Wyatt Davenport was born in Canada, but has
lived his entire adult life in various places in the US, including
Atlanta, Omaha, Colorado Springs, and Seattle. He started writing the
Lunara series in 2002 and published the first trilogy in 2011. He has
four books out in the series, three individual books and one compilation
book.
A more extended Bio here: http://www.lunaraseries.com/
Excerpt from Seth and Chloe:
The meteor flaunted its one large crevasse and many small craters as they approached.
Chloe turned on her infrared and ultraviolet scanners.
“Looks like a routine one,” Seth said. “No sharp drops in elevation are present. Set the charges on half strength in a cone pattern so the blast doesn’t send the debris all over the captain’s windshield. I’m sending you the coordinates for your charge.”
“Coordinates received.” She made minor adjustments to her blast pattern and locked the charge into a ready state. “Ready.”
“Let’s make this as routine as possible.”
The meteor bisected them. They yanked hard on their control sticks and performed a large circular loop. The blood seemed to drain from Chloe’s head, and she grunted to clear her mind. Straightening out of a curve and throttling to maximum speed, the starwings caught the meteor with a single burst.
As Chloe glanced up at a view of the Earth, a small gray ball floated in her viewscreen, growing with each passing second. Sweat pooled against her forehead. She had never been this close to the Earth on a run.
She switched off her scanning sensors and turned on her proximity detection viewscreen. In her visor’s display, the meteor’s surface was tumbling only a hundred meters from the bottom of Seth’s ship. She gripped hard on the control stick to steady her ship as Seth moved down toward the surface of the meteor.
“One hundred meters . . . seventy-five meters . . . overlaying targeting systems, extending resonance charge launching bay,” he said. “I am at a distance of fifty meters. Firing . . . now.”
Her helmet visor flashed red; her indication that the charge had exited his ship. The charge tore into the surface of the meteor, kicking up small debris off the bottom of his ship. After a few tedious seconds, the visor display relayed confirmation of success.
Seth pulled back from the meteor.
“Starwing Alpha’s charge has been delivered. I am at a safe distance. Proceed when you are ready.”
She took in a deep breath; it was her turn now.
“Starwing Omega moving into position.” She pushed forward on her control stick to accelerate to a point where she was hovering over her assigned coordinates. She flipped on her proximity detection viewscreen.
“One-hundred-fifty meters . . . one hundred meters . . . seventy-five meters. I am overlaying the targeting systems, extending the resonance-charge launching bay. Coming into position . . . preparing the charges for release.” Her mouth was dry, and she forced her tongue along her lips. Her eyes moved to focus on her visor display. The target was almost there. She double-checked all the calculations. “I’m firing.” She pressed both of her fire control buttons simultaneously.
The charge bit hard into the surface of the meteor and began to drill down.
Without warning, a chunk of debris, large and metallic, clipped her wing. She caught only a glimpse of it out of her peripheral camera. The jolt caused her starwing to tumble to the right. She struggled with the control sticks to stabilize the ship as alarms bellowed in the cockpit, and her visor flashed red.
“Jinx, I hit a hollowing.”
Seth radioed, “Chloe, you have to cut the charge stabilizers and use emergency thrusters. Do it now!”
She switched off her weapons stabilizers and fought her stick for control. Her starwing swerved back and forth, yawing away from the meteor. She shifted her lateral rockets in parallel with one another and fired them. The counterbalance effect stopped the swerving, and she leveled off. She fired her main engines again to catch the meteor.
“I got her stabilized again.”
“Seth,” Chloe said as calmly as she could, “I got this one. Don’t worry about me.”
The sun peeked over the Earth, filling Chloe’s cabin with a bright, blinding light. As the tint spread across her windshield, she glanced out the front of the cockpit and the all-too-real view of the Earth came closer. She once again flipped on her visor’s proximity detection screen and proceeded to move down toward the meteor for another run. The sweat from her forehead entered her eyes and she squinted.
“This one is all you,” Seth said. Reluctance and dread was in his voice, which didn’t give her a lot of confidence, considering the situation.
“Get a move on,” Eamonn said. “We have about two minutes before we can’t detonate the charges. If you can’t get them laid, the Protector will be buried into the Earth’s surface.”
“Don’t worry, Captain. All I need is one. One hundred meters . . . seventy-five meters.” As she activated her weapons systems, her visor’s display alerted her to a physical malfunction in her launch barrel. “Jinx, looks like a piece of the meteor hit my primary. I’m switching to secondary.”
“Hurry,” Eamonn said. “You need to get within twenty-five meters for secondary weapons, Chloe. Time is running out.”
“I know!” she radioed back.
Her ship raced alongside the meteor. She inched closer, and from the Protector's view, they seemed almost to be touching, but the space between her and the meteor was enough. She was safe.
Her cockpit was aglow with a grayish-white luminous light. She peeked out the window; the large sphere that was the Earth, behind the electromagnetic netting, was fast approaching. She gripped harder on the control sticks. Sweat appeared between her fingers. You have to do this, she thought. Seth can’t bail you out this time.
“Thirty seconds until we can’t detonate on time,” Jan said. “The charge takes ten seconds to dig.”
“I got it, Jan . . . thirty meters . . . twenty-five meters.” She wished herself luck. “Firing now.”
Her helmet visor flashed red as the charge fired toward the meteor. It hit the surface hard but this time hit solid rock and chewed down into it. She received confirmation and let out a small sigh of satisfaction with her next breath.
“All charges set and ready for detonation!” Jan exclaimed.
“Detonate it now!” Eamonn shouted. “Chloe, get out!”
Gwen’s gasp sounded over the radio.
Chloe yanked her starwing with a brilliant turn upward.
Small cracks of light emitted from the meteor as the resonance charges began to crumble it into smaller pieces. The ravaged meteor struck the first stage of the netting and was instantly purified into positively charged stones and dust fragments. Once the remnants reached the second stage, the negatively charged nodes pulled on the particles and all momentum was lost. Only a large field of stones, iron chunks, and particles remained behind the electromagnetic netting.
Chloe’s heart pounded against her ribs. Her last-ditch attempt had turned out as she had hoped. She was successful. They were safe. She flipped up her visor and smiled. (Used with Permission)
Note: Seth and Chloe is the first in the Lunara series and is FREE. Click the link below to pick it up.
Wyatt, being a writer is hard. Deciding to become a full-fledged author is a league of its own. When did you decide to make the leap and give your life over to your words? Was there a seminal moment or was is a slow burning inside?
Definitely a slow burning, I had watched/read Scifi my entire life and always wanted to create my own world but never hit an inspiration moment. The Lunara series flashed in my mind one day in 2002 and I wanted to write that story. It was so formed in my mind right away. I started it and after a few months, I finished several chapters; after two-three years, I finished the entire trilogy. Without any experience, I learned the craft of writing in parallel to writing the book which was a challenge.
Why Sci-Fi? What drove you to choose it as a genre?
Scifi is the only genre I'll ever write. I love Scifi/Fantasy and I think the worlds Scifi/Fantasy can create for the reader are beyond anything any other genre can muster. Scifi can take the reader to another world and I think this is a powerful thing. I believe most people read to leave their world and what is better than Scifi to give the reader a new life and a new world to live for a short time.
In this series, you have created a new world. It's familiar yet totally foreign at the same time. How much planning was done up front in creating the universe in which your books reside? Or did you just make it up as you went and then polished the rough ends in the editing?
My world building is mainly done within my mind and not written to paper in a structured sense. I do record facts on a giant spreadsheet for quick reference because I can't recall everything, but the main threads of the world building will always be with me and I can still write with those in mind as I continue the series today. I have yet to run into anything that needed too much polishing with this method and my editor has complimented my consistency, which I strive to achieve.
The publishing industry is an uncertain playing field. The advent of self-publishing is where a lot of authors are heading these days. So much so, that traditional publishing firms are being forced to change the way they do business. And this is sending ripples through the industry that new authors are having to deal with on a much more visceral level. How does it feel to be a pioneer in a digital savage land?
I jumped into the rapids of the self-publishing world and drowned for the first six months. It takes time to achieve some level of success, but in the year and few months I have been active, I have achieved each of my goals and then some. I enjoy being with the crowd of Indie authors and have gained some great friends. This was the surprising part of the self-publishing world to me. I thought I would be in competition with the other authors, but in reality they are my partners. I help everyone I can to sell a book, and I know they help me because I see the results.
All of the books in the series (so far):
Lunara: Seth and Chloe (Free)
Lunara: Gwen and Eamonn
Lunara: Parker and Protector
Lunara: The Original Series
Interesting read. Wyatt's experience seems to be the same as mine, that self publishing gives you lots of freedom but you have to spend a lot of time doing the marketing and publicity stuff yourself, and it does take away from the writing. On the plus side though, it means you get to interact more directly with readers and hopefully develop a better and more interesting product. Best of luck, Wyatt!
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