Witch Hazel

A NOVEL OF INTERSTELLAR DOOMThe demon chunk of hyper-velocity doom sears into the binary-star system and zeroes dead center on the Green World at a blistering 500,000 kilometers per hour. Shimmering with angelic beauty, the comet conceals an ugly core of frozen filth laced with iron and nickel-forged in the ice furnaces of hell. Long anticipating the arrival of the cosmic missile that will rive their world in a massive fusion detonation, the benevolent denizens of the Green World, the Great Sentient Plants, embark on a effort to send Genetic Emissaries to all corners of the galaxy in the hopes of saving their ancient race by intersecting a temperate water planet. Their gamble pays off. Of the millions and millions sent forth and lost in the regions of deep space, two Emissaries vector into the orbit of the Blue Planet Earth. Unfortunately for Earth, the alien invaders are no longer the benevolent Sentient Plants blasted from their home world millions of years before-they have been transformed into evil spawn of deep space through long exposure to cosmic rays. Contact with the DNA of the Blue Planet Earth adds a savage twist to the nightmarish evil of the alien invaders. For thousands of years, the Aliens manipulate early humans to do their bidding as well as tamper with their development in order to create the conditions to transform Earth into a renaissance Green World. To achieve their ends, the Aliens plan the extinction of all creatures-especially humans who they view as minimally sentient and handicapped by a weak and clumsy intelligence. But despite the inferiority of the human race, the Aliens fail in their takeover attempt on the European Continent and make their next attack on the hobby farm of young David and Anneth Trent-the last human obstacles in the way of the alien invaders becoming overlords of the Blue Planet and terraforming it Green. The newly-minted couple expect to face the usual challenges of life-buying a home, building their careers, and fitting into a new community-but not the challenge of being ground zero for an interstellar invasion. The unsuspecting Trents become victims of alien machination and suffer a terrible wounding. Anneth languishes in a vicious coma while David struggles to comprehend the evil that smashed their happy salad bowl.As the alien invasion nears completion, David and Anneth Trent become the last chance for the Blue Planet Earth in a struggle that taxes their strength beyond the limits of endurance. When all is lost, the Trents discover the key weapon in the human arsenal is the bond of love as the climatic battle of interstellar doom rages across the depths of space and time.
About the Author: ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF THE TRENT SAGA: Born on some indeterminable date during the reign of the last emperor in the bitter wastelands of the Great White North, Neil L. R. Tate has finally found the professional niche that has led him on quest to many exotic locales-writing fiction. The art of fiction requires the author to wear many mantles and delve a great store of knowledge as well as be a jack-of-all-trades baptized in the waters of the world and dried by the cosmic winds of space. Every character that storms, slithers, and slinks into a novel must offer unique qualities of skullduggery, scumbaggery, flaws, virtues, and talents that set her apart from the other denizens within the universe created in the fertile spaces of the author's mind. To achieve the believability and uniqueness that sets forth a great novel, the author must plumb deep the wells of experience, adventure, and imagination. To this end, Tate remains an inveterate world traveler, scuba diver, and private aviator. He has stood on the craters of smoking volcanoes; survived tsunamis, typhoons, and tornadoes; been jolted by earthquakes and jilted by beautiful women; shot at; slashed at, and nearly rolled into smoking aircraft wreckage-through all this mayhem, Tate has kept his sense of humor. These adventures provide a depth of personal experience that enliven and enrich his stories along with wild dreams and rampaging imaginings that give no quarter twenty-four hours a day. Driven to the temperate climes by fierce Alberta Clippers, Tate has a passion for the tropics, palm trees, beaches, scuba dives, tiki bars, airplanes, machinery, firearms, sailboats, cuisine, wine, and all good things and people that make the little blue planet Earth such an exciting and amazing place to hang in this corner of the Universe. Tate has lived extensively in Costa Rica and the Far East, and loves the warm hospitality of Jamaica and the polite beauty of Japan.