Kate of Kratos Nominated for Red Roses Award!

GREAT NEWS for Book 3 of my Eleven Hour Fall trilogy. Kate of Kratos was nominated for a Red Roses For Authors Christmas Award in the 2009 Short Novel category!

You can view the announcement and the nominees here.

To vote, send a quick email to indsole@yahoo.co.uk with your favourite in each of the two categories.

Woohoo!

Rob

3 Part Review for The Eleven Hour Fall Trilogy!

You Gotta Read Reviews has posted a 3-part review extravaganza for my newly completed sci-fi trilogy. Two Need to Reads and one Gotta Read (the highest rating!). Check out what Martha, the lovely reviewer, had to say:

Book 1: The Eleven-Hour Fall

Book 2: The Elemental Crossing

Book 3: Kate of Kratos


It's been a great week all round for my Eleven-Hour Fall series. Let's hope the good news continues!

Five Red Roses for Kate of Kratos!

Here's the first review for Kate of Kratos, the final installment in my Eleven-Hour Fall sci-fi survival series. Linda at Red Roses For Authors had this to say:

Kate of Kratos by Robert Appleton

The third book in the Eleven Hour Fall series

Publisher Eternal Press.

Ebook, 92 pages

This book begins where the second left off. Kate is alone and tracking Jason, who has been carried off by one of the predators of this strange and wonderful world that Robert Appleton has created. Her journey is much advanced by the discovery that she can bounce huge distances on the membrane canopy of the forest. Catching up with Jason she finds that he has been dumped in a sort of larder for the beasts and with him are three more survivors from the Monique, the crashed space ship that brought them to this planet. They came in search of a powerful element that would provide fuel for their own world and have found it in large amounts. Can they now use it to help them escape from the vicious creatures that see them as food – and can Kate and Jason find happiness after all their adventures?

What makes these three books so appealing is that the author seems to have an endless vision of strange and different monsters and writes vividly of the beautiful strangeness of the planet. I feel this author will one day write a science fiction masterpiece. He is at this moment feeling his way but I believe when he has the courage to strike out for where he belongs – in mainstream print – he will have a promising career.

Once again I can only give this book five red roses. I loved the ending. Linda Sole

KATE OF KRATOS Contest Winners!

My KRATOS FOREVER contest is now closed.

Congratulations go out to Martha Eskuchen and Val Pearson! They've each won a free eBook copy of The Eleven-Hour Fall Book 3: Kate of Kratos.

Kate was released on May 7th. Books one and two were released in April and September last year. They were The Eleven-Hour Fall and The Elemental Crossing.

www.eternalpress.ca

In other news, the complete trilogy is now available in paperback on www.amazon.com. How cool is that? My very own sci-fi trilogy on the bookshelf! Sadly, Arthur Conan Doyle had to make room. Elemental, my dear Watson!

Win an eBook Copy of Kate of Kratos!

My Eleven-Hour Fall sci-fi survival trilogy comes full circle today with the release of the explosive final installment, Kate of Kratos.

http://www.eternalpress.ca/kateofkratos.html

To celebrate, I'm offering two readers the chance to win a free eBook copy of Kate Borrowdale's epic adventure. All you have to do is send an email to

sevenmercury7@aol.com

with KRATOS FOREVER in the subject line. Remember to put your name in the email as well, so I know who's entered.

I'll announce the winner on 11th May.

Good luck!

Amazing new artwork for Kate of Kratos!

Check out Amanda Kelsey's incredible artwork for my upcoming sci-fi release at Eternal Press. Kate of Kratos is the final installment in my Eleven-Hour Fall survival trilogy, and this new cover exceeded all my expectations. Thank you, Amanda!

Get ready for May 7th, when all hell breaks loose on planet Kratos!

The Trilogy Complete!

Quite a lot's happened since I first jotted down my rough outline for a sci-fi survival trilogy in early 2006. I remember it seeming insanely ambitious at the time, perhaps because of the word 'trilogy'. But I was adamant that each book should be no more than novella length, and that the setting for each installment should be vastly different than the other two. Kate Borrowdale is an interesting character to build a series around because she doesn't tend to say much. And when she does, it's often terse. A survivor through and through, Kate is as close to an American pioneer woman as I'll probably ever get to write. She's stubborn, single-minded, and endlessly resourceful. The unforgiving alien planet of Kratos is in some respects her home turf--it calls into action all of her considerable physical and mental attributes. And as she has the man of her dreams to look out for as well, let's just say it's going to take more than Red Indians to stop her.

Eternal Press released the The Eleven-Hour Fall as an eBook in April 2008. It did solid business, ending up in the top five bestsellers for that month. In November, it received a nomination for Best Short Fiction 2008 at the Red Roses For Authors Christmas Awards.

Part two, The Elemental Crossing, is set on a vast ocean. Kate and Jason must try to cross it if they are to procure long-term survival on Kratos. It's a harrowing journey, but with this being an alien ocean, the creatures and scenarios they encounter provided many fascinating passages. Of the three books, I think this is the most consistently imaginative. Sea survival stories carry an inherent sense of scale and isolation, and there's a strong element of fate, in that there's only so much a person can do on a tiny raft. The rest is up to chance.

Eternal released The Elemental Crossing in September 2008. I've now signed a contract for the third and final installment, Kate of Kratos. This is a longer novella (29,000 words), but there are also more characters. The forest and mountain setting sets it apart from the previous books in every possible way. There's finally a chance of finding a permanent abode on Kratos. But there are also fresh mysteries to solve, deadly new creatures to contend with, and personal questions Kate must ask herself if she is to live within a family unit. This was the quickest book to write, and easily the most enjoyable. There's a sustained chase sequence half way through that I think will have readers chewing the screen in excitement (I know I did while writing it). All told, this is the strongest installment in terms of plot and character. It pays to be critical of your own work when looking back, but I'm genuinely proud of what I did with Kate of Kratos. It's such a relief to know that I didn't screw the whole thing up at the final hurdle.

I can't wait to share the last part of Kate's adventure with you next year. It's been a great ride on Kratos!

Updates!

Plenty going on here at the moment, writing-wise, in the world of Robert Appleton. I thought I'd share a few bits of news.

My flash fiction short Cemetery has been contracted to appear in a print anthology, titled Bits of the Dead, for Coscom Entertainment. Other featured authors include Piers Anthony, Nancy Kilpatrick and Adam-Troy Castro. Zombies abound!

Another sci-fi short story, Grandiloquence, will be published as an e-book by Eternal Press. If you enjoy my Cafe on the Edge of Outer Space, due out there on July 7, you'll love the characters and scenario in Grandiloquence. It's definitely one of my best.

Anticipating the release of Esther May Morrow's Buy or Borrow on June 7 (again, at EP), I've been hard at work completing a few more stories in the paranormal series:

Esther May Morrow's Fruitless (novella)
Esther May Morrow's Lot 62 (short story)

and The Temporal Man, the exciting genesis story for this entire series.

Finally, I've just put the finishing touches to part 3 of my Eleven-Hour Fall trilogy, titled Kate of Kratos. The action scenes are even more epic, the alien world throws up more bizarre creatures, and Kate's character really comes into her own. Again, if you like survival stories, and don't mind a dash of romance, this one's for you.

Thanks for reading!

Till next time, respect the unexpected.

Robert Appleton