Good morning from a cool sunny Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge.

I’ve had three emails from scammers this week. The content of the emails is generic. Each scammer claimed to admire my work and said that they could help me market my book. When pressed, none knew any of the titles. 

Amateurish.

I suspect they will promise to get me more positive reviews. They will charge for this service. I’m guessing the result would be zero positive reviews and a lighter wallet.

‘Beyond The Shining Portals’ has 30 reviews on Amazon.com (US), 51 ratings on Goodreads, plus reviews in the UK and from around the world. Virtually all of the reviews for all my books have been written by you guys. Thank you so much!

Once I finish ‘Now Is The Time Of Monsters’, I will learn how to use Amazon Ads. It would be a waste of money to advertise at the moment. People will want to see that the trilogy is complete before diving into it. 

………………………………………………………………….

I started writing ‘Beyond The Shining Portals’ with several loose ends hanging over the story from ‘The Half-Life Girl’. The most difficult but also most enjoyable aspect of writing the final book has been resolving unresolved problems.

At the moment, I’m wrestling with the problem of how to smuggle something onto a prison planet. Virtually impossible. But how about smuggling the plans into the prison? Well, that sounds easier. 

I have another scrap of writing for you left over from my first draft of ‘Now is the Time of Monsters’. 

A similar scene will appear in the final version, but with different characters.

It’s a continuation of the story scrap, ‘Through The Dark Star’, which appeared in the last newsletter.

Beyond The Dark Star

They stood on the planet’s surface looking up at the nighttime sky. But instead of the familiar stars, there was an orange and green gash of light across the heavens. 

 “Civil wars, continental wars, planetary wars, system wars, galactic wars. Especially galactic wars. The work of the dynatoi.

 “Where and when is this?”

 “It’s your home planet, Earth, the year before the Event, so it’s 2644.”

 They were in a meadow. 

 “You were standing here, moments before the Event took place.”

 Matilda turned. 

 “We should go back now.”

 “Why did you bring me here?”

 “My role has been to protect you and deliver this one piece of education. Make of it what you will. Time ends in 2645. The Maiden is being torn asunder.”

 Matilda stepped forward. 

 “Come,” she said.

 They walked forward. The intensity of the colours became even more intense. Beyond it, there was only darkness. There were no stars in this heaven. 

 “Down,” she said, patting the air with her hand.

 Jack knelt and then, like her, began to inch forward on his hands and knees. As Jack looked up at the colours, he thought of a huge conflagration in a part of London he had seen as a child. The whole sky was red, and its reflection lit up the Thames. But this here was on an unimaginable scale.

 Now Matilda gently waved her hand up and down, indicating that they should move forward more slowly. Then she lay flat against the ground and began to pull herself forward on her elbows. Jack observed and did the same.

 Matilda reached the edge of the Abyss first. She looked across at Jack. When Jack reached the Abyss, he looked down. His mind was conditioned to looking up at the sky and seeing forever. To look down and see the same was unnatural and disturbing.

 There was no sound, but everywhere there were signs of titanic explosions in the heavens, above and below. Jack felt a pang of hopelessness. Was it all for this? Everything that had ever happened was rendered completely irrelevant. His life. His quest to restore Billy to life. It all ended here. 

 Could Matilda feel this? She was an AI. 

 “What are you thinking?: he asked her. 

 “I have been here before,” she said. 

 “What happened here?”

 “This is the result of the wars the dynatoi waged and provoked others into waging. However, I analyse it, I reach the same conclusion. This destruction is deliberate. 

 “How do you know? Why would they do that?”

 “I know how, but I do not know why. I am not human. The dynatoi have human emotions.”

 Jack looked out at the green and orange light that filled the heavens.

 “Then tell me how.”

 Matilda was quiet for a moment. Jack felt she was considering how she would answer the question. Then he realised that she already knew. She was an advanced AI and so had been programmed to mimic human behaviour.

 “Who holds power in the world you come from?”

 Instantly, Jack thought of Arkwright. Then he thought of the Viscount and the Earl, and then of the Prince Regent. He put his thoughts into words. 

 “The dynatoi work through people like these. They have done so for thousands of years. They encourage struggle and conflict. With each conflict, new types of weaponry are developed. And this is where that weaponry has brought us.”

 Matilda stood up and looked out at the chaos and turmoil in the skies above and below. 

 “This is the Abyss. Here, the universe stops. But…” and she turned to Jack, who had also stood up cautiously. “It does not end everywhere. There is still hope. The dynatoi have not succeeded everywhere.”

 She turned and strode away from the Abyss, and Jack followed her.

 “Where now?” he said.

 “We must leave the Godelian universe. I understand why Flavatore brought you here. But I think maybe it was a mistake with, I fear, terrible consequences. But then again, maybe it is the best and most important thing that could happen.”

 And she stopped as if to consider, as the advanced AIs did.

 “And maybe it is both.”

 Then they walked back from whence they had come.