Category Archives: Steel Chronicles
Grimvox Intercept #12Alpha64 Iteration Gamma
I’m floating in space wearing a white space suit attached to a tether. I should be excited beyond words. I was in space hovering over the most beautiful sight in the solar system, my planet. But, instead, I am fearful I may not live through the next thirty minutes. My job is simple. These spindly creatures are assembling some kind of huge, transparent sphere that will sit atop the space station. Imagine a giant transparent spherical egg sitting in the golden Eagle’s Nest. That’s what the space station is called. My job is to hang here by tether a hundred yards above the apex of the sphere and block any stray pieces that may break lose during the assembly process. Not to worry that a huge chunk of that sphere might sever my tether and send me sailing off into space like that astronaut from the movie Gravity. So, I am praying these creatures know what they are doing.
Grimvox Intercept #12Alpha64 Iteration Beta
They found me wandering the corridors last time and put me in the “bubble” for 3 days. But, they didn’t find my secret computer link. What is the bubble? It’s attached to the outer skin of the space station and it is exactly what it sounds like. A clear bubble of thickened transparent material. When you are punished in the bubble, they take away your clothing and throw you into the bubble. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, there is no gravity. There is no protection against the radiation and light from outside. And, it gets down to freezing when the space station is behind the earth and away from the sun. You are never fed or given water for three days. And, there is no sanitation! Zero gravity and nowhere to put your waste! By the time you emerge, you are weak, starving, dehydrated and covered with your own body waste. It took me four days to recover.
Grimvox interception #12Alpha64
They abducted me during the blood moon.
I must write this quickly. I am floating weightless in a utility closet on a secret space station no one on Earth knows about. Yes, I am in space! A life long dream but not like this! Not with that person in charge. The station is hidden by supernatural means, I am convinced. I can sense the evil all around me. But, I have to hurry before my hack into this computer terminal is found out.
The Shreveport Times Article
I met author Judy Christie a few years back at our “Author! Author!” event here in Shreveport. Judy writes excellent novels with a “Louisiana flair” and her books are delightful. Check them out. Well, not too long ago, Judy and I reconnected and she has written an article for the Shreveport Times about little old me! I am humbled and honored by her article you can read at this link.
Now, for an update to the fourth book in the Chronicles of Jonathan Steel. I am finishing up the final edit this week. After being released from a very restrictive book contract and whittling down the story from 120000 words to 75000 words it is a pleasure to completely redo the novel. I was forced to cut so much of the story in order to meet these word count restrictions. Now, I have written the book I want to read. And, hopefully, my writing has improved thanks to editorial input from fiction editors I worked with while at Charisma.
My plan now is to publish the book under my own imprint and I am shooting for August or September so I will keep you posted.
Thanks again to Judy for a wonderful article.
Aliens in Disguise
Those who accept the authority of the Bible and embrace a Christian worldview take different positions on whether God might have created intelligent life on other planets. This question has been debated at least since Thomas Aquinas discussed it nine centuries ago.
Scholars who believe extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) physically exists see it as a display of God’s creativity and power. They argue that a God who so obviously enjoys creating, a God of unimaginable power, should not be expected to limit His creative expression to just one planet and its one species of spiritual beings.
Hugh Ross
In my post on May 14th I talked about UFOs and my fascination with them. In my last post I talked about the death of my future. Today, I want to talk about the death of evolution in my writing.
Let me explain.
I was ecstatic when I heard the announcement way back in 1986 that Gene Roddenberry was bringing a brand new version of Star Trek back to television. Star Trek: The Next Generation promised to fulfill all of my nerdy science fiction dreams. Granted, the first season was rocky thanks to a writer’s strike. But, the following seasons were profound. And, the best cliffhanger of all times in television occurred at the end of the third season when Captain Picard appeared on the Enterprise view screen and said, “I am Locutus of Borg”. Read the rest of this entry
The Wolves of Tomorrowland
I was examining the presents under our Christmas tree, anxiously wondering if my parents had gotten me what I had asked for Christmas when Erik Sevareid made a troubling announcement. I turned to our brand new color television and watched as the aging news anchor announced to the world that Walt Disney had died. It was Thursday, December 15, 1966. My heart sank and I collapsed in the middle of the floor. Uncle Walt was dead? How could this be?
And so it was that on that day, my future died.
I Want to Believe!
I’m old enough to say I totally geeked out over the X-Files television show back in the 90’s. In fact, I would put myself right up there with Spooky Mulder in saying, “I want to Believe!”. I grew up in the countryside outside of the tiny hamlet of Blanchard, Louisiana and my night skies were brilliant and clear. There were many nights I would take an old blanket out and place it on the ground, recline and just watch the stars go by. Many times, I would see meteorites falling to the Earth streaking across the sky in brief brilliance. I watched as satellites blinked and slowly made their way across the darkness. One night, in coordination with a broadcast on network television, I watched one of the Gemini spacecraft soar across the heavens, a tiny blinking white dot against the cosmos.
I yearned, I longed, I even prayed to see a UFO. Just once, I wanted a flying saucer to land on my front lawn. Back then, aliens were not quite as hostile in their fictional depiction. It was the age of Progress, a time enlightened by the success of the American space program. Our hope was the stars. Our future lay beyond the solar system. Star Trek promised a future Utopian society where racism, sexism, disease, hunger, and strife were a thing of the past. If we could only get out there! And, in our unyielding optimism, we knew that friendly, highly educated aliens were just waiting for us to mature to a level that could withstand the truth of their existence.
The Janitor
Here is the seventh entry from my upcoming booklet “Our Darkness, His Light”. These events would have historically occurred on Good Friday.
THE JANITOR
Matthew 27:51
Cletus pushed the broom across the worn tiles, straining to get at the blood. Skritch, skritch, skritch. A sound he had come to endure, repeated all day, every day for the last twenty years. My, how filthy the floor was. Especially after yesterday’s record crowd. Again, he scratched at the blood soaked deep into the mortar between the tiles. Black, aged, dried from years of shed blood, the tiles would never be clean. The blood could never be removed. It was there forever. And everyday, the people came, strewing dirt and straw and leaves across his carefully scrubbed floor. And every evening, he cleaned. Skritch, skritch, skritch.
The never ending pattern of his sweeping was well rehearsed. He could do it in his sleep. He always began in the back corner and ended up near the curtain. Today, he had been fortunate. The usual crowds were gone. The vast chamber empty. They were all out there, watching the show. He did not complain. It gave him the opportunity to finish his task earlier. Perhaps tonight, he would get home before sunset.
The Widow
Here is the sixth entry from my upcoming booklet, “Our Darkness, His Light”.
THE WIDOW
Luke 23:27-30
With a harsh, cruel motion of her hand, Ruth wiped the white paste across her face. She looked in the glass that mirrored her features. She adjusted the white paint on her face so that no skin showed. Ruth’s face looked lifeless. With another sudden movement, she pasted black across her lips. Her hands snaked into the pot before her and brought out ashes that she sprinkled in her hair. Ruth whirled in the darkness of her room and grabbed a black cloak from the wooden peg by the door. She settled it around her shoulders. Next, came a black shawl draped over her head. Ruth glanced in the glass once more and approved of the harsh, ghostly figure that stood before her. It looked dead.
“I’ll show them. They think that they are the best. They think that they can push me out because I’m a lonely widow. I can do as well as the rest of them. Just wait until they hear me, the old biddies.”
Ruth whirled in the shadows of her room and her white hand snaked out to open the doorway. Bright sunlight gushed in from the outside and she squinted in the light. She cast the black shawl over her face and stepped out into the dusty, hot streets of Jerusalem.
The Basin
This is the fifth entry from my upcoming booklet, “Our Darkness, His Light”.
THE BASIN
Matthew 27:24
Miriam awoke from a restless sleep to the voice of her mother calling. She quickly arose from the small pallet in the corner of the one-roomed hovel that she called home. Across the dim room she saw her mother’s figure huddled in the far corner on her own pallet. Early morning sunlight streamed through the slats of the wooden window and one pale beam cast its rays across her mother’s hair.
Miriam hurried across the room and knelt beside her mother. Her mother lay on her side, her face turned away from the center of the room. Miriam reached out to touch her face.
“Mother, you’re hot.” Her tiny voice echoed in the room. Her mother lay back and Miriam saw the beads of sweat that covered her face. She saw the stains where the sweat had soaked through the armpits.
“Miriam.” Her mother’s voice was weak. “I am ill. It is the fever. You must go and work for us today.”
Bruce Hennigan 
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