Gingezel Series, Illustrated 2nd Edition with AI Art
There are excerpts and free chapters of each novel in its subpage here. You will find additional excerpts with some characters in the list of characters.
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Twelve years in the making, the Gingezel Series, is hard science fiction crafted by scientists for those adventurous at heart. Set in a time when human settlement has expanded beyond the galactic core, uneasy contact has been reestablished with the Farr Sector populated by immigrants from Terra in the first days of hyperspatial travel.
Dr. Mitra Kael, Power Systems Engineer, has spent three years pushing herself to the limit, building the prototype of her revolutionary hybrid reactor at the xenophobic Farrese mining colony on Drezvir. Unwinding with a holiday on the enigmatic pleasure planet Gingezel, her fate becomes entwined with Dr. Dreen Pendi, computer scientist, and his best friend Joran. They create an idyllic bubble in time, but reality slowly intrudes as secrets come out. Then suddenly Mitra is forced to face the consequences of her pushing the limit, a reactor overpower.
Life literally goes from bad to worse in a way that threatens the entire Drezvir colony as it is without power during a brutal red blizzard. Mitra is struggling to overcome crushing guilt. Desperate to find Mitra, Dreen is fighting hackers and supporting a musician friend who is out for revenge. Joran is reclaiming his place as pop superstar Anton, but he is still fighting the demons that forced him into hiding. Enter Chett Linderson, Dreen’s VP of Field Operations. The situation needs a hero, but is Chett that hero, or will he use the situation to achieve his own ends? Dreen trusts him, enough to give him power over his life, but is Dreen right?
United at last, Mitra and Dreen are facing manslaughter charges with a death penalty. Mitra must prove her prototype could not have overpowered. Dreen has to prove a quantum fault could not have corrupted his computer system. It can’t be done. Tranngol and his expert risk analysts are slowly eliminating other causes. And no one believes an Act of God.
Unless the accident wasn’t an accident. It becomes a hacker vs hacker battle against time, with unexpected allies and enemies that escalates into a confrontation between the Farr Sector and the Interplanetary Judiciary.
Join Dr. Mitra Kael on adventures where mysteries unravel and consequences are confronted. Cliffhangers.
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Gingezel 1: The Limit : There is a fine line between pushing the limits of technology and pushing your luck. Some people think Dr. Mitra Kael, power systems engineer, crossed that line with her new hybrid reactor installed on the remote mining planet Drezvir. Mitra doesn't agree and doesn't care. All she wants to do is never see Drezvir again. She’s headed for vacation on the ultimate pleasure planet Gingezel.
How much was she pushing her luck?
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Kael, what the hell were you doing wandering off like that?
“Kael, what the hell were you doing wandering off like that? Do you have any idea how hard it has been to trace you?”
“I’ve been on vacation, Ari. My first vacation in three years. Remember? I didn’t know I had to check in daily.” The only way to deal with Ari in this mood was to not back down a millimeter.
“Yeah, well we had to contact your family, then systematically go through all the hotels on Gingezel since you weren’t at the one they thought you were in.”
“Tough. You found me. So what’s worth the trouble?” If those idiots on Drezvir were having trouble with maintenance she was not helping out and that was that.
But Ari wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at someone else in the room with him.
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See the subpage for sample chapters of Gingezel 1: The Limit.
Dreen, Mitra, and Joran holidaying on Gingezel:
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Gingezel 2: Bad to Worse: It is always a mistake to say things can’t get worse. Dr. Mitra Kael is headed back to Drezvir to face the consequences of her reactor overpowering. Dr. Durstin Fallor, Chief Power Engineer on Drezvir, is struggling to save the mining colony in a red blizzard that just won’t quit. Dr. Dreen Pendi, CEO of Nemizcan Computing, thinks losing Mitra is a disaster until he hears the news from his friends who are lost in their personal hells. Chett Linderson, VP of Field Operations at Nemizcan, is the wild card in this hand.
When things go from bad to worse, does Chett have the strength to give up everything he has dreamed of and play the hero?
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Durstin Fallor could smell the stink of his own fear ...
Durstin Fallor could smell the stink of his own fear and feel the sweat running down his chest and back and thighs. It was a bad time to be sweating. Even with all of the equipment running in the room it was bitterly cold, and it was only going to get colder. Red blizzards on Drezvir only went from bad to worse. The last time there had been a chance to look outside visibility was zero again from the dust storm.
He remembered a professor once telling him that any crisis that lasted more than three or four hours wasn’t a crisis. It became normal operating conditions because the human body just couldn’t sustain an alarm state. The words had impressed him at the time, sitting in the security of a classroom. Now he could tell that professor he was wrong, dead wrong. Durstin was just as scared as he had been how long, how many lifetimes ago when the power went out?
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See the subpage for sample chapters of Gingezel 2: Bad to Worse
A red blizzard, Durstin, and the damaged reactor:
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Gingezel 3: Fault: How do you prove your complex system did not cause a deadly reactor accident? Mitra, Dreen, and a team of risk analysts are on Drezvir to find the cause. Ari is out to save himself. With hacker help Chett has vowed to destroy Ari. Joran is poised to return as galactic superstar. Are Dreen and Mitra together at last? That is challenged when terraformer C.C. appears with a secret from Dreen’s past, and a few of his own.
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“Where the hell is Azlo? That man is roughly at the bottom of my popularity list right now.”
“Good morning, Dreen. What are you working on?”
“Thinking about the most likely place for quantum effects to have corrupted a parameter. I can define what kind of corruption would go undetected, and what we and the vendor were doing in the area that could possibly have caused grief, but it will take Tina to tell us if it really could have happened.” He raised an inquiring eyebrow at Tranngol. “Any better idea when she’ll get here?”
“No. Thanks for reminding me though. I should try Andrai again.”
“You can save yourself the trouble.” Mitra was looking past Tranngol to the door at the far end of the shed.
“She’s here, and just offhand I’d say she’s not in a good mood.”
Tranngol turned, and Dreen stood up. Crossing the floor at a good pace was a fortyish woman with crisply curled black hair, pale skin, blue eyes, regular features, and a mouth that definitely was not smiling. It was a good thing no small animals were in her route to be kicked. Following in her wake, saying something, and looking more perturbed than any of them would have thought possible was Olan Rostin. Tina saw the group and headed for them.
“Mitra, Dreen, Tranngol.” She favored all of them with a brief nod, then focused on Tranngol.
“Where the hell is Azlo? That man is roughly at the bottom of my popularity list right now.”
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See the subpage for sample chapters of Gingezel 3: Fault
Dreen, a computer chip they are analyzing, and Mitra:
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Gingezel 4: Hacker: You grasp at straws when they are all you have to grasp at. Mechanical causes for the reactor accident on the remote mining planet Drezvir are being eliminated leaving Dreen and Mitra up for manslaughter charges for negligent design. Could the reactor control system have been hacked? The man who could have done it is on Drevzir. Suspicion is not proof and time is running out.
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Timing out is final
“We are timing out.” Chett unconsciously borrowed Dreen’s phrase. He gave them the details of Juttar’s call and Dreen’s decision to take full blame to protect Mitra and Nemizcan staff.
“It should work if he lies and says he deliberately withheld the quantum risks from Dellmaice, then misled the design team to think they had been discussed.” Chett didn’t like that at all, but Dreen had said shut up unless he wanted to keep him company in prison.
“But if the Farr Sector Judiciary exercises its right to invoke a death penalty, there’s no way to turn the clock back later when we get smart. Timing out is final.”
See the subpage for sample chapters of Gingezel 4: Hacker.
The hackers Brys and Vennbir:
A scene from Gingezel:
