Release Celebration Day Three: Sky Raiders by Michelle Diener (Giveaway)

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

Welcome to day three of the Release Celebration for

Sky Raiders

By Michelle Diener

Sky Raiders is the first book in Michelle's new space opera series. She's sharing about how it came together today. If you missed Michelle's release-day message, go read it HERE, if you missed her talking about her leading characters, go check that out HERE, and don't forget to enter the giveaway below...

Sky Raiders

by Michelle Diener

Adult Sci-Fi, Space Opera

ebook, 349 Pages

December 15th 2016

Sky Raiders #1

First they flew their mysterious sky craft through the skies of Barit. Then they started attacking. Finally, they began to raid.

Garek's one year of duty as a guard walking the walls of Garamundo was extended to two when the sky raiders appeared. Two long years away from home and his lover, Taya. When he finally returns, the town is empty. While Garek was protecting Garamundo, the sky raiders were taking their victims from his hometown.

Taya can't bear looking into the night sky. All she can see is Barit, her home planet. Impossibly, the sky raiders have brought her and their other victims to Shadow, the planet that shadows her own, and looking up makes her aware of everything she's lost. Garek is out there somewhere. She knows he'll look, but he'll never find her.

She and the other captives have to find a way to escape. Without the food and clothes the sky raiders bring them from their raids on Barit, they'll starve on the almost barren wastes of Shadow. And when they've given the sky raiders enough of what they want, that's exactly what the sky raiders will leave them to do.

What Taya doesn't realize is she'll have some help with her plan. Because Garek isn't giving up on finding her. And he's even more resourceful than she could ever have imagined.

Nothing is going to keep him from Taya. Not even space itself.

Goodreads│Amazon

Release Celebration Day Two: Sky Raiders by Michelle Diener (Giveaway)

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

Welcome to day two of the Release Celebration for

Sky Raiders

By Michelle Diener

Sky Raiders is the first book in Michelle's new space opera series. If you missed Michelle's release-day message, go read it HERE, and be sure to come back on Tuesday, December 20th, HERE to read about the how the story came together. Today Michelle is sharing about the the star-crossed lovers in her story, so check that and the giveaway out below...

Sky Raiders

by Michelle Diener

Adult Sci-Fi, Space Opera

ebook, 349 Pages

December 15th 2016

Sky Raiders #1

First they flew their mysterious sky craft through the skies of Barit. Then they started attacking. Finally, they began to raid.

Garek's one year of duty as a guard walking the walls of Garamundo was extended to two when the sky raiders appeared. Two long years away from home and his lover, Taya. When he finally returns, the town is empty. While Garek was protecting Garamundo, the sky raiders were taking their victims from his hometown.

Taya can't bear looking into the night sky. All she can see is Barit, her home planet. Impossibly, the sky raiders have brought her and their other victims to Shadow, the planet that shadows her own, and looking up makes her aware of everything she's lost. Garek is out there somewhere. She knows he'll look, but he'll never find her.

She and the other captives have to find a way to escape. Without the food and clothes the sky raiders bring them from their raids on Barit, they'll starve on the almost barren wastes of Shadow. And when they've given the sky raiders enough of what they want, that's exactly what the sky raiders will leave them to do.

What Taya doesn't realize is she'll have some help with her plan. Because Garek isn't giving up on finding her. And he's even more resourceful than she could ever have imagined.

Nothing is going to keep him from Taya. Not even space itself.

Amazon

Star-crossed Lovers Who Won't Bow to Their Fate

The official definition of star-crossed lovers is two people who love each other deeply but cannot be together because fate is against them. Whatever is written in their stars means they are doomed to never find happiness, never be together.

Obviously, this is not a HEA or even a HFN situation :)

Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde . . . they're the gold standard of star-crossed lovers, but when I was writing Sky Raiders, I thought a lot about the concept, because I kept thinking of Garek and Taya, my hero and heroine, as star-crossed, but only to a point. They love each other, and fate keeps them apart, but neither of them accepts this.

Garek throws caution to the wind and never lets the obstacles in front of him even slow him down in his determination to get to Taya. And she, equally, is driven not only to survive, but also to work a way out of her situation, because she will not give up her desire to be with Garek again.

It was so much fun, but also really poignant, to write a love story like Garek and Taya's, and I loved every minute of it. I hope my readers enjoy it just as much. Tristan and Isolde, but without the downer at the end :)

— Michelle

About the Author

Michelle Diener is the award-winning, bestselling author of the Class 5 series. She writes historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction and lives in Australia with her husband and two children.

Website│Goodreads│Facebook│Twitter│Pinterest

Release Celebration Giveaway

10 winners will receive a ebook of Sky Raiders
Open internationally
Ends December 22nd

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Release Celebration Day One: Sky Raiders by Michelle Diener (Giveaway)

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

Welcome to the Release Celebration for

Sky Raiders

By Michelle Diener

Sky Raiders is the first book in Michelle's new space opera series. Michelle has a message below and you can come back on Sunday, December 18th, HERE to learn about her leading characters, and on Tuesday, December 20th, HERE to read about how the book came together. Definitely check out the giveaway below as well. Enjoy!

Sky Raiders

by Michelle Diener

Adult Sci-Fi, Space Opera

ebook, 349 pages

December 15th 2016

Sky Raiders #1

First they flew their mysterious sky craft through the skies of Barit. Then they started attacking. Finally, they began to raid.

Garek's one year of duty as a guard walking the walls of Garamundo was extended to two when the sky raiders appeared. Two long years away from home and his lover, Taya. When he finally returns, the town is empty. While Garek was protecting Garamundo, the sky raiders were taking their victims from his hometown.

Taya can't bear looking into the night sky. All she can see is Barit, her home planet. Impossibly, the sky raiders have brought her and their other victims to Shadow, the planet that shadows her own, and looking up makes her aware of everything she's lost. Garek is out there somewhere. She knows he'll look, but he'll never find her.

She and the other captives have to find a way to escape. Without the food and clothes the sky raiders bring them from their raids on Barit, they'll starve on the almost barren wastes of Shadow. And when they've given the sky raiders enough of what they want, that's exactly what the sky raiders will leave them to do.

What Taya doesn't realize is she'll have some help with her plan. Because Garek isn't giving up on finding her. And he's even more resourceful than she could ever have imagined.

Nothing is going to keep him from Taya. Not even space itself.

Amazon

My Roots Are Showing

My latest novel, SKY RAIDERS, the first book in a new space opera trilogy, is in many strange ways a return to my writing roots.

While I wrote fantasy and even time travel novels before I was published by Simon & Schuster in 2011, my first published books were all historical novels.

I've always been a voracious reader of historicals, fantasies and science fiction, and I've always felt that they sit together comfortably because they are all, to a greater or lesser degree, true escapism. I find it as challenging, technically, to write a historical scene as a science fiction scene, needing to draw on the world I'm working with and its rules to create something believable. In historicals, this means research and in science fiction or fantasy, this means the rules and backstory I have made up.

As I worked on the Sky Raiders series, with SKY RAIDERS the first novel, and it was only after a while that I realized I was writing a novel that easily mirrored the invasion of Kwa-Zulu Natal by the Victorian Empire that I'd written about in my historical novel DAUGHTER OF THE SKY, as it was about a planet, Barit, invaded by aliens who were far more technically advanced.

That Victorian theme continued when I was thinking hard about the way one of the cultures on Barit treat their women. The idea of putting women on a pedestal as a way to disempower them is extremely Victorian. The Victorians pretended they were honoring the feminine, but instead were condescending to women by denying them experiences and power 'for their own good'. But I obviously like to mix things up, because rather than a Victorian level of technology on Barit, the level is more analogous to the Renaissance, with walled cities. But I didn't stop there. Into the mix, I threw the Hallstatt Culture. This Celtic culture which gets its name from Hallstatt, near Salzburg in Austria, has always fascinated me, and there are definite threads of this culture in the people of Barit.

Another fun tradition I incorporated was the Viking Clap – although it isn't exactly the same in Sky Raiders, the inspiration definitely comes from this. (Those who want to see it in action, performed by 100,000 Icelanders on the triumphant return of the Icelandic soccer team after a big win during the European Cup, can check it out here. The Viking Clap wasn't actually invented by the Icelanders, it's from Motherwell in Scotland, but whoever is doing it, it's awesome to watch. And staying with Iceland, I also used their real women's Day Off, which happened in 1975, where over 90% of Icelandic women took a day off and didn't do any work to protest their lower pay (60% of what men were earning) and the general inequality of women in the workforce. Laws were passed the following year guaranteeing gender equality in the workforce (the Day Off literally shut the country down for the day) and although true change was a little slower, Iceland does now have one of the highest levels of gender equality in the workforce in the world.

I think it was inevitable that my years of writing historicals would find a way to touch my science fiction work, and I had a lot of fun, and gave a lot of thought, to the use to which I put my historical background. I think fictional cultures with some basis in real culture, however much of a mix they are, make for a more believable, more interesting world, and I hope my readers think so, too.

— Michelle

About the Author

Michelle Diener is the award-winning, bestselling author of the Class 5 series. She writes historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction and lives in Australia with her husband and two children.

Website│Goodreads│Facebook│Twitter│Pinterest

Release Celebration Giveaway

10 winners will receive a ebook of Sky Raiders
Open internationally
Ends December 22nd

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Release Celebration Day Three: Dark Minds by Michelle Diener (Giveaway)

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

Welcome to day three of the Release Celebration for

Dark Minds

By Michelle Diener

Dark Minds is book three in the Class 5 Series. Michelle is sharing about the Class 5 world today. If you missed Michelle's release-day message, go read it HERE, if you missed about the rise of the genre, go check that out HERE, and don't forget to check out the entire series, sign up to review (if interested), and enter the giveaway below...

Dark Minds

by Michelle Diener

Adult Sci-Fi

ebook, 331 Pages

July 22, 2016

Class 5 #3

The mind is the most powerful weapon of all . . . 

Imogen Peters knows she's a pawn. She's been abducted from Earth, held prisoner, and abducted again. So when she gets a chance at freedom, she takes it with both hands, not realizing that doing so will turn her from pawn to kingmaker.

Captain Camlar Kalor expected to meet an Earth woman on his current mission, he just thought he'd be meeting her on Larga Ways, under the protection of his Battle Center colleague. Instead, he and Imogen are thrown together as prisoners in the hold of a Class 5 battleship. When he works out she's not the woman who sparked his mission, but another abductee, Cam realizes his investigation just got a lot more complicated, and the nations of the United Council just took a step closer to war.

Imogen's out of her depth in this crazy mind game playing out all around her, and she begins to understand her actions will have a massive impact on all the players. But she's good at mind games. She's been playing them since she was abducted. Guess they should have left her minding her own business back on Earth…

Amazon│B&N

Creating the World of the Class 5 Series

A few days ago, DARK MINDS, the third and final book in my Class 5 series was released. I have had a lot of readers express disappointment that this is the final book. They love the world and they want to keep exploring it.

Nothing is sweeter to me than hearing that the world I've created in my head is a place people want to linger. I am working on a new series, though, and hope everyone loves the new one just as much.

When I started the Class 5 series, it wasn't really with a series in mind. The main character in DARK HORSE, the first book in the series, Rose, came to me so strongly, with such a compelling story, I set aside the historical I was working on and jumped right in to write it. It was only near the end of DARK HORSE that I realized there was still a lot of the story left to tell, and the Class 5 series was born. 

I know the fact that Rose and the world she found herself in was so clear in my head and so vivid in my imagination helped me create such a strong world for the series as a whole. I had invented way more in my head than ended up on the page in DARK HORSE, and that gave me scope to include the greater world of the Class 5 series or explore things I only touched on in DARK HORSE in the other two novels.

The part of the universe where my heroines Rose, Fiona and Imogen find themselves is run by a coalition of five races. I only go into detail about the culture of the Grih, the race my human heroines have the most affinity for, but I do lightly touch on aspects of the other four's cultures. It was fun creating the worlds and customs, the look and feel of the places my heroines are forced to go, and I like to think that while they're there unwillingly at first, I've made the places interesting enough, sometimes even magical, so that they can see good in their new part of the universe, as well as bad.

If you are already a fan of the world of the Class 5 series, I hope you love DARK MINDS, and if you haven't tried the series yet, I hope you'll consider giving it a go. If action, adventure, and romance appeal, you won't be sorry you did.

— Michelle Diener

Release Celebration Day Two: Dark Minds by Michelle Diener (Giveaway)

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

Welcome to day two of the Release Celebration for

Dark Minds

By Michelle Diener

Dark Minds is book three in the Class 5 Series. Today Michelle is sharing about the rise of the genre. If you missed Michelle's release-day message, go read it HERE, and come back on Tuesday, July 26th, HERE to read about the Class 5 world. Feel free to sign up to review Dark Minds (if interested) and enter the fabulous Amazon/book giveaway as well. So check those all out below!

Dark Minds

by Michelle Diener

Adult Sci-Fi
ebook, 331 Pages
July 22, 2016
Class 5 #3

The mind is the most powerful weapon of all . . . 

Imogen Peters knows she's a pawn. She's been abducted from Earth, held prisoner, and abducted again. So when she gets a chance at freedom, she takes it with both hands, not realizing that doing so will turn her from pawn to kingmaker.

Captain Camlar Kalor expected to meet an Earth woman on his current mission, he just thought he'd be meeting her on Larga Ways, under the protection of his Battle Center colleague. Instead, he and Imogen are thrown together as prisoners in the hold of a Class 5 battleship. When he works out she's not the woman who sparked his mission, but another abductee, Cam realizes his investigation just got a lot more complicated, and the nations of the United Council just took a step closer to war.

Imogen's out of her depth in this crazy mind game playing out all around her, and she begins to understand her actions will have a massive impact on all the players. But she's good at mind games. She's been playing them since she was abducted. Guess they should have left her minding her own business back on Earth…

Amazon│B&N

The Rise of Science Fiction Romance and Space Opera

It started in 1977. :) 

I was too young to watch the first Star Wars movie, but classic space opera is epitomized by the Star Wars franchise. It became a cultural phenomenon because it was fresh, it was exciting, and it explored other galaxies and worlds. 

Nearly forty years later, I don't think the interest in any of these things has waned. We've had another six Star Wars movies since then, each as commercially successful as the last, and we've had a plethora of other space operas, from Star Trek, to Battlestar Galactica, Guardians of the Galaxy and the darker Serenity. We can't get enough of them.

Space opera is about exploring new worlds and finding adventure, love, and action. It is just such fun. Even when exploring serious topics or when it incorporates bittersweet threads, there is a wonder and excitement to the genre that I absolutely adore.

Amazing strides in space exploration, like Juno's successful trip to Jupiter, only fuel the fire of our imaginations and our wonder at the amazing universe we live in. Who wouldn't want to explore what's out there from the safe and comfortable seat of our armchair?

And the great news is that more and more readers are finding space opera and science fiction romance novels that give them the same thrill ride as the movies.

Just over a year ago, when I released my space opera novel, DARK HORSE, I didn't really know what to expect. My previous books had been historicals and fantasy novels, but as a hard-core science fiction fan, and a massive fan of the space opera movies mentioned above, I had worked for eight months on DARK HORSE, even though I knew the sensible thing was to stick to the genres I was already established in.

Taking that risk paid off for me. Because people, as I've said above, love space opera, and science fiction romance. DARK HORSE became my most successful book, and has won me awards and bestseller status. It is the first book in my Class 5 series, and I've since published a second book, DARK DEEDS, which has done just as well. On July 22nd, the third and final book in the series, DARK MINDS, was released, and I hope readers love it just as much as they did the first two. I certainly loved writing it.

— Michelle Diener

Release Celebration Day One: Dark Minds by Michelle Diener (Giveaway)

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

Welcome to the Release Celebration for

Dark Minds

By Michelle Diener

Dark Minds is book three in the Class 5 Series. Michelle has a message below and you can come back on Sunday, July 24th, HERE to learn more about the rise of the genre and on Tuesday, July 26th, HERE to read about the Class 5 world. Feel free to sign up to review Dark Minds (if interested) and enter the fabulous Amazon/book giveaway as well. Enjoy!

Dark Minds

by Michelle Diener

Adult Sci-Fi

ebook, 331 Pages

July 22, 2016
Class 5 #3

The mind is the most powerful weapon of all . . . 

Imogen Peters knows she's a pawn. She's been abducted from Earth, held prisoner, and abducted again. So when she gets a chance at freedom, she takes it with both hands, not realizing that doing so will turn her from pawn to kingmaker.

Captain Camlar Kalor expected to meet an Earth woman on his current mission, he just thought he'd be meeting her on Larga Ways, under the protection of his Battle Center colleague. Instead, he and Imogen are thrown together as prisoners in the hold of a Class 5 battleship. When he works out she's not the woman who sparked his mission, but another abductee, Cam realizes his investigation just got a lot more complicated, and the nations of the United Council just took a step closer to war.

Imogen's out of her depth in this crazy mind game playing out all around her, and she begins to understand her actions will have a massive impact on all the players. But she's good at mind games. She's been playing them since she was abducted. Guess they should have left her minding her own business back on Earth…

Amazon│B&N

The Difference Between Science Fiction and Space Opera

Most readers don't really care what labels publishers or book sellers give to the books they enjoy, they are just interested in the books. But sometimes, those labels, or categories, interfere with finding just what a reader might be looking for.

I think mainstream science fiction and its sub-genres, science fiction romance and space opera, fall into that category.

Quite often, when someone finds out I write science fiction, they look slightly deer-in-the-headlights, and apologetically tell me they don't like that kind of book, and they'll look for my historicals instead. I don't mind that (really! There are some genres I don't love that much, too :)) but if I ask them if they enjoy movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Serenity, or Guardians of the Galaxy, and they say they love them, then I tell them it's safe to give my books a go, because those movies are space operas, and that's what I write.

The difference between mainstream science fiction and the space opera and science fiction romance sub-genres is in the science.

Science fiction is supposed to be science-based, and that puts a lot of people off. Even if they are interested in science, some science fiction novels, especially what's called hard science fiction, has the reputation of being about too much detail. How big is the gun, what cool science has gone into the space ship, and so on. Science is almost a main character in the story, with a side-kick of technology and cool toys. If that's not your idea of a relaxing read, you'll probably avoid it.

The sub-genres of science fiction--space opera and science fiction romance—are about the characters and about the plot, with the science a minor thread. To understand what space opera is, just think of Star Wars and you'll know immediately, because Star Wars is a definitive example of the sub-genre. The world and its rules aren't explained, and there is no expectation that it will hold up to any kind of scientific scrutiny. Sometimes, though, the ideas that appear in space opera can in fact be prescient, like Edgar Rice Burroughs' space elevator, for example.

When I write my science fiction romance / space operas, I like to get at least the basic science right. The way gravity works, for example. :) And I do actively try to use known scientific concepts. I've watched How to Build a Planet and Brian Cox with the best of them, and my work is more accurate for it. I'm not a scientist, and I don't pretend to be one, and biology is more my field of interest than physics, but that said, some of the classic hard science fiction novels have subsequently had their science proven wrong, and new and wonderful things are being discovered in space all the time, so I'm actually not that worried about what I make up. Readers of space opera are looking for a fun, action-packed read, not an explanation about how the technology behind faster-than-light travel works. Which suits me fine!

If you listen to astrophysicists, a lot of what they say seems so outlandish, I don't think what I make up is really that much more outrageous :). Space opera is about the story, about the characters, and about the excitement and adventure. If you like those things, and haven't given space opera or science fiction romance a try, you are really in for a treat. Aside from my Class 5 series, there are hundreds of amazing books out there for you to find.

A group of science fiction romance / space opera authors got together, and we created the Portals Project, a set of volumes containing the first chapters of ten science fiction romance books per volume. They're a great way to find science fiction romance novels, and they're free. The first chapter of my SFR novel DARK HORSE, the first book in my Class 5 series, is in Portals: Volume 3, and you can download it for free at most major online book sellers.

We're celebrating today because the third and final book in my Class 5 series, DARK MINDS, was released today, and I had as much fun writing it as I did the other two. It has all the classic elements of space opera: romance, action, and intrigue.

With space opera, the only limit is your imagination. If you haven't given it a go, you're depriving yourself ;).

— Michelle Diener