It could really happen

Earth woefully unprepared for surprise comet or asteroid, Nasa scientist warns

Scientist recommended Nasa build an interceptor rocket, with periodic testing, alongside an observer spacecraft to stop catastrophic fireballs from hitting us

Above is a link to the news story I read that introduced me to Dr. Joe Nuth from NASA.
After reading this story I contacted Joe with my concept for how an asteroid storm could pummel Earth.
He told me my idea was impossible….but in the same response he shared a concept that could actually send a heavy asteroid bombardment to Earth.
I used his guidance to create the asteroid storm in ASTEROIDS.

Read ASTEROIDS Escape from the Arcadians to learn how Earth could be destroyed by space rocks.

The places in ASTEROIDS are REAL


One of the fun things about writing ASTEROIDS is that I used real places to help tell the story. The Bridge to Nowhere and Munday’s Hide-a-Way are key locations in the story. The Bridge to Nowhere is a real place. I’ve been there. The hide-a-way is nearby, but since its location is secret, it could be hard to find.

Other locations are real as well. There is a Burwell Nebraska and there is an old AT&T building out in the middle of the Mojave Desert that I used as the location for ‘Salvation.’


I hope readers will be interested and google the places. You can even follow Captain Kobalt chasing Rick through the desert turn by turn on a map.

While writing I always reminded myself that the book is entertainment, so I truly hope it is entertaining.

4.3 Stars on IndieReader

IndieReader just gave ASTEROIDS 4.3 Stars!

Here is the full review:

Verdict: ASTEROIDS: Escape from the Arcadians is an extremely immersive adventure with memorable characters, tons of high-tech flourishes, and, despite being a massive book, debut novelist Mike McCoy keeps things moving briskly.

4.3

Protagonist Rick Munday is an astrophysicist with a unique theory concerning asteroids. Unfortunately, his theories are all too true and the government is desperately trying to cover up the fact that a massive, civilization-crushing meteor storm is imminent. Essentially kidnapped by a government faction planning for its own survival in Utopian underground cities, Munday must escape, avoid the pursuit of a zealous military assassin, and travel across a disaster-ridden country to rejoin his family in California. While attempting this, he also does everything he can to expose the government’s plans and save as many people as possible.

Munday is a great hero, fully relatable with plenty of vulnerability, humanity, and resourcefulness. However, many of the secondary characters are just as vividly rendered. Particularly the egomaniac Colonel Cruikshank, who is the delightfully believable, but totally unhinged leader of the dystopian cities.

The fast-paced plot is a kaleidoscope of fun science fiction themes, beginning with the puzzle and reveal of the government conspiracy mixed with some well-handled astrophysics. Various doomsday prep scenarios are explored from the intricate details involved in creating a sustainable underground network of cities, to family-level shelters, down to individual cases. Also thrown into the mix is a vigorous online gaming virtual battle, political wrangling, high-risk space missions, multiple love stories, and some philosophical musings about who can and should be saved when helping too many could threaten the survival of everyone. Author Mike McCoy’s skill somehow keeps all these elements together in a compelling narrative.

The menace of the meteor strikes is starkly conveyed and the peril facing the various characters throughout feels real. This isn’t one of those books where millions die but improbably, all the characters we’re invested in miraculously survive. This allows the tension and suspense to remain high through most of the various plotlines.

ASTEROIDS: Escape from the Arcadians is a very good read, and especially impressive for a first-time novelist. Almost every aspect of the massive, multi-pronged plot held together very well, but I thought two of the somewhat minor plotlines could have benefited from more attention. The military assassin in pursuit of the hero story was compelling but the resolution seemed artificial. Likewise, the political betrayal that underpinned the secret cities narrative felt glossed over and too facile. Fortunately, these are minor flaws. In a book so loaded with fun, they are easy to overlook.

ASTEROIDS: Escape from the Arcadians is an extremely immersive adventure with memorable characters, tons of high-tech flourishes, and, despite being a massive book, debut novelist Mike McCoy keeps things moving briskly.

~J.V. Bolkan for IndieReader

https://indiereader.com/2019/04/asteroids-escape-from-the-arcadians/

A meteor exploded over the Bering Sea with the energy of 10 atomic bombs.


 

If you’ve read ASTEROIDS, this news story from Popular Science might sound familiar……and we never saw it coming!

 

Scientists recently observed a meteor exploding over the Bering Sea with the energy of 10 atomic bombs. It’s officially the second largest fireball of its kind to occur this century, after the Chelyabinsk event in Russia six years ago, and the third largest impact in modern times since the Tunguska event in 1908.

And it happened without any warning whatsoever.

The meteor, about 10 meters long and weighing more than 1,500 tons, plunged into Earth’s atmosphere on December 18 at around noon local time, bearing down on the Bering Sea (sorry) between Russia and Alaska. The projectile was going about 72,000 miles per hour, at a steep seven-degree trajectory. It exploded into a fireball at a little less than 16 miles above the surface, with an impact energy of about 173 kilotons of TNT.

 

Some Military and civilian instruments spotted the explosion right away, with a number of monitoring stations around the world measuring the impact and its effects in real-time. That data came in many forms, including infrasound (low-frequency sound humans can’t really hear, released along with large bursts of energy), and electromagnetic radiation as infrared and visible light.

 

In spite of exhibiting such incredible power, fireballs this big and bright only happen two or three times a century. Although the event has only hit the news recently (NASA put the data around the meteor event up on its public website a little over a week ago), that doesn’t mean the scientific community has been unaware. Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Officer, explains that some of the sensors that picked up on the explosion are designed to look for signs of nuclear explosions to help enforce international treaties. “An explosion of this size is not often missed,” he says.

There would have been a bigger spotlight on the meteor if it happened over land—or worse, near a populated area. But instead, “it’s over the Bering Sea, pretty far north, and it didn’t have the high visibility of something like Chelyabinsk, or even the fireball that came in over Cuba,” says Kelly Fast, Program Manager in the Near Earth Object Observations Program at NASA. It’s just not something a human eyewitness would happen to catch.

 

Former astronaut Ed Lu, a co-founder of the planetary defense nonprofit B612 Foundation, is hesitant to speculate on what the effects might have been had the meteor come down in a more populous area, but he says our best frame of reference is the Chelyabinsk. That meteor was a bit bigger (about 20 meters across), and although it was moving away from the city of Chelyabinsk and was dozens of miles away, it broke tens of thousands of windows and even caused several buildings to collapse. An estimated 1,500 people needed medical treatment.

“It doesn’t have to be very big to cause a large explosion,” says Lu. Something that’s just several meters in diameter can still explode with 10 times the energy of the bomb that landed on Hiroshima.

Naturally, the event emphasizes the concern that a near-Earth object of some kind could devastate communities on the ground.

“It’s a reminder that the solar system does affect our lives,” says Lu. Although the vast majority of asteroid impacts are too small to worry about, there are always events like this which could threaten our safety. And like this rock, they can impact us without any warning. Back in December, nobody has a clue this object was headed straight for the surface of the planet. “You have to find them first before you can actually do something about them,” says Kelly. NASA and other institutions are pouring in many more resources to help us track these objects, but there are limits to that endeavor. “This object was far smaller than what we’re normally tasked to find,” says Johnson, who adds that the Planetary Defense Coordination Office is focused on identifying and tracking objects larger than 140 meters. Those are obviously much more dangerous to us than objects like the Bering Sea meteor, but events like Chelyabinsk remind us these small visitors can pack a mighty punch.

“We’ve been saying for a long time that we really need to map the trajectory of objects in the solar system, so we can know in advance—decades in advance, not weeks or hours—when something is going to hit,” says Lu. “That’s been our goal for a long time, and that continues to be our goal. Luck is not the best strategy for us.”

 

https://www.popsci.com/bering-sea-meteor-explosion-10-atomic-bombs?fbclid=IwAR2B9yaXPZXR49o5I49WaOrdxH1dZbD_LR79TMqkizHg1pKOg2tUDWiywrU

 

ASTEROIDS on SCRIBD


An excerpt of ASTEROIDS has been posted on SCRIBD, the popular reading site with over One Million readers from over 20 countries.

This excerpt will let people read the first two chapters of ASTEROIDS.

More eyes, more readers….hopefully the level of interest in the book will grow as the launch date approaches.

ASTEROIDS – Now on Booklife.com

ASTEROIDS is now being promoted on Booklife.com.

Booklife is a division of Publishers Weekly magazine, developed to promote self-published authors.

ASTEROIDS will be:

– included in Publishers Weekly’s print and digital edition

– on the home page of PublishersWeekly.com

– on the home page of BookLife.com

– Included in BookLife’s weekly email newsletter to 21,000 recipients

– Promoted on BookLife’s Twitter and Facebook channels

These activities will help get my first novel in front of thousands of book sellers, librarians, agents, publishers, film producers and production companies.

Hopefully getting ASTEROIDS “out there” will help build a following, create a Buzz for the book, generate reviews and BOOST sales!

Book Promotion Begins


Book promotion activities have begun…”Asteroids” will soon appear on NetGalley.

NetGalley is a publishing industry connecting point for book publishers, reviewers, media, librarians, book sellers, bloggers and more.

Galley’s are traditionally used in the publishing industry to get new books in the hands of qualified reviewers in advance of a book launch.

Members of NetGalley will receive ARC’s (Advance Reading Copies) to generate reviews and create buzz about “Asteroids” before the publication date.

The goal is to increase visibility and to have several reviews ready to post on Amazon the day the book goes live.

Final Cover Art and New Title

During the cover art development, I shared the draft artwork with friends and early readers.

When I showed the art to people who had no idea what the book was about, they could not figure out what “OIDS” meant.

Even when presented with an image of asteroids flying, people could not figure out that Oids was short for asteroids.

So, I made the decision to change the Title and Sub-title of the book.

Oids is now “Asteroids”

The sub-title is now: “Escape from the Arcadians.”

Hopefully the potential reader will have a better idea of what the book is about and get the feeling the story is action oriented and adventurous.

I think it works and is a big improvement. The goal is for people to purchase the book.

I think this title and sub-title are more likely to drawn in potential readers.

What do you think?

 

 

 

New Author Page on Facebook!

Marketing and promotion. I expect much of my time over the next several months will be spent focusing on getting the word out and promoting OIDs.

At the same time, I’ll be trying to work on the second edition of the OIDs series.

One part of the marketing plan is to have an Author Page on Facebook.

The beginnings of the page are set.

Later people will be able to click a button and order the book from Amazon.

I also expect to post news, events and updates on this page in the hopes of building a fan base.

So…go to www.facebook/OIDStheBook and “LIKE” the page!

Cover Art in the Works!

I’ve been working with book cover artist, Jeff Brown, on the artwork for Oids – New Arcadia.

Jeff’s cover art typically shows up on 15 covers out of the top 100 books on Amazon sci-fi and fantasy categories.

Jeff must be good because he has repeat customers from the top 14 authors of sci-fi and fantasy on Amazon.

With these credentials I think he is an excellent choice to help design a great cover for Oids.

Below is the rough draft….this is the general concept with a few minor changes underway.