Galactic Dreams

 by Bethany Maines

Welcome to a brave new age - the future!  When my co-writers and I agreed to collaborate on Galactic Dreams - a series of sci-fi fairy tale adaptations - we had no idea that the project would stretch into three volumes. Galactic Dreams (from Blue Zephyr Press) is a unique shared universe that I, along with my co-writers, J.M. Phillippe and Karen Harris Tully, developed and set the rules for, and then set our own stories within that universe.  In Volume 3, we've adapted some classic fairy tales: Beauty & the Beast, Hansel & Gretel, and Jack & the Beanstalk.  

As you can imagine, agreeing on rules, let alone deciding what they are can be quite challenging.  Particularly, since sci-fi is not a genre I generally write in.  I enjoy sci-fi. I read a good deal of it when I was a teenager. And don't get me wrong I have plenty of weird ideas, but I'm more in the Flash Gordon style of sci-fi—toss in some jet packs and some fantastic costumes and I'm all set. My more fact-adherent co-writers seem to prefer that gravity not take a vacation without an explanation. (So picky!) However, I have to admit that their insistence on basing my science in... you know... science has been beneficial to my stories. 

In this volume, all of our stories are intertwined through a time traveling villain, which added a whole new level of headache to keeping our stories and science straight. We also decided to do a phased release plan—releasing the individual stories first and then the collection.  My book, The Beast of Arsu, is out now. And the next two installments will be released by September, with the digital collection following shortly thereafter.  As with any group project it's been hard to keep track of all the details.  But despite the very literal headaches, I have enjoyed the challenge of writing in this genre, and I hope other sci-fi fans will enjoy these stories as well.

Galactic Dreams Vol. 3 contains three novels  and each tale is a chapter in a connected tale of villainy, time travel, and the consequences of hate. Journey through these sci-fi fairy tales today!

The Beast of Arsu (Beauty & the Beast) - Bethany Maines - When Bella Glass is thrown a 140 years into the future she finds a world she doesn’t recognize and love in Kai Craig, a man fighting against the effects of a bomb that turns him into a rage-filled beast. But someone else has traveled into the past and Bella must choose between preventing a devastating alteration of the timeline and a love she was never meant to have. 
Read Chapter 1 >>> https://bethanymaines.com/galactic-dreams/

A Trail of Stardust (Hansel & Gretel) - J.M. Phillippe - When the Hexx siblings, Rax and Lex, are forced to flee into space by their malevolent step-mother, Hila, they have no idea what is waiting for them and a damaged space craft throws them from the frying pan into the oven. Captured by pirates, Lex and Rax are facing certain death and the only way out is to rely on each other, but what will be waiting for them at home?

Break the Sky (Jack & the Beanstalk) - Karen Harris Tully - When Jakarta "Jak" Moon climbed up the giant elevator that leads to the low-orbiting space station above her irradiated planet, she has one goal—don't die. But when she returns to the ground, she finds herself targeted by the winged-dictator known as the Godmother. Now Jak is on the hook to climb through the clouds and bring back the treasures the Godmother craves or she, and her planet, could face destruction.

Buy Beast of Arsu Now

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Bethany Updates:

Blue Christmas received a Maincrest Media Award! It was also a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards and an award winning screenplay.

Buy Now: https://books2read.com/BlueChristmas

Learn more: https://bethanymaines.com/romanticsuspense/

The Second Shot Audio Book is now available! 

Buy Now: https://www.audible.com/pd/B093C8MWYH/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-253261&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_253261_rh_us

The Moonlight & Misadventure Anthology: 20 Tales of Mystery & Suspense, featuring my story Tammy Loves Derek is now available! 

Buy Now: https://books2read.com/Moonlight-Misadventure

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Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she's not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

By Genre!

By Bethany Maines

One of the best parts of the Stiletto Gang is hearing about the spectrum of genres that our authors work in.  I work in several and I know that can get confusing for readers, so here’s a primer of genres and how they apply to me.

Mystery – A detective either professional or amateur must attempt to solve a mystery, usually a murder.  In my San Juan Island Mystery series amateur detectives Tish (an ex-actress) and her grandfather Tobias (an ex-CIA agent) solve murders in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. 

Learn more: www.bethanymaines.com/sanjuanislandmysteries/

Crime – The main plot revolves around some form of crime. There can be elements of deduction and mystery, but the main elements involve some sort of criminal behavior.  In my Shark Santoyo Series, Shark is attempting to navigate his way out of the criminal life, but faces enemies on both sides of the law. 

Learn more: www.bethanymaines.com/shark-santoyo/

Thriller – While a mystery detective finds a crime and steps in to solve things, the thriller protagonist has the crime happen to them and must fight their way out to simply get back to his or her ordinary life.  In my Deveraux Legacy Series, the Deveraux family must face a series of antagonists who seek to bring them down. 

Learn more: www.bethanymaines.com/the-deveraux-legacy/

Romance – A book where the relationship between the two protagonists takes center stage.  The best part about Romance is that like a good wine, it pairs well with anything.  Most of my novels contain an element of romance, but not all of them push the romance to the forefront.  But in the Deveraux Legacy series, each of the cousins will find love while battling the baddies, making the series genre “Romantic Thriller”.  

Want a free romantic thriller from me?  Get Blue Christmas today: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/to271maetc

Science-Fiction – Sci-fi explores the future of science and humanity as they intertwine.  I participate in an anthology series called Galactic Dreams that translates fairy tales to science-fiction.  Each author in the anthology assists in building the shared universe of Galactic Dreams, meaning that each of our stories share the same background, timeline and rules.

Learn more: www.bethanymaines.com/galactic-dreams/

Fantasy – Fantasy stories contain elements of magic and wonder.  My mother read us The Hobbit when we were quite young and so I always assumed that fantasy was something that everyone enjoyed. Then I grew up and realized that some people think that it’s not “real” literature (what does that even mean?!) and sometimes hate it for appearing to have no rules if magic can simply make things happen.  So fantasy is my little secret.  I don’t write a lot of it, but I periodically dabble to make myself happy.   

Learn more: www.bethanymaines.com/scifi-fantasy/

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Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she's not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

The Perfect Ending

by Bethany Maines

Sci-fi season is done and I’m back to working on mysteries!  Yay!  Something I’m utterly comfortable with and totally know how to do.  Wait… how do you do this again?  I think I’ve got genre whiplash.  Can I just toss in some aliens at the end of this thriller and solve everything?

As I plug away toward the ending on my latest WIP (work-in-progress) I find myself struggling to find the perfect stopping point (that doesn’t include aliens). Some genres are more forgiving of ambiguity in an ending, but I think that across all genre’s the perfect ending is one that feels satisfactory to the characters. I’ve read many books where it was as though author just wandered off and their lead character is left twisting in the wind. (Grapes of Wrath, I’m looking at you.  Just because you couldn’t come up with more tortures for your characters does not mean you just get to quit writing Steinbeck.) I’m all for leaving room for character development and a sequel, but… uh… let’s have a little bit of satisfaction for the reader and character.

And an author probably shouldn’t subvert their genre too hard.  Hamlet is not meant to end with Hamlet and Ophelia riding off into the sunset.  Romances should definitely have the two main characters getting together and mysteries should solve the damn mystery.  Don’t betray the audiences trust just to be clever.  But that still leaves a lot of leeway.  Just HOW do I want my characters to get together?  What’s the perfect way to expose the murderer?  It’s like I’ve got a choose-your-own-adventure in my head and I’m the only one who can figure out if I’m supposed to flip to page 42 or 117. 

So wish me luck as I venture off to page 117.  Hopefully I don’t die.

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BUY TODAY: $4.99 on Amazon

3 novels, 1 low price

Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future.

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Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she's not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Galactic Dreaming

by Bethany Maines

The sci-fi fairy tale anthology Galactic Dreams Volume 2, featuring my novel The Seventh Swan will be released next week. Today, I'm interviewing one of the the other authors featured in the anthology: Karen Harris Tully.  Karen generally writes sci-fi YA novels, including The Faarian Chronicles trilogy, and creates elaborate worlds for her novels aided by her bachelor’s in political science and economics. We met through a mutual friend and I have had the pleasure of beta reading some of her manuscripts.

For the Galactic Dreams series, myself, Karen, and fellow Stiletto Gang author J.M. Phillippe, were given the task of creating a literary universe that could be shared across the anthology series. We have to agree on the history of the universe as well as technology and vocabulary.  Each of us is venturing into unexplored territory, whether it's by sharing a world, trying out the sci-fi genre (that's me!), or attempting to write on a shorter deadline than normal, the Galactic Dream series has been challenging for all of us. I'm asking Karen about some of the challenges that came with writing as part of the Galactic Dream Team.

What is the best/worst part about sharing a universe with two other writers?
KHT: Like Cerberus, three heads are simply better than one. I may come up with some good ideas, but when I'm lucky enough to put those together with the imagination brainpower of JM Phillippe and Bethany Maines, well, the stuff we come up with as a trio is mind-blowing. And when our brains flow and mesh together to create something bigger, that I never could have imagined on my own, that's the fun part. Of course, the worst is when they don't like my amazing ideas! As if that could ever happen, right? ;)

BMM: You have great ideas—we're probably missing out on sheer awesomeness whenever one gets voted down.

How do you develop the technology in your books?
KHT: The ideas, you mean? They come from extrapolating real, amazing s**t that is happening right now! I am so fascinated with CRISPR gene editing for example. I love science news and listen to a lot of NPR and science podcasts. I read online articles about new tech that scientists and companies are developing that isn't even out yet, from gadgets and tech to clean up our oceans, to weapons of the future, to tiny interstellar disk probes on shiny, laser powered sails, and pretty much everything else. I think to myself, what happens with this technology next, what does this look like in a hundred or a thousand years? And then I write it in. 

BMM: I'm interested in the tech, but I think the social ramifications of a technology become more interesting for me. I think you're more science-minded than me. Which is beneficial.  Definitely don't leave me in charge of the tech.

Do you think fairy tales adapt better to sci-fi than other genres (and if so, why)?
KHT: Of course! Because what used to be magic, strictly relegated to the realm of fantasy, is becoming real, through technology. Waving a magic wand is too easy. Making miracles happen in real life, that's science. I love it most when science and fiction, fantasy and imagination, all crash together to create something new, weird, and wonderful.
BMM: I completely agree with this, but also, I think some of the disjointed plotting of fairy tales can more easily be explained in sci-fi because... aliens.  :D

The core of your plot is a mystery of who is behind an impending war—do you approach that plot line differently than the sci-fi portions? 
KHT: I think all good sci-fi starts off with a mystery. Strange stuff is happening in a weird location and the science and imagination of that fascinates me. But, without the mystery of why the drama is happening, and who's behind it all, fighting the alien horde would just be visceral stimulation without a purpose, you know?

BMM: That's right. You heard it here, folks. Even the sci-fi people admit... Everything is Mystery!

Many thanks to Karen Harris Tully for being interviewed today!

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PRE-ORDER TODAY: $4.99 on Amazon

3 novels, 1 low price

Release: 2/19/19

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Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she's not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

The Shape of Tales

by Bethany Maines

Last year two other authors and banded together to invent GalacticDreams—a shared sci-fi universe for novellas based on fairy tales. As I mentioned in a blog at the time I was shocked to go through the fairy tales and realize how full horrible things they really were. The shock only deepened when I learned that these were the sanitized versions. Apparently, the Grimm brothers put out a first edition and found out that they were a little too gory and horrible for even their 1800’s audiences. So they switched some of the baddies to step-parents (instead of full parents) and pulled out some of the most egregious elements and put out a new edition that is more similar to the stories we’re familiar with today. However, as the shock of cannibalism, incest, and limb removal wore off, I began to notice another strange thing about the stories: they don’t make sense.

The story I’m using this year for my sci-fi novel The Seventh Swan is based on the story of the Six Swans. The story involves at least 2 witches, 2 kings, and 3 queens and not one of them has a name.  But you won’t need to worry about which is which because they never interact. The witch at the start of the story disappears after she’s set events in motion. Ditto to the evil queen witch step-mother.  The doting father of the swan brother and heroine puts them in a tower to protect them from the evil queen witch step-mother, but when his daughter says “Dad your wife turned my brothers into swans.” He’s all “Nah, she wouldn’t do that.”  And the story is called the Six Swans, so clearly it must be about the brothers, right?  No.  They show up once and disappear again until the end.  And then the heroine, now sworn to silence to save her brothers (and how did they know that was what had to happen to save them?) gets married has not one, but three children, and her mother-in-law steals them and accuses her of eating them. Because… that was so common that people would buy that story? Eventually, (after the third baby) the husband’s like “I guess she’s a cannibal” and he decides to burn her at the stake. But fortunately the six years of silence is up and she saves the brothers and avoids the stake.

None of that makes sense. However, the story still makes sense.  A girl must save her brothers from an evil curse by suffering in silence and setting herself to a menial task.  The flow of the story works, but the actual events and characters are insane.  And in fairy tale after fairy tale the same holds true.  Characters pop up and then disappear. Characters contradict their own statements.  Random events occur. But they all move the story toward the mandated happy ending.  Fairy tales are not a lesson in how to write beautiful descriptions or develop fully fleshed out characters, but they have been an amazing lesson in how stories function and how much a reader will forgive to get to the happy ending.

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Buy now on Amazon - $4.99 - Look for Volume 2 in February 2019!
Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future. In each Galactic Dreams novella you’ll find an old tale reborn with a mixture of romance, technology, aliens and adventure. But beware, a perilous quest awaits behind every star and getting home again will depend on a good spaceship, true love, and maybe just a hint of magic. The Galactic Dreams Volume One boxed set features three novellas inspired by Mulan, Thumbelina, and Sleeping Beauty, from authors Bethany Maines, Karen Harris Tully, and J.M. Phillippe.

Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she's not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

OK, Not OK?

by Bethany Maines

Happy Valentines Day! Who doesn't like to celebrate the bloody death of man in third century Rome?  I, for one, am all about the guy that no one really knows why he died, or how, but heck, if he somehow wants to spawn a greeting card industry associated with romantic and courtly love then I'm all for it. I am so for it, in fact, that I have written a book for the occasion - When Stars Take Flight!

When Stars Take Flight, a retelling of Thumbelina, is part of the new Galactic Dreams collection from Blue Zephyr Press featuring fairy tales retold as science fiction adventures.  Each story is unique, but all the stories take place in the same universe.  Galactic Dreams Volume 1 also includes Soldier, Princess, Rebel Spy (inspired by Mulan) by Karen Harris Tully and Aurora One (Sleeping Beauty) by the Stiletto Gang's own J. M. Phillippe.

Writing this book was a fascinating process involving a lot of "research" aka reading of fairy tales. And the first thing I have to say is what the hell is wrong with fairy tales? What sick twisted bastard invented these things? So much limb chopping, incest, and cannibalism.  Apparently, cannibalism was a far greater problem back in the old days than I gave it credit for. The second part of the process was the "world building". The other authors and I had to establish, build and agree upon our science-fiction setting. Monetary systems, space travel, religions—just how do all of these things function in our universe?  As we developed rules, we created some artificial stumbling blocks for ourselves to push how we were writing. One rule was that only people directly from Earth would use the word OK. Until I couldn't use it, I had no idea how often I used OK.  But there is no word more distinctly American than OK. Would space colonists who were originally from Iceland use the word OK five hundred years or a thousand years from now?  It seems unlikely.  But even with that in mind, I ended up having to do a find and replace in my manuscript to find all the places I typed it without even thinking about it.  I believe that the result of our hard work are a fun, romantic, adventurous stories that stays true to the fairy tale tradition (I mean the ones about torture and true love, we skipped the cannibalism), but creates something entirely new and unique. I'm excited by this collection and hope that other people (aka readers) are too.

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Buy now - three sci-fairy tale novels for $4.99!

Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future. In each Galactic Dreams novella you’ll find an old tale reborn with a mixture of romance, technology, aliens and adventure. But beware, a perilous quest awaits behind every star and getting home again will depend on a good spaceship, true love, and maybe just a hint of magic.

Buy now - three sci-fairy tale novels for $4.99!

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Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, Tales From the City of Destiny, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she's not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also view the Carrie Mae YouTube video or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

3 Firsts for Me!

By Kay Kendall

Here are my three firsts:                                                   

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1) My first short story.

2) My first venture into sci-fi.

3) My first self-published project.

The shortest way to explain that list above is  – I seized an opportunity.

A group of writers asked me to come aboard an anthology of short stories written around a common theme—called The Prometheus Saga. There were rules to what we could do with our alien character who dropped to earth, plus rules for making our stories as Kindle shorts available only on Amazon. Set price = 99 cents. Such a bargain.

On Monday, January 26, twelve of us published thirteen stories in The Prometheus Saga. Settings include pre-history, the American Revolution, and the sixties. That latter was mine, entitled “Strangers on a Plane.” The sixties is what I write about, always.

Fans of the suspense genre will recognize my title as an homage to the great Patricia Highsmith’s sinister novel, Strangers on a Train. But my story is not sinister. Instead, it shows my amateur sleuth Austin Starr traveling across the North American continent, rushing to the rescue of her dear friend, Larissa Klimenko. Readers who know my debut mystery DESOLATION ROW will recognize these characters.

New is an odd elderly woman who calls herself Promethea. Strange things happen. Then Austin and Promethea disembark from the plane, never to see each other again. This short story is a bridge to my next mystery, RAINY DAY WOMEN (due out this summer), and the sci-fi touch is so light that I don’t bend the mystery genre—not too much.

Why did I seize this opportunity? Advice to writers is to issue short stories in between major books as a way to keep your readers interested. While some of my author pals crank out more than one book a year, I don’t do that. Thus, this advice seemed wise.

Moreover, there was a chapter I dearly loved that for various reasons my editor suggested I chop from my next book. Here was a way to save it.

Finally, authors are encouraged these days to become “hybrids.” That means that you mix up your projects—some issued through publishers and others self-published. When I checked, the wonderful Ken Coffman, owner of Stairway Press of Seattle, was fine with my participating in The Prometheus Saga.

So, here’s the bottom line. If you ever felt a tiny urge to read my fiction and never acted on it, you now can do so for only 99 cents. You don’t even have to own a Kindle. There’s an app that lets you read “Strangers on a Plane” on your tablet, cell phone, PC, or Mac. Return to the time of America’s first moon landing, the week of the horrid Manson murders, and endless bad news from the Vietnam War. August 9, 1969—with just a hint of the paranormal!

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 OF "STRANGERS ON A PLANE"

13 stories make up The Prometheus Saga

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Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW--AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving her best friend didn't murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay does for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 1930s–present atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too.