BOOKS

Mr. Swensen has three completed novels for which he is actively seeking a publisher. All three books, listed below, are intended for the young adult science fiction market. He also has three other novels in some stage of completion and he is writing short stories for the science fiction market.

Mr. Swensen also blogs for the Think Good Thoughts website, indulging in an ultra-liberal character created for the Internet in 1985.

TITLE: THE PROMISE OF ORDANA: (sample)
STATUS: Complete, 3rd edit cycle
AUDIENCE: Young Adults/Mid readers
LENGTH: 50,000 words

The body was nearly a cinder, recognizable only by the captain's bars on the charred leftovers of a flight suit, a blackened hand still gripping the control stick -- that's how Jasper found Captain Franks. The same Captain Franks who had tormented him when Jasper was his cabin boy.

Jasper had seen a lot since he'd landed on Ordana after ejecting from the burning Noble Ray. He'd been hunted by pirates, come face to face with strange creatures and nearly died trying to find his way out of a hostile alien landscape. But nothing could have prepared him for the gruesome death of Franks.

Unfortunately, his trials are not over. Soon, Jasper will discover the truth about Franks -- a truth hidden by the lies of his own father. In the end, Jasper will come to understand the nobility of sacrifice and accept his birthright in a family of space travelers.

TITLE: THE PROPHECY OF GORAH: (sample)
STATUS: Complete, 3rd edit cycle
AUDIENCE: Young Adults/Mid readers
LENGTH: 75,000 words

In this sequel to THE PROMISE OF ORDANA, Jasper Crane finds himself once again being thrust into the captain's seat by circumstance, and receives a mysterious secret message from his long-lost father. He discovers that his father has joined the Goran pirates and become their leader, but a forgotten prophecy foretells of Jasper becoming the pirate king to lead the Gorans back to their home world. Jasper must accept his role, because the alternative means certain interplanetary war.

THE PROPHECY OF GORAH uses relevant themes, like ecology and family, to demonstrate the doing the right thing is not always the easiest path and that heroes can be found in the most unlikely of places.

TITLE: CARBON RIOTS: (sample)
STATUS: complete. 2nd editing cycle
AUDIENCE: Young Adults/Mid readers
LENGTH: 50,000 words

Demonstrations turn to riots and riots turn to war.

High school senior Thom Hargrove's only hope of surviving the escalating violence is to team up with a group of tech-punks who have built a community among the abandoned buildings that society has deemed too costly to reclaim. What he doesn't know is that Claude Terry, a megalomaniac, has already convinced these "families" that the only way they can preserve their off-the-grid life style is to join his revolution.

CARBON RIOTS imagines a world in which carbon credits have replaced currency, and then environment has become our highest priority. But for some, especially Claude Terry who lost his family's fortune to the new economy, only revolution will restore what he considers to be the natural order of the dollar. Thom is trapped into fighting along side the girl that he loves for a cause that he doesn't believe in.

CARBON RIOTS is keenly aware of our society's current war of ideals -- economy versus ecology -- without taking sides. Today's teens are inundated with a greening society; everything from breakfast cereal to presidential speeches is turning green. CARBON RIOTS imagines one possible outcome of this pressure as a backdrop for characters who are battered by war, struggling with self-esteem, falling in love for the first time and trying to understand their place in a non-traditional family.