Publisher's Synopsis
Valles Marineris, Mars: AD 2047
Eric Sheffield stood at a rocky outcropping overlooking Eos Chasma. The huge gorge, near the eastern end of Valles Marineris, stretched before him imposingly. By comparison, this enormous valley made the Grand Canyon of Earth look like a small riverbed. The weather lingered calm that day. Eric noticed a diminutive dust cloud momentarily lift, and then drift far off within the deep ravine. Like those shifting Martian sands, his mind wandered in placid reverie, soaking up the breathtaking view. Bill M. Tracer, the rogue philosopher, artist, metaphysicist, Science Fiction enthusiast, and writer of that thought provoking stuff, conveys a cautionary science fiction tale looking at how a step that seems so right, to expand the horizons of Human exploration, might too easily descend into a misstep, spiraling down the hole of reckless abandon of the mind, body and soul. On a solitary scouting excursion near Valles Marineris Base, Eric Sheffield, engineer, and scout on the third Tellurian mission to Mars discovered an unexpected mesmerizing alien artifact. How will this mind altering alien technology affect Eric? What impact might it have on the other crew members of the Valles Marineris Base? And what further influences could be coming from the deep subsurface halls of the well hidden Martian Myripods, joined in telepathic collective, remotely watching Eric and his fellow Human explorers invading the surface of their home world, Mars? Will the Martian Myripods be forced to deal harshly with these Human invaders, like they did with the small grey beings who last tried to invade the Martian surface many centuries before? Also included in this book, you will find the bonus short story, "Hello I, This is H." After enduring many revisions, the Novella, "To Mars To Stay: To Mars To Die", has been a work in progress for a considerable amount of time. At one time, this work fit into a plan for inclusion in an anthology collection of stories about various stages of human expansion into outer space, starting within our own native star system, and then moving on further to the stars beyond our own. Unfortunately, many of the other stories for that anthology idea never made it beyond the brainstorm stage. If they ever are revived by any of the writers working in the shared Cosmographic Universe, maybe someday the Tellurian Expansion Anthology will be a dream realized. However, in the meantime, until that day comes the closest we can presently get to that anthology means the inclusion of the bonus short story, "Hello I, This is H.", which fits into the theme of our expansion into outer space. Consider the inclusion of this bonus short story, dear reader, a little taste of what could someday be more.
