The DAY Has Arrived

Well, the day that I've awaited for years has finally arrived. Burnout is officially released.

What is Burnout? Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 is a science fiction mystery thriller. It is the story of a fictional Space Shuttle disaster which turns out not to be an accident. As the principal investigators dig deeper, they discover the signs of something unusual - and as they do, friends, lovers, and colleagues involved in the investigation begin to die in mysterious “accidents.” They find themselves on the run, searching for answers, wondering who they can - and can’t - trust, in a game of cat and mouse that spans more than one continent, and may span more than one planet.

Who am I? I am a rocket scientist. I hold graduate and undergraduate degrees in four sciences: Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. I am a former payload flight controller, a veteran of over twenty years of working in the civilian space program, as well as various military space defense programs. I have worked on numerous Space Shuttle flights and the International Space Station, and I count the training of astronauts on my resumé. Of those astronauts I trained, one was Kalpana Chawla, a member of the crew lost in the Columbia disaster. Burnout is dedicated to her and her crewmates.

So far, Burnout is generating very good response from advance readers. Comments like:

“Burnout is a compelling, impossible to put down, first novel in the class of Skylark of Space or “Lifeline.” ... It may perhaps be the most realistic view ever published in fiction about what happens behind the scenes at NASA.”
~ Dr. Jim Woosley, Ph.D. physicist and Heinlein essayist.

“Hard-edged SF that wraps a compelling mystery around ‘this is the real thing’ space science. Burnout is tight, tense, and gripping — Osborn tells a damn good story, and tells it well.”
~ Holly Lisle, author of The Ruby Key: Moon & Sun I.

“I just finished reading it [Burnout]. Really well done! Probably my favorite space themed thriller since Shadows of Medusa and Ben Bova's 'Mars' trilogy. I look forward to reading your subsequent novels. You deserve all the credit for a remarkably detailed piece of conspiracy (my favorite subject!).”
~ David Nora, SF short story anthologist.

If the general public likes it as well, I will be happy. I hope they do.

If it sounds interesting to you, Burnout is available at Amazon and Barnes-Noble, as well as directly from my publisher, Twilight Times Books.

I love Spring...

I love everything about Spring. My blue iris are showing off, fairly exploding in blossoms. The hackberry tree has panicles of blooms hanging down, and the Bradford pears are showering white petals like snow. The dogwoods are popping. Even the little tiny purple chickweed blossoms in the grass along the roadside are pretty.

There's just one thing I don't like.

The weather.

You know what I mean: the roller coaster ride of hot/cold/hot/cold, sunny/tornados/sunny/tornados.

Today was a hot tornado day. We had two circulations go by WAY closer to my house than I would have liked, not to mention a couple more come through other parts of the county. And my parents only got power back a couple hours ago. At least we only got quarter-sized hail and below here, instead of the baseball stuff that fell a few miles to the east.

The odd thing is, the hackberry (around which base the iris are clustered) and the iris appear to have survived the bombardment.

Spring is...interesting.

Feedback on Burnout

I'm starting to get feedback from people who've read advance copies of Burnout. Here is one I'm very proud of from a Mensa member:

"I just finished reading it [Burnout]. Really well done! Probably my
favorite space themed thriller since "Shadows of Medusa" and Ben Bova's "Mars"
trilogy. I am glad I got to meet you at the MidSouth Con... Anyway,
I look forward to reading your subsequent novels. You deserve all the
credit for a remarkably detailed piece of conspiracy (my favorite subject!)."

~ David Nora


It doesn't get much better than that!

Weather

Well, tonight was interesting. One tornadic circulation went to our north, and a second to our south. I'm trying to keep an eye to the skies as a stormspotter, while simultaneously tutoring a student in physics. The nearby creek is well out of its banks, and even the major roads are close to flooding.

AAAAAAnnnnd...

Round two comes about 1-2am tonight.

I love tornado season. *sigh*

Report on ImagiCon

Pardon if there are very many typos in this. I'm still very tired and my fingers don't seem to be listening to my brain too well.

We were in the Birmingham/Jefferson (Co.) Convention Center for the con itself, with the huge and VERY nice Sheraton Convention Center attached. The facilities were very good, but rather spread out - BJCC on one block, Sheraton on adjacent block, parking garage in still a 3rd city block. I covered a lot of territory walking. Thank heavens for elevators and escalators.

By and large the con was excellent. Good topics, good people, very amenable to their guests. There were a few glitches: the schedule was a little confused; I didn't know that, as an author, I had a signing table until Saturday afternoon; and the equivalent of the con suite ran out of food by suppertime Saturday and didn't get any more until Sunday morning. They also had a tendency to schedule panels too early on all 3 days. But they were also very welcoming to friendly advice.

I'm not sure how many people were there; Darrell and I were agreed that the venue was more spread out which made it hard to estimate the crowds. But I'm thinking around 1000.

What was REALLY cool was that I had FANS there - fans that recognized me BY FACE, who knew my website, knew what I did and about Burnout and were delighted to see and hear me. It was strange being a bona fide celebrity. Several people came up to me and told me that I made the weekend for them.

My schedule was booked solid - but then, I told them to use me. I had 1 panel scheduled Friday night and was invited to a second, so I went from 8pm until past 11:00. Saturday I had panels straight from 10am until 3pm. I discovered my autograph table and did that from 3-6pm, then had panels from 6-11pm. I was supposed to have a break from 8-9, but the 7pm panel went 2 hours. Then I had a (I thought it was) 9am writing workshop Sunday morning, that I thought I was early for at 8:50 only to find they'd rescheduled it for 8am, so I was late. But nobody minded. We left a little before 11am because we had to be back in HSV for a gig at 2pm.

I'm dead tired, but feeling good.