The Swetky Agency - Was Once a Hero

Submission Synopsis

Was Once a Hero
by Edward McKeown

Length:
79,000

Genre:
Science Fiction

Series:
Fearful Symmetry
Points of Departure

Author Edward McKeown

Sentence:
A rag-tag crew of space farers become unexpected heroes battling an ancient enemy from a doomed world.

Blurb:
Reluctant privateer Robert Fenaday searches the stars for his lost love. He’s joined by the genetically engineered assassin, Shasti Rainhell, whose cold perfection masks a dark past. Both are blackmailed by government spymaster, Mandela, into a suicidal mission to a doomed planet. Leading a team of scientists and soldiers, they must unravel the mystery of a planet’s death before an ancient force reaches out to claim their lives.

Synopsis:
What price love? When do you stop chasing a dream and start over? How far will you go? These questions haunt Robert Fenaday. Was Once a Hero is the first of three novels concerning Robert Fenaday’s search for his wife Lisa, and his companion and sometime lover Shasti Rainhell’s search for her humanity. The trilogy is written so the reader can pick up any of the books and have a complete SF adventure in hand, yet all three form the overarching story of Robert’s quest and Shasti’s emotional voyage of self-discovery.

Fenaday turns privateer when his wife, a naval intelligence operative, disappears during an interstellar war. In the course of his searchs, he rescues Shasti Rainhell, a genetically engineered assassin. As cold and beautiful as February moonlight, Shasti is stronger and more perfect than humanly possible.

The pair are blackmailed by a government operative named “Mandela” into a suicidal mission to the murdered world of Enshar, accompanied by ace stafighter pilot, Telisan, and the ancient Enshari scholar, Belwin Duna. Leading their crew of privateers and government soldiers, they struggle to unravel the mystery of Enshar’s death. That death reaches out for them in the nightmarish form of a legend from Enshar’s prehistory- a foe, buried and forgotten, dead yet alive, powered by a hatred that has outlasted mountains. In the crucible of battle and terror, Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell are driven across barriers both had set in their lives and into a new and deeper relationship. A desperate sacrifice in a blast of nuclear flame destroys their near god-like enemy.

With the battle won, Fenaday plans to returns to his home on New Eire, his search for his wife ended. Shasti accompanies him, but she has not abandoned her dreams of revenge on her abusive creator, Jalgren Pard, leader of the Denshi assassins. Telisan silently fears for his friends, caught between pasts they will not let go of and futures they cannot seem to seize.

In Book Two, Fearful Symmetry, Shasti return to Olympia, at ‘Mandela’s’ urging to assassinate her ex-husband/creator and stop an alien alliance. Everything goes wrong and Fenaday and Telisan must fight their way to her rescue.

In Book Three, Points of Departure, news is learned of Lisa Fenaday and her crew, captives of the aliens Pard sought to ally with. Fenaday must find Lisa before war breaks out. Shasti must come to terms with love and jealously, or be the cause of a tragic end to Fenaday’s quest.

Bio:
I have enjoyed a life-long love affair with science fiction. I seek to write believable people in extraordinary situations, balancing romance, humor, adventure and reasonable extrapolations of science in stories that I believe people will want to return to again and again. Whether it’s in the short stories of my "Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess series" or in the novel, Was Once A Hero, an updating of the classic "Planet" tale, in which a crew of unlikely companions find themselves facing unknown dangers while exploring an alien world, my intent is to give the reader the sort of page turning, involving adventure that Andre Norton wrote and leaven it with the emotional complexity and ambiguity that C..J Cherryh brings to the field.

While the experiences of the SF universe are out of reach of those unable to pay for a Russian rocket ride, I use experiences from my background to try for an underlying verity in my characters. I've parachuted, flown in gliders and hang gliders and strapped to the floor of military helicopters. I've been rated as an expert shot and carry a black belt in the martial arts. I've been paralyzed by fear, exhilarated by love, and walked into fights, both literal and metaphorical, that I knew I could not win.

I have the great good fortune to be married to the talented artist Schelly Keefer.

Endorsements:
Tim Mcloughlin, author of Heart of the Old Country and editor of Brooklyn Noir: "Twenty years ago, when Ron Howard directed Splash, I thought that this was what Disney should be doing, if they were still in touch with their audience. They didn't, and Howard did, with enormous success. The classic Planet Stories of S/F have suffered similar abandonment, but without a rescuer, until now. Edward McKeown's Was Once A Hero combines adventure and romance with the dark humor and human complexities absent from a more black-and-white age. Characters Robert Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell are real people. They make mistakes, they hurt, they stumble in the dark, and they save the world. They are flawed, wounded heroes, and they make you realize, as you hungrily turn each page, that the best fiction contains excitement and passion; and the best aspect of life is the possibility of personal redemption. Was Once a Hero provides both."

Film:
I know that Hero can be easily translated to film as I've already watched the movie in my head. I write in a very visual style and the work could be easily turned to film with even basic special effects.

Additional:
I have begun a fourth novel set in this universe with Shasti Rainhell as the central character.