Tantalus Depths : my review

     Sooo I have a confession...

     I've had an advance copy of this book for a while now. I kept meaning and meaning to get around to it, and kept having other things demand my attention. Then I FINALLY (sorry, Evan) sat down with it last week, and once that finally happened I could not put it back down - tragically exempting work, sleep and food.

     Fast forward a couple of days. I hit the apex of the story. At almost 1am with about 5 chapters left to go, I grabbed a glass of wine, my pajamas and the book, and settled in to finish the adventure before I went to bed, white knuckling nearly as much as the heroine of the story.

     What is this story about? A mining crew are sent out to establish a colony on a planet, Tantalus 13, which will stake a claim on that area of the planet for their employers, Exotech Industries. An AI unit known as a SCARAB (Self-Constructing Autonomous Resource Acquisition Base) was sent ahead 2 years before to serve as a base for the crew and assist them in their mission. Once the crew reaches the planet however, Mary Ketch, the mission's pilot, starts noticing oddities about the planet and SCARAB. Soon the rest of the crew start picking up on oddities within the planet - and determine that they have to explore the new findings - and find out what is hidden within Tantalus 13. But in doing so they will find themselves in very deep over their heads, and SCARAB seems to be acting strange... which with an AI, is never a good sign. When patterns start to show up in the crews' data files and SCARAB's behavior, some disconcerting questions start to come up - but who can Mary voice them to, when SCARAB hears every word she speaks?

SCARAB drone

       Cleverly and vividly written, with elements from classic sci-fi, solid scientific footing, a touch of horror/thriller, and a strong female protagonist who would make Joss Whedon proud, Tantalus Depths will draw you in until you're as deep into the story as the characters exploring the unnatural world.

     Pre-orders and more information are available at https://www.inkshares.com/books/tantalus-depths, and you can find Tantalus Depths on facebook as well here.

One-sided conversations

I have a friend who has helped me through a lot of hard times and decisions in my life, someone whom I tend to go to when I'm not sure what to do and need advice. I've listened to him, sometimes agreed sometimes disagreed, but I've always respected his thoughts on the matters he's willing to speak on. His opinions come through loud and clear, and he has a brilliant sense of humor. Yet no matter what I say to him, he never listens.

It's not his fault, he isn't being rude or uncaring - he died in 1969, 20 years before I was even born. His name is C.S. Lewis, and through his books and other writings I've had countless one-sided conversations with him.

It's amazing how much someone who wrote books over 40 years ago now can still affect lives today. I was one of many whose lives C.S. Lewis touched first through the stories in Narnia. In the first book I read, of children who found themselves embroiled in a war, in a land they didn't understand, yet they find themselves assigned the task of helping to bring the war to an end, he grabbed my attention. Yet to my astonishment, the children were not going to be the ones to finish the battle, it was the Lion who would come to the rescue when victory seemed impossible. My mom saw how much I adored this schoolbook, and after the school year ended she handed me a box set with all 7. I've been besotted with this magical world he created ever since, and in particular the character of Aslan, whose personality helped my child's mind (and now, even my adult mind) see different aspects of Jesus' personality.

In college I got into some of Lewis's more grown up works, starting with a book group that read The Great Divorce. I got another 7 book set from my mom of his - The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. While I still haven't finished all 7 of these books (which I intend to do this year), the ones I have read have helped me to examine issues and questions in my own life, and the larger world,  from different angles than I had been able to on my own, or in discussions with friends. Mere Christianity and The Great Divorce in particular shaped how I view the afterlife, and living in this life to the fullest. Screwtape's letters were a mental exercise in the futility of trying to understand the perspective of pure evil, which is so amazing at being "consistently inconsistent" that my brain had to pause at various times, yet is so obvious and self-serving that you can't help but understand the viscous motives.

These are only some of his writing that has touched my own life, not even getting into the vast body of work he made that has gripped readers for decades, changing and shaping lives even after the author has left this world.

To everyone out there who's ever thought about writing but thought you had nothing worth writing, I ask you to keep this in mind - you never know who your writing may touch, nor how long after you write it someone may find it and find hope or advice in your writings. You have no idea how many one-sided conversations you will hold with people, conversations that can shed light on minds in places and times you may never reach otherwise.