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SpaceBoots, by Derick William Dalton. May 2020
Hi all! SpaceBoots is my first traditionally published novel. Thanks, Immortal Works press!
I’m looking for ARC volunteers and reviews in April, if anyone is interested.
Here’s the back cover and the first 3 pages:Leo Jones wants nothing more than to become a surgeon, but when a misplaced terrorist bomb destroys his middle school and his testing data, he loses his chance at a fast-tracked career. His plan B finds him orbiting Jupiter, cleaning a Navy starship, and saving for school.
Hophnia Zimmerman wields her willpower with even more skill than her violin bow, and graduates from the Naval Academy with honors. As a new officer, she’s disappointed her first battle is not against an invader, but a traitor: Leo’s captain.
In the confusion of rescued crew, damaged ships, and reassignments, Leo creates more problems for Hophnia than a misplaced bomb did for him. In their struggle to save the ship and limp back to Earth, they find the battle isn’t over. There are vindictive traitors who are not biding their time.PART ONE: LEO
CHAPTER 1
Breakfast of Chumps
Scranton, Pennsylvania. April 2056Monday. April third. Mom offered to make French toast that
morning. Not from her homemade, whole wheat bread with the
special protein-boosting yeast her company engineered, bread that
filled the house with warm-smelling joy as it baked, the crust taking
on the same smooth cinnamon-brown color as her complexion.
Good stuff, but too nutritious. That morning she meant French
toast from the factory-assembled, bleached flour, fiber-free, snow-white
squishy stuff with absolutely no nutritional value. She even
got out the real high fructose corn syrup with artificial maple and
butter flavor instead of the usual agave nectar.I ate nine slices in heavenly syrup-smothered stacks of three,
and that’s the last good thing that happened all day.It was exam day. Wait, that looks wrong. EXAM DAY. That’s
better. Except there needs to be a human skull over the X, blood
dripping from the Y, and a background minor chord. Everyone
finishing eighth grade was subjected to a day of feeling like a
moron, being dragged through the mud of inadequacy. All to get
into top high schools that train scientists and artists and leaders and
others who get more opportunities than everyone else. Sure,
anyone can be anything they want in 2050s America. But why not
get there years faster and for free and without having to work in
food service?I skipped PE for months to hide in the library and study
chemistry, used my lawn-mowing money to hire a calculus tutor on
Saturdays, and hung out in the biology lab with Amanda before
soccer practice. She’d passed the exams the year before and was
training for xenobiology. Not to study cool aliens which abduct
people and make art in grain fields, even though they insist that
wasn’t us. Just boring microbes scraped off rocks the landers bring
back.I didn’t care about that stuff. She understood the genetics
simulator. Before long, so did I. I also wanted to know everything
she did about the exam.Why all the effort? When I was nine, on a sunny summer day, I
took a shortcut home from the library with my pet skunk DonJuan.
Yep, I’d smuggled a skunk into the public library, and it wasn’t the
first time. Coming home we’d carefully picked our way through an
old, rusty industrial building. But somewhere among the metal guts
of Scranton, DonJuan got a cut on his belly.
Cut? Belly?Years of studying and I default to the eighth-grade words. Can’t
have that. I mean abdominal laceration. Right lower quadrant.
Don’t remember how he got it, but I do remember thinking he was
going to die because it was so long and there was so much blood
and because I’d read Where the Red Fern Grows. Nearly lost my tough
guy façade with that book, barely holding back fat tears until I
could hide in the bathroom with the water running.Thanks a lot, Wilson Rawls.
At home, Dad looked at the injury calm as anything and told
me to hold DonJuan’s collar.Calm, but his smile said excited, too. Like this was some kind
of challenge. That was impressive, not because he didn’t like a
challenge, but because so far only Mom and I had ever been able to
pull him away from his car restoration projects.He came back with upholstery tools from his shop and a bottle
of dark brown stuff I’d seen in his locked cupboard. He poured
some into DonJuan’s water bowl. A few sniffs, and DonJuan
enthusiastically started his liver on a Scotch workout. He yelped
and squirmed when Dad dabbed some of it on the injury, but then
he went back to licking his bowl.I held him as he went sleeping-cat limp. DonJuan didn’t often
let me hold him while he slept, but I felt too nervous to enjoy it
this time. A quick soap and water scrub over the laceration, and
Dad doused a needle and what looked like fishing line in iodine.“Dad?” I asked. “You sure you can do this?”
He smiled more, sharp cheekbones rounding, his forty-something
crinkles spreading from the corners of his brown-black
eyes, and he sewed up that laceration like the seat of an old 2023
Mustang.“Living upholstery, Leo,” he said. “Like Lexus leather, only
without the new car smell. DonJuan will be good as new.”That was the moment. The one where I knew I wanted to be a
surgeon. To put something damaged back together like Dad, only
something alive. Something that worked with me by healing itself
after I’d arranged it.And yes, my name is Leo.
Not sure how I feel about that. It’s not short for Leonardo,
which makes sense since I have no Italian ancestors. It’s just Leo.
It’s not a Kenyan Digo tribe name like looking at me suggested. It’s
Latin. Also, an old Zodiac astrology reference, the epitome of
stupidity. I am sure how I feel about that.I’m also sure that my major league soccer dreams faded faster
than most boys’ in the face of my new discovery. My interest in
being an astronaut took a dive after DonJuan’s care from Dr. Dad.
Even designing video games seemed dull after something so scary
and real and awesome.All I needed were five good hours on Monday, April third.
That’s it. Four at a computer answering questions, one in front of a
group of adults. Intimidating adults probably, with weird hair and
that adult smell. Five hours total, and if it had gone well, I’d have
been off to the Watterson Health and Medical High School in
Philadelphia, an accelerated pre-medical university, and then med
school.Didn’t work out like that.
Not even close.
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7 Replies
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looking forward to it!
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Hi Pat,
Glad you like it. I’m looking for ARC readers to give reviews in April before the May release. If you’re interested, I’ll send you a copy. -
Looks fun Derick! I could probably make time to review the ARC for you, although I’ll buy a copy as well, when it’s released.
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Hey Michael! Thank you. Email me at shellytheboxturtle@gmail.com and I’ll send you one!
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Responded to your message with my email address. Happy to do what I can to help the members of the group!
~M
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Official release date has been set for May 20th!
Pre-orders on Amazon will start April 19. -
Sure Derick, I’m between books, send me a copy! alleypat@gmail.com
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