The Camper is Available NOW on Amazon as of 12 February. So it is very new. There were a few pre- orders and 500 page reads in the first day which is not a lot but then again, not too bad for a new author (I hope). I haven’t done any marketing nor exposed it to many people, so this is mainly people discovering the book on Amazon.
All in all, I think my royalties add up to a the price of a cup of coffee. Yay! That’s a goal achieved.
This is the first book in The Stellar Universe series, a series of books I’ve been working on since 2009.
Space Battles, Explosions, Lots of Gratuitous Violence and Sex
Nope, sorry, this is NOT the book for you. I’m not into that kind of stuff, in general, so perhaps with the traditional SciFi audience wanting the above may find The Camper a little, ah, um, less than exciting.
Well mostly. There is the occasional explosion, and the main protagonist does get a little snippy at times. Hmmm, there’s a great pun in there but you’ll have to read the book to get it.
What I wanted is a book that makes the reader think a little more, dream a little more, maybe can join in with the book. That’s a big goal.
The Camper – A work of 9 years
This was a difficult book to ‘conceive’ as it needs to set the foundation for The Stellar Universe, and it needs to do a little more than just reveal a few protagonists. I needed it to have some ‘punch’ and be more than just an alien betting a camper then exchanging a few words round the camp fire.
Also, I wanted to ground the series, to begin it in a way that was appealing – so the vehicle I chose was a simple story of a camper in the remote wilderness being approached by an alien researching his need to interact with the human race.
The problem was that it was very ‘linear’ and after a few chapters it seemed to fall flat. Done. Over. Nowhere to go. It sort of fell flat.
So what I did was to insert small sub-stories into the main thread. These then showcased features of the real main protagonist and provided interest. Since I had 9 years of work to draw on I was spoiled for choice and from there, with a few more weeks of work, I got it finished.
Then as a special epilogue I wrote a small ‘final’ that I thought was an ideal teaser and it works well. Again, this was material I had partially written and it was pleasing to use.
To finish it off I did a ‘Thoughts’ appendix that explains a few things.
The Stellar Universe – A Beginning
I used the term “Stellar Universe” and it is dual purpose.
Firstly the protagonist becomes “The Stellar” and that becomes a thread through the books that follow. There are 5 main eras, each with their own Stellar and each brings something new to the human race.
Secondly it is meant to say that the human race achieves such success that it becomes a stellar civilization, rising from planet Earth to claim the stars.
So, if you have a kindle, please check ‘The Camper‘ out.
Next Steps?
I’ve got an enormous body of work waiting for effort to finish. However The Camper is crying out for a continuation to make the small sub-stories fit into the framework I’ve created.