Description, Author’s Commentary, Status, Beta Reader Signup
Description
The beautiful young photojournalist, Aileen O’Shannon, is not who she seems. For centuries, she has been a demon hunter, a sorceress who has tracked and killed small bands of demons that occasionally crossed into our world. But that changed when she joined Dr. Jack Oswald’s expedition to study one of hundreds of huge holes that mysteriously appeared overnight in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle.
Instead of small sporadic incursions, hordes of demons now pour from these hell holes like water from a sieve. With bombing little more than a losing game of whack-a-mole, Earth’s armies are unable to destroy the portals. When Jack suggests a desperate plan, he is drafted to join Aileen and a team of other sorcerers and Army Rangers to travel to the demon homeworld. Once there, they will unleash a plague virus and set off a nuclear bomb to destroy the portal complex. It’s a suicide mission. But Aileen has given Jack’s wife her word to bring him back safely, and the demons have already killed three men under her protection. Just how far will Aileen go to avoid losing another?
Hell Holes 3: To Hell And Back will be book three in the Hell Holes series of modern paranormal fantasy, apocalyptic science fiction, action and adventure novels.
Author’s Commentary
Spoiler alert!
To stop the demon invasion, I decided that it was critical to (1) destroy the demons’ portal network connecting their homeworld with the hell holes on Earth and (2) spread a viral plague to decimate the demon population so that they didn’t just build a new portal network.
The method I chose to destroy the portals was to set off multiple nuclear bombs on the demon-side of the portals. To make the book as realistic as possible, that meant that I needed to research tactical nuclear weapons, choose an appropriate type, and work out how it would be modified to become a man-portable with a countdown timer. The bomb had to be powerful enough to destroy the portal complex but not so powerful that it would destroy the small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that would be used to spread the demon plague. Luckily, several days of research on the Internet enabled me to make the appropriate choices. For the book, I chose the B61 Mod 4, variable-yield, tactical thermonuclear bomb.
Status
I am currently about 80% done with the initial draft of Hell Holes: To Hell and Back. I expect to a complete manuscript sometime in March 2018 with publication sometime in early June.
Beta Reader Signup
I am currently looking for approximately twenty beta readers for Hell Holes: To Hell and Back. A beta reader is a non-professional reader who reads an advanced pre-publication version of the book with the intent of finding problems and opportunities for improvement. For example, this includes finding and reporting to the author such problems as typos, bad grammar, poor readability, plot holes, continuity problems, inconsistencies, factual errors, poor dialog, poor characterization, or lack of believably.
By signing up, you are agreeing to critically read the book manuscript and report the problems you find to me in a timely manner (e.g., 2-4 weeks) so that I can fix them before the book is launched and Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) are sent to professional reviewers and book bloggers. You also agree not to post a critical book review based on the draft manuscript; instead, you agree to post an honest review of the final book in which defects have been fixed. In exchange for your review comments and constructive criticism, I agree to include you in the acknowledgments section of the book and to agree to send you an autographed copy of the final book once it’s published.
