Asteroids: Bridge to Nowhere

by Mike S McCoy

Overview

9.5 out of 10 - Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize

4.3 Stars - IndieReader - IndieReader Approved

An asteroid storm of apocalyptic proportions is headed for Earth.

A mysterious group within the government called the Arcadian’s led by Colonel Cruikshank knows the storm is coming. This corrupt shadow government has taken extreme measures to keep the storm secret while building underground cities to protect the few and the fortunate. Cruikshank’s goal is that after the storm passes his survivors will emerge from the protected cities as a more perfect humanity. He is determined to create his Utopian society, no matter what it takes.

Rick Munday is a husband, father, and struggling Astrophysicist who needs his research grant approved. When Cruikshank learns that Rick’s grant proposal predicts the asteroid storm, Cruikshank drugs and kidnaps Rick, securing him in the underground city of New Arcadia.

On his quest to escape the Arcadian’s and reach his family, Rick, and friends he meets on his journey use high-tech hacking skills to warn the world of the coming disaster, expose the underground cities, and save thousands more souls. Captain Kobalt, Cruikshank’s enforcer chases Rick and his friends across America in an epic adventure leading to a climactic conflict between Rick and Kobalt.

Asteroids–Bridge to Nowhere is a fast-paced near-future dystopian adventure. Watch out! Tribulation will get you out there….

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781733630733
Publisher:	Blaster Tech
Publication date:	04/10/2019
Series:	Asteroids , #1
Pages:	522
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.13(d)

About the Author

Mike McCoy is an international businessman and entrepreneur who has traveled extensively and worked in the consumer electronics industry for over twenty-five years. The company he founded developed a variety of innovative products which sold in retail stores around the world. Mike is also an accomplished athlete known for long distance events. He completed a full Ironman Triathlon in 2006. He thought running fifty miles would be a good accomplishment, so for his fiftieth birthday he ran a double Marathon (52.4 miles). In 2018, Mike celebrated his sixtieth birthday with a six-hundred-mile bike ride from Florence, Oregon to San Francisco, California. Somehow, he found time to write.
Asteroids - Bridge to Nowhere is his first novel.

Asteroids - Escape from the Arcadians is his first novel.

Table of Contents

Prologue ................................................................................................. 1

Part One–The Bliss Protocol ................................................................... 3

Chapter 1: Frog Giggin’ ........................................................................... 4

Chapter 2: Class Dismissed ................................................................... 12

Chapter 3: Uncle Rob ........................................................................... 22

Chapter 4: Flying Blind ......................................................................... 28

Chapter 5: Turbulence .......................................................................... 34

Chapter 6: Homeland Security ............................................................. 46

Chapter 7: The invitation ...................................................................... 50

Chapter 8: Perth ................................................................................... 55

Chapter 9: ARC ..................................................................................... 58

Chapter 10: Straight Up ........................................................................ 65

Chapter 11: Departure ......................................................................... 69

Chapter 12: Sky Storm .......................................................................... 71

Chapter 13: The Spa ............................................................................. 79

Chapter 14: The Presentation .............................................................. 88

Chapter 15: Moving Forward ............................................................. 102

Chapter 16: Sky Watch Command ..................................................... 105

Part Two–New Arcadia ....................................................................... 109

Chapter 17: Burwell, Nebraska .......................................................... 110

Chapter 18: Lockdown ....................................................................... 116

Chapter 19: New Arcadia ................................................................... 125

Chapter 20: Spherules ........................................................................ 134

Chapter 21: Awakening ...................................................................... 142

Chapter 22: Star Treatment ............................................................... 152

Chapter 23: Delirium .......................................................................... 154

Chapter 24: Railroaded ...................................................................... 162

Chapter 25: Broadcast ........................................................................ 177

Chapter 26: Fly the Rocky Skies ......................................................... 185

Chapter 27: Bluster or Muster ........................................................... 187

Chapter 28: High Alert........................................................................ 191

Chapter 29: Seeds of Humanity ......................................................... 197

Chapter 30: Dark Cluster .................................................................... 202

Editorial Reviews

BookLife Prize 9.5 our of 10

“Asteroids” is a well-plotted, fast-paced book. McCoy's narrative style flows well between the various characters' stories and holds the reader's attention with dramatic tension and enough twists to keep one eagerly turning the pages.

McCoy's combination of everyday language and scientific jargon is extremely well-balanced. There isn’t a boring passage in the book. McCoy has a gift for creating images using minimal words.

Although asteroids hitting Earth is not a new story idea, McCoy manages to bring a fresh approach to his apocalyptic plot. From the futuristic weapons to the artificial atmosphere of New Arcadia to the vampire-like antagonist who gains immortality from the blood of children, to two characters' use of Klingon as code, this story is full of unique ideas.

The characters are realistic and believable in their actions and reactions. The hero, Rick, is a very likable and unlikely hero, an arc which McCoy carefully develops. The main villain, Colonel Cruikshank, is a dead-on representation of a sociopath bent on ruling the world at any cost. The supporting cast of characters is very diverse with little or no overlaps in either behavior or traits.

IndieReader 4.3 Stars

Protagonist Rick Munday is an astrophysicist with a unique theory concerning asteroids. Unfortunately, his theories are all too true and the government is desperately trying to cover up the fact that a massive, civilization-crushing meteor storm is imminent. Essentially kidnapped by a government faction planning for its own survival in Utopian underground cities, Munday must escape, avoid the pursuit of a zealous military assassin, and travel across a disaster-ridden country to rejoin his family in California. While attempting this, he also does everything he can to expose the government’s plans and save as many people as possible.

Munday is a great hero, fully relatable with plenty of vulnerability, humanity, and resourcefulness. However, many of the secondary characters are just as vividly rendered. Particularly the egomaniac Colonel Cruikshank, who is the delightfully believable, but totally unhinged leader of the dystopian cities.

The fast-paced plot is a kaleidoscope of fun science fiction themes, beginning with the puzzle and reveal of the government conspiracy mixed with some well-handled astrophysics. Various doomsday prep scenarios are explored from the intricate details involved in creating a sustainable underground network of cities, to family-level shelters, down to individual cases. Also thrown into the mix is a vigorous online gaming virtual battle, political wrangling, high-risk space missions, multiple love stories, and some philosophical musings about who can and should be saved when helping too many could threaten the survival of everyone. Author Mike McCoy’s skill somehow keeps all these elements together in a compelling narrative.

The menace of the meteor strikes is starkly conveyed and the peril facing the various characters throughout feels real. This isn’t one of those books where millions die but improbably, all the characters we’re invested in miraculously survive. This allows the tension and suspense to remain high through most of the various plotlines.

ASTEROIDS - Bridge to Nowhere is an extremely immersive adventure with memorable characters, tons of high-tech flourishes, and, despite being a massive book, debut novelist Mike McCoy keeps things moving briskly.

From the Publisher

2019-11-05
In McCoy's debut novel, a physicist discovers a deadly coverup of potentially earth-shattering proportions.

Astrophysicist Rick Munday works as an assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology, but today he's mostly been refreshing his email to see if he's been approved for a grant to fund his research into "potential risks to Earth from asteroids." With his meager salary, he can barely provide for his wife, Courtney, and their twins, Alyssa and Ethan. His grant proposal, however, has caught the eye of a much more important organization—and soon, he gets dragged into a secret plot that leads to the highest levels of government. It turns out that asteroids have, in fact, been hitting Earth at an alarmingly fast rate, and the government is having a hard time trying to clean up evidence of their existence to avoid a panic. They've even made deaths from meteorite debris look like murder-suicides and covered up massive impacts in other countries. Now Rick is in their grasp, and he has to find a way to escape, get back home to his family, and warn the world of impending disaster before it's too late. McCoy offers a hefty, in-depth adventure novel with a compelling premise. The overabundance of characters, though, may keep the book from turning into a favorite of disaster-fiction fans, as it becomes difficult to keep all the players straight. Minor and even throwaway figures receive an undue amount of attention, and the nearly constant character introductions in the first part of the novel adversely affect the pacing, making it slow going initially. Readers who persevere, though, will be rewarded with a truly original and creative plot, which makes the effort worthwhile.

An unevenly executed but well-plotted disaster novel that may have readers looking to the skies in fear of what's to come.

Kirkus Reviews