Indie Spotlight: Audiobook of Hayden’s World Vol 1

Indie Spotlight is my effort to help promote Indie books. You can help too by sharing this with all your social media followers. Below please see a book description, author bio, narrotor bio, and purchase links for Hayden’s World Volume 1, a collection of hard science fiction stories. A book review is coming soon on Indie Weekend.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Survival tales in the skies of Uranus, desperate struggles at the solar system’s edge, and near-lightspeed interstellar expeditions await in this hard science fiction collection of seven Hayden’s World short reads:

43 Seconds:

James Hayden has a dream, and the Riggs test vehicle is going to take him there. But when failure after failure leads to his last chance exploding spectacularly, he must partner with an AI and gamble everything for one last shot at the stars.

Silver-Side Up:

Two old friends, a silver space ship, and a perfect day for a test flight.

Erebus:

In 43 Seconds, James Hayden took us to near-light-speed with the world’s first Riggs ship. Now, construction of the second Riggs ship is nearly complete, and in one month Sarah will take the helm. But growing opposition may shut down the program before she gets her chance. When James’s last-ditch publicity stunt traps him light-days from rescue, Sarah must decide just how far she’s willing to go to save a friend.

Signal Loss:

Life aboard the Aristarchus isn’t much of an adventure, and Kyan just wants to do his job and get back to his family. When he discovers a mysterious object at the edge of the solar system and an unexpected contact during comms loss, data running turns life-or-death thirteen billion kilometers from home.

Last Stand:

Kyan testifies about the events in Signal Loss, but other agendas are in play.

Aero One:

Jia can’t breathe, her ship is minutes from breaking apart in Uranus’s atmosphere, and the lifepod just burned up. Things aren’t going well. When her injured engineer’s solution sends them plummeting into the icy stratosphere, they find themselves trapped in a life-or-death battle against time, the elements, and unexpected visitors.

Titan’s Shadow:

In Aero One, Jia nearly lost everything during her encounter with the pirate ship Maya. A year later, she’s trying to restart her life as a freelancer aboard Saturn’s newly-built Cassini Station. But Cassini has its own secrets. When a chance encounter with a past adversary sets old battles in motion, she must unravel the mystery of Titan’s Shadow before more lives are lost.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (IN HIS OWN WORDS)

S.D. Falchetti

I wrote my first story at the age of eighteen. I had a work/study job at the college computer lab, and, after completing all of my tasks of refilling the printer paper and testing the mice, I sat down and slipped a five-and-a-quarter inch disk into the drive. The Word Perfect screen greeted me with a blinking cursor. Each day I typed out a few more paragraphs, maybe a scene. I’d been reading R.A. Salvatore at the time, and, not surprisingly, wove a tale of elves, wars, and magic swords. I printed the three-hundred-page manuscript on a dot matrix printer, three-hole punched it, and slid it into a black binder. The story rode along with me and five friends in a sixteen-hour road trip to St. Louis, giving me the perfect captive audience for reading my first draft. I remember awaking abruptly at a midnight gas stop, a pop, and firelight flickering from the seams of the car’s hood. The Monte Carlo’s doors opened and I tumbled out onto the asphalt with my friends. Flames shot behind us from the engine. As we scattered, someone yelled for the keys. The driver, panicked, threw them too high and they clinked onto the overhead canopy. The more courageous fetched extinguishers from the mini-mart and sprayed the car fire. It was like spritzing an inferno. Fire trucks wheeled in and firefighters laid down water streams. The engine’s flames burst into the cabin and, with a whoosh like something from the movies, a fireball plumed and billowed out of the windows, the car’s tires popping and rollicking the vehicle. When the firefighters dropped their hoses and ran, we also picked our escape routes. One of the firefighters climbed in the truck, revved the engine, and rammed the Monte Carlo, pushing it clear of the gas pumps in a vortex of sparks and smoke. Our car was left to die in the farthest corner of the parking lot, out of harm’s way. A cavalcade of red and white flashing lights filled the station’s road as the calvary arrived. When the last tongues of flame faded, our car had been reduced to metal bones. We blinked in disbelief as paramedics interviewed us. Three hundred miles. We were stranded three hundred miles from home. No one was hurt, but there was one casualty. My story sat in the backseat.

I tried not to think of this as a sign.

But there was still the computer lab, and the blinking white cursor, and stories to be written. They weren’t very good, but I had fun writing them. I submitted a few to magazines, and like most starting writers, got the polite rejection notes. I completed my degree in mechanical engineering and went on to become an engineer, a husband, a father. The stories took a back seat as life churned on.

One of the perks of being a dad is that you get to tell many stories. Not just stories that you read, but stories you create. Each night when I tuck my daughter in to bed, I say, “What should our story be tonight?”. She gives me the setting, “A little girl and a cupcake factory that’s gone crazy.” It’s a little like a Whose Line is it Anyway sketch, creating the scene on the spot.

And it makes me think of that blinking cursor, and all of those stories I wanted to tell.

So, I opened up my laptop and started pecking away. Technology has changed since those five-and-a-quarter inch disk days, and now I can independently publish. I’m stepping up to the plate, taking a swing at the ball, and seeing how far I can run.

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ABOUT THE NARRATOR (IN HIS OWN WORDS)

Shamaan Casey

I was born in 1996 and raised in Converse, TX. Growing up, I always watched a lot of animation, which gave me a deep appreciation for voice acting, which only grew as the years went on. Even from a young age, I had a voice that commanded the attention of others. Though not an attention seeker, I always noticed how heads would turn when I spoke, and I was often compared to James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman, even in middle school. When I chose to pursue a career in culinary arts and work as a food salesman, everyday people would tell me that I should be in radio. With years of public speaking experience thanks to my religious ministry, I finally yielded to all of the advice I had received over the years and finally embraced getting into the world of voice-over by making audiobooks.

Now, I combine my vocal talents with my love of reading to help bring stories to life. When I’m not reading, I’m cooking, baking, or gaming. Whatever I’m doing, I’ve got a story to tell. 

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PURCHASE LINKS

AUDIBLE | AMAZON KINDLE | BOOKBUB