THE LAUNCHING OF THE COSMIC EXPRESS |
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© copyright Jim McPherson, 2003 |
PHANTACEA on the Web-- The Launch Serials -- |
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| PHANTACEA on the Web Main Menu | Online PHANTACEA Primer | Ongoing PHANTACEA Features | Ordering Information | Serial Synopses | Contact | Web Publisher's Commentary | |
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Introductory Comment:If this is where you start your regular perusal of PHANTACEA on the Web, you might notice some changes. Previously as many as five story sequences have been serialized out here in Cyberia. Now there's a definite sixth, -- to go along with the two that are still progressing. Book IV of 'The Launching of the Cosmic
Express' Tetralogy, 'Helios on the Moon',
the not-at-all semi-solitary sequel of 'Centauri
Island', 'The War of the Apocalyptics',
and 'The Trigregos Gambit', is that
sixth. And, when it's done, there may not be any more! Fact is, Moon not only concludes the four Launch Serials, it ends all of them. As well as itself! How can that be? Easy. Turns out the endings of the other three books are just semi-significant chapters leading up to Moon's ultimate ending. Got that? Good. Actually I shouldn't be such a tease. As good as Moon is, it's not that bad. Needless to say, there's always more. Simply no end to PHANTACEA on the Web is there? And why should there be? Endings are just new beginnings after all. Even when Moon ends -- maybe before it does -- I'll be mounting 'Ringleader's Revenge', a stand-alone prequel to Island, Gambit & Moon on the Web. And after that? Put it this way: given the opportunity I'll still be writing PHANTACEA well after the start of the next millennium. The one after 2001 AD! Usual point being, you may or may not have been following all three of the initial installments of the Launch serials. In fact, you may only be following this page and its synoptic attachments. Which would make you a bit of chapter cheater! So, why not download and/or print up each installment as it appears and read it at your leisure? Better yet order your favourite series and get the (latest) completed version on disk. Enough the commercial plug. You can go straight to the full body of this page, the really old stuff of Moloch and War, the still on-going stuff of Island and Gambit, or Moon, the related, relative newcomer. In other words, you can bop over to the story sequence that appeals to you the most. From wherever that is you can leap to synopses of the chapters you may have missed, -- not that the most recent installments of each segment of the PHANTACEA Mythos will always be synopsized by then. Don't want make things too easy for you, do I? Oh yeah, before I forget, what's Thalassa D'Angelo's altered image still doing up here now that 'The War of the Apocalyptics' is long over? Turns out, first of all, Sea's about to turn up in Island as a featured character and, second of all, her siblings are going to turn up eventually in Moon. (Her siblings, it should be noted, at least according to some.) Besides, given some of PHANTACEA's ever-revolving cast of usual suspects, who's to say her last name doesn't refer to 'of the fallen angels' variety anyhow? Certainly not me! |
CENTAURI ISLAND-- The Web Serial --'The Worldwide Order with the Right to Life and Death' thinks it has destroyed the Cosmic Express. Its next task is the destruction of Alpha Centauri's Island. But first WORLD wants its secrets. And its master scientists: Professor Romaine Kinesis and Doctor Hiyati Samarand in particular. Daemonicus could care less about Centauri Island any more. Or the Worldwide Order, for that matter. The horrifying, shadow-cloaked, Satan-skinned, three-eyed wraith is quite prepared to unleash Sharkczar, Crystallion, Hell's Horsemen, and whatever else is on the Phantom Freighter floating, -- better make that flitting --, in and out of somehow nearby between-space with or without WORLD's cooperation! Who or what can stop them? The Menace on the Moon? Signal System? Supra-Clones? Loxus Abraham Ryne, the eighty year old head of SPACE, -- 'The Society for the Prevention of Alien Control of Earth'? A couple of middle-aged, newly-become supranormals named Doc Defiance and Mr. NoName? A twenty-seven year old who neither knows who his parents were nor what an AmoebaMan was? An obesity who knows far more than he should but is disinclined to share that knowledge with anyone, not even his own son? Or maybe, just maybe, a notorious little trickster who has been seven years old for something like sixty years! There are lots of other malicious forces at work in late November, early December, 1980 however, -- some neither of WORLD nor entirely of this world. To find out what they are, follow the saga of Abe Ryne, Rom Kinesis, Big Max Maxwell, Dolph Dulles, Alpha Centauri, Yataghan Sentalli, and Hush Mannering every month in 'Centauri Island'. |
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