by S F Chapman
Moresby Luis Hernandez's old gray tabby cat.
Herman “Bowie” Kowalski A washed out Paramilitarist, his strapping street punk is the brains behind the EurAfrican 'Goons Gang,'
Norman Rollo Rollo is a recent addition to the Goons Gang. He's considered by most people to be especially dimwitted.
Bertrum Hubert Schleim Also known as Schleim or Slime. A member of the Goons Gang.
Fritzi Reginald Wolfe Often called Wolf or Wolfie by others. Second-in command of the Goons Gang.
Fiefdom Liaison Agent Hugo Mackillroy Agent Mackillroy attends to matters for the Free City Department of External Affairs in New Rome and Nairobi. He is known by most in the Free City Inquisitor's Office as “Mac.” Agent Mackillroy has served as a Liaison Agent for nearly thirty years. Mac is a longtime friend of Ryo Trop.
Lev Fesai An active and highly committed member of the idealistic Enlightenment Crusade, Lev is a faltering Grad student at Free City University's Department of Physics. Often quite a womanizer, Mr. Fesai has recently committed himself to a monogamous relationship with Keira Norton. The twenty-nine year-old is the only child of Dr. Jana Fesai Ph.D.
Inspector Second Class Zara Kamchatka Permanently stationed in Nairobi, Kamchatka tends to investigative matters in East Africa for the Free City Inquisitor's Office. Tough and wily, Inspector Kamchatka is often mentioned as a possible replacement for Helga Bennet as Chief Inspector.
Forensic Technician Second Class Nicola Jenks Nicola is a talented expert at uncovering hidden details of criminal activities. She is especially well known for her excellent efforts at signal and image enhancement.
Cadet Inspector Helen MacDermish This recent twenty-two-year-old addition to the Free City Inquisitor's Office works on routine investigative matters during the graveyard shift.
About the book
It was quite clear to me as I finished up work on the Science Fiction Action/Adventure novel The Ripple in Space-Time that the amusing and often horrific exploits of Inspector Ryo Trop, Lieutenant Zmuda, Jasper, Mixion and especially little Dilma should be continued. All three of my longtime editors also clamored for more tales from Free City and the moldering feudal fiefdoms beyond.
Shortly after The Ripple in Space-Time was published, I wrote Dreg’s Scamp as the first chapter for a possible project with the irresistible title of Torn From On High. At the time, I was uncertain as to how Nate Briggs’ most gruesome death would fit into a story or whether it would even include any of the characters from The Ripple in Space-Time. But the chapter and the book title just begged to be fleshed out into a story.
Unlike my previous six novels, I started Torn From On High without any idea as to how it would end. A month or so after beginning the project, I wrote Chapter 6 21.080N, 12.271E and the arc of the story came together in a long list of chapter summaries. The book was completed just after New Years Day in 2013.
The Ripple in Space-Time was mainly about the hard-boiled and Film Noir inspired detective Ryo Trop and the dreadful Post Apocalyptic world that followed a huge war sometime in our future. In Torn From On High I decided to develop many of the more interesting characters from The Ripple in Space-Time and give them a more terrestrial adventure. As a side note, some of the characters in the Free City Series will also appear in the very different MAC Series that is due out in a year or so; Hint: Think clones....
Several locations in Torn From On High were just as important as the characters. I decided that Nate’s body would be discovered in a remote and bone-chilling location. For many years I have been a big fan of the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch, which is a rough and tumble series about the Bering Sea crab fishing industry. I briefly considered using Amaknak Island and the fishing port of Dutch Harbor in the Bering Sea. But I settled instead on the far-flung South Georgia Island and the long forgotten whaling port of Grytviken located half a world away in the South Atlantic.
I found the convoluted and little known history of Tunis, which has risen and fallen many times in its six thousand year history, equally fascinating. As the Barbary Coast pirates had done centuries ago, I made Tunis the center of skullduggery in the distant future of the Free City world.
I needed a particularly isolated site to tuck away the Desert Serfs as they tended to their secret project. Alternating between Google Earth images and Wikipedia entries, I selected the forsaken ruins of the Fort of Djaba in Niger. A thousand years ago the Fort protected an important trading route but, alas, the difficult environment and terrible isolation proved to be too much for those who were stationed there. To this day it is still nearly impossible to travel to the area. A few very rugged visitors have posted pictures and short videos from the site on line.
As Torn From On High is prepared for publication worldwide on the 2nd of May 2014, I have done some early work on book number three in the series. With luck, it too will be available soon. Updates and excerpts will be posted on my web site: www.sfchapman.com.
Enjoy,
SF Chapman
Northern California, USA. March 2014.
The adventures of Ryo Trop and Lt. Zmuda began here in
The Ripple in Space-Time -- Free City Book 1
THE CITIES OF EARTH ARE ENDANGERED!
Time is running out!
In the chaos of the near future, Inspector Ryo Trop hunts for space pirates bent on domination in a mad dash across the Solar System.
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Who was she? Floyd stared with great interest at the slumbering woman as she was slowly freed from the cocoon. She was the first new person to be generated in over fifteen thousand years!
For eons, the same seven people had been cloned innumerable times. They lived ordinary lives and died ordinary deaths. But Floyd and his companions always started out in the same very unhuman-like way as cocoon-bound twenty-five year old adults in full possession of their past memories.
Everything would change with the arrival of the intriguing young woman.
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Everyone knew that it was coming. No one was ready when it finally hit.
It has been over a century since the last big earthquake decimated the San Francisco Bay Area. Another massive tremor is long overdue. The slumbering beast that is the Hayward Fault will finally awake on an ordinary October morning, catching millions of people by surprise. Will troubled seventeen-year-old Kayla Hendley, veteran airline pilot Burt Weaver, precocious second grader Gwen Mills and many others survive the convolutions of the angry earth?
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You might also like the literary fiction novella I’m here to help
When seventeen-year-old Renita discovers that her long-held belief that she was adopted might not be true, she confronts her mother with her suspicions and finally learns of the convoluted events that transpired in the months before her birth.
“I cried like a baby. This book is full of feelings and it's certainly extraordinary! I'd love to read some other works from this author.” -- Disincentive Blogspot
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A lifelong Northern Californian, S F Chapman traded his construction job for the more docile profession of novelist in 2008 when the US economy faltered.
The tireless author has since written eight books. His first, “I'm here to help” (published by Striped Cat Press in July of 2012), is a literary fiction novella about a teenage daughter looking for answers to some troubling inconsistencies in her birth certificate. “The Ripple in Space-Time” (published by Striped Cat Press in February of 2013) is Chapman's second book. It is an exciting science fiction detective adventure set in a moldering and corrupt future controlled by greedy warlords. The author’s third novel “On the Ba
ck of the Beast” is an action-packed Contemporary Fiction tale about a massive earthquake that destroys the San Francisco Bay Area. It is now available from Striped Cat Press. Chapman recently released an exciting sequel to “The Ripple in Space-Time” entitled “Torn From On High.”
Other works include the post-apocalyptic soft science fiction MAC Series consisting of “Floyd 5.136,” “Xea in the Library” and “Beyond the Habitable Limit.”
Chapman has just finished up a rough-and-tumble literary fiction novel about homelessness called “The Missive In The Margins.”
Learn more about the author at www.SFChapman.com
