Defenders at the Gate

"The three in the huge Fortress orbiting the swelling red giant star were silent. It was finally time to go. They were there at the beginning ... well, not the "Creation" beginning, but they were there eons ago when events on the third planet from the star changed everything. Their memory spanned all that had happened since then. Now all of the planets and moons - even the asteroids and comets - were gone, and it was time for them to follow. But first, they remembered" ... The Defenders at the Gate.

Nicholas MacEwen is something of a walking paradox. He is a brilliant energy weapons designer who yearns to develop a defense against his own creations. He is an amateur military historian and a nascent pacifist. He's a self-avowed introvert who may be the only person that can break the back of the Second Great Depression and lead the world away from mutually assured destruction. Though he cannot see the future, Nick may just "be" the future.

The unintended consequences of Nick's attempt at sabotaging his own invention start a chain of events that has the potential to transform civilization for the better or for the worse. Realizing that he may have opened the technological equivalent of Pandora's Box, he takes off on a perilous cross-county journey to seek asylum with an old college friend. However, Nick's departure does not go unnoticed, and the chase is on with almost unimaginable power hanging in the balance. His actions will cause anger, joy, hate, love, devotion, betrayal, survival, death and destruction.

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Notă biografică

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: J. E. "Max" Maxwell was born in the small community of Princeton, Illinois shortly after his father entered the Marine Corps in WWII. His mother lived with her parents on their dairy farm for the duration of the war. Despite his rural beginnings, Max grew up as a city kid in St. Louis and then Dallas. After college, his career carried him to Colorado Springs, Boston, Houston, and Fort Worth where he now lives with his wife, Cindy. They raised five children who have long since flown the nest. Max became a big fan of Science Fiction in his early teens and regularly rode a bus to a downtown Dallas newsstand where he could buy the latest SF pulp magazines. While Max was still in high school, he wrote a science fiction short story and submitted it to one of the publishers. Soon he received the ubiquitous "your story does not meet our current publishing needs" form letter. The lack of any useful specifics was disappointing, but not a major setback. The show-stopper came when his story appeared in the magazine a few months later under someone else's name. Smarting from the deep sense of betrayal that only a teenager can feel, Max pursued his original career choice, engineering. He worked as a technician while attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas. After earning Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Electrical Engineering, Max pursued a career in Defense Electronics that ranged from bullpen engineer to the president's suite. Now, an older-but-wiser Max has returned to his earlier passion for writing Science Fiction.