New Site

I've decided to consolidate my blog, store, and story samples on one site. This site will no longer be updated. The URL is still www.dwpatterson.com. Thank you for reading.

MarsX - Chapter 3

Image: ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

At first all the news that Robert heard after the disaster was sympathetic, praising the brave crew that had been lost. But as time passed, he noticed that the sympathy turned into a hunt for someone to blame. Obviously, the company was the focus of that blame. And when it released its report on the accident, that a fuel line leak had ignited a fire and explosion, the recriminations were unrelenting.

By this time the government had gotten involved, resulting in hearings and investigations. Robert had given up on following the news of the incident but wasn’t surprised when he read, a few months later, that the company was being sold. Soon, Mars was forgotten and the new owners focused on space tourism which was unfortunate since no one wanted to ride a rocket built by the company involved in what became known as the Mars disaster. Eventually, MarsX quietly went out of business, selling its remaining rockets and infrastructure to a competitor in the space tourist business. What infrastructure was already on Mars was left unsold.

EPIC Indie Summer 2026 Sale

 

Starting now the EPIC Indie sale is live. See the website EPIC Indie Summer 2026.

At last count over 150 books are on sale for 99 cents each, including three of my own, the novels Zero Point, MarsX, and the novella The Einstein Nexus Book 1.

Find something for your library today.

MarsX - Chapter 2

Image: ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

CHAPTER 2

The day arrived and Harold was up earlier than anyone. He quickly made some sandwiches and put some soda in his thermos before his mom even walked into the kitchen.

“Looks like you’re ready,” she said.

“I can’t wait mom.”

“Okay, I’ll get you some breakfast,” she said.

Harold was eating his breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage when his dad showed up.

“Good morning son, you ready to go?”

“Yeah, dad,” said Harold.

“Alright, let me get a little breakfast and I’ll drop you off at the bus station on my way to work,” he said.

“Thanks dad.”

The Einstein Nexus Book 1

 

My new novella, The Einstein Nexus, will be released Monday, July 20.

It is Book 1 in a novella trilogy, the second book of which is ready for preorder and the eBook will be released August 20. The third book is almost finished and will be released in eBook format September 20.

I've never written a time travel story because I hadn't found any possible physical support for such a story. Then I found some hints of such support in a popular science article about Einstein-Rosen Bridges. See my posts about extrapolating this science here and here.

The novella (along with my novels Zero Point and MarsX) will be available in the upcoming EPIC Indie Summer Sale for 99 cents which also starts on July 20. (However, I've already lowered the price on these if you want to purchase early, see the EPIC Indie site, here. You'll have to scroll the carousel to find them).

If you prefer to purchase somewhere besides Amazon, see this link.

Here is the description:

What began as a teen boy's curiosity, became a physics research project into the time effects of the Einstein-Rosen bridge.

At first, the excitement of the project hid the dangers, even from the experts.

But in time they will become very aware of the dangers.

MarsX - Chapter 1

 Image: ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

This story was finished a year ago last June. It seems long ago now. I had just finished my Cislunar Series collection (June of 2023), Lunar Series collection (October of 2024), and the novel L4 Station (February of 2025). All are part of my Remembered Earth Universe, which was intended to chronicle the near-future expansion of humanity into the Solar System. After the Moon, Mars was the next obvious step, and the story began as just another settling of Mars story. But because of rapidly advancing AI, which was on my mind at the time, super-intelligence became a big part of the story. Surprisingly, such super-intelligent AI provided the impetus for rapid settlement.

Another contributor to the story was my reading of the book The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage. In the book he develops several technologies for the support of Space Habitats and the space habitat of the book, Solaria, is named from the book and uses some of those technologies. Once the settlement of Mars was well along, this seemed to be an ample project for my three protagonists to pivot to.

The antimatter starship that the AIs are credited with developing was going to be another point of focus in the book, I bought the book Mirror Matter by Dr. Robert Forward, for the research to build it credibly. But in the end, I only used a bit of the technology in that book. I hope to revisit the creation of such a starship in the future.

So, here is my story of the settlement of Mars, not as I originally intended, but told as a tall tale.

“The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.”

― Elon Musk