Neanderthal – New – Revised! Now available in Kindle!

Posted on by Opher

The completely revised novel with its mind-blowing story is now available on Amazon Kindle for just £3.99. Why not give it a read!!

What happened to the Neanderthals 40,000 years ago? They had larger brains. Superior cognition. Yet they vanished.
Now, a bold infrastructure project—an Amazonian highway spearheaded by Brazil’s president—triggers a chain reaction that uncovers a buried truth. Something ancient. Something engineered.
This revised edition of Neanderthal fuses evolutionary enigma with ecological urgency and first-contact tension. As humanity confronts an intelligence rooted in our own genetic past, the story probes deep questions: What defines intelligence? What survives? And what happens when the dominant species is no longer us?
Hard science fiction meets psychological realism in a speculative thriller that challenges everything we thought we knew about extinction, evolution, and the future of our species.
“A cerebral, chilling vision of humanity’s forgotten past—and its possible future.”

Judgement – New Sci-fi novel out on Kindle!

Posted on by Opher

New Sci-fi novel out now! Available on Kindle in Amazon store. Paperback, hardback and audio book will be with us shortly!

Judgement eBook : Forsythe, Ron: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The Judgement is coming.
They have arrived—beings from beyond the stars, emissaries of a vast Federation that spans the galaxy. Their mission is not conquest, but assessment. Humanity stands trial.
Will we be welcomed into the Federation as equals… or condemned to extinction?
Our record is damning: centuries of war, cruelty, racism, and hate. Yet there is another side—love, harmony, creativity, and the fragile spark of compassion that refuses to die.
The Judge is on her way. She will weigh our worth. She will decide our fate.
The future of the human race hangs in the balance.

New Eden – A SF novel – Welcome to the dome and its wonderful children.

Posted on by Opher

When I wrote this book ebola had reared its ugly head and the idea of an ebola pandemic was a possibility. This was well before covid. An ebola pandemic would have been much worse. Fortunately that was contained.

The threat set me thinking. We have known terrible plagues in the past. Some viruses are lethal. We were lucky with covid. Bubonic plague or smallpox was far worse. The next one might be something new; some virus for which we have no immunity. It could wipe us out.

That set me thinking. Unscrupulous governments, amoral scientists and various scenarios. Who might be immune?

Welcome to the dome and the delightful children with their genetic disorder. Welcome to the future. Welcome to New Eden. A survival novel.

New Eden: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798637512867: Books

For Trevor life outside the dome was unimaginable. He did not even think about it. He liked the beauty of the big dome as it arced overhead. Sometimes he would stand right up to it and peer out. There were great blocks of apartments out there with walkways and pedistreams with hundreds of thousands of people all moving off into the distance looking like ants in their different coloured identical suits. He liked to watch them all purposefully trickling down from the blocks every morning to feed into the throngs packing the pedistreams to be whisked off to distant places but he did not wonder why or where they were going or what they might be doing when they got there. He liked the patterns they made.

Then in the evening he would watch it seemingly go in reverse as the people trickled off the packed pedistreams back to the apartment blocks. The system was always packed but in the mornings and afternoons the exaggerated movement created patterns that he found mesmerising.

Today Mike was playing with him on the apparatus. Trevor loved Mike. Mike would tickle him and know just how to make him squeal. Mike was so clever. He always urged him to do more. He could get from one end of the bars to the other now. It was easy peasy. None of the girls could do that; not even Jelphi and she was very daring. Jelphi would jump right from the top. Trevor did not think he could do that yet without hurting himself though Jelphi did not seem to find it hard. But Jelphi couldn’t get to the end on the bars!

Mike taught him how to dangle down from the top with his knees, and how to climb the rope, and how to swing. Mike taught him everything and Mike gave the best cuddles ever, even better than Dr Angstrom or Daddy, though probably not quite so good as Mummy. Mummy was so soft and warm and she smelt good. Mike didn’t smell like that. Mummy was coming soon. He was looking forward to that.

Trevor climbed to the top and balanced. He knew Mike would catch him if he fell. He waved to the girls and Anwar waved back. Anwar was his favourite. He loved Anwar. They often played mummies and daddies. When he was old enough he would marry Anwar. They had already decided. Jelphi and Mardra would be their bridesmaids. They had all talked it through. Dr Angstrom and Mike seemed to find it very funny when they had told them.

‘I want to plant seedlings,’ Trevor said.

‘OK, come on down then,’ Mike said.

Trevor launched himself into Mike’s arms and he caught him and swung him round. It felt so good.

Dr Angstrom watched as the peals of laughter rang round and Trevor was deposited on the ground to awkwardly run across to the girls with Mike in pursuit, arms outstretched and fingers making tickling movements. It was a strange quirky type of run the children had; it was like a canter, with heels kicking out sideways. It looked awkward but there was poetry to it.

Trevor arrived at the garden and instantly there was a transformation. The fun evaporated to be replaced by a look of wonder. Trevor delicately picked up one of the seedlings off the trolley and was studying it with awe. Mike stood back with hands on hips and watched. Trevor held the tiny plant up close to his face and studied it closely as if he had never seen one before. Delicately he stroked a leaf with his forefinger. Everything about it seemed to fill him with curiosity.

When he had drunk it in he gingerly made his way over to the prepared patch where the girls were carefully planting the cabbage seedlings. None of them talked but they all beamed at Trevor as he joined them. The children shared an almost telepathic empathy. You could feel the vibes that flowed between them. They projected a warm glow as if they were surrounded with a bubble of emotional well-being. Trevor was carrying the plant in its fibrous pot as if it was a most precious piece of ancient porcelain – and in many ways it was. For the population outside, the idea of actually growing vegetables like this would have been unthinkable, something only seen on history programmes on the vee-dee. Nothing in their world outside the dome approximated to real food, nothing the mass of people ate bore any resemblance to real vegetables. Their food might resemble meat and vegetable in shape, texture and even taste but nobody was under any misapprehension regarding that. They all knew it was produced from the same mycoprotein processed to order. If they had been able to see through the mirrored surface of the Plexiglas dome that mysteriously sat in their midst they would have been astounded. To have that amount of space and real plants was almost unimaginable. Not that they ever thought much about the presence of what appeared to them to be a large mirrored dome. It wasn’t their place to wonder on such things.

The girls moved aside to allow Trevor through. He crouched down and gently placed the seedling on the soil. They watched intently as he stroked one of the leaves and lovingly traced the outline of its venation with a rapturous expression of unadulterated joy. All the children seemed to share in each others delight as if connected. Nobody was more empathic than a Mickel’s child.

Mardra handed Trevor the dibber and he carefully used it to prod a hole into the soil, pulling it from side to side to enlarge the cavity until he judged it was wide and deep enough to receive the fibrous cone of the root-ball. Trevor handed the dibber back to Mardra and lifting the plant up he carefully studied it once more before reverentially placing it in the hole he had prepared. He then judiciously patted the soil down around it and Jelphi stepped forward to water it with her little watering can.

Then they all stood back as if a special ceremony had taken place. The carers looked on with quiet admiration.

Mike clapped and they all beamed up at him.

Langston Angstrom pulled his eyes away from the joyful scene. You’d imagine the children had made a major discovery from the excitement generated and not merely planted a cabbage. He could watch them all day but that would never do. They were so adorable it was contagious but there was work to do.

New Eden – a Sci-fi disaster novel

Posted on by Opher

The world government is looking for a way to reduce population numbers and remove the unproductive billions who are no longer required. In this futuristic novel they devise a fiendish plan that goes horribly wrong. Follow the intrigue and machinations to a very unexpected conclusion.

New Eden: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798637512867: Books

Excerpt – New Eden

‘Surely we can manipulate that?’ Paul remarked reasonably. ‘It all depends on marketing and propaganda. The scientists can deal with the environment.’

‘Not when it is a battle for such severely depleted resources,’ Virginie Chauvin interjected.

‘Marketing cannot touch the have-nots, don’t-wants or can’t-gets,’ George remarked morosely. ‘I reiterate: there are huge numbers of them out there, billions, who are simply surplus to requirements. They are not consuming and they are not contributing. All they do is generate huge problems and the rest of us suffer because of them. They are responsible for the crisis. That is my point. We are better off without them.’

‘So how are they surviving then?’ Mya Jannot enquired with a petulant tone. She found George’s callous approach hard to take. ‘They must be consuming something.’ Mya knew that in the end it would come down to the economics. That is what upstairs always cared about.

‘They are scavenging,’ George Handley replied with an air of disgust. ‘Living off our detritus. They are not part of any chain of consumption. They serve no useful purpose. They are surplus to requirements.’

George’s phrase echoed round the chamber and set the minds racing. Was it as simple as that? They all knew what George was referring to. He was proposing the extermination of a good percentage of the world’s population. Surely there had to be a reasonable alternative. It was incontrovertible that the population was now raging out of control. The environment was teetering on the brink of catastrophe. They were in the last chance saloon. They had to do something.

‘So what are you suggesting George?’ Mya Jannot asked, looking at ways to address the issue. ‘A huge welfare programme to bring them into the frame so they can be consumers?’ She knew that was not the solution. Indeed it would only make matters worse. If they all started consuming at even a small percentage of the most affluent the resources would be exhausted and the world would be plunged into conflict. ‘A benefits scheme? A massive work programme?’ Even as she voiced it she could see the preposterous nature of the idea. ‘Or are you looking at enforced contraception? Sterilisation? Education for females? Because they all seem to have failed. So what are you actually suggesting?’

The whole room focussed on George Handley. It was quite clear what was on the table but they wanted to hear it from him.

George pouted and tapped his fingers on the table. ‘I am simply pointing out that we have a large rump that is proving a drain on wealth creation,’ George replied, ducking the question. ‘There are billions who are surplus to requirements and of no use to anyone. They are a drain on our resources and serve no purpose. They are having a catastrophic effect that is costing us dearly and will only get a lot worse. We are having to pick up the bill for the mess they are creating. If we do not do something drastic now we will end up paying far more later. I cannot imagine that is what our friends upstairs would want. We have to be decisive.’

They all knew what he was getting at. They had to face it.

‘We could stoke up a few more wars,’ Pascal Bosco proposed. ‘That is always a good way of reducing numbers plus it has the added benefit of stimulating productivity. There’s nothing like a good bit of arms trading to stimulate the economy. There are plenty of fanatics out there in the hinterlands and there’s nothing like religion or survival to focus the mind.’

‘One thing is certain,’ Virginie Chauvin remarked pointedly. ‘Natural processes do not seem to be working as well as they used to.’ She glowered round at them as if it was their fault. ‘Every time we have a natural catastrophe we get the Aid groups wading in. They pull at everyone’s heart-strings and the money pours in. There are too many do-gooders. They rush in and mop up before the natural processes have a chance to work their normal attrition.’

‘Technology has certainly taken the sting out of natural disasters,’ Hans Shultz agreed. ‘There is a rapid deployment of resources and so much more that can be done. Disasters do not reach the same proportions as they used to.’

‘There you are,’ Pascal Bosco remarked triumphantly. ‘That’s where technology comes in. War is more efficient than ever. We can take out millions.’

‘But it’s so indiscriminate,’ Paul Shank argued. ‘It doesn’t just get rid of the ones you’d like to eliminate. It just……’

‘It is too limited in scope,’ George asserted, interrupting Paul in mid-flow. ‘War is too restricted. We need something on a bigger scale and something more general. We have scroungers everywhere now. They’ve become universal. We should cut out the cancer once and for all.’

Audio Books – Sci-fi novels

Posted on by Opher

I’ve just brought out a number of my books in an audio format. At the moment it appears that they can only be purchased in this format from the USA.

I’ll put up some links:

Conexion

Amazon.com: Conexion (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Books

Green

Amazon.com: Green (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Audible Books & Originals

Schizoid

Amazon.com: Schizoid (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Audible Books & Originals

Quantum Fever

Amazon.com: Quantum Fever (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Audible Books & Originals

Neanderthal

Amazon.com: Neanderthal (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Audible Books & Originals

The Pornography Wars

Amazon.com: The Pornography Wars (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Audible Books & Originals

New Eden

Amazon.com: New Eden (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Audible Books & Originals

The Gordian Fetish

Amazon.com: The Gordian Fetish (Audible Audio Edition): Ron Forsythe, Independently Published, Virtual Voice: Books

I find this all very fascinating. What do you think?

God’s Bolt – The end of the world

Posted on by Opher

I wrote this novel to create a setting for my lone character. I wove in Sagan, aliens, AI, global politics and interstellar travel into an intriguing tale. It started at the end and worked towards a new beginning.

God’s Bolt: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781092713597: Books

Here’s an extract:

Chapter 2

Carl Sagan – 1934 – 1996

I don’t know why I became a scientist. It could have been down to my parents. Yes, I think I’ll blame them.

I was born in Brooklyn in 1934. We were a poor Jewish family hustling a living like everybody else. My father had come in as an immigrant from what is now Ukraine and he was full of all that immigrant energy. He was a good man who worked hard and had a joy of life. He ran a garment factory. He wasn’t a religious man but he saw the wonder in everything and was bursting with benevolence. He did not know what science was but he encouraged me to be inquisitive and question everything. I think that was his greatest gift to me.

My mother was born in Brooklyn and was religious. Her life seemed to centre on the synagogue. She came from a very poor family and I think she’d seen too much of hard times. Life had dealt her hard blows and she was frustrated by it all. She had a mind on her but never had the chance to make anything of herself. She was held back by poverty, a lack of education, her gender and her faith. Back then Jewish girls were not expected to do anything other than bring up kids and look after the home and husband. But she doted on me. I think she put all her ambitions onto me. She was very analytical and taught me how to investigate and delve into the detail. That was her gift.

I suppose I married those two gifts together. It made me inquisitive and hungry to discover more. It made me look up in wonder and try to work out what it all meant.

From an early age I was always asking questions.

Brooklyn was a great place to grow up. It was a bustling hub of life. It wasn’t ideal for developing a career in science though. I guess I didn’t think about that too much when I was a child.

I’d play out in the streets with my friends but my Mum did rather cosset me. She spent hours encouraging me to think and do my school work. I was an extension of her dreams.

Sam, my Dad, would take me out with him to the garment factory and show me off to his friends. He was proud of me. My inquisitiveness bemused him but he loved it. He’d laugh at me and there was love in his eyes.

The streets back then were bustling with people. There were shops and street stalls selling everything you could think of and I like that bustle, weaving in and out of the crowds gripping on to Dad’s great paw of a hand. I’d look up and there, between the tall buildings, I could see the sky.

I was only five years old when I had my first epiphany. My parents took me to the World’s Fair. It nearly blew my eyes out of my head and sent my mind into overdrive. It was like I had woken up in a different world.

I was never quite the same.

The first thing that sent my mind whirling was an exhibition of the future. It was crazy – all super clean and modern with huge highways and families driving along in futuristic cars towards cities with gleaming skyscrapers. It looked a million miles from the bustling streets of Brooklyn with its dirty bricks, and all those street vendors with their wooden carts and litter. I wanted to see that world of the future. I wanted to be part of it.

I could imagine it. I could look into the future and see that incredible world that science was going to construct.

Then, with my head still reeling I was taken to the science exhibitions. They shone a light on this cell and it made noises. They made a noise with a tuning fork and it became a wavy line on this screen. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to understand how light could become noise and how sound became light. I was thrilling with the excitement of it. My five year old brain was trying to make sense of all these wonders.

The most exciting thing of all was the Time Capsule. We went out to Flushing Meadows to see it being buried. It was a big container and they’d filled it with all these things from our age, everything that told a story about us, and buried it deep in the ground. It was like a snapshot of our world and it would sit there buried in the ground for hundreds of years. In my head I could imagine spacemen from some future world thousands of years in the future digging it up and finding out all about us.

New Eden – A Sci-fi novel – a man-made plague.

Posted on by Opher

This tale of botched government, intrigue, crooked scientists and sinister plans is set in a future world devastated by overpopulation, pollution and the destruction of nature.

What happens when devious politicians come up with drastic solutions. What could possibly go wrong?

A roller-coaster of a read:

New Eden: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798637512867: Books

Extract

George Handley was a small man with longish grey hair swept back from his receding hairline and bushy side-burns. His immaculate pin-stripe suit and Etonian tie were anachronistic by any standards but he wore it with pride and considered it set the tone. It provided him with a bearing of historical gravitas, or at least that was how he liked to see it. His voice was measured and conveyed the same message with its cultured tones and paced delivery. It made him sound aloof and superior.

George grimaced with an expression which suggested he was sucking on something vile. ‘There are just too many of them,’ he noted disdainfully as if he was talking about an invasion of cockroaches. ‘Too many by far.’

Paul Shank allowed himself a reproachful smile. The arrogance of George Handley always amused him. The man certainly had a high opinion of himself. It was all a result of his background and class. Paul himself came from good old American farming stock. His family were wealthy but had none of the pretensions that George Handley projected. His folks were much more down to earth. But that did not prevent him from feeling completely at ease in all company. He was used to rubbing shoulders with the greatest men and women from all walks of life. Nothing fazed him. He would not be in this position if it had.

‘Come now George,’ Paul chided with a light easy manner. ‘Surely we have to have an expanding base? The economy cannot grow without expansion.’

George glowered down at the charts on his screen and flicked it off. He’d seen enough. There was no amusement or lightness of tone in his voice. ‘They are not contributing,’ he pointed out. ‘They serve no purpose. You are all missing the point. You cannot even go downtown without a respirator. Things are desperate.’

‘So what are you suggesting George?’ Pascal Bosco enquired. His dark eyes flashed mischievously. His modern one-piece suit was stylish and comfortable and set the tone for his personality. He was forward looking. He knew how George’s mind worked and liked to bring things out into the open. ‘That we do away with them all?’

‘They serve no purpose,’ George repeated as if this was sufficient in itself. It amply conveyed his opinion. ‘They do not work or contribute to the global economy. They are merely a drain on the financial system. They are unproductive. Their consumption is causing the problem. They do not earn and so are not able to contribute. Not only that, but their very presence is destructive. They are creating the problems we are having to face up to and try to solve. Let’s deal with the root cause.’

Pascal sat back in his chair, laced his fingers and raised his eyebrows, unwilling to take that step despite the fact that he knew it was inevitable. He felt a sinking inside but persisted futilely in focussing on the economic aspect even though he knew it had moved well beyond that. ‘Perhaps consumption is sufficient to stimulate the economy. They provide a need.’

‘They are a canker on the face of the planet,’ George stated bluntly.

‘Come now George,’ Mya Jannot said, reacting to the harshness of his words. ‘There is a trickle down. They, in their own way, are contributing to the global economy. They are consuming.’

‘Not so you would notice,’ George replied huffily. ‘They are parasites. They require eradication. Besides this is no longer an economic issue. You’ve seen the data on climate and the latest pollution figures. It’s unsustainable.’

The room fell into silence as all seven of them reflected on the latest data. The population was spiralling out of control. Drastic action was needed.

The Best Disaster novel … ever!! New Eden – A Sci-fi novel

Posted on by Opher

What does the world government do about the horrendous overpopulation crisis? They come up with a simple solution to rid themselves of the unwanted! What can possibly go wrong?

New Eden: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798637512867: Books

The Beginning

The United Nations building rises up like a great glass slab alongside the East River in Manhattan. From a distance it is fanciful to imagine it resembling the monolith that Arthur C Clarke summoned up in 2001 A Space Odyssey. It too represents the hope for mankind’s future.

This is the organisation that spawned the magnificent document ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ in which the optimistic dreams of the world were enshrined. This was the world community’s apotheosis, and all that was required was the funding, power and will to put it into operation.

Unfortunately those ideals were never realised.

Within this building the General Assembly, representing all nations of the planet, meets regularly to discuss the issues and crises that threaten us. Within this building the Security Council also meets regularly. Their brief is to ensure peace throughout the world. They look for non-violent means for addressing conflicts and settling disputes.

It is not difficult to see that the United Nations has limited success when it comes to creating peace and resolving crises. The world has never been more fraught.

Unbeknown even to those members of the General Assembly and Security Council there is another body which also meets at regular intervals. The Strategic Planning Committee – the SPC – has no official standing. It is not recorded in any documentation, reports to no-one and to all intents and purposes does not exist. Yet this body, made up of members of the G7, has a huge remit and great powers. It operates to its own brief – to look for alternative methods for dealing with global issues. It is not subject to the same strictures, operates through clandestine facilities and can deploy a huge budget. It operates under military jurisdiction and protocol.

There are not even rumours of its existence. Yet it exists.

Beneath the United Nations building there is a committee room. It is reached by means of a number of circuitous routes all carefully protected, guarded and sealed, culminating in a single entrance by way of an elevator.

The room itself is extremely ordinary. The round circular walls look dour but conceal the largest array of devices ever assembled. The surfaces are polymer screens for projecting information. The screening devices are exceptional and updated by the hour. Even the seemingly austere mahogany-look table is really an array of extremely high tech facilities but they are only visible when required. The furnishings are almost non-existent, consisting of the single round table of standard dark polymer, with seven comfortable chairs. The purpose of the venue is discussion.

This is where the clandestine decisions that affect the whole world are really made. Above them in the chambers the business is relatively mundane compared to this. In the bubble of their national governments these seven people carry out the day to day intrigues of parochial politics but they all know that the global perspective is decided here. And their instructions come from another higher source.

The group is presided over by President Paul Shank of the USA and consists of the seven Heads of what used to be known as the G7. This assembly was created long ago and shaped by a group of extremely rich and influential figures who have always pulled the strings behind the various governments of the world. They operate globally and utilise their power group to manipulate events and markets. History is largely the result of their various interventions. The fact that the G7 expanded to incorporate Russia, China, India and Brazil to become the G11 has had no impact on this select group. They, or rather their instigators, did not feel the need to expand. Neither is it likely to respond to circumstances should the Arab and African countries succeed in their pressure to be included in the G11. The SPC has a historical basis and is happy to keep it that way. They have no wish to become big and unwieldy and descend into a talking shop like the other bodies. They have no desire to include the others in their deliberations. Especially those they have never trusted. Seven is big enough. Here they can speak honestly and openly without fear of repercussions. Rather ironically they informally called themselves ‘The Synod’ fully aware of the significance of the word. There was nothing religious about them but they made the decisions that shook the planet.

They have the strongest power in the world behind them. The current discussion had been focussed on the burgeoning world population with the horrific implications now being predicted.

God’s Bolt – Extract – Sci-fi with a difference

Posted on by Opher

Helen is alone on the space station having witnessed the world destroyed by an asteroid, trying to come to terms with the realisation that she is the lone survivor.

God’s Bolt: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781092713597: Books

Year 2178 – Impact day plus 1

I was in shock. My brain was not functioning. That hurricane of searing thought had ripped my mind to shreds. It had left me hollow, burnt out. I was empty. The inner storm had reamed me out. I was an empty shell. I simply could not take in what I had just witnessed. It could not possibly be real. It was all gone. In a few seconds everyone I had ever loved, everything I had known was gone. I was left here all alone. I would never see anyone again. I was on my own.

How could that possibly be?

It was not possible. I could not react to it because it could not be happening.

Somehow I wanted to rewind. I wanted it to be like it had been.

My rational mind had watched the spectacle take place.  Some more primitive part of me did not believe it. I knew that it was not real. If I activated the communicator I would find the truculent voice of Brad Noone at the other end. I’d share some sweet talk with Happiness Ntobe and swap jibes with Neil and Janice. They were all still sitting in that control centre just like they’d been when I last saw them, just like they always were. My parents were still in our home in Sussex. It was surrounded with green trees. If I called they’d welcome me in and hug me. My brothers and their families were still there in their homes with their families. They would tag me in a minute just to check in. They did that. They liked to rib their little sister and make sure she didn’t get too cocky up there in space. The rainforests were still there. All those animals that had been nurtured so carefully. All those conservation projects. They couldn’t have all disappeared. Everything was just the same. It had to be. How could it possibly be gone?

I was trapped in this unreality, this fantasy that was whirring round in my head on a loop, carefully avoiding the reality of what had happened, not daring to touch the raw ends of the truth. Because if I just touched that, those things too terrible to think about, it would unleash that fury in my head again. It would release that monster and it would eat me up alive. I could not allow that to happen. I could not. I refused to accept it.

It could not possibly have gone. All I had to do was activate the communicator. They would answer just like they always did. It always worked. If I picked up the communicator we would connect and it would be just like it always was.

But I did not activate the communicator.

I don’t know what happened to time. From the moment that first impact had hit, it had all gone weird. The whole world around me had faded away. I was in some kind of bubble. It was a dream. That hurricane of fire in my head was not real either.

I could not think. My mind refused to work.

I kept reliving that impact in my head. It was like I was putting it in a microscope to examine it in detail. The great crimson gouge. The livid orange. The great splash of magma. The huge spume of livid flame that had engulfed the planet. I think I was trying to relive it so that it worked out differently. I wanted those missiles to nullify that menace. I wanted it to be just how they had assured me it would be. But every time I played it through in my head it was always the same. That great shudder. That silent explosion. The roar in the communicator and then nothing. Always the same.

But it had to be different.

I stared for hours at the billowing orange clouds. The Earth used to be green. This couldn’t be the Earth. This could surely not be the Earth. How was it possible? I think I was waiting for those livid clouds of superheated ash to settle and the clouds to part to reveal the Earth as it had been.

A part of me knew that was never going to happen. But I refused to accept it.

I ached. I ached in my arms and my upper body. My guts ached. It was liked I had been punched, used for a punch bag. It was the tension. I was screwing myself up. But I could not relax. My muscles were screwed into knots.

I wanted scream. I could not help prodding the monster in its lair. I could not. I could feel it all building up inside like an inner shriek that had no voice. It was tearing around in my head but could not find the exit, could not get out, whirling like a cyclone. I could not think. It was eating me alive. I was being ripped apart in a cacophony of disbelief, fury and outrage.

WHY ME!!! WHY FUCKING ME!!! Out of 4 billion human beings why was I the only one stuck on this fucking station? All alone. Why did I have to witness that? WHY ME?? All the people I knew – DEAD!! Everything I loved! EVERYTHING!! Why couldn’t I have been consumed in that fire along with all the rest??

The silent shouting in my head was building into a cacophony.

Eunice was prattling on at me. She was chiding me. I was not following my routine. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t sleeping. My stats were all over the place. But I didn’t really hear her. Her words just washed over me. Stupid machine!  I didn’t want any fucking machine!! How did a lump of metal know anything? I wanted Jomo to take me in his arms and tell me it wasn’t real that it had never happened.

Every now and again I would calm down and try to rationalise it.

That first impact had done it. It was too big for anything to survive. I knew that.

The livid orange clouds had already covered the whole face of the planet when the other four huge meteorites had struck. Each one blowing another huge explosion up through the boiling atmosphere, flinging fresh magma skywards from the core of the planet, smashing tectonic plates, gouging out massive craters, unleashing flowing sheets of lava, flinging yet more ash into the seething atmosphere, unleashing vast heat to add to the devastating power.

Each one was probably sufficient to do the job. Five was overkill.

All the time that monster was raging in my head – just out of reach, subdued, held back but threatening to break through again and tear me to shreds. I was using all my strength to hold it back. It would just take one little thing for it to break through again. I was alone. I WAS FUCKING ALONE FOREVER!!

God’s Bolt – Paperback – A Sci-fi novel with a difference

Posted on by Opher

In this little extract Helen, alone on the space station is witnessing the end of the Earth with the realisation that she is completely alone – the last human being.

I wanted to write a novel that started at the end and only had one character. This was the scenario I conceived. It was a challenge.

God’s Bolt: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781092713597: Books

Extract

I forced myself not to give in to hysteria. Once I’d started down that road there was no telling where it would end. But once those thoughts were born they could not be unborn. I kept feeling what it was like for a wall of searing heat to vaporise a human being. That is what had happened 4 billion times.

Despite the logic of my own eyes I kept imagining that somewhere down there, perhaps in a submarine at depth, someone would have survived. But I knew that was impossible. The thin crust of the world had been fractured into a million pieces. The tectonic plates would have been ripped apart. I knew the science. I’d seen the magnitude of the impact. The magma was flowing freely, the oceans boiled. Nothing could have survived – at least no life of any sophisticated nature. I had no doubt that the extremophiles, the bacteria and algae adapted to extreme temperatures of volcanoes and underwater vents, would survive. In a billion years or so perhaps the planet would be green again and a new range of organisms would call the planet home. But what good was that to me?

Strangely I did not feel like screaming like they do in the tridee movies, though I thought that maybe I should. No tears came to my eyes, no swearwords to my lips. It was beyond all that. I was completely numb.

I think I spent hours, days, in a stupor just staring down at the raging planet and not registering a single thought. I did not eat or drink and not even Eunice’s chiding registered with me. My universe had been blown apart. Everything I loved was gone. I could not take it in. Somehow, despite the obviousness of the possibilities, I had not prepared myself for this. It was too big, too enormous. I still refused to believe it. Perhaps it would all settle down and be OK?

I was outwardly calm, though the inside of my head was raging as it futilely tried to absorb the facts. It was gone. The whole Earth was gone. They were all gone. I would never see anyone again – not anybody. I would never see green fields or blue skies ever again. I was on my own. I would spend the rest of my days in this Space Station, this cage, this hell. I would never see Mum and Dad, or Joe and Richard. They had been burnt alive, seared to a crisp. Everything was just ash. My friends and lovers were gone. They were seared with fire. Seared to cinders. Everything was destroyed, smashed, broken, burnt, consumed, swamped with magma, broken apart. There was nothing to heal. I was on my own. I was on my own. I was on my own. For the rest of my days I was stuck in this prison. I would never breathe proper air. I would never walk on the Earth’s soil. The silly thought came into my head and tore at me – my dog was gone. All dogs were gone. All animals were gone. They were flecks of heated ash in a hurricane of fire. Nothing could have survived. I was on my own.

My head was roaring like the atmosphere on Earth. My mind was raging like that hurricane on Earth. It was eating me up.

I think I was trying to shock myself into reacting, to feeling something. But the feelings would not come.

I stood mindlessly staring out at the ball of fire below me and that ball of fire was in my head. What it was doing to the planet it was doing to me – eating me alive. That naked molten lava was in my head burning my brains. It was agony. Those hurricanes of fire were burning up my thoughts, whirling them into raging whirlwinds of scattered meaningless thoughts. My sanity was whirling, spinning, tearing itself apart. It was a monster. It was something out of my worst nightmare but thousands of times worse!

It was all pointless, all hopeless. I could not face it. I could not face the future. I did not want to be alive. They were all gone. Why me?? WHY ME!!! I FUCKING DID NOT WANT TO BE ALIVE!! I WANTED TO BE WITH THEM!!!! I WANTED TO BE WITH JOMO!!!!