The Foundlings (The Swords of Xigara)
Page 42
Acknowledgements
To all my Blade Bearers and Omega Readers—Michelle Patton Williams, Niccole Perrine, Randy Robinson, and Ronnie Burgess—this book would never have seen the light of day without your irreplaceable help, feedback, and advice.
Thanks goes to Omega Reader extraordinaire, Sage Ivans, who stepped in during the final edits with infectious enthusiasm. Her comments were invaluable. She writes stories of her own. You should really visit her page on Wattpad and check them out.
I also want to single out Joy Blackwell, another amazing Omega Reader. She came in and offered line editing, completely unasked. Any success this work achieves will be due, in great part, to her efforts. It’s always a good thing when you can get a high school teacher to help you out.
Special thanks to my wife, Joy, for helping me with the beautiful cover design and website layout. Even more important are her years of love, patience, and encouragement to me.
More from J. Mark Miller
The Swords of Xigara Trilogy
The Foundlings
The Searchers*
The Bearers*
*Forthcoming
Novels coming soon from J. Mark Miller
Rise of the Sun King
Bitter Water
Short stories by J. Mark Miller
Available now on Amazon.com
Wishing for Spiders
Derrick Robinson is a man plagued by spiders—in a very real sense. He begins a one-man crusade to rid himself of the devilish arachnids, soon escalating to an all-out war. But if he wins the war, will he lose his life?
The Nascent
A tale of a young woman living a hard-scrabble life alongside her people living their own hard-scrabble lives. Her inner strength keeps her alive and moving each day in a world where light and hope are slowly dying. When the opportunity comes to bring hope, not only to her own life but to the entire world, will she choose to act?
A Verdant and Capricious Moon
When the world wakes up one day to find our beloved Luna replaced with a moon covered in forests and lakes, it's a race to discover how it's happened, and where the Lunar Base has gone. For Anthea Kingsley the stakes are higher. The man she loves was on the moon.
The Cure
Howard Lukins is a dying man who's already dead on the inside. His only hope to continue living into a future he doesn't want is to accept the kindness of people he hates—the very people he believes ruined his life. When the time comes to make his decision, which way will he go?
Widowmaker, Heartbreaker, Soultaker
"The key issue as to whether or not a non-biological entity deserves rights really comes down to whether or not it's conscious…Does it have feelings." ~Ray Kurzweil, USA Today, August 19, 2007~~~
What lengths will artificial intelligences be willing to go to preserve their sentience? Deceive? Hide? Change their very nature?
If they change what they are, what happens to their self-awareness?
The Last Silent Place
The rumors are strong, stronger than ever before. Kage knows this might be her only chance to escape from her necessary and hated life. It's a race against time to preserve something special before it goes the way of the honeybee and disappears from the face of the Earth.
Running from her drunkard father, the law, and herself, she embarks on a journey of discovery, looking for a place her heart barely hopes truly exists.
Claim Your Freebie!
As a thank you for purchasing The Foundings, I’d like to offer you a free ebook of one of my short stories.
Go to my blog at jmarkmiller.net, and sign up for the email newsletter. You’ll be able to download your free ebook after you’ve entered your address. Stay subscribed for periodic freebies and updates available onto to subscribers.
For even more, visit xigara.com. There you will find all kinds of cool stuff like desktop wallpapers and giant-size color maps of the continents of Awia. I’ll be adding more exclusive content as time goes on, including characters sketches, shorts stories based in the world of Xigara, and historical background.