Robert Appleton's Author Website
Science Fiction & the Paranormal
The Eleven-Hour Fal↓ Trilogy
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For survival, for love...on a distant a↓ien planet. With the man of her dreams unconscious in her arms, astronaut Kate Borrowdale must escape the treacherous peaks of Kratos and traverse a strange, hidden world beneath the clouds.
"A wonderfully action-filled and imaginative science fiction…with a romance too!" -- You Gotta Read Reviews
"I don't often 'Love' science fiction but I did this one!" -- Red Roses For Authors
AVAILABLE NOW FROM ETERNAL PRESS:
Book 2: The Elemental Crossing
Book I -- The Eleven-Hour Fall
Novella/ 20,000 words
Released: April 7, 2008 (eBook format $3.50)
Available at Eternal Press or Fictionwise
Print version available on Amazon ($4.95)
Eternal Press
ISBN: 978-0-9804263-8-0
http://www.eternalpress.ca/theeleventhhournew.html
*Nominated for Best Short Fiction 2008 at the Red Roses For Authors Christmas Awards
Review
By Red Roses For Authors
Robert Appleton
Eleven Hour Fall
Eternal Press
ebook
54 pages
Kate is with a team looking for important minerals on a new planet called Kratos. She is in love with one of the other team members, but Remington doesn't know it - though he seems interested. While exploring a mountain range they suffer a terrible rock slide and are sent sliding down the surface. Kate is trained in survival and when she discovers that Remington is still alive but unconscious she ties them both together and jumps, hoping to land on the surface of the planet with her chute. However, she goes into a long, long free fall. When they are swooped on by huge birdlike monsters and then dropped the adventure begins.
This is a story of surviving and of a determined woman. Kate is going to do her utmost to save her man and she has to fight off various monsters and all kinds of perils. It is a relief when Remington recovers consciousness and starts to help her. This excellent book is imaginative and well written and has a surprise in store at the end.
I don't often 'Love' science fiction but I did this one!
Five red roses.
Linda
Read more reviews here!
Excerpt:
Kate didn't need time to think. With a tremendous effort, she dragged him to the very edge of the cliff and pushed him over. It was a sheer drop. Without even gathering breath, she flung herself after him. It all occurred so matter-of-factly in her mind that the transition from climber to free-faller didn't register at first.
Jolts of wind torqued her this way and that. A few huge rocks plummeted by. Kate knew her chances of survival had just increased, but from zero to what? Her eyes remained fixed on Remington as he drew closer through the barrage of icy pellets. Her suit shielded her from any pain, yet the impact of this onslaught made her feel a hundred times heavier.
More than just resistance to my fall, there's some kind of updraft here!
She struggled to remain streamlined in her dive posture. The chaotic air currents had other ideas. She flung an outstretched arm toward Remington, almost reaching him. Two more attempts fell short. On the fourth lunge she caught him by the ankle and pulled herself close. Kate wanted to feel relieved. He was already married, but so what? She'd thrown the man of her dreams from a cliff and caught him on the way down. Yet, hope remained in her parachute, hidden and separately attached. All she could do now was hold him tight and wait...
Face to face, helmets chattering together, the two survivors fell through whirl after whirl of violet cloud. Kate had clipped them both together by the waist but also kept her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him.
I could open his chute for him, but might never see him again; the winds'd rip the canopy to shreds. Same for mine. If only I knew how high we were back on the mountain. If only I could see the ground - just for a second. If only I knew when it was time to open. If only...
It was the least romantic clinch of her life. Kate knew it was imperative to think of anything but Jason Remington - an unconscious patient in her care, yes, but nothing more. At a time when they'd never been closer, they were never farther apart.
Twenty minutes lapsed. Ice no longer pelted them. We've passed through the blizzard, at least. Kate checked her readings again. Still no altitude figure! We must be getting close now, though. Still too much goddamn cloud. I'm going to have to chance it soon, however high we really are. If the chute fails, it fails! We've always got another.
Kate decided to set the next cloud layer as her parachute deployment point. After that, the wind speed would make or break their survival. If it was too harsh, the rig wouldn't hold. Even though they had a second chute, she knew this first was the crucial one; the fate of number one would likely spell that of number two as well.
It was hard for Kate to keep any kind of bearing. Constantly looking over Remington's shoulder, she also had to wait until a blast of wind spun them so that she faced downward. A quick glance here, a fleeting glimpse during a barrel roll there, Kate's knowledge of the world below was snatched from a dizzying descent. BUY HERE
Book II -- The Elemental Crossing
Novella/ 23,000 words
Released: Sept 7, 2008 (eBook format $3.95)
Available at Eternal Press or Fictionwise
Print version available on Amazon ($5.50)
Eternal Press
ISBN: 978-1-897559-34-5
http://www.eternalpress.ca/theelementalcrossing.html
One woman. One man. A daring voyage across an alien ocean. The Elemental Crossing is the exciting sequel to Robert Appleton’s science-fiction adventure, The Eleven-Hour Fall.
After their hard-won escape from the perils of the desert, Kate and Jason are faced with their most difficult challenge yet on Kratos - crossing a vast ocean on just an improvised raft. Their relationship grows as hope dwindles. Procuring food, water, and a safe course across stretches their survival expertise to its limits. Despite help from an unexpected ally, what lurks beneath the surface of this alien sea?
Intimate character reflections weave through the epic scale of this second installment in the thrilling romantic survival series.
Review
Elemental Crossing
Robert Appleton
Eternal Press
ebook
68pages
Marooned on Kratos with the man of her dreams, Kate isn't always happy to go along with Jason's wild schemes. Yet they have to find a place where they can survive in this hostile environment while they wait to see if a spaceship will come to rescue them.
Once again in this second book Kate and Jason are confronted by strange creatures. Some are friendly, some are dangerous, some are simply food - and some are poisonous to eat. How can they tell the difference? Kate falls ill and in a terrifying electric storm caused by an unidentified creature, Kate and Jason are separated. Each has to journey on alone to find a place to survive neither knowing if the other has survived. Will they survive and find happiness?
The second book in this fascinating sci-fi thriller series is as good as the first.
Five red roses, Linda
www.RedRosesForAuthors.blogspot.com
Excerpt:
A chevron formation of birds streaked across the sky. Kate counted twenty-six. She shuddered at the memory of being clamped in the huge beak during her eleven-hour fall, awaiting the crunch, with no way to defend herself or the man in her arms. How quickly horror had turned to hope.
Clouds parted overhead like a stratospheric Rorschach, morphing the heavens into a shape she’d only ever seen rendered by computer-generated imagery. She lost her bearings for a moment, forgetting the direction of the Elemental’s drift.
Yeah, east to west, but which is which?
Kate couldn’t find the impetus to get up and check. Though bone-dry bodily, her resolve was damp. Two days of lying on her back in a floating limbo had atrophied her every motivation. Eating, exercising, planning ahead, making even the tiniest decision now felt beyond her. At the nadir of existence, it was theoretically the peak test of a survivalist’s aptitude. But she couldn’t get over how cruelly fate had played its hand against her. Remorseless. Sadistic. From the bottom of the deck.
Just before
There’s no wind. Some kind of current?
She instantly forgot her maudlin marathon and shot across to the port side. The water was on the move; as she dipped her hand, it rushed through her fingers.
“Strong current, too!”
No signs of life below the surface, submarine-sized or otherwise, only a full-depth, concerted gush toward the northwest. Toward the precipice!
The entire ocean?
Two hours later, the rumble was as loud as a Harley Davidson’s engine ticking over. The throttle hadn’t yet been turned, but her ears felt the grip. White mist boasted a full rainbow and reached high over the precipice. Kate tested the lines securing her belt one more time. One fastened to each of the four cleats—more than enough.
“It might be for nothing,” she whispered, “but nothing could mean anything…”
She shook her head.
“A bit late for optimism, Katie girl.”
Her heartbeat quickened as the noise increased. The sea’s current now seemed rapid, incontestable. Still no view of the precipice through the mist. Only the nonstop fall of thunder. Billions of tonnes of water pouring into oblivion.
The depth of the ocean did not appear to lessen. She could still see a fair way down. The whole thing’s moving this way! On Earth and other planets, she’d seen waterfalls fed by either a river or a lake; here, a sea at least the size of a continent overflowed. Kate could barely hold her hand steady enough to scratch an itch on her neck. As the first specks of spray peppered the Elemental, the cascade roared with the power of a rocket launch.
She screamed at the top of her voice, but no sound escaped.
Oh, Christ, this is it!
The veil of no return. A film of cool moisture covered her hair, face, and neck. Visibility was now that of a white, backward balaclava. She felt the boat glide more rapidly and quickly through the water, and the dread welled up like hot oil in her gut. Her eardrums rang. She fought giant panic breaths with all of her pride.
The Elemental now hurtled faster than it had ever surfed as a sand yacht. Kate’s hair flapped wildly, and the spray drenched her eyes shut. Still louder, still faster, then… BUY HERE
Book III -- Kate of Kratos
Novella/ 29,000 words Released: May 7, 2009 (eBook format $5.95) Available at Eternal Press or Fictionwise Print version available on Amazon ($6.50) Eternal Press ISBN: 978-1-926647-78-4 http://www.eternalpress.ca/kateofkratos.html * Nominated for Best Short Novel 2009 at the Red Roses For Authors Christmas Awards
The final installment in Robert Appleton’s sci-fi survival trilogy.
Jason Remington has been abducted by a monstrous creature. Having barely survived the ocean crossing, Kate Borrowdale must track him through an alien forest and over its ow gravity roof. She finds him alive, but he is not alone. Two men and a woman, also survivors from the Fair Monique's crash, have rescued him and killed the creature. How? Kate senses they're hiding a secret and doesn’t trust them. Things look up when she finds a mountain cave for them all to live in. Procuring food proves tricky, however, as it means venturing back into the heart of the forest, where Kate and Jason find themselves being watched...by the real inhabitants. Review http://www.redrosesforauthors.blogspot.com/ Read more reviews here! Excerpt
Kate of Kratos by Robert Appleton
Publisher Eternal Press.
Ebook, 92 pages
This book begins where the second left off. Kate is alone and tracking Jason, who has been carried off by one of the predators of this strange and wonderful world that Robert Appleton has created. Her journey is much advanced by the discovery that she can bounce huge distances on the membrane canopy of the forest.
Catching up with Jason she finds that he has been dumped in a sort of larder for the beasts and with him are three more survivors from the Monique, the crashed space ship that brought them to this planet. They came in search of a powerful element that would provide fuel for their own world and have found it in large amounts. Can they now use it to help them escape from the vicious creatures that see them as food – and can Kate and Jason find happiness after all their adventures?
What makes these three books so appealing is that the author seems to have an endless vision of strange and different monsters and writes vividly of the beautiful strangeness of the planet. I feel this author will one day write a science fiction masterpiece. He is at this moment feeling his way but I believe when he has the courage to strike out for where he belongs – in mainstream print – he will have a promising career.
Once again I can only give this book five red roses. I loved the ending. Linda Sole 
Basking for a moment in the warm sunlight, she placed her free hand over her chest to still the heavy throb inside. The pursuit had now lasted half a day—a marathon in itself under normal circumstances, but too Kate, on Kratos, merely the latest leg in what had become a punishing pentathlon. Hiking for minerals in the snowy mountain peaks; skydiving for dear life, in tandem with Jason, for eleven gruelling hours; traversing a desert; sailing across an un-crossable ocean; and now this, a grim chase through woodland straight out of a Gothic nightmare: her survival had been nothing if not varied.
But as her heartbeat softened, the thought of being alone spring-loaded and shot her aloft.
Out onto a wonderland.
The forest roof rippled and groaned as a stiff breeze swept across it. Translucent, skin-like membrane, a giant sheath, heaved and settled in segments, as though it was the fallen canopy of a circus Big Top. Gashes in the skin here and there gave entry to the wind, which flexed acres in creasing, channelled waves. Kate pulled herself up and looked again. The entire ceiling seemed alive, an ocean with pulsing veins and gasping airways.
Time’s running out. So how the hell do I track them over this? BUY HERE
