authors Peter Rothman

“The Transhuman Overlords cloned me, brought my consciousness from virtual storage.”

Of course they did, that’s what transhuman overlords do.

The Pandoran Age Chronicles are a somewhat cheesy hard SF series with transhumanist elements H+ readers may enjoy!

The books combine genres including hard technology based SF space opera with robots, space ships, etc. transhumanism and mind bending Lovecraftian extradimensional horrors. The books also include computer generated imagery and a movie project is under development as well. Possibly not the greatest literary work of all time, however some interesting themes and transhumanist elements are explored. Check out the trailer and recently produced video below.

The Pandoran Age Chronicles

In the air car, the sunlight was beaming down on them. The landscape, like an artist’s canvas, spread far and wide detailing unfamiliar world. Vince sensed a bright joy-a lovely woman, a new adventure-and realized he was, in all reality, feeling a sense of life that was passing irrevocably into another era. Long ago, when he had been much younger, and had taken his first crew member-Roland Danski- onto the Sire, Roland had warned of dark days to come, that they were in a new era- an Age of Pandora. Here then, he thought, were the first scattered skirmishes of the Pandoran War.
Eras of long wars invariably redefine societies. The question here was not the redefinition, that would come as sure as the galaxy turns, but whether Humanity could survive at all. From somewhere he must find a way to keep joy alive inside his soul regardless of Hell-rides and smoking disasters. Without it he would surely fail. Whether a form of magic or madness, he would cling to joy. He knew from experience that the song of joy could sing from a sword as well as a harp.
For that morning, he chose to hear it in the sunlight on his face, the company of a beautiful woman, and flight. It would be fleeting, but he would find it and hold it wherever it might be in the storms of fury and confusion common to war.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Lisa asked with a smile.
Vince returned the smile, “Guitars, Cadillacs, and Hillbilly music.”

The Arcturian Colonials defined the aspects of their era more than any of the galaxy’s societies to that point; optimism, technology, and benevolent order. It shone in their architecture, which soared, their economies, which roared, and their sense of life with its easy freedoms. They achieved it without the all-encompassing grip of the Imperials and their Transhuman Overlords, the continual strife of the Oligarchies and Kingdoms, or the horrific mysticism of the Marauder Cult at the galactic core And then, there is War. Refugees form desperate communities in the Sagittarius Spiral Arm of the Galaxy-the Outworlders.

The Galaxy then is in the midst of a strange Dark Age. A young Outworlder smuggler chances upon a derelict starship. A psychic Historian empath sees visions in the ruins of a spaceport. A fleet General finds inexplicable deletions from deep space logs. An upscale Art Dealer wakes from a cyberspace sentence to find her sentience inserted into a clone of herself-a thousand years after convicted for spying- the authorities this time want her services on a mission, offering full pardon. Star Trade Guildsmen, Wildcat pilots, Transhuman Imperial Overlords ruling a hive mind, Syndicate Warlords-the usual suspects of Spacers and Art Deco androids. Hauling heavy-metal Star yachts through mysterious nebula, and dark Herculean stations-none of them expect to be pulled by fate into the center of an impending intergalalactic conflict seventy million years old, least of all with each other. Yet the haunting evidence of extradimensional beings has been mounting for centuries. Now they are arriving in force, and a divided humanity is ill prepared…

Tales from the Pandoran Age:

Rise of the Taloned Sire

A dark age hangs over Galactic civilization. Eleven centuries from the present day the Transhuman Overlords engage in a war with the organic colonies. Mankind’s stellar civilizations falter for a millennium. But the worst has only begun. Psychic and parasitic, entities of dark matter begin to reveal themselves-soul eating, macabre, and legion. Galvanized by the Transhuman’s horrific war, It has taken them the long centuries to cross the intergalactic void in number since the holocausts. They are hungry. A grim young smuggler must unravel the secrets the Transhumans are keeping from the galaxy. In a stolen battle frigate he assembles a crew. Hunted by the syndicate and bounty hunters, they barely hang on to their trade guild membership.

Transhuman Overlords, Fleet Generals, renegade war dogs; like flotsam in a tide they are all pulled toward a mysterious nebula to unlock a series of mysteries going back 63 million years when the Predecessor civilization mysteriously dissapeared…

The Pandoran War

4217 and a Galactic Dark Age hangs over humanity. A collection of rogues is our species only hope as extradimensional psychic vampires swarm the galaxy. Smugglers and psychics, spies and soldiers; pirates and madmen. Each finding their destiny lies in the thick of a war to save humanity from extinction.

In the air car, the sunlight was beaming down on them. The landscape, like an artist’s canvas, spread far and wide detailing unfamiliar world. Vince sensed a bright joy-a lovely woman, a new adventure-and realized he was, in all reality, feeling a sense of life that was passing irrevocably into another era. Long ago, when he had been much younger, and had taken his first crew member-Roland Danski- onto the Sire, Roland had warned of dark days to come, that they were in a new era- an Age of Pandora. Here then, he thought, were the first scattered skirmishes of the Pandoran War.

Eras of long wars invariably redefine societies. The question here was not the redefinition, that would come as sure as the galaxy turns, but whether Humanity could survive at all. From somewhere he must find a way to keep joy alive inside his soul regardless of Hell-rides and smoking disasters. Without it he would surely fail. Whether a form of magic or madness, he would cling to joy. He knew from experience that the song of joy could sing from a sword as well as a harp.
For that morning, he chose to hear it in the sunlight on his face, the company of a beautiful woman, and flight. It would be fleeting, but he would find it and hold it wherever it might be in the storms of fury and confusion common to war.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Lisa asked with a smile.

Vince returned the smile, “Guitars, Cadillacs, and Hillbilly music.”

(from http://www.pandoranage.com/index.php/books)

11 centuries from the present day Earth and Deneb 4 engage in a nuclear first strike, a holocaust, against the Arcturian Colonials, creating a dark age. Mankinds galactic civilizations falter for a millennium. But the worst has only begun. Psychic, parasitic entities of dark matter, galvanized by humanity’s horrific war, begin to reveal themselves-soul eating, macabre, and legion. It has taken them the long centuries to cross the intergalactic void in number since the holocausts. They are hungry.

4217. The Dark Galactic Age of Pandora:

THE PIRATE: Awaking with amnesia on a ship of his lost comrades.

THE GENERAL: Answering to a madman as they fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance.

THE SPY: Restored to a clone body after 1000 years, deep in a dark age she had fought to prevent.

THE PSYCHIC: Tormented with visions hinting at horrors to come.

THE SMUGGLERS: Thrown into the midst of a conflict beyond their ordinary means, a ragtag crew of misfits on whom the fate of the galaxy depends…

See pandoranage.com

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Snakes in the Cradle.

My name is Winteroud Sole and I am twelve standard Caldris years old. The name “Winteroud” was my father’s idea, an homage to my mother who was not born on Caldris, but on the far away world of Erial, which is always cold. He and my Mother met in college at the University world of Lux, where the NeoWrightians settled. I have never been to Erial, or Lux, but I have studied them both extensively on the hypercasts, and in the family computer libraries. Today the Royal Security detectives came and questioned me at length. I could feel their eagerness to know all about me, for I am an empath and that is a very special gift. Mother was furious, father somewhat proud actually, and I, well, I think Officer Hammerstein is a good egg.

I could feel Officer Hammerstein was deeply troubled over many things. A desperation has formed in his mind and he believes I may be able to help him sort out his most current sleuthing.

He is probably right, although I fear he doesn’t understand that it may kill him if we untangle this particular mystery. Him and many others.

I have always been an empath. Caldris is known for producing an abnormal number of us. Some say it is the massive amounts of heavy metals in the planet. Others say it is how the metals interact with complex fields which stream into the higher dimensions. I don’t know. I have always been this way and although my mind swarms with the impressions and feelings of others, I have not yet learned exactly what it means to be a human without empathic powers.