QSFer Michelle Browne has a new queer space opera out, The Meaning Wars book 3: The Meaning Wars.
Worlds collide and peace shatters in Book 3 of The Meaning Wars…
On the way to a new wormhole-building gig, Crystal and her husband Jai fight over the future of their family. But the safe haven of their base is paradise compared to Pluto. Recovering from her imprisonment, Sarah and her cousin Toby try to scrape their lives back together and stay out of trouble on the icy planetoid. Rebel leader Patience Ngouabi’s actions have triggered a growing insurrection on the colony planet of Indus, and the shock waves have reached even the Solar system’s worlds. Both Crystal and Sarah will have to decide between uneasy peace and constant danger – if they get to choose at all.
Content advisory: this book contains references to abuse, sexual scenes, torture, and mental health issues. Reader discretion is advised.
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Excerpt
Midnight. The midnight past midnight, on this dwarf planet too far from the sun to know what real day was. She missed the aurora effects on Io a little bit at times like this, but the stars were still pretty. Sarah slouched home again, to the pod complex and to sleep. She opened the door to find Toby asleep in a chair.
She leaned over and gently shook his shoulder. “Tobes. Wake up. It’s okay, I’m home.”
He startled and woke suddenly, turning a bleary face to her. “Zzz…wha? Oh good. Go to sleep,” he said.
She smiled despite herself. “Thanks for waiting up. Now go on.”
As he staggered off to bed, she sat up in the kitchen and made herself tea. Bed could wait for half an hour, she decided. With hands around her cup of dark, caffeinated relief, she thought about loss for a while.
As she prepared for bed, she pulled up the news and skimmed over it. It was a bad habit, but she couldn’t help wanting to know what was going on—even though it was a mental health minefield. There was a notification message in her private sub-inbox, which didn’t connect to her Pluto-based email address. She opened it.
“Notification: ‘infofeed @ Terminus project’ down permanently”
She logged into her incognito system, navigated over to her automated compiler, and checked the feed. The site’s former homepage only had a small “due to legal statue code 345.6572, subsection (b), this page is no longer available” notice.
She bit the insides of her lips to keep from screaming in anger. Yet another meeting place for activists taken down, the bottleneck on information tightening a little more. She deleted her history and searched for info on Patience Ngouabi, the ‘rebel maid’ as some were calling her.
Sarah had been following Patience’s story for months, ever since she’d caught wind of it from a quick story alluding to “instability” on more official news channels. Mainstream sources had barely reported the protests, but she knew where to look. The information was still slanted, but at least it wasn’t “EVERYTHING IS FINE”-flavoured propaganda. After escaping from a detention facility on Indus, she’d fled with a lover to the revolutionary base in the swamps. They’d successfully fought off several military incursions, claimed their transports, and returned to the facility to enlist the students. Then they’d gone from re-education facility to facility, overpowering guards with both tactics and sheer numbers.
Her force had grown in strength, and the little outpost in the swamps had become a city. Stories about her lover’s death had gone around, and it was said that she’d gone by a different name when she first arrived, but nothing could tarnish her reputation. The soft-spoken, steely-eyed young woman covered in scars had saved thousands of people, who were saving others in their turn, freeing them from servitude by force—and had almost single-handedly thrown the colony planet of Indus into utter disarray.
She was an inspiration, and Sarah hated herself for not being like Patience. As usual, she started mentally writing an email, not even typing it up in a draft, and ran out of words. Unable to articulate her longing, envy, and admiration, she settled down to sleep.
Author Bio
Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partners-in-crime and their cats. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and nightmares, as well as social justice issues. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people’s manuscripts, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.
| Author Website | www.scifimagpie.blogspot.ca |
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| Author Twitter | www.twitter.com/scifimagpie |