About False Dawn
by Maia Strong
139 pages / 29000 words
ISBN: 978-1-61040-019-0
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html, lit, Adobe and Sony optimized pdf, prc, epub
As a police detective aboard generational starship Lažna Zora, it's Galen Traub's job to investigate when someone goes missing. He never expects that someone to be his husband. Time is ticking quickly past and the longer Dayan is missing, the less likely the chances Galen will find him alive.
While Galen searches for him, Dayan Andrus is trapped in a nightmare, forced to relive events from his past while his kidnappers collect data derived from his memories. While Dayan lives inside his manipulated mind, his body is without food or water, strapped to a chair, captive.
Can Galen reach him before he's driven over the edge?
Review
Alex Marcus-Jacobs, author of the What You Wish For series, writes: I'd
not read anything by Maia Strong before I dug into False Dawn, and I'd
never heard anything about it or even read a synopsis before I started
to read. I'll be honest, for all that I write for e-books, I have a hard
time reading them. Imagine my surprise when I started reading False
Dawn, and read it from start to finish in a single sitting.
Maia Strong has written a captivating, engaging science fiction tale set
long after humanity has wasted our world and set out to the stars. It's
much more than simply a tale about Galen Traub and the search for his
missing husband Dayan. Through flashbacks to various points in Dayan's
life, we learn about the deep and passionate love that Galen and Dayan
share, and even get a very explicit peek into their love life that had
me wanting much more. I found myself genuinely caring about both of
them. I could almost feel Galen's terror and desperation as he tries to
find Dayan, and the startling truth behind the disappearance was one
that actually left me open-mouthed.
I'm not usually one to read any book twice in a row, but with False
Dawn, I did, and enjoyed it as much the second time as the first. A
wonderful, thought provoking, romantic story like this is not one I
suggest anyone miss. If Maia's other tales are like this, I'm going to
be wanting to read them all.
Sample
Galen tossed and turned in his bed. Usually it felt too small for two people but tonight, lacking Dayan's warm, solid presence beside him, it was like an ocean of space. He should be used to the absence. They worked opposing shifts often enough that it wasn't uncommon for each to spend a sleep period alone. Several, in fact. On nights like that, he would fall asleep safe in the knowledge that his husband was out doing his job and would come home at the end of his shift.
But not tonight. Tonight he didn't know where Dayan was. He didn't know when or how they would find him. Didn't know if they could.
No. They had to. Losing Dayan forever wasn't an option.
Damn it! They must be missing a clue.
Well, duh. He rolled over, disgusted with himself. Of course they were missing a clue. If they weren't, they'd have solved the case by now and he wouldn't be complaining about how the stupid little bed was too big without his husband to share it.
The afternoon's investigations had left them no further along than the morning's. No one had seen anything. No one knew anything they hadn't already disclosed. No one could explain how a full grown adult male could disappear in a corridor that had no doors, no interior ports, and no access hatches. And the ship's chief engineer assured him and Flint quite soundly that there was no experimental new technology that could teleport anyone or make them invisible or shift them between dimensions or any other "science-fiction nonsense" like that.
"Fuck this!" Giving up sleep for a lost cause, Galen threw off the covers and sat up. "Lights to half."
Dull gray light filled the bedroom, enhancing rather than dispelling its cramped dimensions. There wasn't even satisfactory room to pace. He briefly considered taking a mild sedative; there were some in the bathroom's medicine cabinet. What time was it? He looked at the clock in the wall over the bed.
Blue numbers glowed softly. 02:54.
Okay, so the tranq option was out. He had to be up too soon. He should have taken something hours ago if he was going to go that route. Damn.
He wanted a drink.
Galen made a noise of disgust and shook his head. "Not an option," he said aloud to the empty room. He had to get a grip. Getting wasted--again--wasn't going to do him or Dayan any good.
He padded barefoot into the small living room, the light level adjusting automatically as he went from one room to the next. "Play live video. News feed." He sat heavily on the sofa as the wall holograph of the early a.m. news report was projected. The farm report, which covered all hydroponics and livestock updates, was on. He almost smiled. Who needed a tranquilizer when they had the farm report?
Unfortunately, it was just wrapping up. And the next news at the top of the hour was coverage of Dayan's disappearance. Galen watched with growing anger as the news reader's report got increasingly hyperbolic and sensationalist. Barely veiled suggestions that Engineering was tinkering with secret teleportation technology and an experiment that had gone bad. The man went on to imply that Security was either complicit in the public deception or they were Engineering's unwitting victims. Either way, it made the force look bad. Incompetent at best, and, at worst, a bunch of conspiring liars.
"Video off!" ordered Galen more forcefully than necessary. The projection shimmered and vanished.
"This is bullshit." He needed to get back to work. Find the clue that eluded him. Find his husband.
Decision made, he rose from the sofa, grabbed a quick shower and shave, and dressed. His presence at the station at this hour would raise some eyebrows, but no one would challenge him. The security scuttlebutt network was almost as fast as the ship's computer core. By now it was a given that everyone in the department knew Galen's husband was missing.
He clipped the PG that Flint had requisitioned yesterday to his belt and headed out.