I stood in the middle of the pasture and looked up at a star filled night. Growing up on a farm out in the middle of Nowhere, Louisiana God gave me a gift I would not appreciate for years. Living so far away from city lights, every night sky gleamed and glittered with a celestial light show. I saw the Milky Way stretching across a sky filled with twinkling stars. Points of light moved across the expanse as satellites and spaceships soared in orbit. I lost count of the many falling stars. On this night, at the age of 11, I wanted one thing and one thing only. I wanted to meet Mr. Spock.

I grew up in the golden age of science fiction television: Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Lost in Space. At the age of 11, I was growing increasingly tired of the silly and overly dramatic Dr. Smith ruining every effort of the Robinson family to get home to Earth. Perhaps it was because of my growing maturity. Maybe it was because of my evolving ability to write stories.

In September, 1966 something life changing happened. I had seen commercials for this show and I decided to give it a try. Star Trek. The very first episode was about a salt vampire. Yes, there was that vampire angle again! But the story? Amazing! The characters? Riveting. I was hooked!

And now I waited, eyes fixed on the distant stars reaching out with my “Vulcan” mind meld to any alien life form flying by. Come by and pick me up! Take me to outer space!

Nothing happened. I wish I could say I have had a close encounter with a UFO, now a UAP, or an ET. This side of a movie or theme park ride, I haven’t. My fascination with these phenomena did not wane. And as part of my apologetic training, I had to ask the question, “Are we alone? If the universe is filled with life, why is it so silent?” These questions prompted me to write many potential science fiction novels. Naturally, I wanted to work one of these novels into “The Chronicles of Jonathan Steel” and “The 10th Demon: Children of the Bloodstone” was born. I recently re-edited the book mainly for grammatical errors and then created a new cover. Here is it is:

I have also taken “The 7th Demon” and “The 5th Demon” and combined them into one book. Both books were supposed to be in one volume but the pandemic interfered. I have now combined both books into one large book, “The Pandora Stone: Demons 7, 6, & 5”.

And to make life easier, I have combined all ten books into three volumes. “The Chronicles of Jonathan Steel Volume 1” contains “Demon 13”, “Demon 12”, and “Demon 11”. Volume 2 contains “The 10th Demon”, “The 9th Demon”, and “The 8th Demon”. Volume 3 contains “The Pandora Stone”, “The 4th Demon”, and “The 2nd Demon”.

Don’t forget, “Death By Darwin” is technically a prequel to the Chronicles and Ruth Martinez figures heavily in the last books. And Dr. Jack Merchant now has his own series “Shadow Merchant” and “Merchant of Justice.”

And now, the full reveal of the cover of the last book, “The 1st Demon: Imago Diaboli” which will be available as soon as the final cover is finished and the book is uploaded for distribution. I will post a blog announcing it!