Cover design and typography copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien
Trekker Regular font distributed under a free use license by Weatherly Systems, Inc.
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License Notes
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If you see any misspellings or typographical errors, please notify Kevin L. O'Brien using one of his online social networks. Thank you.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, including those based on the real world, are either products of the imagination of Kevin L. O'Brien or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Because some ebook platforms do not support special characters, certain words may appear misspelled, but this was done deliberately to avoid the problem of the platforms deleting the characters. Also, the LRF platform used by older models of the Sony Reader does not permit the use of links to external URLs, whereas the PDB platform used by Palm reading devices does not support any form of linking whatsoever.
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Table of Contents
Preface
The Denver Walker
About the Author
Other Books by Kevin L. O'Brien
Connect with Kevin L. O'Brien
Sample Excerpts
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Preface
In the Preface to "The Jigsaw Dragon" I described the four types of Team Girl stories that I write. I called one Alternative Reality tales, because they place Eile and Sunny in worlds other than our own contemporary 21st century Earth. The important characteristic of these stories is that, while the alternative versions of the Girls have the same personalities as the Contemporary Girls, they are natives of those other worlds and so have completely different lifestyles. That makes these stories different from Contemporary tales that have the Girls visit other worlds or go back in time; despite the different setting, they are still the same Girls that appear in stories set in our world. In many ways, the Alternative Reality stories are like different roles played by the same actors, who always seem to put something of themselves in whatever characters they play.
This story is the first Alternative Reality tale I wrote. In it, Eile and Sunny are US Air Force flight officers sent on a mission to save Mankind from extinction. In most of these stories I keep their ages ambiguous, to avoid questions like how a 24-year old girl can be an Air Force colonel and bomber pilot. Then again, these are fantasy tales, so questions of that type are really beside the point. In any event, the Girls portrayed in this story, while recognizable, bear no relationship to the Girls of the Contemporary stories.
The character of Cowboy is an homage to a similar character in the movie Kelly's Heroes, played by the late Jeff Morris. I included him because every war story should have a Cowboy, and every war story needs a character who sacrifices himself so the protagonists can win the day.