Alone in the Dark, page 23
part #3 of Lunar Age Series
The End
Did you enjoy reading this novel?
If so, I could really use your help.
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
That’s exactly what it’s like as an author dealing with Amazon.
One thing of the few things I know for sure about Amazon is that the more reviews my books have,
the better off they do.
So please help a poor muggle out and leave a review for my book.
Thanks,
Dan Eaton
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Author’s Notes
As with the previous books, I find myself indebted to my beta readers. Without your your encouragement, patience, and skills at finding all of my little mistakes, this book would not be. Thank you, Pete and Carolynn Foss, Bobbie Slattery, and Al Estep.
This book is much changed from the way I originally envisioned it. I had intended it to have three acts, Mission to Earth, Storm Warning, and the Silent War. Both Storm Warning and the Silent War took on a life of their own and grew beyond what would reasonably fit in one book. I ended up splitting out Silent War , which has evolved so much as a story that I suspect it will take up much of the fourth book, and has implications for the fifth book.
One of the changes I had to make in this book, particularly bothers me. NLH is getting bigger. Peary will rise to dominate the lunar North pole area eventually. This book needed to reflect that, so NLH has lost some of the small town charm due to the growth. An example of that, is the replacement of the amateurish NLH announcements with the polished and professional MoonNet Central News. Bryce’s dislike for MCN is a reflection of my dislike, but it had to be done. I needed a way to show what was happening elsewhere on the Moon and on Earth. The NLH announcements just weren’t up to the task any more, but I will miss them.
The theme behind the Storm Warning part of the story is that Earth is hit by a very strong geomagnetic storm. This isn’t science fiction. Such storms do hit the Earth occasionally, with the Carrington Event referenced in the story being one of the more powerful storms that hit in recent history. Back in 1859, the storm was strong enough to induce enough power into the telegraph lines that fires started in several telegraph offices due to the overloaded equipment. Today, such a storm would be a serious threat to Earth’s power infrastructure and to anything in orbit around the Earth.
It’s not a threat though, that has gone unnoticed. There are things that can be done to mitigated the damage and, at least in the US, the government and power companies are working together to try to prepare for the next storm. It’s not a question of if a storm will occur, but when.
Since most people will probably read the Author’s Notes, after reading the story, this may come too late to be of use to you, but I wanted to make sure this wonderful tool was known to my readers. You can follow Bryce and Sam’s journey across the backside of the Moon using quickmap. Using the Draw/Search Tool, you can draw a line across any feature on the Moon you are interested in and the tool will display the elevations along that path. It makes it much easier to visualize how rough the terrain is in any given spot. This was invaluable to me as I picked a course for the rovers to take that would keep them out of the rugged terrain, yet still allow me to find a reasonable location for an accident to occur.
Finally, because of how I originally envisioned this book, there’s a fair amount of foreshadowing for things that will occur in what I’m calling the Silent War which, of course, got moved to the next book. If you picked up one of those tidbits and were disappointed when nothing came of it in Alone in the Dark, I apologize. I didn’t mean to be a tease. I promise you, I will deliver on all those little hints in the next book. A story I’m very excited to write and share with you.
Dan Eaton
About the Author
I was born and raised in Saint Louis. Other than the time I spent away while attending college I’ve always lived in the Saint Louis area. I count myself very fortunate that in addition to my wife Ruth and myself, all of my kids and grandkids still live nearby.
I grew up reading Clarke, Asimov, Norton, and Henderson and have always enjoyed hard science fiction versus fantasy although I read both.
I enjoyed working in the computer industry for many years until I was laid off. One day I was reading a book on my Kindle and came to the conclusion that it was a poor effort on the part of the author. He still got paid for it and I thought I could do a better job so that’s when I wrote my first novel. I hope you enjoyed this most recent effort and if you didn’t, I apologize for inflicting a poor novel on you. Believe me, if I failed it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
Dan Eaton
Dan Eaton, Alone in the Dark
