Character Blog Tour

Amanda Green tagged me for the Character Blog Tour.  She introduced her character, Ashlyn Shaw here.

So, here's mine, Richard Schneider, founder of the FTI Schneider dynasty, in the novel Survival Test.:

1) Is he a fictional or historic person.

Richard Schneider is a fictional character (dammit--I really want him or someone like him to be real).  He lives in the near future.

2) When/where is the story set.

The story is set in the mid-21st century in a collection of space stations, a nascent lunar base, and a mission to one of the Earth-Sun Trojan points to investigate to investigate a small cluster of asteroids recently discovered (in story time) to be captured there.

3) What should we know about him?


Schneider is an engineer with a passion for space.  He lost his first wife in an auto accident that also crippled his son.  In time he remarried and his wife shares his passion.  Together they founded FTI, "FutureTech Industries" to make cheap access to space and to begin exploiting space in a real way.  Making money is incidental to him.  He needs to turn a profit, and a substantial one, to keep the company going but it's all for that end of opening up space to humanity.


4) What is the main conflict/what messes up his life.

War.  While Schneider, along with his wife and son from the first marriage, is touring the facilities he has built, and is building, in space, a limited nuclear war breaks out on Earth.  Limited it may be, but the main combatants have missile defense systems that they each use to deny the other, and anyone else, access to space.

None of the facilities in space are ready to be self sufficient.  There are experiments in space farming, a colony that's only partially completed, some pilot industries in orbit and on the moon, but nobody's ready for long term survival without support from Earth.  Unless they can cobble together an answer in time, they will all die.

5) What is the personal goal of the character.

Survival looms large, of course, highlighted by two of the people he loves more than any other face death with him.  He can take comfort that his two younger children are safe on Earth, but with the General in charge of the Air Force Aerospace Command being "sticky" he's cut off from contact with them as well.

Beyond survival, continuing his mission of making a substantial human presence in space, heralding a new age of exploration and discovery, and a new frontier, is never far from his thoughts.

6) Is there a working title for the novel?  Where can we read more about it?

It's a completed novel.  It's available from Amazon, in trade paperback and for the Kindle.

As for who I'm tagging that would be Mark Wandrey and Mackey Chandler.

Mark Wandrey
Located in rural Tennessee, Mark Wandrey has been creating new worlds since he was old enough to write. After penning countless short stories, he realized novels were his real calling and hasn’t looked back since. A lifetime of diverse jobs, extensive travels, and living in most areas of the country have uniquely equipped him with experiences to color his stories in ways many find engaging and thought provoking. His current work is the "Earth Song" series, seven books placed in a future where an orphaned mankind must fight for its very existence in a hostile galaxy...

Check out his blog at: http://earthsongseries.blogspot.com/


Mackey Chandler
Mackey Chandler is retired, living in Rochester MI. His vision of things is shaped by a childhood of constant moving and an adult life of dozens of blue collar jobs. Plumber, mold maker, truck driver, mechanic, restaurant repair and aerospace machinist. Realtor and manifest clerk, motorcycle salesman and window washer are just a start. The variety of employment and wide travel shows up in a wide range of characters and social levels. This Human Wave science fiction books are all DRM free.

And his blog:  http://mackeychandler.com/

Enjoy.