It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click the logo below.)I’m posting again from Tourist Trap, and this excerpt follows immediately after last week’s. Roi is trying to work out what is wrong with the compensation circuit on his hang glider, while in midair just after diving off a cliff. A very high cliff.
A sideslip would be compensated for by lengthening the flight cable to the inside wing, changing both weight distribution and dihedral. There were other, more subtle changes in wing shape and angles, but the direction of change in cable length was fundamental to compensation.
When his glider had started to sideslip, the left wing cable had been in Roi’s field of view, and he was sure he had seen in shorten.
Very carefully, he pulled back on the control bar, bringing the glider’s nose down and increasing speed. He was watching for the nose cable to lengthen, and when he saw it shorten instead he immediately pushed out, bringing the glider back to level flight.
The glider’s flight had been normal yesterday, but today the compensation circuit was somehow working backward, destabilizing the already inherently unstable wing instead of stabilizing it. He couldn’t imagine how that could happen, other than deliberate sabotage, and in that case the sooner he bailed out the better. He moved a hand to the emergency chute on his chest, and felt a sudden unease.
In Roi’s universe, hunches are an untrained, empathy-driven form of the esper ability of conditional precognition. Listen to that unease, Roi!
Tourist Trap is available from Barnes and Noble, iUniverse and Amazon, though the Amazon Kindle price is out of line with the other two e-book prices. The blurb:
A vacation with his three best friends from slavery and a manhood challenge: Roi is given the graduation present he has dreamed of. Dogsledding, hang gliding, a chance to see Pleistocene animals transplanted to a Terraformed vacation world, horseback riding, sailing … all the sports he has returned to with his recovery from paralysis, and a few new ones to learn.
They’re prepared for danger from weather, wild animals and extreme sports. But none of them realize that Roi’s half brother Zhaim, determined to recover his old position as Lai’s heir, intends to kill them if he can—and he’s decided that the dangers of the trip will make a perfect cover for his schemes.
How long will it take them to realize that the “accidents” they keep running into are more than just accidents?
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And who could have sabotage the system? Doesn’t it make it dangerous for everyone on board?
Nice job–and yeah, he’d better get out while he can
Easier said than done, as you’ll see.
This is a one-person hang glider.
Very scary, and absolutely immediate. It made me feel scared for him.
I tried to make it realistic.
You’ve done it again, engaging this reader breathless. Your imagination is boundless, Sue ann. I’ve sworn off hang gliding forever.
I’d have sort of liked to try it in my younger days–but not off a cliff thousands of feet high!
I was thinking sabotage too…and now maybe the emergency chute has been tampered with…wow, the tension amps up even further. Really well done excerpt!
And he’s about to make some really stupid mistakes.
You draw the reader into the scene so well!
Thanks to a lot of research.
Uh oh! If the glider was sabotaged, then possibly his chute was too!
Very well written, Sue Ann. The details are incredible, putting the reader in that hang glider.
Had to do some research for the details, but it’s the details that make scifi or fantasy real.
Whoa! My first though was, “use the thing backwards!’
I don’t think hang gliders work that way.
Man, he really better listen to that feeling! I’m just picturing all of us readers scooting to edge of our seats as we read these excerpts every week 😀 Great job, Sue Ann!
Glad I’m getting the tension across. Thing is, Roi’s still pretty confident he can handle the situation. He’s a teenager.
Oh no…I can see this is just the beginning of some scary downward spiral…you have me on the edge of my seat. How’d Marcia know that’s where I was?
Suspense is what I was aiming at.
Seems like Roi has the realization that someone tampered with his glider. Now is he going to figure out who?
The Murders of Polly Frisch
I’m going to stop before that, so you’ll have to get the book.
Very scary. I wonder what happens.
Tune in next week.
Good thing he caught that cable issue! And now he knows it has to be deliberate. But how’s he going to get down? o.O I’m pretty sure his chute was tampered with, too–just to make sure he ends up dead.
I’m trying to do an emoticon with a wink, but I can’t seem to manage it.
Oh dear, sabotage!
Kind of puts a crimp in a vacation.
Such great tension and suspense! Wonder who could have sabotaged the hang glider and why? It appears that Roi is in even more danger than we thought. Interesting story, Sue Ann. 🙂
The ultimate culprit is pretty obvious if you read the blurb, but there are reasons Roi keeps it to himself.
Ooo, something big is about to happen! Vivid 8!
Oh, he’s in trouble all right.