Virtual Book Tour + #Giveaway: The Chronicles of Deneb series by Zanne Raby @GoddessFish

The Chronicles of Deneb is a science-fiction/ space opera series set in the near future. The year is 2080 CE. The world is dying. Get ready to travel into the future to a time when nothing is certain. Where the science behind climate change was ignored, leading to drought and famine plaguing an already overpopulated globe. Massive waves of refugees stream across the planet, seeking sanctuary. Where terrorist groups have joined forces with biohackers to develop a deadly bio-engineered disease that marches across the continents like a conquering army, leaving millions dead in its murderous swathe.

Meanwhile, some of the best and brightest minds on the planet are feverishly at work - constructing gigantic Space Arks to shuttle hundreds of thousands of people to a colony on Mars. And it seems like there’s more good news: world leaders announce that a vaccine is ready. It’s all good; it’s all returning to normal.

But the truth is very different. In THE FLIGHT OF THE MAYFLOWER, the first novel in The Chronicles of Deneb, Dr. Daniel Radu – project manager for NASA’s Space Ark Mayflower – uncovers a global conspiracy of immense proportions. But Daniel cooks up a scheme of his own. Joined by a team of global experts, he and his colleagues brace themselves for a journey of a lifetime as they trek across the galaxy in a quest for survival.

Mayhem follows the Mayflower in the second book of The Chronicles of Deneb series, DESCENT INTO DARKNESS. Journey along with the crew of the Space Ark Mayflower as they adapt to their new home on the planet Deneb. But along with their struggle to integrate into an alien culture, a new battle sweeps across the planet with the arrival of the human-transmitted Chimera bactovirus, bringing war and fanning the flames of racial intolerance. With a bloody conflict now raging across the planet, the crew of the Mayflower is split between the two factions and embroiled in the chaos and destruction.

 

FIRES OF FURY is the third installment in The Chronicles of Deneb. Will the survivors of the Space Ark Mayflower find their way when cultures clash and the fires of fury threaten to consume their lives? Now masquerading as citizens of the Collective, the Mayflower crew has a new reason to fear. With the end of the Second Denebian War, Wesselan’s General Pallav Kóbor and his astrophysicist wife, Dr. Tara Kóbor, have high hopes that life will return to normal on Deneb7. Yet nothing can be further from the truth.In a diabolical plot to erase the scars left by the Second Denebian War, warlord turned Wessel Head of State Gomalan unleashes a fiendish scheme to heal his nation’s wounds, while his top soldier, General Ravenna, falls under the spell of a seductive Fyjer agent intent on crushing their ambitions. Dragged into a brutal reality of terror and intrigue, can the Kóbors and warbird ace Fynn Vogel remain unscathed, or will the flames consume them and all that is evil on Deneb-7?

PURCHASE The Chronicles of Deneb Series at Ridgecrest Books AND Amazon

Excerpt:

Colonel Pallav Kóbor, newly promoted Inspector of the Wessel Defence Force, coughed. The stench of the smouldering remains of the Great Plains Wesselan Army Base lingered in his nostrils, its taste still acrid, rising like bile in his throat. Blinking, he tried to banish the horror from his mind’s eye – the tendrils of thick black smoke snaking from twisted funeral pyres upon which vehicles and equipment had burned with such fierce intensity that they were rendered unrecognizable. And on top of it all – the tell-tale aroma of roasting humanoid flesh, so reminiscent of the grilled steaks that he used to throw on the barbecue for his wife Tara and their two teens in the time he thought of as “the Before”.

That was when days lasted twenty-four hours, and he could sit out on the back deck with a cold beer listening to old country tunes while the sun sank behind the moss-covered oaks. Five years ago and how his life had changed. In the Before, he was NASA’s Chief of Security in the United States of North America. That was until his wife decided to partner up with Dr. Daniel Radu and kidnap him and his colleagues from the Space Ark Project and before they were unwillingly transported thousands of light years from Earth to arrive three years later on alien shores. Except there were very few shores on the desert planet of Deneb7 and most of them were located in his new homeland, the powerful and war-like nation of Wesselan.

Interview with Zanne Raby

How did you become involved with the subject or theme of your book?

Let me start off by saying that I’m writing a sci-fi space opera series. There are three novel in the series so far: The Flight of the Mayflower; Descent into Darkness; and Fires of Fury, and the plots all take place in exotic foreign locales on distant planets.

Now allow me to take you back a few decades in time, way back to the 1970s. My father was in the Army and we were transferred to a large military base in Europe. I was just starting high school and as a young teenager, it was hard leaving all my friends behind and not only moving to a new country but also trying to fit in with the other kids. They already had their circle of friends and it wasn’t easy to get accepted. There was a great library on the military caserne, and at lunch time I’d wolf down my peanut butter sandwich (back then, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were almost mandatory in school lunches) and I’d head to the library. Right to the back, where the shelves of books stretched from floor almost to ceiling, and where a stash of sci-fi novels sat, waiting to transport me to a different place. That’s where I began to read sci-fi and through all the years and places I have since been, reading has been a great escape. My love of science and technology that I picked up as a teenager was what brought me to write about science fiction and I hope my series, The Chronicles of Deneb, allows others to experience the same!

What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?

The world is a scary place right now, isn’t it? And the problems are serious and difficult to solve. The climate emergency will take generations to resolve since our Earth has been under siege for centuries, ever since the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-1700s and production went from small quantity, hand-made goods to mechanization. Since 9/11, the world has changed due to increased and globalized terrorism. COVID-19 has caused countless deaths and long-term sickness, to say nothing of the mental anguish and stress that went hand in hand with the lockdowns and isolation. On top of this, there is a serious danger that world-wide conflicts spill over into a global war that could destroy the planet.

Long story short, reading for me a form of escapism. The world needs novels that simply entertain… novels that transport the reader into a fantastic world where they can lose themselves for an hour or more. Change the mindset and immerse the reader in something entertaining and enjoyable.

My series begins on Earth in the future. The year is 2080CE. The powers-that-be have done nothing to save our planet. Yet, they themselves have concocted a plan for their own survival. But their wicked plan is thwarted by a team of scientists and engineers who take matters into their own hands and embark on a dangerous journey across our galaxy. And in colonizing a distant planet, the refugees from Earth sow the seeds of trouble with the native peoples of Deneb-7.

My goal in writing the series The Chronicles of Deneb is simply to entertain people and I’m confident that if you read any of the novels, you will agree.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

In The Flight of the Mayflower, the team leaves Earth and after a couple of dangerous years in space, they orbit around the planet Deneb-7. Three years in space is a long time and they’re all excited to finally set foot on land. But this land, this planet orbiting the supergiant blue-white star Deneb, needed to be created. Mountain ranges, rivers, cities, plants, and animals. The most difficult part of writing the book was creating the worlds. Notice how I said “worlds”, because Deneb-7 is actually only one planet of the Interstellar Collective for Peace and Security, or as I call it, the “Collective”. Each planet needed its own unique geography, flora, and fauna. I used Inkarta to create maps of each planet, then I began to craft the important creatures and plants for each world. Keeping track of it all was quite a challenge, but it makes the work more believable.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

Take a look at the covers of each of my novels and you’ll notice something in common. The Flight of the Mayflower, Descent into Darkness and Fires of Fury all feature starships on their covers. In the first novel of the series, the humans flee Earth in a Space Ark (the United States of North America Space Ark Mayflower – whew, that’s a mouthful!). And when you have space arks and starships, you’ve got to have pilots, right? The most enjoyable scenes I wrote are when my ace warbird pilot, Fynn Vogel, takes to the skies. He’s energized and whooping with excitement, and every second he’s in his warbird, Fynn’s transformed from a jovial, likeable character into a bloodthirsty hunter. Writing Fynn in the air is pure enjoyment for me.

Where there alternate endings you considered?

The Chronicles of Deneb is a work in progress. With three novels under my belt, I’ve already begun working on the fourth manuscript. I’ve plotted the series out from start to fuzzy finish. I say fuzzy because there are a couple of different endings that makes sense, one of which is to have the crew return to Earth, using the knowledge they acquired over the years living on exoplanets to heal our world. But let me talk about the third novel, Fires of Fury. I take one of my main characters and knock him out of the park. It’s a total cliffhanger. The reader may think that it’s over, but it’s just the beginning of something bigger. Initially, I didn’t want to end it that way. I was planning on writing a subsequent chapter that softened the blow. Then I figured, no. Just no. Stop right there and move on. Things will reveal themselves at the right moment. I don’t want to give it away because it really is a blockbuster ending. But you can find out more by checking out Fires of Fury 😉

Can you share some stories about people you met while researching this book?

When I began writing the series, it was 2018. Just make a mental note of that year please. I knew I wanted to write a traditional style science fiction novel and I needed a catalyst to get my team into space. Why not work in a story about a pandemic. Okay, this is why I asked you to remember I was writing in 2018, before COVID-19. I thought to myself, with everything else that could be happening in 2080CE (when The Flight of the Mayflower begins), on top of the climate emergency and the resulting human tragedies, what else could happen? Pandemic, right? So one day I stumbled across an old colleague of mine who works at the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Academy. I guess I should mention I was in the military, so I know people like that. And he and I had a good talk about how to build a biological weapon. Scary stuff.

And like I was mentioning earlier, I write about pilots and flying. So I got in touch with some of the military pilots that I knew through my career. That helped me immensely when I had to write the scenes with Fynn swooping through the air like a falcon.

Other research I do online, and I’ve sat through lectures on astrophysics and botany (yes, my novels deal with both), to get a bit of science behind the fiction.

There’s always something new to learn in our fascinating universe!

What genre of books do you enjoy reading?

I read a lot of non-fiction books. Anything on WW1 or WW2 and I’m totally hooked. I have a collection of twenty-eight books on Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (I just counted them), and that doesn’t include the eBooks! I read military autobiographies and biographies. And I don’t want to overlook anything by author Alison Weir, whose non-fiction works bring the characters to life. But I also have bookshelf after bookshelf of fiction novels. Other than non-fiction war stories, I don’t have a specific genre of book that I prefer. Historical fiction is one of my favorites. Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series pops to mind, and anything by Philippa Gregory. But of course, I read sci-fi, with Lois Bujold McMaster as being my favourite author. And the classics, like War and Peace (yes, truly), Anna Karenina, The Count of Montecristo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame… you get the picture. I will read almost anything that is well written and enjoyable. Anything, that is, except horror stories.  

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Since the days of the Napoleonic War, there has always been a member of Zanne’s family in uniform. Choosing to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors, Zanne joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1980, and was selected to attend the Royal Military College of Canada – the first year that women were accepted into that prestigious academy of learning. After graduation, she studied to become a Transportation and Movements Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

During a career spanning 38 years, some of the most memorable experiences involved command of 8 Mission Support Squadron as part of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, leading a study on support to the Canadian Arctic involving several trips to Northern Canada, including Canadian Forces Station Alert (the most northern settlement in the world), a three-year tour with NATO at Joint Force Command Brunssum, a deployment as the NATO Liaison Officer to United States Central Command, and finally a nomination as the Deputy Commander for the Canadian Forces Recruiting Group.

After hanging up the uniform and putting away the combat boots, Zanne bought a small acreage in Central Ontario and designed her own house. With a cozy office overlooking the shores of Georgian Bay, she decided to pursue her life-long ambition: to become an author. Enough of the reports and returns that littered her desk over her career, now she could turn her attention to unleashing the creativity that had taken a back seat. The time had come to shake the dust off begin a new career. The winds of change had called.

Zanne is currently crafting The Chronicles of Deneb, a sci-fi space opera series that will take the reader from a dystopian earth on a voyage across the universe in search of a safe haven. But trouble is in store for them when the planet they land on is anything but the sanctuary they sought.

When not behind the keyboard, Zanne enjoys travel, photography, hiking, and gardening. And always, a good story to pass the time.

Connect with Zanne Raby

PRESSKIT ~ WEBSITE ~ FACEBOOK ~ LINKEDIN ~ INSTAGRAM

Giveaway:

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