Share the World We Write In

Tracks in the Sand

My husband, Frank, is a science fiction writer who created the League of Planetary Systems. As I got involved with editing Frank’s books, I found I really enjoyed the species and characters he was creating. The League, as we call it, is a rich, diverse universe with many planets and species. I was hooked.

At the time, I was writing what I guess you could call traditional earth-based stories in a few different genres. I think Frank thought I was crazy when I asked if he would mind if I wrote some stories using his universe and characters. I hoped my books would expand on what he was already doing and not detract from it.

My classic cozy mystery series, Galactic Cruise Lines, is set on a spaceship cruising to various planets in the League carrying staff and passengers from around the League. Some of the character interactions. These are classic cozies with a touch of humor, a bit of romance, and a lot of characters who aren’t from Earth.

We have insectoid species, felenoids species, and elves. It’s great fun to write in the League. I’ve also tried my hand a writing clean, wholesome romance set in the League. I’d like to think of it as “aliens need love to.”

A lot of writers were surprised that we could share the universe so easily. It really isn’t a problem for us. Both of us have added planets and species to the mix. I’ve written books like, Ciara in Warrior Women, in which the primary character is someone created by Frank. But it goes both ways. I found Ciara a mate, Clint Simms, who shows up in several of Frank’s books.

We share our writing hobby, so sharing the universe seemed natural, though it can lead to some strange questions.  Sometimes when we’re out to dinner, I’ll ask, “Can a Degrebian mate with a Canuran?” We get some strange looks from our fellow dinners.

Sharing is the reason I write. I want to share my stories with readers because in the end…

It’s all about the tale.

Jo Carey

Price Drop

Now available for US$0.99

Vendetta (Olly versus the Mechanoids Book1)

A 21st century getaway driver from New York City, finds himself drafted by Area 51 to drive an alien spacecraft. After surviving a space battle with another alien ship, he finds himself waking up 200 years in the future. Now, the real adventure begins.

If you like tech-heavy sci-fi and adventure, you'll love the first book in Frank Carey's Olly versus the Mechaniods series. Don't wait 200 years to enjoy it.

Hot and Cold (Love on Ice Book 1)

Aliens need love too even those with enough money to buy their own moon. He’s the tall, dark, handsome, mega-rich industrialist from Rhanna, and she’s the beautiful, translucent-skinned, fair-haired, ice climber. Can he convince her that he’s the man for her or will Ice chill the heat between them?

Welcome to Ice, the flash-frozen third moon of the planet Zavaroff. Ice has been developed as a resort focused on Ice related activities—ice climbing, ice skiing, ice sled racing. The resort and village are completely enclosed for the comfort of Ice’s citizens and visitors. Step through the Erdexi Transport Sphere and meet the people who live, work, and fall in love on Ice.

Hot and Cold is the first book in a series of short sweet science fiction romance novels--Love on Ice. If you like romance stories set in a future world populated by humans and quirky alien species, you’ll enjoy Love on Ice.

Searching for Love (Ice Search ad Rescue Book 1)

Sometimes what you’re searching for finds you.

Rashani has a problem—too many terrific guys and too little time. She’s trying to figure out if she has a real love connection with any of her teammates on the Ice Search and Rescue Team. Just when she started to narrow down the field, there’s a new entry to consider.

Dr. Drake Stoker loves Trixie, the genetically-engineered polmund who was literally made for search and rescue situations in extreme cold weather. The Venlanten scientist never has trouble finding a date, but he may have found his true love on Ice. Now, he has to convince her that he’s sticking around.

When Dr. Drake joins the Ice Search and Rescue team to find one of their own, he may have found just what he didn’t know he needed.

Welcome to Ice, the flash-frozen third moon of the planet Zavaroff. Ice has been developed as a resort focused on Ice related activities—ice climbing, ice skiing, ice sled racing. The resort and village are completely enclosed for the comfort of Ice’s citizens and visitors. Step through the Erdexi transport sphere and meet the people who live, work, and fall in love on Ice.

Searching for Love is the first book in Jo Carey's Ice Search and Rescue series.

Two of My Favorite Books

Pens in a Cup

Two of my favorite books on writing are Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline by Dean Wesley Smith and Relaunch your Novel: Breathe Life into Your Backlist by Chris Fox.

Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline helped me break free of the guilt I felt for not using an outline when I wrote. Trust me, I’ve tried to write a novel by first outlining it, but in the end, I abandoned the outline at the first step and never looked back. After reading this book, I felt it was OK not to outline, but to fly by the seat of my pants. Now, I pants all my stories and I’m OK with that.

Relaunch Your Novel is another of my favorite books. It outlines how one can relaunch one’s backlist and possibly increase sales. This book is what led to my breaking up of several ponderous collections into more manageable works. It also led to my rediscovering my love for shorter works such as novellas and novelettes.

Another aspect of writing that was revealed to me by reading these books is that going back and fixing a title is OK as long as you let readers know the book is relaunch of a previously published work. When Jo and I were going through our catalog, we not only fixed grammatical errors, we also changed plot points in certain cases and gave the works new titles and cover art, again alerting the reader that these were previously published works. Now, you may disagree. You may think that once written, a story should never change. That is your prerogative as it’s my prerogative to think otherwise. We can agree to disagree and that’s OK with me.

Frank Carey

Newly Rereleased

The "Olly versus the Mechanoids" 3-book series has been rereleased with new covers and product descriptions:

Vendetta (Olly versus the Mechanoids Book 1)

A 21st century getaway driver from New York City, finds himself drafted by Area 51 to drive an alien spacecraft. After surviving a space battle with another alien ship, he finds himself waking up 200 years in the future. Now, the real adventure begins.

If you like tech-heavy sci-fi and adventure, you'll love the first book in Frank Carey's Olly versus the Mechaniods series. Don't wait 200 years to enjoy it.

Machinations (Olly versus the Mechanoids Book 2)

The Mechanoid Iona is back, but this time she has the evil mad scientist Dr. Zoe Muntz with her. Now Olly must face the ultimate danger from his past while stopping their nefarious plans.

If you like tech-heavy sci-fi and adventure, you'll love the second book in Frank Carey's Olly versus the Mechaniods series. Don't wait 200 years to enjoy it.

Endgame (Olly versus the Mechanoids Book 3)

Caught in the middle of the family squabble to end all family squables, our hero, Olly, must travel to the Omega Nebula and the home of the Mechanoids to face his greatest challenge while stopping Doctor Zoe Muntz before it's too late.

If you like tech-heavy sci-fi and adventure, you'll love the third and final book in Frank Carey's Olly versus the Mechaniods series. Don't wait 200 years to enjoy it.

New Releases

Newly released on Amazon.com. Available soon on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Scribd, and other retailers:

Island Terror by Jo Carey

In this classic creature story, Dr. Gina Talbot is a Komodo dragon expert who is desperate for a chance to observe a population of the giant lizards in the wild. When she gets wind of an undiscovered population of the lizards on an atoll off Hawaii, she has to see it for herself. Will she and her team survive the Island Terror?

Phantom Star Cruiser (Alliance Chronicles Book 7) by Frank Carey

A missing ship, a cranky first officer, and an intercom in the shower. What's a girl to do? Its another typical day in the life of Captain Aurora Clandish until her past catches up with her. With help from Lord Gregory Alabaster and his Alliance, Captain Clandish must face a 200-year-old enemy from her past and stop its reign of terror.

Setting

Desert Snow

Someone asked me how I choose the settings for my books. They weren’t impressed with my answer. Although setting is key element in many of my stories, I don’t really have a process for choosing where a story is set. The setting comes to me as part of the story idea, and I run with it. I don’t start with a story idea and think about different settings where it could take place.

Cryptid Ops was the first series I wrote and each of those books is set in a very specific and unique environment that contributes to the story in the same way a supporting character would.  The first book in that series, Thunderbird, is set in the desert outside Las Cruces, New Mexico. Frank and I lived there for a few years and spent a lot of time exploring the Chihuahuan desert. Book 2, Black Fly, is set in the Connecticut Lakes area of extreme northern New Hampshire. It’s another environment I had a personal relationship with.

I have two series that are set on the frozen moon of a planet in our League of Planetary systems. The unique setting could be seen as a limiting factor or constraint, but I find it interesting to come up with ways for people to lead pretty normal lives in such an alien environment. Of course, maybe it helps that the “people” are aliens.

Some of my settings are completely fictional with no basis in reality like ICE or the setting for Progression which is inside an asteroid. Some are fictional but are composites of places we’ve lived or visited. Hairy’s Cryptid Café is set in a very small town in Montana. I’ve lived in a very small town at two different points in my life. That experience helps me shape my version of life in the fictional Wilkins’ Gap, Idaho.

In my adult life, I’ve lived in a lot of different places. My mom used to say that I didn’t vacation I just moved. I think my gypsy spirit has given me a good foundation to create settings for my books that readers will enjoy visiting.

Whether you like stores set in the mountains or cities or on other planets, in the end…
It’s all about the tale.

Jo Carey

Coffee

Coffee

I'm a coffee addict. There, I said it and I meant it. I love coffee. I’ve loved good coffee since I was first introduced to French roast in Seattle in the late 90s. My God, they handed that stuff out for free in the hotel lobby and I nearly drank it from the urn once I got a taste of it. It’s been twenty years and I’m still searching for that taste, that aroma I miss so much.

Coffee is made from roasting the seeds of the coffee plant. They’re removed from the plant’s berries, dried, roasted, then ground into a powder. The drink we know as coffee is created by passing water through the ground coffee, extracting the flavor oils. This is, of course, the short form of what happens. The full version is an art that takes skill and practice to achieve perfection.

Once, years ago, I tried my hand at roasting and grinding green coffee beans. I remember placing the beans into a fluidized-bed air roaster and flipping the power on. Once the beans were the right color, I shut it off, ground the beans, and made coffee. It wasn’t bad. Heck, I may even try it again.

One final thing I found. Vacuum-insulated container storage of coffee is a heck of a lot better than keeping it on a heater. Heater coffee gets bitter as the oils break down over time. Really, the best bet is to make enough coffee to drink while it’s still hot, but if one must store, use a vacuum-insulated container. It works better. Of course, mileage may vary, so use wisely.

Frank Carey

New Releases

Two new releases:

Volcano Terror by Jo Carey

Monitoring an active volcano on a deserted South Pacific island is stressful. Dr. Lewis wonders if things can get worse, when his ex-fiancé shows up to lead a biology study on the island. Those dangers pale in comparison to that posed by a unique creature fleeing the impending eruption.

Dark of Space (Alliance Chronicles Book 6) by Frank Carey

Captain Jacob Morley already had his hands full running his freighter, mentoring Urania, muse daughter of the immortal Zeus, and keeping an eye on the flow of illicit artifacts through the sector. Now, with the help of Lord Gregory Alabaster and his Alliance, Jacob must stop the genocide of a race of xenophobes before it's too late.