Today Amazon notified me that my novel Terraformed Earth – New Millennium is available for purchase in both Kindle and paperback formats.

I started this journey in 1986 when I began commuting between Kansas City and Baltimore for a new job. On the weekly flights I started the novel that became New Millennium. After we moved to Baltimore in 1988 life conspired to keep me away from the book, although I never stopped thinking about it.

In 2016, after I retired, I found a 5-1/4″ floppy disk with the text on it. Sadly, the disk was no longer readable. Then I found a faded paper copy of about 24,000 words. I scanned it in using my printer. The resulting text took almost as long to clean up as if I had typed it in by hand, but I ended up with a usable copy.

I managed to flesh out the plot, but the characters were another matter. I took a writing class online through our local community college. Then another class. I joined an online critique group called critters.org. I’ve heard people disparage the group, but it was a big help to me. Then I found Area 42, an online writers’ workshop, that provides mutual critique in a supportive environment. It’s been a great place to grow in.

After generating a first scene in a writing course, I wrote and published another novel, Asteroid Gambit. Think Casablanca in space with asteroids and a Martian rebellion. I wrote over a dozen short stories and struggled to get them published. Thankfully, all of my short stories eventually found a home.

I began several other novels: Fire in the Sky, a prequel to Asteroid Gambit; Terraformed Earth – Discovery, a sequel to New Millennium; Watanabe’s Hammer, about a war between aliens in the outer reaches of our Solar System; and Thorium Blues, a sequel to Asteroid Gambit.

I came to realize the real action in New Millennium started in chapter six, so I reluctantly killed my darlings and took out the first five chapters. The first four I turned into a short story, Terraformed Earth – Departure, first published in the anthology Unbound III – Goodbye Earth, now available in Kindle format. The fifth chapter became my short story Terraformed Earth – Creation.

At long last I’ve come to the end of the road. The first three stories in the Terraformed Earth series, Departure, Creation, and New Millennium are all available on Amazon. Discovery, the next part of the story, should appear later this year.

My development as an author is still a work in progress, but I hope you’ll enjoy meeting Ignatius and learning about a dystopian future unlike any other.