A-Z Indie Books: Twinned Universes

Twinned Universes

Author: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

Paul Harrison always wanted to play Hamlet, but he never expected he'd live the role first.

In the aftermath of a family tragedy on 21st century Earth, Paul discovers he's the clone of Sean Lyon, his great-great-grandfather and a famous TwenCen musician. Suspecting his mother's death was no accident, Paul comes up with a plan to trick the answers out of the great-uncle who had him cloned. But in order to make his plan work, Paul needs help from Sean himself--and Sean's time is running out in the TwenCen universe next door. Although Paul's family lives on the spaceship that travels between the universes, he's never been allowed on TwenCen Earth. Now, with the help of his friends, his disguise-creating holoprojectors, and a quantum quirk, Paul must make his way to Sean while evading other time travelers who fear he'll change the history of the TwenCen universe. If Paul is to achieve justice, he must not only risk his own life, but the wormhole connecting the universes. "To be or not to be" was a simple question in comparison....

Sandra's Comments: I knew as I wrote Lyon's Legacy that I would need to write a sequel. This book is set about eighteen years later but can be read on its own. Paul is my favorite character I've created so far, but his friends are interesting too. I will be returning to the Catalyst Chronicles series once I publish the first book in my fantasy Season Avatars series later this year.

A-Z Indie Books: Lyon's Legacy

Lyon's Legacy

Author: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

Sometimes being a geneticist isn't enough to understand your family....

Joanna Lyon is the great-granddaughter of the legendary TwenCen musician Sean Lyon. She may have inherited her ancestor's musical talent, but her parents' bitter divorce and her Uncle Jack's attempts to remake her into another Sean have left her hostile toward her family and music. Her passion is for science, but since she has no access to the family funds, she struggles to earn enough credits for graduate school. Then her uncle sets up a business deal with her employer to make Joanna go on a mission for him: travel via the spaceship Sagan to an alternate TwenCen universe where Sean is still alive in Chicago, 1962. Joanna must collect a DNA sample from Sean so her uncle can create a clone of him. She refuses at first, but finally agrees to go. Secretly, however, Joanna believes her uncle will exploit the clone, and she plans to sabotage the project to stop him. But when she falls in love with one of the scientists in the Sagan's genetics lab, clashes with other time travelers who fear she'll change how history develops on the alternative TwenCen Earth, and receives devastating personal news, Joanna will find herself pushed to her limit even before she comes face-to-face with her hated ancestor. Their encounter will leave her changed forever. Will she still be able to thwart her uncle's plan, and what will she have to sacrifice to do so?

Sandra's Comments: This novella was fueled by my twin passions for science and the Beatles, especially John Lennon. It was also my debut as an indie author. It's peaked at #3 on the Time Travel bestseller list on Amazon during promotions, and it's also earned recognition by the Book Readers Appreciation Group. It's available in all eBook formats as well as paper and audio. To purchase on Amazon, click here for the eBook (priced at $2.99) and here for the paperback (priced at $7.77).

Books: Not Just Brain Food

I learned to read when I was three. (I probably figured it out from Sesame Street.) According to my mother, I was in a butcher shop with her when I read the brand name off of the refrigerated display case. A woman next to us turned to my mother and asked, "Did you know your daughter can read?" No, my mom didn't know that, but she's had plenty of opportunity to watch me read ever since.

Books are good for teaching you lots of facts, and yes, I've spent free time reading textbooks and encyclopedias. But there's more to books than facts; there's also fiction, getting to know people who never existed who live in places that never were. One of the things I love most about fiction is experiencing life through someone else's eyes. Doing so can help you develop empathy for others. For example, I didn't know much, if anything, about gays/lesbians before reading Gossamer Axe, but that book raised my sympathy for them.

Book aren't just brain food; they can feed your heart and soul too.

Top Ten List of Things/People Who Should be in the Next Star Wars Movie

We've been challenged (again!) this week to share our thoughts as to what should be in the next Star Wars movie. Although I've seen the movies and read a few books, it's been a long time since I've done either, and I'm not sure anymore what's canon and what isn't. Also, I'm not going to write scenes as Briane did so well, because, of course, who can follow Briane? So, instead, here's my Top Ten List of Things/People Who Should be in the Next Star Wars Movie:

10. A new villain/villains: Specifically, I propose they create a race of energy beings that can counter the Force, or even feed on the Force's energy. Let's call them Chlordivores for now. Perhaps they can even possess flesh-and-blood beings in pursuit of their goal. I think such a race will shake up the Jedis and give them a real challenge.

9. Ghosts of Jedis: Have a scene where Yoda, Obi-wan, and even Darth Vader (still a much more impressive name than "Anakinn") battle the Chlordivores.

8. Betty White as a Jedi mentor:

(I have no idea who originally created this image, which I found on Pinterest.)


7. New weapons: Sure, the lightsaber is awesome, but will they work on these energy beings? How about a weapon that can drain energy from the Chlordivores? Alternatively, we need a way to trap them.

Then again, something like this would be cool too:



6. New planets: For starters, maybe they should design planets that have more than one type of climate. As for what I'd like to see, perhaps settings underwater, or worlds sustained by UV light instead of the visible spectrum. The latter might be hard to film since it would be so dark, but maybe you could use bioluminesence as a light source.

5. New aliens/artificial life forms: I won't go into designing these here; I need to save some ideas for my own work.

4. Characters from the first six movies: Luke, Leia, and Han are obvious choices, even if they're older. R2-D2 and C3PO as well should come along for the ride.

3. The next generation: I remember reading in Timothy Zahn's books that Han and Leia had twins; I think they were a boy and a girl. What are they up to now? What are their skills? And did Luke ever have kids? Gotta pass on those midichlorians, after all.

2. The family black sheep: Maybe one of the kids has no talent for the Force, or maybe he/she wants to do something else with his/her life, something the older generation might disapprove of--until it turns out this talent or skill is the only way to defeat the Chlordivores. I want a protagonist who's complex enough to develop over a movie or three.

1. More named female characters: It's about time this franchise tries to pass the Bechdel test.

What do you want to see in the next Star Wars trilogy?

Tales Your Grandmother Never Told You: How I Became an Indie Writer

2055 A.D. A cozy townhouse near Madison, Wisconsin. A grandmother and her granddaughter sit in the living room, which is dominated not by a TV but by a holographic display on the far well. Currently it's showing a holo set in 1980. A teen confronts a man who could be an older version of himself. Although the grandmother watches, sometimes smiling, sometimes shaking her head, the girl is bored. She wanders over to a shelf filled with paper books. The covers are varied, but they all have the same author: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan.

Girl: Grandma, how did you manage to write so many books?

SUA: I started writing a long time ago, dear, long before the turn of the century.

The girl shakes her head. She knows her grandmother is old, but anything before the year 2000 is ancient to her.

Girl: But most of these books came out after them. Did you make them all by yourself?

SUA: No, I hired people to edit and make the covers. I even had your father help me with formatting when he was old enough for that. (smiles) But I never had a publisher, either. I take that back. I was part of an anthology once, but that was it.

Girl: What's a publisher?

SUA: A publisher or publishing company was the only way to make books when I first started writing. Back then, there were no such thing as eBooks or neuroBooks. They only came in paper, like those first editions there. And you couldn't make them on your own without a lot of money. So writers had to sell their work to publishers, who made the books. Once you sold them your story, they owned it--forever.

Girl: And they didn't make books from your stories?

SUA: No, I was still learning how to write back then, and even though I had the ideas for my stories (nods at holo), the publishers wouldn't buy them. Publishers were very picky about what they bought, and though they said they published only the best work, they also wanted to make money for themselves first. That's why they kept all the rights, only supported the best-sellers, and treated authors like interchangeable widgets.

Sandra falls silent, thinking of all the rejection letters she collected from agents and publishers. She always tried to be professional, but they didn't always treat her like one.

SUA: But when I was forty, I bought my first Kindle. That was a special device people used for only one thing: reading books, electronic ones. I loved it because I could read even more with it than I already did, and I was a big reader back then. Still am, of course. And the great thing about eBooks was that anyone could make them on their own, without a publisher. I learned more about eBooks and epublishing from people who were already doing it, like Zoe Winters, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Dean Wesley Smith. I learned from them that publishing your own books gave you more control over your own work and the potential to make more money. My stories had been workshopped and professionally edited, and I'd gone over them so much I didn't know what to change anymore. That's when you know the story is ready for readers. So I became an indie writer, and I enjoyed it. I chose my editor and my cover artist, and I had control over what I wrote and what I did with it. It took longer than I thought to get my stories ready and find fans, but I was able to write full time before your dad graduated from high school.

Sandra looks over at her granddaughter, who, bored by all this history, has opened a book and started reading. 

SUA: (whispering) And we all lived happily ever after...except for climate change. But that's another story.

Conventions 2014

When Briane suggested we share what SF/fantasy-related thing we're most looking forward to this year, WisCon immediately popped into my mind. WisCon is held every Memorial Day weekend in my favorite city, Madison, Wisconsin. I enjoy the chance to revisit my college town and see friends, including some that live in the city and some that are there for the convention. I'm a member of Broad Universe, so I usually participate in the Rapid-Fire Reading and sell my books at the table. I may also be a panelist, especially since I proposed two panels for indie writers. WisCon is less geared toward TV and movies than some other cons, so you don't see as many people in costume. However, it's a good networking event for authors, and I've learned a lot there.  I've been to other conventions, including some of the big ones like WorldCon, but WisCon is the con I attend every year (except for 2007, when I was nine months pregnant).

Do you attend SF/fantasy cons? If so, which ones?

Introduction to this Blog and to Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

Welcome to Indie Writers Monthly! We are a group of independent science fiction and fantasy writers who've come together to support each other and share our love of this genre.

I'll start off by introducing myself. I'm Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, a lab tech by day and science fiction/fantasy author by night. I currently have three stories out in my SF Catalyst Chronicles series and several unrelated fantasy short stories available. You can find complete descriptions of these books on my personal blog and my website. I'm also on Twitter and Facebook. My interests include science, the Beatles, crochet, and improv comedy. I'm married to my college sweetheart, and we have a six-year-old son.

I'll step back and let the rest of the group introduce themselves to you. Best wishes for a 2014 filled with joy, wonder, and lots of books!