I’m happy to welcome Dr. Michele Williams. Today, Michele shares her new release, Gracefully Broken.

Blurb

This world is full of many offenses that we never could have imagined years ago, many are so deep in their troubles and worries that they believe that there is not a God that can heal them. But I’ve grown to learn and understand that God is sovereign, He is waiting with arms open and offering his grace to us. A woman in labor endures the pain and suffering of giving birth, but through this process brings forth a beautiful child. Although you may be a diamond in the rough when under pressure and being weighed down for a long period of time, the suffering will cease the end result is a beautiful stone that is brilliant and bright. The trials of your life are just a testimony for the glorious work that God is doing in you. Hold onto the faith, fight the good fight and don’t quit. This is the key to being Resilient.

Excerpt

Transformation is a process of removing the grave clothes of your past life. It takes time and work. Your character must change. You must be aware of wrong thinking patterns, wrong attitudes, wrong beliefs, deception, lies, and pointing the finger. In transformation, your appearance may change. You will start to see things in a different light. It is hard work. Remember the old saying, Rome was not built in a day.

We have lived most of our lives in our own crazy mindset, and now it is time to give it all up to a God you can’t see, or touch. This is faith, and it will take all of your energy, focus and will to change.

God is a God of love. He will guide you and lead you into His truth. It may be a struggle at first, but in time, change will come. There will be a renewing of your mind, and the desire of what you thought you wanted will no longer be what you want. Friends may fall away, family may fall away, but continue to stand. In time, your loved ones will see that all is well, and you will become a better person as you transition.

Author Bio and Links

Dr. Michele Williams currently serves as an ordained Evangelist under the leadership of Pastor Dr. Suzette M. Myles For His Glory Church Ministries in Hartford, Connecticut. She was baptized and received the Lord as her Savior in 1985 along with her son Michael at Little Zion Church of Christ in South Norwalk. She was ordained as an Evangelist in 2005. She is also a professor at North Carolina Bible Institute-New England. She attended Mattatuck Community College for two years and completed and graduated in 1983 with an Associate degree in Science from South Central now, Gateway Community College. In 2009 She received a Certificate of achievement from Side Street to Main Street 12 Business and Leadership Development Program. In 2012, she graduated with her Master’s degree in Biblical Studies, from Elohim Christian Center. In 2017, she received her Doctorate in Biblical Studies from NCBI-New England. The author is a retired worker from the State of Connecticut she served as a School Instructor after twenty-four and one half years of service. Evangelist Williams currently resides in East Hartford, Connecticut with her daughter and granddaughter. The author’s life experience is proof that she is a testimony of what God can do. Her love, commitment, and passion for others stem from her belief in Jesus Christ; she believes that there is nothing He can’t do. Delivered from drugs, alcohol, low self-esteem, rejection, abandonment, depression, and PTSD, she continues to walk in integrity as a servant of God as she matures into a virtuous woman. In this book, she discusses how you too can be made free. Discover the truth as you read and compare your life with those women in the Bible who have suffered in their time as much as women today, but found faith and strength.

Amazon Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Gracefully-Broken-Resilient-Woman-Tranquility/dp/1483438694

Giveaway

Michele Williams will be awarding a print copy of the book to a randomly drawn winner (US ONLY) via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Michele on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

I’m happy to welcome bestselling author Trixie Silvertale. Today, Trixie shares her new release, Rodeo Clowns and Shakedowns.

Blurb

Front row seats to murder. Thousands of eyewitnesses. Can our psychic sleuth trust her own eyes?

Mitzy Moon is loving life after the honeymoon. And as part of their agreement to try new things, she’s happily whooping it up at the local cowboy competition. But the newlyweds get roped into yet another investigation when their date night ends with a dead rodeo clown.

As her new husband’s history with the prime suspect’s wife tests all loyalties, Mitzy struggles to balance jealousy with keeping her man out of the hoosegow. And now she’ll need saddlebags of extra help from her mentor, Ghost-ma, and her entitled feline to unhorse the ruthless culprit.

Can Mitzy and Erick wrangle all the clues, or will spurious accusations bring a deadly showdown?

Rodeo Clowns and Shakedowns is the second book in the hilarious new paranormal cozy mystery series, Harper and Moon Investigations, a spinoff from the popular Mitzy Moon Mysteries. If you like snarky heroines, supernatural intrigue, and a dash of romance, then you’ll love Trixie Silvertale’s bucking brainteaser.

Buy Rodeo Clowns and Shakedowns to lasso a killer today!

Excerpt

“GET IT OFF ME!” I swipe the snake to the floor, step as far away as possible, and continue to flail my hands and shiver.

Ghost-ma floats down to the motionless reptile and shakes her head. “Just an old rubber snake from the toy basket in the children’s section, Mitzy.” She reaches an ethereal hand toward Pyewacket and raises one finger. “You shouldn’t torment your best human, Mr. Cuddlekins.”

With the welcome knowledge that a live snake is not slithering around my closet, I return to the bench. “Yeah, what she said, Pye. I can’t put up with feline shenanigans and keep ghosts out of my head before a proper cup of coffee!”

Grams chuckles as she continues to rifle through the closet. “Don’t blame me, dear. I honestly thought you said it out loud because I wasn’t watching your lips. I was hard at work finding the perfect outfit for your first rodeo parade.”

“It will be the rodeo parade I missed, if you don’t pick something soon! Erick just sent me another text. The marching band is warming up. Yeesh! Pick something! Anything!”

“Reeeee-ow.” A warning.

“Look, you’ve even got Pyewacket concerned. He’d hate for me to stand up Detective Harper. You know Pye’s all Team Erick, now.”

Ghost-ma and I share a giggle, and I stretch out my arm to scratch the broad tan head of my furry overlord. Along with this bookstore, a swanky apartment, and a healthy monetary inheritance, my grandmother passed on her most precious possession: Robin Pyewacket Goodfellow.

Pye is a half-wild caracal …

CONTINUE READING HERE: https://readerlinks.com/l/3460643

Author Bio and Links

USA TODAY Bestselling author Trixie Silvertale grew up reading an endless supply of Lilian Jackson Braun, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew novels. She loves the amateur sleuths in cozy mysteries and obsesses about all things paranormal. Those two passions unite in her Mitzy Moon Mysteries and Harper and Moon Investigations, and she’s thrilled to write them and share them with you.

Website | Amazon Author Page | BookBub | Instagram | Facebook | Buy Link

Giveaway

Trixie Silvertale will be awarding a $75 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Trixie on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

I’m happy to welcome author Drema Deòraich. Today, Drema, shares her debut novel, Entheóphage.

Blurb

Dr. Isobel Fallon thinks she’s found a treatment that will help her son and others suffering from Milani Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder. What she doesn’t realize is that harvesting the source of this treatment in the only accessible place on earth it grows, a coral reef in the Nlaan Islands, is going to have consequences far beyond the disruption of the fragile ecosystem on one small reef.

CDC researcher Nadine Parker and her team are baffled. Lukas Behn’s daughter Kyndra has contracted a bizarre new virus that leaves her screaming in pain. But they can’t identify any physical, biological source for that pain, not in Kyndra, nor in the dozens, then hundreds, and finally millions of children worldwide succumbing to the same virus. And no one seems to have made a connection between what’s happening with the infected children and the events on a small coral reef in the South Pacific.

Eventually, Nadine has to face the unlikely truth, and the enormous implications of it. The children aren’t sick. They’re changing. But will anyone else believe her?

Excerpt

Mitch grunted acknowledgment. “First off, your official designation for this virus is Novel Juvenile Cerebral Bacteriophage or NJCB.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Nadine said. “Let’s go with NJace.”

“Whatever you say. Good idea, I suppose, since we’ll be saying it a lot more in the coming days.” He hesitated. “This thing isn’t contained in Austin anymore.”

“Yeah, I saw on the news that the chickens got out of the coop. Texas, Idaho, where else?”

“Virginia and New York, cases that all match the working case definition.”

“Any luck in contact tracing?”

“Not yet. Tracking programs blew normal expectations all to hell. That initial case in Idaho—NJace’s first appearance outside Texas—had no exposure we can find to an infected kid from Texas. But at least that supports the argument that it isn’t airborne, which is a good thing.”

“Yeah. It’s already bad. Rhue Children’s Hospital discharged most of their non-critical cases and sent the patients home with medicines and a list of instructions on how to recuperate on their own. Phage cases are being lodged in every available room and Rhue staff even reached out to non-pediatric hospitals in the city looking for more space for future cases.” Nadine pinched the bridge of her nose. “If we don’t figure out how the dang bug’s getting around, stopping its spread is gonna be harder than cracking a macadamia.”

Mitch listened in silence, which made her twitchy.

“What else you got?” she asked.

He sighed. “The Department of Homeland Security is treating this as a possible terrorist attack.”

Buy Links

Paperback | Ebook

Author Bio and Links

Drema Deòraich is a writer of speculative fiction that asks big questions. Her short stories have been published in numerous online journals, as well as a few semi-professional zines. Her debut novel “Entheóphage,” a medical mystery/climate fiction novel released in October of 2022, has been nominated for the 2023 Ursula Le Guin prize. Drema is still hard at work on her science fantasy trilogy, “The Founder’s Seed,” with plans to release book one in late 2023.

When she isn’t writing, Drema helps her legal-eagle boss to save the world one case at a time, pets her husband’s cats, watches the starlings mob her birdfeeders, or spends time in Nature, surrounded by flora and fauna.

Author Website | Niveym Arts LLC | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Giveaway

Drema Deòraich will be awarding a $25 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Drema on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

I’m happy to welcome award-winning author C.W. Allen. Today, she shares her creative journey and new release, Tales of the Forgotten Founders.

Interview

What was your inspiration for this book?

I loved puzzle mysteries like The Westing Game as a kid, so the Falinnheim Chronicles series was my attempt to give something back to the genre I love. Anime adventures like Bleach inspired Falinnheim’s shape-shifting slipsteel inventions. Tales of the Forgotten Founders is the series conclusion, so I knew I wanted to wrap up all the mysteries and explain how the world got started—Louis Sachar’s novel Holes and Kate Milford’s fictional city of Nagspeake gave me the idea to present this foundation as a story-within-a-story that the readers could dig in to right alongside the characters. I knew even before I wrote the first book that the backstory involved the ancient library of Alexandria, but as I did more research in preparation for this third book I discovered that political leaders fighting for control actually led to the famous library’s downfall, not a fire or a war as I had imagined. That conversation about book banning is incredibly relevant for today’s readers, but that wasn’t a theme I intended to explore until I was halfway through writing Tales of the Forgotten Founders —it emerged organically as I researched the history of Alexandria.

Which authors have inspired you?

There are a bunch of middle grade writers I look to for inspiration. Some favorites from my childhood are Barbara Robinson, E.L. Konigsburg, Louis Sachar, and Ellen Raskin. I was a big Agatha Christie fan as a tween, but I think today’s kids have a lot more current and relevant mystery authors to choose from. I discovered modern inspirations when I started writing: Garth Nix, Trenton Lee Stewart, Kate Milford, and R.A. Spratt.

What is your favorite quote?

I have a few! The African proverb “The ax forgets, but the tree remembers” has a lot to say about understanding differences in perspective. As a writer, I appreciate this quote attributed to Earl Nightingale: “Never give up on a dream because of the time it will take. The time will pass anyway.” And the Swedish saying “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing” reminds me to take charge of my choices and make the most of whatever situation I find myself in.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

The single best thing I ever did for my writing career was to join a professional writing organization. There are tons of these to choose from, whether they cater to a specific genre of writing or bring together writers from your local region. The League of Utah Writers was incredibly helpful in connecting me with critique partners and creating opportunities to learn the ropes from writers who were further along in their career than I was. I’m now a League board member, where I try my best to pay the favor forward and share my experience with new writers. Writing can be a very solitary endeavor, but that doesn’t mean we have to do it alone. Find your people!

What are you working on next?

Tales of the Forgotten Founders is the Falinnheim series conclusion. My next book is slated for summer 2024, featuring a whole new world and cast of characters. Mellie Morton Is Not Imaginary takes characters from international mythology and forces them to live in the same neighborhood. I had an absolute blast getting to work with an evil tooth fairy, a mischievous Japanese fox-spirit, a West African spider librarian, a legendary Chinese warrior, and fourteen Icelandic Christmas ogres all in the same story. So even though Zed and Tuesday’s adventures are coming to an end, there’s lots of great stuff to look forward to in my next series!

Blurb

Zed and Tuesday ought to be living the good life. After all, it’s not every day two kids take down an evil dictator and their mom gets put in charge of an entire dimension. But after moving into Falinnheim’s palace, they learn that life as royalty isn’t as carefree as they’d imagined.

Mysterious hidden passages aren’t the only secrets lurking within the palace walls. When the siblings discover a stash of banned books, they realize everything they’ve been told about Falinnheim’s history might be a lie. And though contact between worlds has been cut off for centuries, returning home might not be as impossible as their parents claim.

Could the adventures of a runaway monk, a reluctant viking, a silent ambassador, and a rebel librarian hold the solutions to both problems? To find the truth, Tuesday and Zed will have to learn the stories of Falinnheim’s forgotten founders.

Excerpt

The tale of Cyril the Librarian begins with a library, a fire, and a daring plan.

This story is not about Cyril. But all stories are connected, just as all people are, so this is where we must begin. We’ll get to Selene in a minute.

Long, long before Cyril’s story began, a man named Alexander ruled the world. At least, that’s what Alexander decided to tell everyone. In reality, he didn’t even know about most of the world, let alone run it. But Alexander came from a long line of kings and was the student of a long line of philosophers and generals, each with their own roots in legendary tales of heroism and greatness. The only way young Alexander could see to take his place among their stories was to create one of his own. So when he’d finished taking over all the lands and kingdoms he knew about, he proclaimed those were all the lands that existed.

Alexander was an ambitious man, but not a terribly creative one, so the title he took to celebrate his achievements was simply Alexander the Great. (A better name than Alexander the Adequate, you must admit. But still—not the most original.) He became king of Macedon at the age of twenty, and by the age of thirty he was king of Greece, Babylon, Persia, and Egypt as well. And by the age of thirty-two, he was dead.

He was called Alexander the Great, not Alexander the Healthy and Long-lived.

This story is not about Alexander either.

Author Bio and Links

C.W. Allen is a Nebraskan by birth, a Texan by experience, a Hoosier by marriage, and a Utahn by geography. She knew she wanted to be a writer the moment she read The Westing Game at age twelve, but took a few detours along the way as a veterinary nurse, an appliance repair secretary, and a homeschool parent. She writes long stories for children and short stories for former children. When she’s not writing, she helps other writers hone their craft as a board member of the League of Utah Writers.

Her debut novel Relatively Normal Secrets is the winner of the Gold Quill Award, being named the best children’s book of the year by a Utah author. The Falinnheim Chronicles series continues with The Secret Benefits of Invisibility (Cinnabar Moth, 2022) and Tales of the Forgotten Founders (Cinnabar Moth, 2023). She also has shorter work published in numerous anthologies. Keep up with her latest projects at cwallenbooks.com.

Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Website | Newsletter Sign Up

Giveaway

C. W. Allen will be awarding a $10 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow the author on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

I’m happy to welcome software engineer, paramedic, and author Linda Naughton. Today, Linda shares her creative journey and new release, Blackout Trail.

Interview

What was your inspiration for this book?

I’ve always been a fan of disaster movies—Armageddon, Twister, and The Day After Tomorrow to name a few. William R. Forstchen’s novel One Second After introduced me to the EMP survival genre. An electromagnetic pulse takes down the power grid, leading to a complete collapse of society.

I really enjoyed those stories, but most of them (at that time, anyway) were about preppers or ex-military folks who were well-equipped for an apocalypse. I wanted to tell a story about regular people. People who were in over their heads and just trying to do the right thing in a world turned upside down.

What is the best part of being an author? The worst?

Knowing that a story you wrote resonated with someone is a great feeling. I write stories for myself first, but it’s gratifying to see others enjoying them too.

On the flip side, it’s nerve-wracking to put a book out there after pouring so much effort into it. Will anyone even read it? What if they all hate it? Accepting criticism is part of the job—you’ll never please everyone—but it can still provoke anxiety and imposter syndrome.

Which authors have inspired you?

As a kid, I read a lot of sci-fi stories by Robert Heinlein. I really loved his straightforward writing style and tightly written plots. I am also a huge fan of Jennifer Roberson, especially the Tiger and Del novels. She has a way of really getting into her characters’ heads and making them feel like three-dimensional people.

What is your favorite quote?

I’ve always liked this one from Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This resonates with me both as an engineer and a writer. Your first draft or first prototype isn’t the final destination. You just have to keep refining it until it’s right.

Besides writing and reading, what are some of your hobbies?

I’m a lifelong gamer. These days it’s mostly video games with my kids, but I’ll always have a soft spot for table-top role-playing games. My first paid writing gig was actually doing freelance work for the Shadowrun RPG.

What are you working on next?

I am currently working on the sequel to Blackout Trail. The first story stands alone (no cliffhangers here), but I get attached to my characters and feel like there are more stories to tell with them.

Blurb

Doctor Anna Hastings is no stranger to disasters, having spent much of her career as an aid worker in conflict zones around the world. Yet when an electrical phenomenon known as an EMP brings down the power grid, Anna faces catastrophe on a scale she never imagined. She must learn what it means to be a doctor in a world deprived of almost all technology.

As the blackout causes planes to fall from the sky, Anna crosses paths with devoted father Mark Ryan in the chaos at the airport. Mark convinces Anna to travel with him and his seven-year-old daughter Lily to their family’s cabin in remote Maine. There Mark hopes to reunite with his wife, and find a safe refuge from a society on the brink of collapse.

Journeying across a thousand miles of backcountry trails, they will face a daily struggle against nature. Their biggest peril, though, may come from their fellow survivors. As Anna grows closer to Mark and Lily, she resolves to see them safely home. But can she hold onto her humanity in a world gone mad?

Excerpt

I had just enough time to scoop Lily up and pull her to my chest before the wall of water hit us. I’d been knocked flat by ocean waves countless times before, but this was different. The wave hit low, sweeping my legs out from under me and then carrying us downstream. The shoreline zoomed by, branches and debris swirling all around us.

“Daddy!” Lily cried, squirming in search of Mark. I tightened my grip, fearful of seeing her swept away by the churning torrent of water. I couldn’t see him either. Hopefully he was just upstream from us, in my blind spot.

The creek didn’t seem that deep; I felt my leg smack against the rocky creek bed a few times. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t get my feet planted. The fast-moving current just bowled me right over every time. Once, we went under and came up sputtering. I worried that our backpacks would sink us, but Lily’s was small and mine surprisingly buoyant.

Over the roaring of the creek, I heard Lily cry out in terror. It was a heart-wrenching sound, but at least it told me she wasn’t drowning. I scanned the shore for something that we might be able to grab onto, but nothing came within reach.

“Anna!” Lily’s shrill cry caused me to snap my eyes forward. A tree had fallen across the stream, and we hurtled towards it.

“Hold on!” Her arms wrapped around my neck so tightly it almost choked me. When we were nearly upon the tree, I twisted my body sideways, trying to shield Lily from the impact.

Buy Links

Amazon | Paperback (wide)

Author Bio and Links

Linda Naughton has been writing stories for as long as she can remember. She is the author of several novels, children’s books, and the blog Self-Rescuing Princesses. A proud geek and gamer girl, she enjoys sci-fi, disaster movies, and role-playing games. She is a software engineer, paramedic, and mother of two.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Giveaway

Linda Naughton will be awarding a $15 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Linda on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

I’m happy to welcome USA Today bestselling author Darcy Burke. Today, Darcy shares her new release, Matching the Marquess.

Blurb

Benjamin Nash, Marquess of Creslow, must marry, for he is the last of the family line. Desirous of a business arrangement instead of a love match, he hires a matchmaker, but on the way to the May Day festival where he will meet her, as well as his matches, he encounters an alluring lady who may suit him perfectly…

After her husband’s death left her a pauper, Rebecca Sweet relied on family for help and in return guided two of them to successful marriages. Engaged with her first real client, she plans to present him a gaggle of young ladies eager to wed. But when she realizes the marquess is the same dashing gentleman she met on the way to the festival, the task becomes far more complicated. Attraction simmers between them, however Nash wants a loveless marriage and Rebecca would only wed again for love. She must find him a bride before she loses her heart forever.

Excerpt

The swarm of young ladies was trying even Nash’s patience. He could typically charm and flirt all night long. Doing so, in fact, was what he was known for. But this unfettered and unabashed attention by so many directed completely at him was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. On the London Marriage Mart, or even in London outside of the Marriage Mart, people were much more discreet with their attention. Usually.

Apparently, it didn’t matter that he’d tried to make himself less attractive. He hadn’t helped himself by being gregarious at first, but now he stood with his arms crossed in an attempt to keep the masses away. It still wasn’t enough. He set his lips into a deep frown.

“What’s wrong, my lord?” asked a fresh-faced young lady with round brown eyes.

Before he could grunt in response, Mrs. Sweet arrived outside the press. Their gazes met, and he sent her a silent plea. She threaded her way through the young ladies, tilting her head this way and that as she murmured things he couldn’t hear. He could only see her lips move. And what lovely lips they were.

When she at last reached him, she gave the young ladies a bright smile. “Forgive us, but Lord Creslow is due to speak with someone.” She clutched his arm and guided him through the throng.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I was growing most desperate.”

She steered him out of the ballroom and into an antechamber where refreshments were laid out on tables. “I could see that.”

“There were just so many of them. I’m slightly embarrassed. Typically, I can hold my own. However, I’ve never been beset like that. I’m used to some decorum in London.”

“You are not in London, as you’ve learned.”

Author Bio and Links

USA Today Bestselling Author Darcy Burke loves history, her family, and cats (not in that in that order). She’s published over fifty captivating, compelling historical and contemporary romance novels and novellas. It all started with The Magic Swan when she was 11 years old, a happily ever after about a swan addicted to magic and the female swan who loved him—with exceedingly poor illustrations. She still has plenty of ideas and writes (it seems) constantly in between hanging with her family, playing games, listening to the Dave Matthews Band, bingeing period TV shows, and chilling with her seven rescue cats. Join her Reader Club at https://www.darcyburke.com/join.

Facebook: Darcyburkefans | Facebook Group: DarcysDuchesses | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter | Goodreads | BookBub

Giveaway

Darcy Burke will be awarding the first two books in the Wicked Dukes Club series (One Night for Seduction and One Night of Surrender) – US winner’s choice of ebook or print, and international winner ebook only, to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Darcy on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

I’m happy to welcome award-winning linguist and author Vyvyan Evans. Today, Vyvyan shares his creative journey and new release, The Babel Apocalypse.

Interview

What was your inspiration for this book?

The Babel Apocalypse imagines a future in which we stream language directly to neural implants in our heads.

Today, we stream anything from movies, to books, to music, to our ‘smart’ devices, and consume that content. Smart devices use streaming signals—data encoded in IP data packets—encoded and distributed via wi-fi internet. Language streaming would work, in principle, in the same way. With a ‘language chip’ implanted in our brains, we will be able to ‘stream’ language from internet-in-space on demand, 24/7.

Moreover, based on an individual’s level of subscription to a language streaming provider, they would be able to stream any language they chose, with any level of lexical complexity. This means that someone could, potentially, apply for a job in any country in the world, without needing to be concerned about knowing the local language. Rather, the individual would just draw upon the words and grammar they need, to function in the language, by syncing to a language database, stored on a server in space. And call it up, over the internet, in real time, as they think and talk. It means that everything someone needs to know, to be able to use a language, is streamed over the internet, rather than being stored in someone’s head. Language learning, thus, becomes obsolete.

I have a research background in linguistics and cognitive science, with a PhD in linguistics, and having worked for many years as a professor of linguistics. Over the years it increasingly struck me, what if language were no longer learned but streamed. The rise of intelligent AI and ChatGPT makes there seem more plausible. And the technology is currently being developed, to make neural implants for humans possible, to create a so-called “transhuman”.

I wrote The Babel Apocalypse because, in the near future, such developments may even put language under threat. Hence, the inspiration for the book was that it should serve as a warning: when we lose language we all lose.

What is the best part of being an author? The worst?

The best part of being an author is the writing. And that’s also the worst part. But the hardest part is the marketing that follows the writing.

Which authors have inspired you?

Given I am a trained linguist, there are two books, by two quite different authors that have inspired me. Both these books ingeniously explored the impact of language on how we think and experience (illustrated through the conceit of a protagonist learning an entirely new, and alien, language).

The first, Babel-17 is by Samuel R. Delany. It was first published in 1966 and was joint winner of the Nebula Award for best novel in 1967.

The eponymous Babel-17 is a language that alters the perceptions and worldview of any who speak it. This is a conceit that draws upon the principle of linguistic relativity.

Linguistic Relativity holds that divergence in the grammatical organization and lexical structure of the language we speak alters the habitual perception of the world around us, even dramatically changing how we think. As an example, we now know that the brains of Greek speakers perceive certain colours differently from speakers of English because of how Greek labels for colour divide up the colour spectrum. This is an unconscious consequence of speaking Greek versus English.

In the novel, Babel-17 is the language spoken by Invaders, as they wage an interstellar war against the Alliance. The novel’s protagonist, Rydra Wong, is a linguist and cryptographer who possesses a rare ability to learn languages. She is recruited by the Alliance to try and decode the language of the invaders, Babel-17, to uncover clues for attack vectors.

Babel-17 is an exemplar of a very high-concept conceit. When Delany was writing the novel, linguistic relativity was still only a hypothesis, first dubbed the Spair-Whorf hypothesis in 1954.

Delany asks a classic ‘what if’ question: What if the language we speak fundamentally changes the way we see the world, the way we feel, our belief systems, the way we act? Babel-17 then explores the logical, and extreme consequences of this proposition.

In the novel, as Rydra Wong learns the strange, alien tongue, she starts to see the world, and think as the invaders do. And the consequence is that she starts to become one of them. She ultimately betrays her own command and her government, acting as an agent of the Invaders.

And in this way, Delany shows that in the context of warfare, when the notion of linguistic relativity is taken to its logical extreme, language can serve as the most powerful weapon of all.

The second is the novella, Story of Your Life, written by Ted Chiang and first published in 1998. This story was subsequently adapted as the major motion picture Arrival.

Again, this story features a linguist as its main protagonist, Dr. Louise Banks. The story involves Banks narrating the events that led to the arrival of her new-born daughter. In so doing, she explains how her work, translating the language of the alien Heptapod species, led her to understanding time in a new way, where she could perceive her past and future simultaneously.

The consequence is that as learning a new (alien) language transforms thought, the novella explores issues relating to linguistic relativity, determinism and freewill.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Hone your craft, be consistent in setting writing goals, never give-up, rejection is part of the process. And finally, no one ever wrote a masterpiece in one go. It takes time, sometimes years, to get a manuscript right—be kind to yourself during this process. Everything is a learning opportunity.

What are you working on next?

The Babel Apocalypse is the first instalment in the Songs of the Sage book series. There are six projected books in the series which, in increasing turns, examine the role and nature of language, and communication. The thematic premise is that, in the wrong hands, language can serve as a weapon of mass destruction. This overarching motif is explored, across the six books, both from Earth-bound and galaxies-wide bases.

As language involves symbol use and processing, the book series, perhaps naturally, also dwells on other aspects of human imagination and symbolic behaviour, including religious experience and belief systems, themselves made possible by language.

The second book in the series, The Dark Court, is set five years after the events of the great language outage depicted in The Babel Apocalypse. It explores how the language chips in people’s heads can themselves be hacked, leading to a global insomnia pandemic. The Dark Court will be published in 2024, as book 2 in the series.

Blurb

Language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants regulated by lang-laws. Those who can’t afford language streaming services are feral, living on the fringes of society. Big tech corporations control language, the world’s most valuable commodity.

But when a massive cyberattack causes a global language outage, catastrophe looms.

Europol detective Emyr Morgan is assigned to the case. His prime suspect is Professor Ebba Black, the last native speaker of language in the automated world, and leader of the Babel cyberterrorist organization. But Emyr soon learns that in a world of corporate power, where those who control language control everything, all is not as it seems.

As he and Ebba collide, Emyr faces an existential dilemma between loyalty and betrayal, when everything he once believed in is called into question. To prevent the imminent collapse of civilization and a global war between the great federations, he must figure out friend from foe—his life depends on it. And with the odds stacked against him, he must find a way to stop the Babel Apocalypse.

Excerpt

Ebba was all too aware that she was viewed as an anomaly by pretty much everyone; she was neither feral nor out-soc. So, some of her students—especially those from outside the Republic, such as the Grand Union, and other places too—thought she must be breaking the law. It was a common misconception. She had even once been reported to the authorities by one of those types. For being an unchipped ghost, as they called her. That made her laugh; a dark laugh at the irony of it. The mutes, she called them. Those who had been fitted with Universal Grammar tech.

But while she officially resided in the Nordic Republic, and as long as she remained there, Ebba wasn’t doing anything illegal. The Republic was something of a curiosity even among Tier One states, never having passed a lang-law. Yet this singular absence was offset by the special requirements of Nordic birth licenses. To have one granted, prospective parents had to consent to their newborn being fitted with Universal Grammar tech. So everyone got a language chip at birth anyway, together with an ear implant transceiver. Which meant that voice command tech was, for all intents and purposes, de rigueur even without a lang-law. But that was the Scandinavian way. In the Nordic Republic, they organized freedom.

For her part, Ebba knew it wasn’t her. It was everyone else who had the problem. “That’s what you would think,” her braver, typically male students told her. “You’re Ebba Black.” Ha! Whatever that means. How do they know what Ebba Black would think anyway?

Author Bio and Links

Dr. Vyvyan Evans is a native of Chester, England. He holds a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a Professor of Linguistics. He has published numerous acclaimed popular science and technical books on language and linguistics. His popular science essays and articles have appeared in numerous venues including ‘The Guardian’, ‘Psychology Today’, ‘New York Post’, ‘New Scientist’, ‘Newsweek’ and ‘The New Republic’. His award-winning writing focuses, in one way or another, on the nature of language and mind, the impact of technology on language, and the future of communication. His science fiction work explores the status of language and digital communication technology as potential weapons of mass destruction.

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The Babel Apocalypse earned a starred review in Kirkus: “A perfect fusion of SF, thriller, and mystery—smart speculative fiction at its very best.”

The full review is here.

Giveaway

The author will be awarding a physical paperback copy of the book (available internationally) to a randomly drawn commenter. Find out more here.

Follow the author on the rest of his Goddess Fish tour here.