Beneath An Alien Sun
Garcia Vazquez’s deeply engrossing futuristic tale offers a hauntingly beautiful portrait of a devastating world in which humanity is repeatedly put to the test.
— The Prairies Book Review
A futuristic dystopian sci-fi tale that has the feel of Black Mirror with a bit of Hunger Games… Garcia Vazquez has a great writing style that lends itself to the enjoyment of his truly unique world. This story pulls you in and keeps you invested up to the last page, where I was excited to see there is room for a sequel!
— The International Review of Books
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On the brink of extinction, humanity is “saved” by visitors from another world. A long-lost voice tells a different story and opens a timeway to the past.
Having survived a lengthy ordeal, the drifter son of a powerful tech mogul returns home from Europe to work, start a family, and build a simple life. But 2101 has other plans for Merlin Stone, America, and the planet. Optimistic reports of an approaching “space hurricane” prove to be lies. Billions of unsuspecting Ords are going to die. Devastated, Merlin declines his father’s invitation to join the secret Deo exodus to Mars.
In the rubble of an ashtown two-thousand years later, Ava Blue discovers Merlin’s account of survival in the apocalyptic era. The recorded Notes paint a picture of human identity and history far different from that promoted by the ruling Keepers. Mysterious forces lead Ava and six others to a timeway that transports them back to 2104, where the seven take center stage in a life and death spectacle before a raucous intergalactic audience. The timeleapers face impossible choices while human destiny hangs in the balance.
Related posts: A Labor of Love? and Living the Sci-Fi Life
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A note about this novel:
I wrote Beneath An Alien Sun over three and a half years during a period of extreme division and chaos in our country and life-changing global disasters that keep springing up all across our planet.
This futuristic novel echoes the kinds of troubles we encounter today and focuses a lens on our response to the challenges we seem destined to always face, both as individuals, and collectively, as the human race.
Our struggle is witnessed through the eyes of two protagonists, a naïve and emotionally scarred young man who is determined to reinvent himself, and a precocious teenage girl from the future who believes she was born into a false, alien-controlled world.
Merlin and Ava are joined by a cast of diverse, unique characters as they confront a culminating crisis resulting from centuries of human failure. Treacherous, unseen aliens exploit our weakness, subtly manipulating the human race for their own profit and threatening our very existence.
Though the story spans nearly three millennia, the narrative voice is personal and intimate, like the voice of friend speaking to friend. The tone is by turns comic and satirical, lyrical and tragic, but always hopeful, always looking for that which is best in us, always seeking to bring forth our “better angels.”
First edition: May 2022
Library of Congress Number 2022934934
Paperback ISBN 978-0-9991522-2-5
Hardcover ISBN 978-0-9991522-3-2
eBook ASIN B09W1KNQG2
Publisher: Spinning World Press
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Mr. Galaxy’s Unfinished Dream
Garcia Vazquez’s writing is utterly captivating and often closer to poetry than prose. It’s writing to sink into…
— Bookish Creature
I have not been so moved and challenged by a work of literature since reading the great Russian novelists (Crime and Punishment comes to mind). It is a story that stays with you long after you finish reading; it settles in your bones…
— Amazon Review
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On a winter morning, Lucas falls in love. Callie completes him, but soon he begins to doubt her. Bad things start happening. Did he get it all wrong?
At his new job, the troubled young husband is approached by an attractive older woman with a hidden past. Their playful, seemingly innocent, affinity turns into a toxic mutual dependence that leads to unimaginable consequences.
Callie disappears with the baby. Lucas faces dire obstacles as he crosses mental, spiritual and national borders in search of Callie and Johnny. In his darkest moment, he is tempted to do the unthinkable.
This provocative psychological thriller unfolds where the line between reality and illusion is blurred, and where encounters with psychopaths, saints, and everyday people compel Lucas to finally ask himself, “Who am I to be?”
One reviewer summarized Mr. Galaxy’s Unfinished Dream this way: “It is a story that stays with you long after you finish reading; it settles in your bones…”
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More about this novel:
I’m always interested in the workings of the creative mind. I like to know why a painter paints what she paints, why a musician composes what he composes, why a writer writes what he or she writes. Or why a gardener designs a garden the way she does, a carpenter designs a chair a certain way, why a cook cooks a dish just so… If you’re that kind of person, you might be interested in this author’s thoughts about the creation of this novel: Mr. Galaxy’s Unfinished Dream – Author’s Thoughts
My first couple of drafts contained a preface, which actually addresses the unfinished dream theme addressed in the novel’s title. I decided to not include it, but now and then I think maybe I should have. If you have an opinion about that, I’d love to hear it: Mr. Galaxy’s Unfinished Dream – Author’s Preface
First edition: December 2017
Library of Congress Number 2017910644
Paperback ISBN 978-0-9991522-0-1
eBook ASIN B077329L8M
Published by Spinning World Press
For the author’s take on the novel, click Mr. Galaxy’s Unfinished Dream – Author’s Thoughts.
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No Other Pearl
Nine unique stories, nine psychological and spiritual portraits, nine ordinary people caught up in the extraordinary world of the human heart.
Bonniah, torn between her demanding husband and unlucky sister, faces a life-changing decision.
While his wheelchair-bound wife struggles to finish a jigsaw puzzle back home, Joseph flirts with a woman he encounters at the supermarket.
For an up-and-coming young narcissist, love is a multiple-choice game he’s sure he’ll win every time.
After his wife’s improbable betrayal, Francis navigates a lifetime of regrets and surprising discoveries.
Trapped in an abusive marriage, Norma is approached by a strange, daring young man the day of her daughter’s wedding.
Consumed by guilt and regret, Brian attends the wake of a lover he once abandoned and meets her husband and son.
Wanting to leave his painful past behind, David decides to move to Spain, but before leaving, he agrees to help a colleague’s mistrustful wife by spying on her husband.
When a lover from the past reappears in his life, Nick is faced with an unforeseeable, life-threatening decision.
After losing his job to corporate downsizing, Amador recalls the day long ago when his father threw a dinner plate against the kitchen wall and comes to a deeper understanding of the real world.
A rare and illuminating short story collection. R. Garcia Vazquez’s literary prose conditions the eye to the dimly lit places where the lonely and wounded begin to discover the amazing possibilities of who they can become.
First edition: June 2018
Library of Congress Number 2017919314
Paperback ISBN 978-0-692-03500-9
Hardcover ISBN 978-0-9991522-4-9
eBook ASIN: B079C6RHQM
Published by Spinning World Press
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