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The Coldest Equations is book one in The People Out There series.
It is currently available on both the Kindle and Nook for $2.99.
Don't have a Kindle or Nook? You can download a Kindle or Nook emulator for FREE at the appropriate website! So don't let that stop you from getting this great book! |
Read an interview with author Caroline Miniscule at The Thunder Child SF&F Webzine
Click here for Kindle
The Plot
Whenever a new TV show is committed to celluloid, the world evoked by that TV movie or series manifests itself as an alternate Earth. And there are beings Out There who have devised a machine (the Teleinvisichronomicon) which enables them to transfer the actors from Earth 1 into the bodies of their characters on these alternate Earths. And vice versa.
Tracy Karlovassi is the star of a science fiction erise called The Coldest Equations, in which she plays Miranda Rainbird, top spy, for the Capablanca Corporation. In the earth of this series, the civilian space organizations vie with each other to be the first - and only - companies to set up space stations on the moon, on the asteroids, and on Mars. Some security teams keep their own scientists and technology safe, other security teams attempt to kidnap scientists and appropriate technology from their rivals. It is to one of those security teams that Miranda Rainbird belongs.
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In Season 3 of The Coldest Equations, Miranda Rainbird has been framed for a crime she did not commit and is on the run from friend and foe alike. Rainbird may have had no trouble proving her innocence and bringing the real culprits to justice, but then Tracy Karlovassi is transferred into her body, and what can a mere actress do?
Homages
The names of characters
All of the characters in The Coldest Equations have names that pay tribute to classic actors or characters from various media. See them all at: The Naming.
Homages by Chapter
Chapter 1
I'm a fan of Vincent Price's radio work (I live his Saint!), and also of Lights Out, so I thought I'd pay tribute to them here. "Three Skeleton Key" is one of my favorite radio episodes! And of course who doesn't love The Shadow?
Chapter 2
Chase Me Faster is the title of a fictional book in the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators book, The Secret of Skeleton Island. I always loved that title and intended to use it as the title of my own book one day.
All of the corporations are given the names of chess masters. This is an homage to John Brunner's The Squares of the City. It is also a bit of foreshadowing - the characters are pawns in a chess game.
"You're so comforting," as Tracy says to Nick. An homage to Jack Benny and Carole Lombard in To Be or Not To Be. An audience member has walked out on Jack Benny's Hamlet. She suggests he might have been really ill. He might have been dying. He might be dead already!
Chapter 3
As is made clear in the chapter, the weight training session - brief as it is - is an homage to Linda Hamilton's buff look in Terminator 2.
Everyone asks Gertrude, "How's every little thing, Gert?" This is an homage to the radio comedy series, Fibber McGee and Molly. Everytime the phone operator would call up Fibber, he'd say, "How's every little thing, Myrt."
The Auditors are the villains in Terry Pratchett's great book, The Thief of Time. They all choose the names of colors to give themselves.
Chapter 4
Soon to come.
Chapter 5
Soon to come.
Chapter 6
Soon to come.
Chapter 7
Soon to come.
Chapter 8
Soon to come.
Chapter 9
Soon to come.
Chapter 10
Soon to come.
Chapter 11
Soon to come.
Chapter 12
Soon to come.
Chapter 13
Soon to come.
Chapter 14
Soon to come.
Chapter 15
"Go. Go now. Go north." These are the instructions from the Oracle in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, starring John Philip Law and Tom Baker.
"There's no place you can run. There's no place you can hide, when the Juggernaut wants you." The Juggernaut was the first villain faced by The Beast in his own, short-lived comic book, and this was one of the Beast's lines as he was fleeing from the Juggernaut.
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