This is the home page for my novel, Alouette's Galaxy, and its sequels. Please excuse any awkwardness for links or format, as this is a work in progress.
Support in the form of coffee, email, and purchases are always encouraged!
History
Alouette's Galaxy is an modern re-enactment of The Skylark Of Space, once published in 1928 in Amazing Stories, written by Edward Elmer Smith. A copy of the Amazing Stories edition is being held in that archive for public domain works, Project Gutenberg. Alouette's Galaxy is a story that is effectively forked from the contents of said copy, and from no other material by Smith.
Under United States copyright law, any work derived from a source lapsed into the public domain is non-infringing.
Alouette's Galaxy is written and self-published by this author, Andrew Jonathan Fine. It was once published in Amazon as Alouette's Song in 2014 - 2015, but was withdrawn from Amazon for rewrite.
Alouette is the French name for Alauda arvensis, in English called the skylark. And so, this novel is about the same bird, but from a different point of view.
What is Alouette's Galaxy about?
Just as other fantasy authors have written their own viable and entertaining reimaginations of the public domain Land of Oz for audiences to enjoy, this author had always been fascinated with the possibilities of how the original first contact scenario from The Skylark Of Space with the alien Land of Kondal might have unfolded had it taken place long since the The Great Depression in which that story was set.
Just as before, there are four main characters plus a villain who travel unimaginably far into space in a homebuilt spacecraft using a propulsion system discovered through an accident by one of the main characters.
That said, everything is different about these characters and their motivations, given how modern sensibilities in 2015 when the story is set, are very different from the cultural norms of the 1930's.
' '
Richard (Rick) Seaton
Rick is now a 16 year old college sophomore boarding away during the week at the college to avoid his abusive parents. He had managed to skip all of junior high school as the result of a test battery administered by his school district, then he compressed his high school career from four years to three by course overloads in the regular semesters and the summers.
Rick double majors in fine arts and in history. It is now through his home hobby as a metalsmith that he makes his accidental discovery of a propulsion system, when a reagent from a bankrupt mine he wanted to use as a plating bath catapults a copper candlestick he wanted to decorate with it, into orbit.
Margaret (Margie) Spencer
Margie is now a brilliant but shy 17 year old working on her master's degree in mathematics. Her professor at the university where she studies at is also her foster parent, since as a little girl (Peggy) she was abandoned by her parents at the age of 3 at a charity hospital waiting room, for being autistic.
Margie is very surprised when she learns through a friend about Rick's discovery. What Rick did lined up exactly how she formulated it on paper as part of her research for her professor's clean power theories. With some encouragement she turns this into a practical space drive.
M. Reynolds The Third (Martin) Crane
Martin is an ordinary 18 year old all-American boy with a knack for tinkering, a young version of the industrialist and engineer from the original story who is now an engineering freshman studying at the same university as Margie. Rather than being wealthy on his own, he is the son of an angel investor.
To escape his father's shadow, he utilizes his ingenuity along with the talents of his friends, to create a home built spacecraft, the Alouette, for recreational use.
Dorothy (Dotty) Vaneman
Dotty is a 19 year old violin prodigy and singer, the same smart, strong, and stunning action character as before, but now sheltered by the love of her Orthodox Jewish mother and her Southern Baptist father. Dotty develops a strong personal bond with her Creator to help cope with being the product of an intermarriage, with occasional advice from her grandfather Jacob, an Orthodox rabbi who visits her family often.
As well as being a devout Jewish woman, Dotty is all Texan. Working for her father the cattle baron as a part time range hand, makes Dotty as proficient with a shotgun and pistol as with her violin and voice.
In Philadelphia, where she visits to hold violin clinics for children, Dotty and Rick have a chance meeting. After learning more about Rick and his circle of friends, Dotty realizes Alouette could move off Earth as many of her mother's people who desire it, to escape the possibility of a second genocide.
Where can I get Alouette's Galaxy?
Signed author copies are available for delivery both inside the United States and internationally.
Print copies are on sale through Barnes & Noble.
ISBN 9798885898867
Sample chapters are here.
An electronic version, Alouette's Stars, is on sale through Amazon Vella.