…right on schedule?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Burnout<\/a><\/i>\u00a0is a science fiction mystery about a Space Shuttle disaster that turns out to be no accident. As the true scope of the disaster is gradually uncovered by the principal investigators, “Crash” Murphy and Dr. Mike Anders, they find themselves running for their lives, as lovers, friends and coworkers involved in the investigation perish around them. What happened to the Shuttle? Who is responsible and why? Why is the government calling it an accident? Why is someone willing to kill to keep it a secret? And how big is the conspiracy?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They say, “Write what you know,” and I did. I finished the first draft and gave it to my writing mentor,\u00a0Travis S. Taylor<\/a>…and then Columbia went down. And I found that I pretty much nailed it in my fictional disaster scenario: orbital inclination, incoming trajectory, overflown states, intended approach to the Cape, region of breakup, debris field, I nailed it all. The only difference was a slight extension of the debris field into the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast, and this was due to the fact that my fictional scenario was no accident.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And right now,\u00a0Burnout<\/a><\/i>\u00a0is on sale in all ebook formats! More, if you buy the print book at Amazon, for a limited time you can get the ebook too, for only $0.99!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Why is this happening, you may ask? Simple. The\u00a0December issue of\u00a0Analog\u00a0<\/i>magazine<\/a>, on store shelves right now, carries an article I co-authored with my partners, detailing our\u00a0SPEARED<\/a>\u00a0concept and materials research — a concept that was inspired by the\u00a0Columbia<\/i>\u00a0disaster, killing a friend of mine aboard her, and my having just completed the\u00a0<\/span>Burnout<\/a><\/i>\u00a0<\/i>rough draft when the disaster occurred.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So in honor of my friend Kalpana Chawla, and\u00a0SPEARED<\/a>, which I hope will prevent anyone else from dying like she did,\u00a0<\/span>Burnout<\/a><\/i>\u00a0is on sale until the end of November.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here. Have a “taste.”<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ~~~<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n …Overhead, the sky was a deep, rich, star-spangled Prussian blue; along the western horizon could be seen the faintest hint of deep teal. \u201cLessee\u2026\u201d he glanced at the TV, to the ground track Mission Control was displaying on the big front screen, then looked at the night sky, trying to correlate the two. \u201cShe oughta show up\u2026 somewhere over in there.\u201d He waved a hand heavenward, in a vaguely northwestern direction.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Conversation in the back yard of the ranch house ceased as everyone clustered together in the darkness, searching the west-northwestern sky. The only artificial illumination came from the TV screen, and the NASA Public Affairs Office Commentator could be heard in the background as he delivered general remarks about the landing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c\u2026and this is a somewhat unusual re-entry pattern over North America, due to the successful efforts to retrieve the multi-million-dollar Next Generation Tethered Satellite, dubbed NexGen or NTS, which was co-manifested on STS-281 with the Mission to Planet Earth payload, Gaia-1. This nighttime landing will make for spectacular observations by residents of California, Nevada, southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Coastal residents of the Gulf States may also be able to observe\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHey, big brother,\u201d Jimmy remarked curiously, \u201cisn\u2019t the commander of this flight an old friend of yours?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYup,\u201d Crash replied, still scanning the star-strewn, blue-black sky. \u201cLawrence Jackson. Jet. He and I flew in the same squadron in \u2018Nam. Been buddies ever since. There\u2019s almost nothing we wouldn\u2019t do for each other\u2014except give up a slot in the astronaut corps.\u201d Crash pulled a wry face.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYeah, that\u2019s right,\u201d Ham Carter remembered. \u201cHe beat you out for the slot, didn\u2019t he?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cUh-huh, he did\u2014only because Jackson comes before Murphy in the alphabet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLook! There it is!\u201d Sally exclaimed, pointing into the western sky, and all but jumping up and down. \u201cCrash! Isn\u2019t that it?\u201d she urged her brother-in-law.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYeah, Sally, I\u2014\u201d Crash did a double take and surveyed the blazing spark as it shot through the black velvet sky, then gave a swift glance at Hamilton Carter. \u201cHam, have they got a re-entry DTO on this flight?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo, Crash\u2014I see it, too,\u201d Ham acknowledged, forehead creasing with worry. \u201cListen\u2026 can I use\u2014\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCell phone right here,\u201d Crash scooped the instrument off the corner of the picnic table and shoved it into Carter\u2019s hands as he looked back up. \u201cDamn, Jet, get it in gear, old buddy!\u201d he exclaimed with increasing concern.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong, Crash? What\u2019s happening?\u201d Jimmy asked his suddenly worried brother, as the flaming speck, growing larger and larger, flew almost straight overhead. Smaller sparks could now be seen peeling off the main object.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDammit! Jet, flare out, man! Shit! Break it out! NOW!!\u201d Crash began shouting into the sky. Tracy, the \u201cfourth team\u201d relief FAO, was frozen, staring upward in shock, and Ham stood stiffly, head tilted back, listening to the cell phone he held to his ear. They all watched dumbly as the white-hot streak shot by overhead and disappeared behind the house, trailing flaming sparks in its wake.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Crash ran around the house to the front, trying to keep the airborne conflagration in view, and the others followed. \u201cDamn, Jimmy, she\u2019s comin\u2019 in hot,\u201d he belatedly answered his little brother. \u201cJet\u2019s not bleeding off velocity in the roll reversals like he\u2019s supposed to\u2026\u201d Crash paused, horrified. \u201cNot that it looks like it would do much good, anyway\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The gathered celebrants watched in stunned disbelief as the fireball plunged toward the southeastern horizon, flickered, and burned out.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ~~~<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Interested? Have a go at it on\u00a0Amazon<\/a>, then! (Here’s\u00a0Barnes-Noble<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Books In honor of the recent shuttle explosion (thankfully unmanned), Stephanie Osborn is selling her own shuttle-disaster scifi book at a discounted rate. For a limited time, the ebook is FREE if you buy the print book. After November 7, that deal ends, but the ebook will be 99 cents. From Stephanie … How do you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[562,473,38,563,564,443],"class_list":["post-4027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-interviews","tag-burnout","tag-sale","tag-science-fiction","tag-shuttle-crash","tag-shuttle-explosion","tag-stephanie-osborn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4029,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4027\/revisions\/4029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci4.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/0Y0mtgfI-fDJEWp2hTS7qx4kqRYJELCpZQue75vJ-PDdiM9lsbJZU7A0ctUNW9DyRXtdMPY6S83Q97h1T9LkO1rq3SFYyWFroZnZikJMan52VvzCR__2_TqqelpQBg76cFRU3tA4xjWA9teARcg0TqKlnsoe48Pp3qG4Pkbf7wRk7iAI21zArp7CCqZup9DPggQyOaBHrb3Va0uXz1CM10xrO6y-D6-EtYr-TH4za8hCKm30wx1hmA3zQcYxkrVyxAoVllkxGS-XOYe84yjwu2np__vaVVCHzI4hXrXSJBY=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F51g1bout%252BcL._SL1020_.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*\")
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