500 Planets, A Secretive Agency, and Bad Poetry
The idea for my Central Galactic Concordance series started one summer with one vivid scene, which became a novel, which my oh-so-crafty muse informed me was actually a series. Here’s a little background on the CGC universe. The shorthand version is “500 planets, a secretive agency, and bad poetry.”
🚀 500 Planets
In my Central Galactic Concordance series, the Milky Way galaxy is humanity’s exclusive playground. In several millennia, humans haven’t found any other sentient life, but have found 500+ planets to terraform and settle. The current government, the Central Galactic Concordance, has prospered for 200 years.
However, under the surface, the cracks are starting to show. Expansionist economies have their limits. Minders, people with mental talents such as telepathy, telekinesis, and more, aren’t the rarity they used to be, and that scares people. Even with advanced technology of the far future, managing 500 planets is… a lot.
🏛️ One Secretive Agency
Centralized control is getting harder. The Citizen Protection Service (CPS) — a huge and ubiquitous military agency tasked with testing and tracking minders, and keeping the galactic peace — has made some very secret, very dark choices.
📜 Bad Poetry
One of the biggest thorns in the CPS’s side is the Ayorinn forecast. Fifty years ago, a legendary forecaster (a special type of minder talent) predicted that if human civilization didn’t change, it was doomed. He was killed in a massive riot, but somehow, a series of cryptic, surreal, and abstract poetic quatrains keep appearing all over the galaxy. Together, they’re the Ayorinn Legacy.
To some, they’re opaque bits of poetry to ponder. To others, they are an oblique promise of justice and equality for minders. To the CPS, they are dangerous memes that stir up conspiracy theories and unrest, and must be obliterated at any cost.
Spark Transform (the newest book in the series) takes place in Ridderth, a megacity known for endemic corruption. It’s also where the forecast originated. But the city is fired up by recently exposed uncomfortable truths. While Arco Charrascos’s profession as a journalist is protected by galactic law, the CPS is getting desperate to quash the “Legacy” once and for all. It’s the perfect place for a journalist with a quest and an ex-enforcer with a grudge to find the truth… if they can survive the storm!
She just triggered a target on their backs. He’s her paid protection. Caught in a violent trap, can they find their place together among the stars?
Spark Transform is the enthralling sixth book in the Central Galactic Concordance space opera romance series. If you like wounded heroes, fast-paced plots with expansive world-building, and slow-burn chemistry, then you’ll love Carol Van Natta’s action-packed adventure.
