Post by Aaron Marshall on Apr 6, 2009 10:19:39 GMT -5
Hello, my name is Aaron Marshall. I was saved one May night in 1978 at seven years old and soon after became interested in writing creatively, though it was over two decades before I really got around to it seriously. I have recently self-published the second of three Christian sci-fi adventure novels entitled The Atlantis Chronicles on Lulu.com. While initial reviews by friends and family have been very positive to both books, I had much bigger designs in mind when writing them, yet did not know how to market them on a very limited income.
I am currently on Disability (Obsessive-Compulsive and anxiety Disorders) and am working part-time at a local OfficeMax to make some extra income. I knew getting my books noticed would be an uphill battle as I had no real contacts in the publishing business, and after three years of trying unsuccessfully to get my first novel, The Star Hunters, an agent, I decided to go with self-publishing to at least get my writing "out there". It was published by Lulu.com about a year and a half ago, and while initial reviews were positive overall I did learn a whole lot from feedback and constructive criticism.
The Star Hunters begins the trilogy as an international elite combat unit is sent to recover the ground-based operating system for a stolen orbital nuclear weapons platform called Warstar. Betrayed by their superiors and left for dead in the waters off Chile, the sixteen survivors awaken to find themselves in Atlantis, an amazingly advanced but closed and secretive society hidden within a cavernous "fold" along the Mid-Oceanic Ridge of the Atlantic. There they are told of a centuries-old secret conflict between Atlantis and an evil ancient offshoot named Zentonia, who are responsible for the theft of the satellite. The men are given the opportunity to work alongside their hosts to stop the Zentonians from using Warstar to incite World War III among the surface nations, but Atlantis' own Christian heritage, coupled with the threat the soldiers see in its own technology, threatens to divide them and even make them turn on each other.
If The Star Hunters could be called a "how it all got started" chapter of the series, then certainly the second book, The Paladin and the Dragon, which truly gets into the meat and potatoes of the Atlantis-Zentonia conflict, could be deemed less about information and a lot more action. With their war now exposed to the surface nations, Zentonia hits hard on several fronts, yet their ultimate motive remains unclear. When two ancient robot generals (Extremus, the White Paladin of Atlantis and Draco, the Red Dragon of Zentonia) are unearthed from a lava flow from centuries before and reactivated more powerful than ever, the tide of the war could change forever. As battles erupt from a small city in Tennessee to the Amazon to the Himalayas and beyond, friends are lost and some will turn down dark paths. Meanwhile, a shadowy, mysterious figure sits within a Spanish monastery observing the conflict from afar, patiently waiting as the two sides weaken each other. When the time is right, he will unleash a whole new level of chaos on an unsuspecting world.
With a wide range of influences ranging from various team-based stories, television shows, movies, and comics (I credit G.I. JOE scribe Larry Hama with heavily influencing my writing during my youth with his series' twelve-year run at Marvel Comics; he has become a personal friend whom I keep in periodic touch with via FaceBook nowadays), The Atlantis Chronicles is a series mainly aimed at young adults and teens, primarily males, and while foul language is kept at a minimal level there are many scenes depicting war combat and violence that may be too much for very young readers. The potential for marketing goes far beyond just books with this series, as there are dozens of characters (many of them peripheral, of course, as in the Star Wars films) ranging from humans to elite sentient robot soldiers and vehicles. The books both contain many illustrations I drew to aid in fleshing out the characters and their world.
I also just finished a revision of The Star Hunters which addresses some concerns readers had with the book, the biggest being putting the "Principal Characters" section at the back of the book rather than the front (folks trying to use the "Preview" tool on Lulu and Amazon could not see any of the actual story). I also included an author testimony at the back as well.
I am now about ten pages or so into the third book of the trilogy, Jihad: War of the Jao Kraxim. If I can maintain a good pace on it then hopefully it will be finished within a year or so.
I'm so glad to have found this website, and thank your member "Divides the Waters" for telling me about it. Thanks for reading and have a great day.
I am currently on Disability (Obsessive-Compulsive and anxiety Disorders) and am working part-time at a local OfficeMax to make some extra income. I knew getting my books noticed would be an uphill battle as I had no real contacts in the publishing business, and after three years of trying unsuccessfully to get my first novel, The Star Hunters, an agent, I decided to go with self-publishing to at least get my writing "out there". It was published by Lulu.com about a year and a half ago, and while initial reviews were positive overall I did learn a whole lot from feedback and constructive criticism.
The Star Hunters begins the trilogy as an international elite combat unit is sent to recover the ground-based operating system for a stolen orbital nuclear weapons platform called Warstar. Betrayed by their superiors and left for dead in the waters off Chile, the sixteen survivors awaken to find themselves in Atlantis, an amazingly advanced but closed and secretive society hidden within a cavernous "fold" along the Mid-Oceanic Ridge of the Atlantic. There they are told of a centuries-old secret conflict between Atlantis and an evil ancient offshoot named Zentonia, who are responsible for the theft of the satellite. The men are given the opportunity to work alongside their hosts to stop the Zentonians from using Warstar to incite World War III among the surface nations, but Atlantis' own Christian heritage, coupled with the threat the soldiers see in its own technology, threatens to divide them and even make them turn on each other.
If The Star Hunters could be called a "how it all got started" chapter of the series, then certainly the second book, The Paladin and the Dragon, which truly gets into the meat and potatoes of the Atlantis-Zentonia conflict, could be deemed less about information and a lot more action. With their war now exposed to the surface nations, Zentonia hits hard on several fronts, yet their ultimate motive remains unclear. When two ancient robot generals (Extremus, the White Paladin of Atlantis and Draco, the Red Dragon of Zentonia) are unearthed from a lava flow from centuries before and reactivated more powerful than ever, the tide of the war could change forever. As battles erupt from a small city in Tennessee to the Amazon to the Himalayas and beyond, friends are lost and some will turn down dark paths. Meanwhile, a shadowy, mysterious figure sits within a Spanish monastery observing the conflict from afar, patiently waiting as the two sides weaken each other. When the time is right, he will unleash a whole new level of chaos on an unsuspecting world.
With a wide range of influences ranging from various team-based stories, television shows, movies, and comics (I credit G.I. JOE scribe Larry Hama with heavily influencing my writing during my youth with his series' twelve-year run at Marvel Comics; he has become a personal friend whom I keep in periodic touch with via FaceBook nowadays), The Atlantis Chronicles is a series mainly aimed at young adults and teens, primarily males, and while foul language is kept at a minimal level there are many scenes depicting war combat and violence that may be too much for very young readers. The potential for marketing goes far beyond just books with this series, as there are dozens of characters (many of them peripheral, of course, as in the Star Wars films) ranging from humans to elite sentient robot soldiers and vehicles. The books both contain many illustrations I drew to aid in fleshing out the characters and their world.
I also just finished a revision of The Star Hunters which addresses some concerns readers had with the book, the biggest being putting the "Principal Characters" section at the back of the book rather than the front (folks trying to use the "Preview" tool on Lulu and Amazon could not see any of the actual story). I also included an author testimony at the back as well.
I am now about ten pages or so into the third book of the trilogy, Jihad: War of the Jao Kraxim. If I can maintain a good pace on it then hopefully it will be finished within a year or so.
I'm so glad to have found this website, and thank your member "Divides the Waters" for telling me about it. Thanks for reading and have a great day.
