Science Fiction and Adventure

Hi:

I'm Chris Berman and if you are reading this at my site for the first time, I am a first time science fiction author. 

A little about me:

I was born on Long Island at, the beginning of the "Space Race" between the US and the USSR.  Sputnik had been sent into orbit just a year earlier and the United States was playing catch up and would be for quite a few years.  When I was thirteen, my parents moved to Westchester, New York and it was here that I developed my love of astronomy.  Down the road from me was a man named Hyman Roche, who was a serious amature astronomer and telescope builder.  Joining him often for some night time observations was John Bortle, who became famous for discovering comets and wrote for Sky and Telescope magazine.  Between these two gentlemen and my love for science fiction (Star Trek was big then) I became a total space fanatic as well as a devourer of science fiction, reading everything "spacey" I could get my hands on from authors like Ben Bova, Arthur C. Clarke, Alan Dean Foster and others. 

Later, my parents moved again to Connecticut and I attended the University of New Haven. http://www.newhaven.edu/. I was a business major but never lost my love of science fiction, and in the course of things created havoc in my creative writing class because my writing was not "deep" and full of "hidden meanings".  It was what it was...entertainment.

I have been involved in sales and marketing since my graduation from college and I was married for nineteen years to a really wonderful woman.  We had two great girls but ten years ago, she passed away, a victim of a rare and deadly cancer.  Two years later, I met and married my second chance at happiness, Larisa Polyakova, from Ukraine.  She came equipped with a ten year old daughter (who is now in college) and we added to our family with little Sabrina, now age five.

Why I wrote The Hive:  I was riding my wife's bicycle and I was hit by a car while running an errand.  While I was recovering, I wanted to read a really exciting science fiction adventure story.  Not finding exactly what I wanted, I wrote my own.  It took about seventy days to complete and after about six weeks of sending queries to publishers, I got a contract from, Express Yourself Publishing http://www.xepressyourselfpublishing.org/   They offered to publish my work.  I wanted a classic Earth vs. / Aliens along with a romantic sub plot.  In the battle to save the world, aerospace engineer Colin Hewette of the United States and Marina Asamova of the Russian SETI program, find each other and fall in love.  The story is one of courage and strong values in the face overwhelming odds.  A lot of the action that takes place on Earth is in the former Soviet Union, in places that Larisa and I have been, including her home city of Vinnitsa, Ukraine.

I hope that all you science fiction fans will enjoy this novel.                                         

Look for up dates on the January release of The Hive at: http://www.xpressyourselfpublishing.org/Book_TH.htm

A New Book in the Works:

                               STAR PIRATES

Star Pirates:  If you were captured by pirates in the 17th century, you had a choice, swear the pirate oath and join the crew of the pirate vessel or die. Jack Bellinham, a young man from an aristocratic English family is given just such a life or death choice.  Jack, with his wild side, relishes the freedom of life at sea.  His knowledge of science and ballistics leads him to placing cannon with rifled bores on a pirate sloop, giving him a huge edge in superior range and accuracy over his Spanish victims.  Soon Jack Bellingham is captain of his own ship.  However, when aliens come searching for specimens on the Island of Jamaica this former student of Newton finds himself having to swear the pirate oath once more, this time to creatures that look like walking squids.  Jack Bellingham's adventures in capturing prizes across the galaxy are about to begin!

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot  but I want you to look for

 Star Pirates by the summer of 2010.