Authorpreneur Dashboard – Richard Sutton
Vermont Woods: A Music Fable
Literature & Fiction
A Short story, Vermont Woods is a modern fable. A part-time musician and his brother try to revisit a moment from their childhood. They venture into the Vermont woods, to find a spot they discovered as children, but what they find there changes the musician's life completely. When you have dreams, be careful what you wish for. They might come true.
Book Bubbles from Vermont Woods: A Music Fable
Unexpected riches
We've all had those moments when we find something of value where none was expected. A handful of change or a small denomination bill. A set of lost keys, that sort of thing. On rare occasions, what we find may actually change our lives completely. That is what my short story Vermont Woods is about. It also suggests that those things of value may affect us in ways we don't expect, or they may lead to bad decisions. Luck runs both ways, after all.
Home
Science Fiction & Fantasy
A small group of Human colonists have escaped a lingering death on the drought and war ravaged planet Earth. Sadly, their new home may not offer the gleaming future life they expected. Besides losing all their technology and tools, dodging lurking predators and finding few sources of food, they have something new to worry about. They are not alone. They may not find any welcome here.
Book Bubbles from Home
What truly defines Human?
If we had to take personal inventory as a species, what assets would we list? In Home, I explore that question from the standpoint of a human colonist in a new world. Starting over, without benefit of even the simplest tools. As they come to terms with having to create new technology to enable living in a hostile environment, they find they are not alone. The existing species of humanoid neighbors, though outwardly calm, almost pastoral; are highly developed, highly telepathic and not too sure they like having neighbors. Home looks at how these two groups come to terms with each other and finally find ways to share and learn together. Can rising intolerance be eliminated? Do past mistakes force our hands?
The Gatekeepers
Literature & Fiction
Sequel to The Red Gate. Finn’s growing family has protected their ancient secret from the world for ten years. Their peaceful life faces new upheaval as lost family returns to the remote Co. Mayo farm from America. The Irish Civil War, raging in the cities, is also threatening to pull them into its violent grasp of reprisal. Whom can they trust, now that new threats lurk in even familiar doorways?
Book Bubbles from The Gatekeepers
The Red Gate
Literature & Fiction
Ireland, 1911. County Mayo. For a reclusive Irish sheep farming family, a chain of unexpected events leads them to uncover ancient secrets about themselves and their place in the greater world. As the greed and ambition of an unfolding, devious plan begins to threaten their land and very lives, what will become of their home and it’s hidden legacy? What will become of their sheep?
Book Bubbles from The Red Gate
Troll
Literature & Fiction
At what point did humanity learn to fear each other? To hate? Paleo-Anthropologist Ariel Connor thinks she knows. She just can't prove it yet, but her newest find, high in a Norwegian Valley may give her the proof she needs. Those scary stories we've told our children to keep them from roaming too far outside the gleam of the porch light may have come from real incidents, many, many years ago. Two tribes converged. One walked home. The other?
Book Bubbles from Troll
Racism has deep roots
As our understanding of human evolution has changed from a straight timeline of advancement to something more resembling a large unruly family moving here and there, questions begin to form. For me, our intolerance to those others just outside our own family circles seems innate. It often seems like something we're born with. There have been several studies done into whether altruism is a natural nature of human beings, but the results, usually studying children, are mixed. In Troll, I investigate our earliest confrontations with "others" and how that might have set our species up for hardwired hatred and distrust. I also suggest that maybe it wasn't completely a natural response, but one engineered for... political reasons.
