Friday, March 21, 2008

Year of the Red Lioness

David Burton ~ Cover Artist *
Adventures of the Red Lioness
If yer partial to a futuristic adventurous romp of lust and love on the high celestial seas of space...if you have a yen for those cat shifter types, lament no longer...
And watch out if yer a bad kitty shifter roaming the galactic ports, there’s a kick-ass Lioness on your fleeing furry tail.
Year 3051, the Earth calendar used on Terra-Mars, a terra-formed moon orbiting Mars, the home world of ‘Sun Rocket’ Kahoqua of the Windgrass Clan.
Blurb: What does a lioness shifter do when she's suddenly trapped in an unknown space cruiser's cargo hold? Then, despite her ability to savagely defend herself, she's trapped beneath the handsome human Captain. And next, cat-scratching ridiculously, she finds herself carnal-trapped, and meow yowl! bound by leather straps in his bed?
Answer: She fights tooth and claw. Problem: The loner Captain is nova-hot at seducing her.

Red Lioness Tamed by Savanna Kougar ~ Molten Silver, Liquid Silver Books

Excerpt from Chapter One:
Year 3051, the Earth calendar used on Terra-Mars
"Frax! My brain feels like it’s been spun out of cobwebs," Sun Rocket muttered. She squeezed her eyelids open and shut several times, shifting slightly on the hard metallic surface. Expelling a breath, she attempted to open her eyes. "Frax it to the sun! More cobwebs," she angrily complained.
Pressing her hand over her eyes, she sniffed carefully. Sterile, her surroundings, except for harmless micro dust--except for her--about half a day away from a bath or a good tongue licking. Experimentally she shoved with her foot. Half her usual body weight. She was probably inside some cargo hold, orbiting or...
Sun Rocket shot up to a sitting position. Her head spun at some undefined warp speed. Blinking rapidly, she forced one eye to remain open, seeing ubiquitous gray cargo containers randomly stacked around her. "How the friggin’ frax...?"
She fought to stand upright, assisted by the lessened gravity, and crashed into a tall stack of empty containers. Stumbling into more containers, she kicked at them, managing to knock them out of her way while her head whirled like a new-forming galaxy.
"Not like there’s going to be a port window in here," she muttered derisively. Both eyes open now, she watched the wall circle before her impaired vision like a dimensional portal.
Steadier and steadier on her feet, her brain cobwebs clearing, she automatically reached for her left flank phase pistol. Gone! "Dang the villain! Of course!" she reminded herself. All her weapons would have been stripped during transport into the cargo hold by the beam.
What cargo hold?
Frustrated, wild, she lashed out at the nearest containers with her combat-trained feet--scattering them, semi-floating them away from her. Spying a dark, glass-looking monitor at the top of thehold, Sun Rocket shoved the nearest containers beneath it. Rapidly she threw containers together like a tower. Heedlessly she leapt up the huge makeshift steps, leaned her palms against the wall. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to examine the convex reddish monitor--not a type she knew.
"Get down from there!" a highly irritated male voice commanded in third galactic vernacular.
Wobbling precariously, Sun Rocket knelt on one knee. "Not like I can’t land on my feet like a cat," she murmured, amused for an instant. Gazing down toward the voice’s origin, she saw the fierce male’s flowing locks, well past his shoulders--dark red amber. The humanoid-appearing male glared up at her, hands planted on his hips like a holo-romance buccaneer. From her view, the rest of him could be compared favorably to a lean, yet beautifully muscled hero. Even his garments--a style unknown to her in her far-flung galactic travels tracking down, taking in or eliminating cat shifters who had gone bad--even his garments were reminiscent of swashbuckling ancient Earth.
"Who are you?" she called down to him, resting on her haunches. It was her good luck moon, she was still in human form. Not every galactic race "appreciated" feline shifters. To put it tuna-fish mildly.
"This is my vessel. Get down now!"
Sun Rocket was surprised smoke didn’t billow forth from his ears and his mouth. If he’d been a dragon shifter--well, she could be coughing out lungfuls of nasty smoke.
"You failed to answer my question," she flung down to him, tensed herself to do battle.
Ominously he pressed his belt, eliminating the gravity field. Her tower of containers floated, as she now floated, helpless. The next moment she fell downward, the gravity restored. Forcing herself not to shift, and land on her four cat paws, Sun Rocket twisted to land in a roll.
Spicy Sci Fi kisses from the Kougar...
* David Burton's bio ~ link to the galactic gallery
For nearly 20 years, Northwood artist David Burton has been providing high quality and creative images for a wide diversity of clients. His paintings and illustrations have appeared as covers and interiors for hardcover and paperback books, magazines, comic books, character design for movies and advertising art. His work resides in collections all over the world and is highly sought after by publishers, studios, and collectors. Burton's take on Burroughs' famous characters is unique and has been hailed by some of the top writers and artists working in the field of science fiction today for being perhaps the most realistic attempt yet to capture this alien world and its inhabitants. After seeing Burton's work on the project, Ray Bradbury (author of such SF classics as "The Martian Chronicles" and "Fahrenheit 451") immediately commissioned Burton for a painting of King Kong. Unlike some artists who embed themselves in one area or genre, David enjoys the challenges encountered by illustrating a diversity of job types and subject matters. As such, he is just as comfortable painting a domestic scene of young adults as he is in painting a film noir detective or a fantasy scene with a dragon. Born 1960 in Manchester, New Hampshire, his earliest artistic influences were comic books. David is a mostly self-taught artist. He also teaches a free art class for anyone willing to participate at the Chesley Memorial Library every Monday night.

1 comment:

Savanna Kougar said...

Welcome from the other side of the galaxy!