Wednesday, August 2, 2017

"Dark Sky"

Mike Brooks was born in Ipswich, Suffolk and moved to Nottingham when he was 18 to go to university. He’s stayed there ever since, and now lives with his wife, two cats, two snakes and a collection of tropical fish. He is the author of the Keiko novels, sci-fi adventures that follow the escapades of those crewing the spaceship of the same name; Dark Run is the first book in the series, Dark Sky the second.

When not writing, Brooks works for a homelessness charity, plays guitar and sings in a punk band, watches football (soccer), MMA and nature/science documentaries, goes walking in the Peak District or other areas of splendid scenery, and DJs wherever anyone will tolerate him.

Brooks applied the Page 69 Test to Dark Sky and reported the following:
In sharp contrast to when I did this for Dark Run, think it's safe to say that page 69 of Dark Sky is very definitely indicative of the rest of the novel in general!

Dark Sky sees the crew of the freighter-spaceship Keiko taking on what should be an easy data retrieval job on the mining planet Uragan to make a quick buck. Unfortunately things don’t work out that way, when the contact reveals that all is not as it seems and plays hardball with them, and then a revolution starts leaving them trapped in a subterranean city with conflict raging around them and a 700mph storm battering the surface.

Page 69 takes place in a bar and sees the start of these problems, as captain Ichabod Drift and his muscle Apirana Wahawaha are having a terse exchange with Aleksandr Shirokov and his husband about forged travel documents. The ship’s tech wizard Jenna McIlroy is encoding data to look like pictures of naked men to keep it away from prying eyes, then receives a notification on her wrist computer that suggests something has just gone very, very wrong… but you’d have to read on to page 70 to find out exactly what that is.
Visit Mike Brooks's website.

My Book, The Movie: Dark Run.

The Page 69 Test: Dark Run.

Writers Read: Mike Brooks.

--Marshal Zeringue