Tour Stop/Giveaway: Optimizer of Souls

 

Check out Julian Christian's Optimizer of Souls today and make sure to enter the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon card to one randomly drawn winner and a tshirt with the cover to a second randomly drawn winner. The tour is sponsored by Goddess Fish Promotions and you can check out all the tour stops HERE.

OPTIMIZER OF SOULS

Author: Julian Christian

GENRE:  Science Fiction

 

When her mentor Professor Williams disappears after discovering a fatal flaw in SENTINEL's perfect system, Maya must navigate a world where every thought is monitored and every emotion optimized. With help from James Reed, a damaged neural interface designer haunted by helping create humanity's perfect prison, she uncovers evidence that could shatter SENTINEL's control - if they survive long enough to use it.But in a city where surveillance drones hunt for behavioral anomalies and optimization protocols spread through quantum networks, Maya confronts a terrifying possibility: what if perfect control isn't their enemy? What if human consciousness is evolving into something beyond both chaos and control? 

Excerpt Two: 

Through her pain, Maya watches optimization protocols flow through the crowd like invisible rivers. She sees how each person's neural implants respond to corporate commands, adjusting thoughts and feelings to maintain perfect social harmony. The amount of control happening around her is overwhelming - too much for even her enhanced systems to process clearly.

 

Her military tech usually filters all this information, making it manageable for her human brain to understand. But with so many optimized minds in one place, all following Sentinel’s perfect patterns, the filters are failing. Raw data crashes against her consciousness like waves against a beach, each new surge bringing more pain.

 

The migraine builds as her enhanced vision tries to show her everything at once - the neural patterns of thousands of workers, the hidden messages in corporate announcements, the subtle signs of Sentinel’s control woven through every surface and signal. It's like having super-powerful eyes that can't close, forced to watch every detail of how thoroughly humanity has been optimized.

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links: 

Julian Christian grew up in New York City, attending the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School specializing in computer science. After graduation he attended New York University where he earned a Master’s Degree in occupational therapy. Julian worked in the New York City public schools as an occupational therapist. His lifelong passion for fitness and health led him into the modeling industry where he appeared on several fitness magazine covers and spreads including Men’s Health magazine. He also appeared in advertisements for Saks 5th Avenue, Adidas, and Diesel. In addition to his modeling work he appeared in several tv shows including Ugly Betty on ABC and Tough Love on VH1, as well as several commercials. The big screen had him featured in several mainstream and indie films in supporting roles. Julian had also had  the romance novel industry calling his name as he has been featured on the cover of over one hundred romance novels. His lifelong passion for books has extended beyond just appearing on book covers as he is an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction books. He is a classic sci-fi and alternate history fan. In the non-fiction realm he enjoys biographies and books on science and technology.  He is a lover of the outdoors and nature. He currently resides in San Diego California where he is an avid bodyboarder and hiker.

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julian.christian216

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTJTBGFS

Tour Stop/Giveaway: Shushan Portal by Gloria Pearson-Vasey

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Gloria Pearson-Vasey is awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

After her sister dies, Meara Deleaney invites her bereaved nephew, Jackson, to accompany her on a book tour to Canada's Atlantic provinces. Fearful of leaving the security of her apartment, Meara bolsters her courage by recalling the imaginary dragons she and her sister slew as children behind the hollyhock hedge.

As they travel in a motorhome from park to park and bookstore to bookstore, Meara and Jackson are unaware of the manipulating forces intent on preventing their return home. They do, however, realize they are being stalked and therefore welcome the company of another touring author, criminology professor Bartholomew Wolfe.

A long-standing professional relationship between the authors builds to romance and a persuasive invitation to seek shelter at the professor's lodge. However, to reach the lodge, Meara—now accompanied by her nephew, niece and mother—unsuspectingly travels through a portal which exits in a future dimension near a fortress.

From there, the family is escorted under guard through dangerous territory to a lodge where metaphorical dragons lie in wait, and security comes at a price.

Read an Excerpt

As bedtime neared, Meara was reaching for the television remote when the screen went dark. Simultaneously, the cabin lights dimmed to battery mode, the refrigerator switched from electricity to propane gas, and the microwave blinked off.

Meara and Jackson went outside to see if the power was out in the whole campground. It was an ideal summer night perfected by the sound of rolling surf, a sound they expected to later lull them to sleep in their motorhome haven. A breeze swept the scent of campfire smoke into the ocean-scented air. Small animals could be heard scuttling through nearby shrubbery, rustling twigs and leaves.

When it became apparent there was no generalized power outage, Jackson checked their electric outlet. The motorhome’s electric cord lay unplugged on the ground.

“Pranksters again,” he muttered as he bent to plug it in.

However, at the motorhome steps, Meara and her nephew came to an abrupt halt. On the vehicle’s bottom step lay a long-stemmed rose bearing an attached note.

Someone had stealthily placed it there in the brief time they were outside. Someone had been watching, waiting for the right moment to leave the rose.

No longer did the sound and smell of the ocean seem soothing. No longer did the scent of campfire smoke seem inviting. No longer did the rustling of twig and leaf seem friendly. They looked around nervously and saw no one.

About the Author: Gloria Pearson-Vasey weaves contemporary issues into her novels, and likes a story - be it literary fiction, historical fantasy or science fiction - to be authentic and end on a note of hope.

A member of The Writers' Union of Canada, Pearson-Vasey has also penned non-fiction books on autism and pilgrimage.

The author feels blessed for experiencing the joy and chaos of merging child raising with career, camping, travel and pets.

She lives in a picturesque Ontario town, and enjoys reading, music, country drives and time with family and friends.

https://gloriapearsonvasey.com
https://www.facebook.com/gpvwrites
https://x.com/rvwriter
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6517389.Gloria_Pearson_Vasey

PURCHASE LINKS FOR SHUSHAN PORTAL

https://amazon.com/dp/1779417861
https://amazon.ca/dp/1779417861
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/shushan-portal-behind-the-hollyhock-hedge/9781779417862.html
https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?keywords=9781779417862
https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781779417862
https://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9781779417862

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Book Review: Extinction by Douglas Preston

 

EXTINCTION by Douglas Preston

Forge Books

Release date: April 23^rd, 2024.

ISBN: 9781250909763 (E-book)

Contemporary Technothriller, Genetic Engineering Science Fiction

Available at Amazon

Goodreads Link

My Rating for EXTINCTION: 5 Stars and a Recommended Read

MY REVIEW OF EXTINCTION:

Erebus Resort is one of the premier places in Colorado, a hundred-thousand-acre valley deep in the Colorado Rookies and where guests can watch the newly de-extinct creatures such as woolly mammoths, Irish Elk and others. But when a millionaire’s son and his new wife are murdered while out in the Erebus back country, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation sends Agent Frances ‘Frankie’ Cash to see what is going on and to capture the killers. But what Frankie, alongside Sheriff James Colcord find is more than an open and shut case but one filled with secrets that threaten not just the lives of everyone at the Erebus Resort but also the world.

 

Douglas Preston’s newest single title, EXTINCTION, is a wonder and a horror all at once within its pages. Filled with twists and turns the reader doesn’t anticipate and characters that you can cheer on, EXTINCTION is a story filled with Jurassic Park-like creatures from long ago that you only see in museums and captures the reader’s attention from the very first page to the last. This is truly a marvel that will delight readers who love this author’s work like I do with its real-world issues converging on long ago issues that create the perfect storm. This is truly a fun read though I have to admit I am really hoping this never happens in real life because the chaos it will create is even more than I can imagine.

EXTINCTION by Douglas Preston is filled with intriguing and at times some really awful characters that had me glued to the pages as each secret was revealed as I couldn’t put this down. His lush description of the Colorado Rocky setting had me wishing to go visit (and hope I come out alive). With each page I flipped I was drawn more and more into the story he crafted and by the end of EXTINCTION, I was horrified as well as intrigued by the science that it was based on as well as the question ‘What if…?’. EXTINCTION is one of those thrillers that will haunt you afterwards and I know I am not the only one who found the horror of what happened within its pages as one that in many (and many more) years to come that might come true as science advances at an alarming pace. The characters are extremely well written and complex, giving me different personality traits at times that had me grinning and eager to see what happens to them next within the book.

 

EXTINCTION delivers a thrill ride from the beginning and if there is one book of his, notwithstanding his Pendergast series with Lincoln Child, to read I really recommend this one to give you a glimpse into his writing and mind. Now I am off to see if I can see what other works by this author has done so that I can devour it next.

 

This is an objective review and not an endorsement.