Stories of the 'Crucible Universe'
Novels are available through the links except for those marked as not yet released.
Authored as Philip Nolen
99 Mya (2022)
- "A Tale of the first interstellar expedition:
of sheipwrecks, time travel & Dinosaurs"
"The author sees the human-dinosaur interaction through a new perspective - one that keeps the reader turning pages.”
--- Steve Alten (Author of Meg Series)
The strange story of the
First Interstellar Expedition
an adventure through space and time.
A jump forward in time is easy. One need but go to sleep.
Travel back in time is … an exceptional challenge.
The USS Argos departed Skyport hoping to achieve humanity’s oldest and greatest dream by going to another star. Plagued by politics and delays, their spectacular launch saw them ripped off course. Badly damaged. they discovered a planet with air, water, and a possible source of protein.
Extensive repairs in a primitive world would require months or years. The planet lacked edible fruits and was dominated by deadly predators. Creatures Colonel Drake's people insisted were dinosaurs.
Survival, much less a return home, promised to be a challenge.
'99 Mya' on AUDIBLE
Narrated byPhilip Nolen
Click here for '99 Mya' Audible Sample.
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A Quantum of Uncertainty (2021)
- Book II: "Jankin Decatur Series"
"New military sf with both the physics and the history meticulously worked out in interesting ways”
--- David Drake
"… a new series by Philip Nolen, an epic tour de force that will draw, hold, and envelope you in a tale of Earth's first star colony; the coming of age of a people."
--"Steve Alten, NY TImes & international best-selling author of The MEG series.
‘First Steps to the Stars’ Series – Homo Sapiens
History of the Kraken Revolution
*~*~*
Admiral Bastian’s words echoed across the huge construction quay, “In this facility you see the latest warship design by Doctor Humphrey. He’s a bit of a military historian and calls that miracle of science sitting there a frigate. I believe it is much more.” Though it retained the overall energy-conserving shape of a slightly flattened sphere, there was nothing soft or mundane in this warbird’s appearance. Like a great frigate bird, its surface was of long sharp ridges to reduce gravitic wave distortion and therefore detection. Humphrey’s brilliance developed a gravitic wavelength algorithm that precisely calculated the ship’s long-to-short axis diameter ratio, finely adjusting it to optimize linkage to the great gravity waves of deep space. A novel concept allowing the warbird to achieve greater velocities than any other known starship. Even deactivated, the ship was difficult to focus upon because of its electromagnetic adsorbing surface.'A Quantum of Uncertainty' on AUDIBLE
Narrated byPhilip Nolen
Click here for 'A Quanturm of Uncertainty' Audible Sample.
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Quantum Zero (2020)
- Prequel: "Jankin Decatur Series"
"New military sf with both the physics and the history meticulously worked out in interesting ways”
--- David Drake
"… a new series by Philip Nolen, an epic tour de force that will draw, hold, and envelope you in a tale of Earth's first star colony; the coming of age of a people."
--"Steve Alten, NY TImes & international best-selling author of The MEG series.
A new ship, a new design, an old merchant captain who finds himself drawn into an old war.
Sol System’s unending war continues a conflict whose depravations are restricted by treaty to off-Earth locations. War is good business but wasteful. Materials and experienced spacers, whose training takes years to develop and is costly, grow scarce.
Earth’s leaders found a solution in their own history; impressment. The distant star colonies were little touched by war’s ravages with merchant fleets possessing an abundance of both material and talented spacers. Warring empires need but take what they want and discard the rest.
Until one tiny colony decides to resist.
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Quantum Surge (2020)
6- Book 1 of "Jankin Decatur Series"
"… a new series by Philip Nolen, an epic tour de force that will draw, hold, and envelope you in a tale of Earth's first star colony; the coming of age of a people."
--"Steve Alten, NY TImes & international best-selling author of The MEG series.
It was the time of the fabled First Colonies.
It was humanity’s first steps beyond the star of our origin.
It was the beginning of a period of great galactic expansion brought on by the discovery of the most miniscule particle in the universe.
It was an age that so tried the soul of humankind as to have nearly brought Homo sapiens to an end.
The ancient nations of Earth are at war; a conflict initially confined to their home star system. Kraken, first star colony of the North American Union, finds itself caught in the middle of the distant conflict with both sides preying upon the colony’s lifeblood and exports by pirating their cargo and pressing their merchant spacers into military service -- or simply murdering them. Kraken, under attack by Earth’s superpowers and their homeland, cannot survive; unless ….
Quantum Surge on AUDIBLE
Narrated byC.J. McAllister
Click here for Quanturm Surge Audible Sample.
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Authored as Terrence Zavecz
Screams of the Hypes (2019)
*** Prequel Novelette ***
A short novel, first published in a time-travel anthology "The Witness Paradox" edited by Martin Wilsey then later released as a separate publication.
The story provides an introduction to the crucible universe. Carrying the reader through time and space to both the future and distant past of the Cretaceous Era and a colony among the dinosaurs desperately fight for survival of the human race.
Year 2061 AD: ISA Warship Mercon encounters a mysterious ship in the cloud-tops of Jupiter. They give chase, crashing against a violent storm front. The warship is ripped to shreds but not before four lonely, injured survivors manage to escape aboard a shuttle.
The survivors have little hope of rescue. Then a huge, black shape-shifting form approaches and they are drawn in to a universe that defies their sense of what is and what may be. A universe of even greater dangers.
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NullBots (2017)
*~~* Book III of ‘The Crucible Series’ *~~*
Year 2058 AD: Hailey Sharpe’s life is dull except for the thrill of Manga. When her father accepts a job, Hailey’s world shrinks to one bag and a hurried launch to the orbital Skyport. Relocation transforms to desperate flight aboard an incredible starship to a beautiful world of strange new friends, amazing technology and fearsome dinosaurs.
Wanting to experience a tyrannosaur, Hailey’s friends sneak off-station into the jungle where an unknown AI installation draws them into a universe of time travel, replicating swarm robotics, tachyon synaptic networks, drones of pure gravitic energy and multi-dimensional forces clashing in a struggle that threatens more than their world. It’s a society she is uniquely able to manipulate thanks to her affinity for her newly implanted ‘Hive Tab’ and reluctant Hailey becomes a pivotal player in their struggle to survive.
Read More ....Forge of a Species (2017)
*~~* Book II of ‘The Crucible
Series’ *~~*
Year 2056AD: Mark Nolen built a company to mine the waters of Jupiter’s moon Europa while secretly conducting forbidden research in interstellar and time travel but the ISA has become suspicious. Nolen decides to move 325 Scientists, engineers, skilled workers and their children to construct an interstellar port back on Earth, but it’s not the Earth we know. Traveling far back in time, they are forced to emerge from the timeslip at the worst possible point -- the final days of the Cretaceous Era – danger close to when nearly all life died in a terrible catastrophe.
Read More ....Crucible of a Species (2016)
*~~* Book I of ‘The Crucible
Series’ *~~*
Year 2032AD: No one would have believed in the early years of the twenty-first century that their world was being governed keenly and closely by intelligence's greater than humanity’s and yet as mortal as their own.
In 2032, Homo sapiens
stood on the threshold of the planetary system of
their origin already planning their next giant evolutionary
advance into the interstellar cosmos. As we gathered
ourselves for this first faltering step outward,
there came an answer to our greatest question. It
arrived in the form of gifts of knowledge from a
mysterious extraterrestrial intelligence we chose
to call the Asteri. The gift-givers visited briefly
then vanished, demanding only one simple but inescapable
repayment; they wanted Homo sapiens to visit them.
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The 'Cretaceous Station' Series
Hunter's Moon (2013)
*~~* Book II of the series ‘ Cretaceous Station’ *~~*
A research center in the late Cretaceous -- the time of the great dinosaurs. They traveled back in time 65 million years to begin the experiments. Research begins with almost immediate breakthroughs and very promising results. One problem persists, the dinosaurs. Life forms that they found just before the end of the Cretaceous Period have been evolving for over a hundred million years.
The world is sunny, tropical and the surrounding wildlife beautiful and plentiful. Construction on a nearby starport and resort center begins. Then the rising of the full moon brings others. They are highly intelligent, powerful and very unfriendly.
Nodal Convergence (2012)
*~~* Book I of the series ‘ Cretaceous Station’ *~~*
Mankind is on the verge of travel to other stars. An expedition is already on the way to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the sun, but it will take more than four years to get there. Theory dictates that the starships should be capable of traveling many times faster than the speed of light but something is wrong with the models. Something in the universe, a universal constant, is changing that shouldn't.