Welcome
to the Alienation BLOG HOP TOUR.
Please
take your seat and strap yourself in, as we take you on an
intergalactic tour. You will be amazed, entertained, and educated.
Manoeuvre through the cosmos and be astounded at all you see. Hunt
down the hidden words that will get you to your final destination
where a one-of- a -kind award awaits one lucky traveller.
You
are here to celebrate the release of Alienation, book two of the
humorous Sci-Fi series, Starstruck.
Sally
Webber's dream is coming true: Zander is back and taking her out for
a night on the town--on a planet hundreds of light years away from
Earth.
But when an accident separates her from her alien
tour guide, she’s thrown into the seedy underbelly of an insane
city where nothing is as it seems. Suddenly lost and desperate to get
back home, Sally is willing to do anything to get out, even if it
means accepting spontaneous marriage proposals, crashing some fancy
parties, or joining what appears to be the space mob.
All
she wanted was some decent interstellar pizza, but now it might be
the end of the world as evil nanobots and an out of control AI try to
take the universe by force, and the only one who can stop them is
missing in action. Sally has no choice but to try to stop them
herself--if she can stay alive that long.
Follow
this exciting blog tour starting at your first stop UrbanHype101
and if you get lost in cyber space, come back to UrbanHype101 for the
tour map.
There’s something new to read see or hear on each of
these stops.
Don’t
forget to hunt for that special word and if you find ALL of them,
send them to scavengerhunt@bolidepublishing.com
and you could win a signed copy of Alienation and a gift pack of
unique swag.
This contest is open internationally.
I thought he would take me to the massive
passageway and into the heart of the block: but no, he led me to the
mural towering over the rest of the landing platform, the brightly
colored orbs on the black ceramic background, dizzying in number and
sizes.
A star map. A huge, overwhelming star
map, crafted in a glittering mosaic on the wall. Probably no more
than street art for the people who lived here, but jaw-dropping for a
little human from Earth.
"We're here," Zander said,
hopping into the air to point at a specific star, "in the core
of the Alliance. Earth's not even mapped... but your sun is. It's
right about... here."
He pointed out into the distance, to a
small insignificant dot.
"The Alliance stretches... all that
way?" I asked, taking in the vastness of the mural.
Zander nodded. "You seem impressed,
but they're small players when you think about it. I've seen
civilizations spanning not just solar systems, but entire galaxies.
Plural. Some had cities with hundreds, if not thousands of planets.
These are just your closest neighbors, Sally. Say hi."
"Hi," I repeated, awkwardly. I
was engrossed in the map, trying to take all the hundreds of stars
in, the thousands of planets in this Alliance. It was surreal, seeing
for myself the conglomeration of planets I had heard so much about
but barely believed existed. It was more than my mind could process.
"They have the same name for it as
we do?" I stared at the little orb Zander had pointed me too,
with the little word 'Sun' staring back at me, overlaid on the art
with hologrammed pixels which glistened in the air.
"Nah, your brain is telling you what
you want to see. I told you, your translator’s top of the line."
"I didn’t think it would still
work, after two years."
"Two years," he repeated, as if
he still couldn’t believe it. He obviously did not want to dwell:
his face went from being excited, to a flicker of a frown, to his
usual grin again in the span of a second. "So, you're far from
home, Sally: same galaxy, at least, so no worries there. Just a few
light years. Where do you want to go next?"
"What's this?" I asked,
touching a large silver orb sticking out of the wall.
"Sally,
No!" Zander lunged at me, but it was too late. My fingers
fluttered over the cold surface. A long, apple green man-thing
appeared in front of the map. While it had the eyes and mouth of a
regular human, it looked as if the rest of him had been squashed by a
steamroller, then reinflated to give him some depth. The thing was
semi-transparent, and when it moved its mouth, I could see all the
way through it.
"Mr. Gilmag." Zander shuddered.
The weird green thing advanced like it had seen us, smiling with an
unnaturally wide mouth.
"Hi, I'm Mr. Gilmag! The Da-Duhui
tourism board would like to welcome you to Kurai," he said, in
an obnoxiously chipper voice, "please enjoy our outstanding
locations for shopping and dining. I will be your guide on this
journey of self-discovery..."
"Off," Zander said. "Program
execute? Program Complete? Program Terminated? Zing? Zap? End? Exit?
Escape?"
"May I offer you a brief history of
our city?" Mr. Gilmag said, ignoring Zander's attempts to subdue
him. "Ten thousand years ago, after the third galactic war, a
treaty of nonaggression was signed between the planets of Pyrina,
Da-Duhui, and Vorace. When a greater threat presented itself from
beyond..."
"Just keep walking." Zander put
an arm over my shoulders to steer me away from the eager animation.
"He shouldn't be able to follow us past a certain radius."
"It can follow us?"
"And I can hear you," said the
hologram, putting its hands on its hips. "It's rude to
interrupt. I'm not sure what quadrant you were raised in, but-"
"Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry."
I pulled myself from Zander’s arm and
gave the hologram an apologetic look, but the poor thing looked so
hurt. I wanted to walk forward and give it a hug.
"He's a program, Sally. He has no
feelings," hissed Zander while trying to drag me away. "It's
programmed to say that so you listen to the whole shpiel."
"So what if I am?" Gilmag
scoffed, "it doesn't mean I don't have feelings about—"
With that, Zander pushed me back, and we
were out of its sphere of influence. Mr. Gilmag disappeared into
computerized nothingness.
"What was that about?" I asked,
staring at the place the green man had just been.
"A
fresh attempt to catch the attention of Millionials." Zander
sighed. "You coming?"
Thanks for
reading. Now hop on to your spacecraft and visit.
