After mentioning it on and off for months now Orbital Decay, a novella by yours truly and commissioned by Abaddon Books, is now available for purchase in various electronic formats, and will appear in print later this year.
What is Orbital Decay, you may very well ask?
Orbital Decay is a story about what happened on the International Space Station while the world died. Part of the Afterblight Chronicles series of post-apocalyptic novels — think Star Wars expanded universe fiction, but Abaddon Books made up their own setting for authors to play in — the series has to date mostly dealt with the results of an apocalyptic plague that dooms ninety percent of humanity. My first contribution to the series is the first entry dealing directly with the apocalypse itself. Deadly plagues, quarantines, crazy post-apocalyptic gangs getting their start, and murders on the International Space Station are all in the book, and more besides — so go ahead and check it out!
If you wind up enjoying Orbital Decay, or want to check out the series first, you can get the first book in the Afterblight Chronicles, the Culled by Simon Spurrier, for free here, or on Amazon here. (UK here).
Full details below, although I’ll have more to say about my experience writing Orbital Decay — which was my first chance to dip my toe into the world of professional publishing, and writing on a Work-for-Hire basis — in the days to come!
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Orbital Decay (The Afterblight Chronicles)
A novella by Malcolm Cross
Before the Blight had a name – before the world died – there was a chance to stop the AB-Virus in its tracks. It almost worked.
Astronaut Alvin Burrows holds the key: a literal Pandora’s box full of infected lab mice. But time is running out, and even orbit isn’t far enough to escape the pandemic. Burrows’ and his crewmates’ families are caught in quarantines on the ground, the death toll is rising, and maddened gangs are beginning their rampage.
The International Space Station is a world all its own, two hundred and sixty miles above the Earth, circling the globe every ninety-two minutes, fifty-four seconds; a fragile metal shell in which six men and women are trapped in close confines for months at a time. And something more sinister than the plague is loose on Station. Something driving one of the astronauts to murder the crew, one by one…
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A stand-alone tale set in Abaddon Books’ Afterblight Chronicles series. Get the first book in the series, The Culled, free here!
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Orbital Decay is an e-book available directly from Rebellion Publishing, on Amazon Kindle (US), (UK), Kobo, and Google Books.
Orbital Decay will appear in print as part of the anthology ‘Journal of the Plague Year’, available later on this year.
