity full of broken rocks rather than a stable cavern, so site selection is crucial.

The Project Gnome shot produced a large and stable cavity in rock salt, proving it could be done.

The empirical equations which I have used in the story are based on the papers written by Edward Teller and others.

I will here note that everything in this story is built around unclassified, publicly available material. I don’t get into the gritty details of how to build a nuclear device. In the first place, it’s not a major part of the story. In the second place, I don’t want to bore my readers.

One of the problems Master Blasters encounters, and will encounter, is customer relations. Things don’t always go smoothly, even if the Contract is to save a world. This is exacerbated by the translation barrier.

Customer relations is one of the crises in this book to be faced and overcome. Some things I consider universal with respect to the motivations of aliens, as follows:

• A race that doesn’t have a strong survival urge, doesn’t survive.
• The means of survival will be a root of conflict.
• Desperate times, desperate measures.
• Money – well, credit – talks.

I’m trying to make the aliens and their worlds really alien, not just Earth humans with a little lipstick on them. It is, of course, for my readers to determine how well I have succeeded.

One source I have found very useful is a book by Stephen Gillett, World-Building.

Although it was written in the 90’s, it stands well today. Unlike many other books on the subject, it gives equations which can be implemented in a spreadsheet. There are lots of books on the subject, but this is the one with rivets.

In this novel, the world is decidedly not Earthlike. The star is a red dwarf. Despite that, there is no red-lit landscape. The difference is more like the difference between a soft white light bulb and a full daylight light bulb. It is noticeable.

The world is necessarily much closer to the star. Its year is about an Earth week, and it’s cluttered with all kinds of space junk. Just getting to the job site to do the work is a problem.

I hope you enjoy it.