Free download for the last time

The Rat Queen is now on a free download deal, for four days only.

Because I’ve decided not to renew KDP Select for my Rat Queen series, this may be the last time it’s ever a free Kindle download. KDP select was nice, and had its perks, but I also want it to be available at iTunes, Kobo, B&N etc.

So, do download it here while you can. Here’s where you can do that:

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com.com/Rat-Queen-Robby-Charters-ebook/dp/B0BRWSTPSH

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rat-Queen-Robby-Charters-ebook/dp/B0BRWSTPSH

Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Rat-Queen-Robby-Charters-ebook/dp/B0BRWSTPSH

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/Rat-Queen-Robby-Charters-ebook/dp/B0BRWSTPSH

Just in case you’re not in the mood for a long email right now, the links are right there, so you can download your copy now and read the rest later if you want. Many of you already on my list already know about these. As this email is now being read by others outside my original mailing list, I’ll tell you just a little bit about the series:

One thing you should know, when humans went to space, rats and cockroaches went along.

The series begins in middle of a galactic war on humanity. Many humans in various isolated parts of some planets are unaware of that war and these stories are mostly from their perspective. Both the original book of the title, as well as The Planet, start off with an evacuation, as in each case, a killer asteroid is about to make impact.

In The Rat Queen, there’s a mis-hap, in which one spaceship takes off automatically, with only one adult passenger and someone’s baby on board. The ship automatically accelerates to near-light speed, but can’t make the jump to faster-than-light, as there’s no pilot on board. So Elton, by default, becomes the adoptive father of the baby, whom he names Becky.

So, what is it like to be bereaved of one’s family, in fact, of one’s whole planet, and then raise a child on a runaway spaceship for a year and a half?

Elton thought it would be for their whole life, but some galactic beings capture the ship, and Elton is imprisoned along with a large group of other humans on board a rat infested space station.

Becky gets lost in the ventilation shafts of the space station, and is raised by rats. She has learned to squeak like a rat, smells like a rat, so the other rats think she’s just a giant rat. There she’s been for as long as she can remember, when a family of orphans adopts her.

Thanks to a sympathetic alien and a space-time anomaly, Becky becomes the key to the uplift of rat-kind. They become the hope for human survival in the galaxy. Plron is the name of the sympathetic galactic being. He makes a few appearances throughout the series. Another galactic being, of a different species, is Strrruptl (it’s okay if you can’t pronounce it). They both reappear elsewhere in the series.

The first in the series is about how it all began, how the humans kept as prisoners in that space station were sent to resettle a deserted planet, how they survived there against all odds (thanks to Becky and her rats), and how some weird anomalies produced by the spinning binary black holes worked in their favour. It’s also about how rats became highly intelligent beings. Don’t worry, it’s not the way Walt Disney or Hanna Barbara would have done it.

In the second and third books, The Rat Queen II, and The Rat Queen III, humans and rats from that planet that have become allies, find their way to Old Earth, to find it a shadow of its old self. Earth was already an ecological disaster area when their human ancestors began to travel to space. Global warming had raised the sea level, destroying many costal cities and wrecking economies. Then came the EMP, which destroyed all electronics, cut the earth off from their space colonies, and ended the nation state. Then, came the ice age.

Rats and their human friends begin to do what they can for them, but there’s still human nature to be dealt with, as well as Strrruptl, who wants humanity either destroyed, or enslaved. Again, Plron plays a supportive role towards humanity.

Nation states ceased to exist, and no one, since the great EMP, has managed to build a nation with national borders, let alone an empire, but in Rat Queen III, through the arrival of a key human character, with the aid of Strrruptl, that may be about to change.

In The Planet, Captain Steinberg has been assigned to rescue a community of billionaires, film stars and others with enough to pay for their own survival. There’s been a communications breakdown. Either he could search the planet for his intended pickup, and risk not finding them before asteroid impact; or he could simply pick up this nearby low income neighbourhood, thugs, street urchins and all, and be assured of saving at least a thousand lives. He chooses the latter. He’s that type of person.

But in spite of the drug dealers, gangsters, Nazis, incidents of violence, of coercion, kidnapping, he does get to know people with hearts of gold. Some of the characters include a disgraced scientist who predicted this disaster, a priest who had the gut feeling the scientist was right but also that they would survive, a stow-away street kid and a young autistic savant.

The planet they arrive on is the same as that described in the short fiction piece, The Last Shall Be First, included in The Wrong Time (that you can download free for subscribing to this newsletter). This is 200 years later, when the seven orphans from that story have grown into a population of a thousand. It’s a simple rural society, intent on a lifestyle of natural sufficiency, the same as indigenous populations did on Old Earth. So, what happens when another 1000 people drop from the sky, all used to an urban lifestyle?

A younger version of Plron also appears in this one. And, by the say, galactics enjoy a lifespan many times that of humans.

Elijah Dove, my latest addition to the series. You will have heard the name, “Elijah Dove” mentioned a few times previously in the series. He is famed for calling fire from heaven (specifically, the sun), causing the great EMP, as well as a few other things.

This book takes us back to the beginning of humanity’s ascent to space. From his humble beginnings as a barefoot hillbilly boy in Harlan County, Kentucky, his journey takes him into the Air Force, where he’s assigned to a boring desk job in Area 51. Indeed, the first alien he meets acknowledges that Area 51 is the most boring spot in the galaxy!

The first galactic being he meets is of the same species as Pron (who probably hasn’t been born yet). Like Plron, he is supportive of humanity, and becomes a mentor to Elijah. Later, Elijah has to deal with Strruptle, who, at only 93 years old, is still considered very young.

From there, he becomes a part of humanity’s ascent into the galaxy. However, he also begins to fulfil his destiny as a prophet in the spirit of Elijah of old. We find out what unique circumstances taught him about how to remain truly humble in spite of the remarkable accomplishments, like driving the snakes out of Appalachia, and calling down fire from the sun.

Will there be more sequels? I don’t know yet.

I do have ideas of where to go after this. I know what Elijah’s first destination was after he left Earth.

However, I’ve poured so much into the character of Elijah, portraying a man of like passion as we (like his namesake); into what I believe true humility is all about – in contrast to so much of what we’ve seen in the Christian world today; I’m sort of afraid to go on.

If I do, it had better be good!

In my next letter, I’ll give my ideas of what another sequel to the Back to the Future series might look like. I don’t intend to write one, I’ve already got a time travel universe of my own, but - just for the fun of it!

If you’re not subscribed, by the way, you can click on one of the links graciously supplied by the hose (Substack), add your email address, and be given a link to download a free copy of The Wrong Time, a collection of my Sci-fi short and longer stories. One of the stories, The Last Shall Be First, is set in the Rat Queen universe, and is a prequel to The Planet.