Image credit: Pedro Teruel, used with permission from Juan Antonio Molina
By Juan Antonio Molina
Star Blast Game One Star is the first episode of a sci-fi entertainment novel series for fans of the 80’s, a folklore pop-art fantasy, and a romance. It tells the story of a mixed group of sentient beings, AI, and machines of diverse class and origin, genetics and engineering, that converge to dodge their common enemies as they each meet their destiny. Like in a board game, the fugitives find adventure and overcome difficulties as they travel the cosmos. They also develop feelings (or links) for one another and shape into a compact group, the Bond. Like in role-playing games, there is war and there is a final battle that develops on the sandbox map, too, where opponent armies fight each other relying on their own stamina, class attributes, special powers, and strategy.
We see events through the eyes of POVT15 (or so he thinks), a heavyset middle-aged abductee from the Earth that joins the Bond reluctantly because the need to flee away arises when he is enjoying life for the first time, the merry days off-Earth as compared to the gray and blue alienating days on his depressing and exhausted home planet.
Our antihero protagonist shows himself as nonchalant, selfish, short-sighted, and cynical … very unlikable, while at the same time, he is observant, objective, and precise, to the point of being introspective. It seems inconsistent that the protagonist can be such an asshole to his peers, contribute nothing, and simultaneously understand the rest of the universe.
What does Star Blast Game One bring into the field? Most of all, a story of the frontiers that still lie before man, like universal language constraints; the space-time and faster than light speed travel; life elongation and death defeat; mind, thought, and memory limits; the uncanny valley blurred lines between natural beings and AI …
Who will enjoy Star Blast? All fans of sci-fi, of films from Star Wars and Blade Runner to Matrix, of books from 1984 and This Perfect Day to A Fire upon the Deep, of games from Civilization to Fallout and Mass Effect… Many other references to pop culture and icons (Volkswagen hippie vans, Dupont lighters, Hendrix, …) and to the classics (Shakespeare, Marvell, Yeats, Frost, Tolkien …) will make readers feel fine at home.
Juan Antonio Molina was born in Spain (Lorca, 1967). He has a degree in English Philology (University of Granada, 1992) and has worked as a high school English teacher along with some other trades ever since. He is married with two sons, ages four and one, and is hopefully a late bloomer to the indie writing field.
He loves cohesive world building, nature, complex social systems, folklore, pop culture, history (both modern and the antique civilizations like the Egyptians), moral quandaries and ambiguity, female protagonists, non-Western weird settings, bizarre dystopia, choices that challenge beliefs or values, the beyond-human condition, and the across genders and species.
To get extra art and content and to meet the author, visit the links below (remember to subscribe, like, follow and comment in them!):
Amazon Author Page URL, https://www.amazon.com/author/molina
The Wanderer Blog, https://wanderersfun.blogspot.com/
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Star-Blast-706644196398464/
Twitter, @Star_Blast_fun
Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/starblastgame/
The travel enthusiast author would also appreciate readers toured Star Blast and him around the world by sending him pics of the book at places to aforementioned media.