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GENRE: SciFi
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BLURB:
A PSYCHO-CRIMINAL EXTRATERRESTRIAL ON A SUBURBAN CUL-DE-SAC
A FAMILY ON THE BRINK OF ALL-ENCOMPASSING INSOLVENCY
A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD UBER-GENIUS DAUGHTER IN THE LINE OF FIRE
CAN SHE SAVE THE FAMILY, NOT TO MENTION THE PLANET?
An extraterrestrial crashes into a suburban cul-de-sac Colonial, absorbs every binary bit of
information ever chronicled in all of human history, rearranges its molecules and presents itself
as a couple of late and legendary film noir superstars, then immediately displays an appetite for
debauchery, depravity, decadence, and destruction, seducing the family into its psychopathic
criminal orbit with irresistible Hollywood panache, alluring sexual charisma, and inconceivable
intergalactic powers.…all in the name of saving the family from their emotional, marital, and
financial ruin.
But uber-genius-daughter Mike Devine figures out fast that the extraterrestrial’s principal plan is
to employ its unfathomable interplanetary muscle and implode the planet. Which leaves the fate
of her family, not to mention the world, in her twelve-year-old hands.
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EXCERPT:
“That’s almost six trillion miles per year—a single light-year,” Mike said.
“So, if they travel at light speed, they should be here pretty soon,” Maggie said.
“Better make extra pancakes,” Connie said.
“That’s lame, Dad,” Danny said.
“It’s witty, son,” Connie said. “You’ll understand when you get older.”
“I hope not,” Danny said.
“Not too soon,” Mike said. “The distance from Earth to the edge of the universe in any direction
takes forty-six point five gigalight-years.”
“How many light years in a gigalight-year?” Connie said.
“A billion,” Mike said.
“What does that mean in Earth years?” Maggie said.
“Voyager 1, our most distant space probe, traveled fourteen light-hours, not even one light-day,
and that took thirty Earth years. So, it would take about twenty-two thousand Earth years to
travel the same distance light travels in one light-year. About one quadrillion and one hundred
two trillion Earth years to reach the edge of the universe.”
If that’s a question on the genius test, I wonder which part of the light-speed equation Mike will
only get ninety-two percent right, Maggie thought.
“What if they were coming from the closest galaxy?” Maggie said.
“Andromeda,” Mike said. “Twenty-five hundred Earth years.”
“Long time,” Maggie said, and she turned off her flashlight.
“The meteors should have been here by now,” Connie said.
“I saw something up there,” Maggie said.
But something up there had seen her and made a sharp turn toward Earth.
AUTHOR:
Rich Leder has been a working writer for more than three decades. His credits include eight
novels for Laugh Riot Press and 19 produced movies—television films for CBS, Lifetime, and
Hallmark and feature films for Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Longridge
Productions, and Left Bank Films.
He’s been the lead singer in a Detroit rock band, a restaurateur, a Little League coach, an indie
film director, a literacy tutor, a magazine editor, a screenwriting coach, a wedding consultant (it’s
true), a PTA board member, a HOA president, a commercial real estate agent, and a visiting
artist for the UNCW Film Studies Department, all of which, it turns out, was grist for the mill.
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GIVEAWAY
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