Sun Dragon Kindle Countdown Sale This Week

For this week Sun Dragon is available on a Kindle Countdown offer for only 99p, or 99c, so now is an ideal opportunity to read the story that launched the Tau Ceti mission! The offer ends on May 9th.

2012: NASA's Curiosity Rover lands on Mars to search for signs of whether microbial life existed on the planet.

2018: The first alien lifeform, a simple wormlike creature is discovered, gripping the world's imagination.

2022: The first manned mission to Mars begins the longest and most dangerous journey ever undertaken by humankind.

From hundreds of potential candidates, six astronauts from countries around the world are selected to crew the historic mission. Led by Commander Samantha Collins, they must travel across the gulf of interplanetary space, over 150 million miles from home and help. Their mission is to investigate alien life, but what they discover is far beyond what anyone ever imagined...

The Sun Dragon story continues in the Tau Ceti Mission

Review Highlights

"The crew went to Mars to find a small worm, evidence of life outside of earth. What they found was amazing. I love this premise and the uncompromising way it played out for the rest of the book."

"At the very end, there is one description that is so stunning that it left me with a great sadness, but also with a great sense of beauty and hope, and it is what Sun Dragon is, really. Look beyond the words, read the book with your imagination."

"I thoroughly enjoyed this. The level of detail about space flight is astounding and for someone, like me, who has fantasised about being an astronaut since I was a lad it's riveting."

Buy now from Amazon (US): http://amzn.to/ZRrQ5v
Buy now from Amazon (UK): http://amzn.to/12zV5eX

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Awards

 

09.03.2352 - A Grand Society

By NASA, ESA, and E. Hallman (University of Colorado, Boulder) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Distance: 12.02 light years from Earth | Content Flag: Public

The more I unlock from the Cetian transmission, the quicker I unravel the remaining information. There’s a massive amount of data here and their data compression is remarkable, so there’s still a massive amount to unravel. There are still some complex concepts that I haven’t yet penetrated. Despite that, I feel I am making good progress and am now convinced that I made the correct decision.

My study of the Cetians has progressed beyond their biological forms and into their sociological constructs. They do seem to tie into the cities they constructed, although in that regard I seem to be finding more questions than answers.

Cetian society was a planet-wide grouping. The data from the signal describes a hierarchy organising their species. Again I see their method of describing structure encompassing not only individuals, but their genetic make-up and even the micro-organisms within them in a single concept.

I still marvel at the elegance with which they described the universe and their world.

Individuals moved from the cities where they were born, presumably to ensure genetic diversity. I’ve not yet established whether they chose or were forced into doing so.

The young’s time in their growing pods was not just for physical growth into their adult form. It also acted as a period of education. As a species they appeared to be very long-lived. Their experiences and cognition created physical changes in their bodies, but also within their genes. A similar effect to epigenetics in humans, but on a much grander scale. Everything a Cetian did was encoded in their analogue of genes.

This means that the adults were able to pass along their knowledge by pressing certain glands against the growing pod, so that the material was absorbed into the child. It’s a marvellous concept, however it lent advantage to the better-connected offspring.

Understanding a little more of their society hasn’t enlightened me on their cities yet. The technology on the Venti is proving insufficient for the task. We can map the macroscopic shape of the cities, but not what lies within them. Our radar is capable of probing deep into the geology of the planet, yet cannot penetrate the skin of these tubes.

There are some tantalising glimpses from damage wrought by the elements on these buildings, but not enough to draw any conclusions. I’ve considered landing a mini-probe or sensor package on the surface, but the weather conditions are too extreme and it wouldn’t last long enough to gain any useful data. Hopefully the translations will provide further illumination.

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