Alien Dream Machine is a finalist for the prestigious Cygnus Book Award for best sci-fi of 2021.  It is a huge lift for any author to get any recognition, and this one is a jolt!

“The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction.”

Alien Dream Machine is third in a series about Phane Vikos, alien from a distant star stranded on Earth.  I kind of miss him.

I went back and skimmed the book, and what do you know? It’s not bad!  I’m in the throes of revising my ninth novel, which doesn’t have a title yet, and doesn’t have any aliens, either. And it also doesn’t have the colorful cast of characters hopping over the pages. Alien Dream Machine had a great cast. I mean, gangsters on shiny motorcycles? You cannot beat that. I realized that my current effort lacks pizazz, and now I know what I need to do to punch it up.  Not motorcycles again, but something loud and dangerous!  Thank you, Chanticleer, organizers of the Cygnus Award, for that stimulus.

It’s been a long, dark two years, virtually in a cave, cowering from the pandemic.  This Cygnus award was a ray of sunshine. Depending on the Covid numbers, I might even travel to the Chanticleer conference this summer, just in case ADM wins the Big Chicken. You never know.

Summary of Alien Dream Machine: 

Phane and partner Flooma, and offspring, baby Makos, live quietly in a trailer park in Reno, where Phane makes a living as a professional gambler. He doesn’t “cheat,” he explains to Gunnar, a casino investigator who tracks him down. He merely encourages dice to roll in a more helpful way.

Gunnar is charmed by the Vikos family, who appear as ordinary humans or in their relaxed state as large green tennis balls with eyestalks. When Phane is seriously injured, Gunnar feel helpless, not knowing anything about alien biology. Gunnar and his sleep doctor try a desperate plan to bypass biology and revive the dying alien with focused dreams. But do aliens dream, or is that just a human thing?

This is “psi-fi:” psychological science fiction. Space is not the final frontier. The mind is.

(Cross your tentacles: We hope Alien Dream Machine wins the big one!)

Get Alien Dream Machine Here: 

Ebook –  Kindle:  ISBN: 978-1-7355412-5-9              327 pp
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0916MWF45
ASIN B0916MWF45

Paperback –   KDP:        ISBN: 978-1-7355412-6-6   333 pp kdp 6×9
ASIN 1735541265
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735541265

Ebook – Smashwords  ISBN: 978-1-7355412-4-2  (Epub)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1066184