Sacrifices must be made.

On a desert planet, all citizens must cooperate to survive. The scientific organization, Pallagen, protects the colony city of Exordia--whether they want it or not. 
 
Rebels must be broken. 
 
Ex-Pallagen researcher Lena Ward isn’t going down without a fight. Her team of Exordia rejects is ready to pierce Pallagen’s benevolent exterior and expose the truth of their horrible agenda.
 
Loyalty must be programmed. 
 
Amnesiac Alex Kleric is reclaiming her life as an Enforcer dedicated to Exordia and Pallagen. But the records aren’t jogging her memories. Something is wrong--and all questions point to Lena Ward and her underground rebellion.
 
Progress must continue. 
 
To save Exordia. At any cost.

Available on:  Amazon   B&N   iBooks    Kobo     Goodreads         Uncommon Universes

Author Bio:

Sarah E. Ott lives and breathes stories that involve high stakes and character-driven plots. When she’s not chasing plot bunnies or emoting over good literature, she can be found doing one of the following things: a) working as a kids ministry office administrator, b) driving her Prius to Dunkin’ Donuts, or c) curled up on a couch with a book and covered in live cats.  
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Website: http://www.saraheott.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ott2Write
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/sarahlizzieo/
 
Facebook Launch Party: https://www.facebook.com/events/343546106139971/

Mad Max: Fury Road and Apocalypto are two awesome movies. Strangely connected by Mel Gibson. He was the original Mad Max and then he directed Apocalypto. One great feature of both movies is the idea of chase, and flight. In both cases, just about half the movie is chasing/fleeing at high speed. In Apocalypto, the chase is on foot through a jungle, in Mad Max it is with vehicles through a post-apocalyptic wilderness.

Both feature religion in fascinating ways. In Apocalypto you get the full force of the Inca religion and then it runs smack into Catholicism, literally. There's a great scene at the end. Here it is. 

(Stop at the 1:35 mark or go on to the end)

In Mad Max, they mix in different religious elements including, Valhalla, the Nordic after life. When the War Boys are about to die, they call out to the others, "Witness Me," and then then go out in a blaze of glory. We get the first taste of this in this following scene.

In the film, one of the War Boys is captured by Furiosa and Max who are fleeing their captors. Nux is spared and he joins them and one of the women with him takes to him. The plan is, along with the few others with them, to destroy the sole path through a natural stone arch and return the community and run it differently. But of course, things go wrong and it is clear that Nux is going to die. And so in that moment, in an absolutely fantastic scene, he calls out to the others to witness him.

When we think of death, there are two poles. On the one hand, we die alone. No one dies or can die with you or for you. That is the stark reality. On the other hand, we want people to share that death. But only if they want to. So only in a moment, when you are witnessed in death, is the cycle complete in a sense. Just as we're never born alone, when your death is witnessed, you don't die alone.

The series prequel for The Children of Clay series is out now. Available on all platforms.

In a post-apocalyptic world, 4,000 years from the present, Captain Senaya is the first of the Jaru forces to arrive at the far northern temple of the imposter deity, Queen Nouei. The Queen’s forces have been soundly defeated and she is now vulnerable. Senaya’s sole task is to secure a weak and defenseless queen until reinforcements arrive.
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But Senaya wants more. She wants to be the one who forces the queen to recant her false claims to divinity. Senaya is a seasoned warrior and this is her moment of glory. She has everything all planned, that is, until she meets the queen.

​Available on  Amazon    

I'm happy to announce the release of Choose Your Doom: Collected Short Stories (Picking Sides for the Apocalypse)  This is a collection of short stories within the broad post-apocalyptic genre. There are AI stories, demon stories, virus outbreak stories, etc.

My contribution is called "The Woman and Her Wasps." It is set in The Children of Clay universe, but is set in a parallel world. It does have events that impact The Clay Queen.

I hope you enjoy it.



It's available  at:   Amazon         Kobo       Apple       Barnes & Nobles
   

I just completed Sara Gruen's At the Water's Edge.  Actually, I listened to the audiobook, which was performed masterfully. I was very impressed with the story and the storytelling. 

The book has over 1,000 reviews and an average of 4 stars on Amazon. WTF! This is a 5 star book. But maybe I'm easily impressed.

Spoilers.

At Water's Edge is about a young woman, Maddie,  who's life is among the wealthy socialites in the 1940s Philly high society. Her husband Ellis and his friend Hank, both declared medically unfit for military service, go to Scotland to try to capture footage of the Loch Ness monster. 

The trip to Scotland reveals their marriage for what it is as it unravels. In the meantime, she falls in love with Angus Grant, the landlord of the inn they're staying in.  There is a happy ending so as you can imagine, lovebirds get together and the situation works out.

I'm interested in notions of romance in literature versus real life, so I was thinking about the romantic interest in this book. He is introduced as a commoner, bearded gruffy man, who runs the inn. We come to discover a few things about him. He is considerate. He's an expert hunter who supplements the diet of the needy in town with secret gifts of game, i.e., people wake up to find fresh meat on their doorstep and they know it's him. He was an elite military soldier who was gutted in combat but killed his assailant with his helmet while his intestines were hanging out. He was a loving husband whose wife gave birth to their stillborn daughter and in distress on hearing that Angus was missing, drowned herself in the Loch. He is super strong, fearless, but super gentle and kind.  And then a big reveal is that even though he lives like a commoner, it turns out tht he's a lord or something like that and the "big house"/estate in town is his by inheritance.  

In short, this guy is a dream.

Now, I was curious about the other men in the story and began to think about them. In a romance story, where the girl gets the perfect guy, how are the other males presented? I don't read romance books often so I don't know. But in this case it was clear that no one, not even one male could be written in a way that threatened the main love interest.

• Husband Ellis turns out to be an alcoholic, druggie jerk
• Hank, their closest friend is a rich, spoiled, clueless dude
• Ellis' dad does not come off well. In fact, there is a passage where she realized that Ellis would turn into his father and the thought was revolting
• Her father is a souless, emotionless, distant, uncaring, unsympathetic figure
• Fred, who is an absent character but one who was interested in her at one point, is notably unattractive--she says so herself
• Willie the postman in Scotland who eventually marries her local friend is judgmental
• George (I think was his name) who liked one of the local women, was missing a leg
• Rory another man in Scotland who was seeming to be like Angus, lumberjack, sensitive type, is revealed to be a jealous abuser

I can't think of any other individual men in the story. (Although, the story is very complementary of military men and vets, especially those injured and who bear the horrors of war. These "men" in a collective sense are presented in a positive light as we see also at the end)
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Absent of love triangle issues, is this normal? That other male characters serve as foils to highlight the glories of the lead male? But in this case, few, if any of the males, had any redeeming qualities. It certainly makes for a great read because you are rooting for Maddie big time.

​Love my mindless movies, so this was up my alley. 

Spoiler alert!

The first Guardians of the Galaxy was something I watched when I had downtime and just wanted to see stuff blow up. But I was pleasantly surprised. It had a good story, good acting, very good humor, and of course, the 70-80s nostalgia. To be honest, I wasn't seeing how they could replicate the uniqueness of the first movie now that the cat was out of the bag. So what did I think of this second installment? I enjoyed it. The humor was there. The characters were great (baby root deserves an Oscar). The storyline was decent, if a little weak. But by far, the most poignant aspect of the film were all the family dynamics.

So let's list 'em

• Star-Lord/Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and Ego --so father and abandoned son issues
• Star-Lord/Peter Quill and Yondou--mentor-mentee issues
• Gamora and Nebula--serious sister/daddy issues
• Star-Lord and Gamora--unspoken romantic interest issues
• Yondou's ravager crew and the split of that family
• Then there was the overall we're-the-only-family-we've-got issues

It was a tad exhausting, but it did carry the film.  

The plot was that Star-Lord's Father, Ego, finds him. Ego is a celestial, i.e., god/immortal being. Turns out that the reunion is not quite what it seems, as Ego wants to turn Star-Lord into a co-domineering force and re-image the universe. So now the Guardians have to fight the god and work out all the family issues at the same time.

The dynamic and intensity that carried the movie was between Gamora and Nebula. All the bad guys in the movie are comical to some degree except for Nebula. She carries real malevolence that you can feel. You don't want to run into her in an alley. She has hatred toward her father Thanos and holds her sister, Gamora, responsible for all Thanos did to her. And all through the film, you're waiting for this dynamic to play out.

The other satisfying relationship was that of Yondou and Peter Quill. Here we find that the bad guy sacrificed a life of honor to save Peter. Even though he'd presented his actions as done out of purely selfish motives. As a smuggler, he realizes that Ego means to kill Peter and he thus never delivers him. At the end he gets his redemption and Peter gets to reconcile with, not just with his mentor, but his true "dad."

As a creator of content, I found the film fascinating in that, they had a thin storyline, but they exploited the humor and relationship tensions to great effect and that was enough to make it a fun watch. This film was an aggregate of all the correct buttons. It's amazing to see the application of a formula and watch it work. Humans are predictable. If you find the right formula, you'll get a predictable response from us.

Honored to be interviewed by author and recording/performing artist M. Lachi at Thoughtwards.

Here's an interview I did with Nix Whitikker.

"If any of your books was to be made into a film...."
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A poignant scene in The Chronicles of Riddick (one of the most awesomest films ever) has to do with the forced conversion of the people on Helion Prime. This is the scene (an extended scene with footage not seen in the film).

"We all began as something else." The Purifier says. Those words always stuck with me because it sounds like this is the human story of religion and culture. We all began as something else. So, is the statement an argument in favor of conservatism or progressivism? Should we fight to conserve and thus resist the command to shed the past so easily, or should we be willing to accept that our anchor is in the future and what we were is not what we are destined to be?

I love the fact that the Purifier answers this later in the film. Here's my blog on his atonement.