Lives of Future-Past
SK Benton
Mar 2015 · Surco, LLC
4,6star
7 reviewsreport
eBook
327
Pages
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About this eBook
Meet Max. He's a lycan. He's also a mage. Oh, and his father is the most bad-ass of all the archangels - he just doesn't know any of it yet. But when he finds out, his life is turned even more upside-down than it already is. Add a super-hot lycan girl of South American descent, time travel, a god-like grandfather and smelly vampires and you are sitting right in the middle of chaos. Max's chaos.
Ratings and reviews
4,6
7 reviews
About the author
Author, artist, extreme athlete, traveler; Steven Kenneth (SK) Benton grew up in Oregon, moving to Southern California as soon as he was old enough to leave home.
Having performed virtually every kind of job one could imagine, including private investigator (homicide panel), professional musician, Spanish-English interpreter, Alaskan commercial fisherman and a computer graphics instructor (for Walt Disney Imagineering, Cartoon Network and CBS Television Studios), he settled on a software engineering career, after having developed an automated radio frequency engineering application for the telecom industry - to this day still the only one of its kind in the entire world. It was at this time that he felt a need to release his creative energies, having previously set his music off to the side. Throughout the years he had created an imaginary galaxy in serialized blog entries, and at the suggestion of his younger daughter, he recompiled these into what today is known as The Chronicles of Max Gunnarsson.
Benton has created a universe where magic has a believable explanation and functionality; where lycans are the noble protectors of mankind, and vampires are the ugly, rotting antagonists; where archangels and Prīmulī manage those of enhanced genetics, and carefully guide mankind to his intended place in the universe.
The series revolves around young Commander Max Gunnarsson, PhD; a 29th century naval officer from a far away human-colonized binary star system. He's pursued by the military for having built a faster-than-light craft for his own purposes, and breaking regulations (justifying his actions as he had invented the technology). Max returns to the world of his ancestors, Earth, to find a dead planet, but soon learns what happened and how it will affect his own beloved Azul system. There he is joined by Draagh, one of the aforementioned Prīmulī, who also happens to be his genetic grandfather, and later by Jennie Escalante, the headstrong, beautiful naval lieutenant initially sent to arrest him. Aside from being naval officers, Max and Jennie have some things in common – one is that they are from the same country – Nueva Argentina. Another thing is that they are both inactive lycans, which is quickly changed by Draagh when he takes the couple to a world where they can avail themselves of their genetic heritage. Jennie finds the socially-awkward Max to be annoying and not worth her time, but they soon must learn to work together in order to survive – and to save their world from the same fate that befell Earth.
Add a 1,000 year-old lycan king, a sociopathic, inactive vampire ex-boyfriend out for revenge, and a precocious 10 year-old orphan girl with a propensity for magic and a definite mean streak, and you are sitting smack-dab in the middle of Max's universe.
Readers find an intriguing blend of hard sci-fi and fantasy, along with an edgy romantic twist (boy loves girl / girl wants to murder boy). Scientific plausibility, geographical accuracy and some historical/theological references bring a grounded sense of realism to the series. The author has used actual languages to develop a rich lexicon for the series, and all books feature an ever-expanding glossary of terms. Magic spells, called "cantuses", are all based on ancient Latin. Numerous everyday idioms are in Spanish and German, due to the unique multinational makeup of Azul's ancestral immigrants.
If a real-life country is mentioned in his books, Benton has been there. This personal experience enables him to create extremely detailed narratives that are easily corroborated by others who have been to the same locales.
He has been married to his wife, Marielena, for over 28 years, the couple having two adult daughters - Kathleen and Daniella, the latter being a grad school student, with the former already having acquired her MBA. Both being voracious readers, they provide him with constructive advice that enables him to connect more effectively with his reader base.
His first two novels, "Lives of Future-Past" and "Lives of Lost Angels", are the first books in a continuation universe, starting with "The Vrol Trilogy". This will expand out to other trilogies and duologies. Also planned is a series of young teen urban fantasy adventures based on the mischievous activities of the Gunnarsson's daughter, Liliana, as she attends a private school on 29th century Azul, the home world of her parents, and hunts down those with the recessive vampire gene (Readers of The Chronicles of Max Gunnarsson will understand exactly what this means).
As he lets his imagination go nuts he hopes that readers will enjoy Max's world(s) and get into the whole "beautiful lycans / ugly vampires" feel of everything.
And "SK" really are his initials.
Having performed virtually every kind of job one could imagine, including private investigator (homicide panel), professional musician, Spanish-English interpreter, Alaskan commercial fisherman and a computer graphics instructor (for Walt Disney Imagineering, Cartoon Network and CBS Television Studios), he settled on a software engineering career, after having developed an automated radio frequency engineering application for the telecom industry - to this day still the only one of its kind in the entire world. It was at this time that he felt a need to release his creative energies, having previously set his music off to the side. Throughout the years he had created an imaginary galaxy in serialized blog entries, and at the suggestion of his younger daughter, he recompiled these into what today is known as The Chronicles of Max Gunnarsson.
Benton has created a universe where magic has a believable explanation and functionality; where lycans are the noble protectors of mankind, and vampires are the ugly, rotting antagonists; where archangels and Prīmulī manage those of enhanced genetics, and carefully guide mankind to his intended place in the universe.
The series revolves around young Commander Max Gunnarsson, PhD; a 29th century naval officer from a far away human-colonized binary star system. He's pursued by the military for having built a faster-than-light craft for his own purposes, and breaking regulations (justifying his actions as he had invented the technology). Max returns to the world of his ancestors, Earth, to find a dead planet, but soon learns what happened and how it will affect his own beloved Azul system. There he is joined by Draagh, one of the aforementioned Prīmulī, who also happens to be his genetic grandfather, and later by Jennie Escalante, the headstrong, beautiful naval lieutenant initially sent to arrest him. Aside from being naval officers, Max and Jennie have some things in common – one is that they are from the same country – Nueva Argentina. Another thing is that they are both inactive lycans, which is quickly changed by Draagh when he takes the couple to a world where they can avail themselves of their genetic heritage. Jennie finds the socially-awkward Max to be annoying and not worth her time, but they soon must learn to work together in order to survive – and to save their world from the same fate that befell Earth.
Add a 1,000 year-old lycan king, a sociopathic, inactive vampire ex-boyfriend out for revenge, and a precocious 10 year-old orphan girl with a propensity for magic and a definite mean streak, and you are sitting smack-dab in the middle of Max's universe.
Readers find an intriguing blend of hard sci-fi and fantasy, along with an edgy romantic twist (boy loves girl / girl wants to murder boy). Scientific plausibility, geographical accuracy and some historical/theological references bring a grounded sense of realism to the series. The author has used actual languages to develop a rich lexicon for the series, and all books feature an ever-expanding glossary of terms. Magic spells, called "cantuses", are all based on ancient Latin. Numerous everyday idioms are in Spanish and German, due to the unique multinational makeup of Azul's ancestral immigrants.
If a real-life country is mentioned in his books, Benton has been there. This personal experience enables him to create extremely detailed narratives that are easily corroborated by others who have been to the same locales.
He has been married to his wife, Marielena, for over 28 years, the couple having two adult daughters - Kathleen and Daniella, the latter being a grad school student, with the former already having acquired her MBA. Both being voracious readers, they provide him with constructive advice that enables him to connect more effectively with his reader base.
His first two novels, "Lives of Future-Past" and "Lives of Lost Angels", are the first books in a continuation universe, starting with "The Vrol Trilogy". This will expand out to other trilogies and duologies. Also planned is a series of young teen urban fantasy adventures based on the mischievous activities of the Gunnarsson's daughter, Liliana, as she attends a private school on 29th century Azul, the home world of her parents, and hunts down those with the recessive vampire gene (Readers of The Chronicles of Max Gunnarsson will understand exactly what this means).
As he lets his imagination go nuts he hopes that readers will enjoy Max's world(s) and get into the whole "beautiful lycans / ugly vampires" feel of everything.
And "SK" really are his initials.
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