thank you! Thank you!! Thank You!!!

After one full week of the Nerdist Sci-Fi Contest, Mission 51 is sitting in First Place! That is fantastic!

I am sincerely grateful for the outpouring of support for me and Mission 51 this past week. The whole thing is a bit scary. It’s scary just putting the story out there. It’s scary asking for pre-orders. It’s even scary being in 1st place. And believe me, I’m not the scary sort. This is just way different than anything I do in my usual life.

I do feel very good about the book. It has a fun feel, with serious undertones. The historical fiction side includes plenty of real people, places, and things. My hope is that readers want to check  Wikipedia and other sources frequently while reading the book, to get a better and better feel for Mat’s world in 1954-1969. It has a lot of fun detail.

I’m proud of the "Staff Pick" and the "The Great Sci-Fi for the 21st Century and Beyond Syndicate" badges. It’s also humbling and cool to read the great recommendations Mission 51 has garnered. I’m grateful for it all!

There are still five weeks remaining in the contest, and there are now almost 70 projects participating. Twenty of them are now on the leaderboard. So I am grateful for where Mission 51 is right now, but I am still asking for your support. Many thanks to those who have already placed their pre-order. For those of you who have not, I humbly ask that you please take a moment to consider, and then another moment to go ahead and pre-order Mission 51. I would be forever grateful! :-)

Thanks again, and Peace!

Ferd  👽

Hello all!

We are one week into the Nerdist Science Fiction contest, and Mutants: Uprising (billed as X-Men meets Call of Cthulhu) is holding steady in 2nd place. This is awesome, but other entrants are right on our heels, looking to dethrone us! Order counts are low all around right now, and YOUR preorder could make a huge difference in this contest. There are just a few more weeks in the contest.

So, what is "second person"? Usually books are written in first person (I went to the store and dropped my groceries in the parking lot) or third person (She went to the store and dropped her groceries in the parking lot). Second person puts YOU right into the action (You went to the store and dropped your groceries in the parking lot). Mutants: Uprising is written in second person present tense, immersing you in the world and giving the narrative an immediacy that you’re not going to find in another book.

I wrote up a new synopsis for the story:

Mutants: Uprising is a second person POV novel about humans with super-human abilities trying to overcome the shadowy organizations that want to control them. The story centers on Jane "Zombie" Meyers, a relatively new leader of an underground cell of the League of Mutants, a terrorist organization, who is trying to make a name for herself while rising above her enforcer roots. Along the way she uncovers a plot against the pregnant founder of a second-chance shelter for homeless mutant teens, and has to work hard to save her from harm, figure out what the ulterior motives of her enemies are, all while earning the other woman’s trust. Oh, and there are horrors from other dimensions trying to break into ours, and state governments who want to register all mutated humans "for the greater good." All in a day’s work.

Mission 51 background stuff

Torkiyan missions to Cerulea (the planet Earth) are always organized by two factions within their government: one that is interested in spreading the beliefs and culture of the Torkiyan people, and another more interested in the commercial and financial aspects of the endeavor. The ideology of these competing yet complementary views are clearly spelled out to the crews of the missions in their Mission Directives:

1. To spread Torkiyan Knowledge, Wisdom, and Truth