Starquest Crowdfunder Goes Live!

And, YES, there will be space princesses!

Details and prize descriptions are on the Campaign Page:
 http://www.scifiwright.com/starquest-campaign/

Jagi, here.

Inspired by “The Review We’ve All Been Waiting For”, Superversive Press presents Starquest — a brand new space opera extravaganza in a dynamic new background designed by John and the Wright Family.

Eventually, it is hoped, a number of authors will be involved, but the first four Starquest books are to be written by John C. Wright!

Visit the Indiegogo campaign to join in on the excitement!

A lovely fan donated some gifts to be shared with people who help share the news on social media. More news will be shared about that tomorrow, but if you wish to participate, feel free to post links to wherever you share it in the comments!

And finally, the original write up John did for the campaign (Indiegogo version is shorter.)

*

MAKING SPACE OPERA GREAT AGAIN!

Have you been disappointed by the drab, dull, and unimpressive way most space sagas, franchises, and the beloved epics of childhood have been treated in recent times?

Writers of space adventure stories, if they dare write the kind of old-school, honest, rousing, tale of action, intrigue, and interstellar deeds of derring-do we all enjoy, when men were men and women were space princesses, are ignored by modern publishers, scorned by the press, shunned by the long established science fiction awards.

Space opera is the genre where at least one planet is blown into asteroids before the end of Act One. Such tales are peopled by dashing star-captains, villains space pirates, lovely princesses, cunning secret agents, roaring monsters, ancient ruins on accursed planets, dying worlds, exploding suns, and dazzling visions of grandeur.

But where is the reader to turn, who yearns for a return to the thrills of yore? This things are not lost. The pulp magazines may be gone, and the serial cliffhangers extinct, but their spirit is reborn! Space Opera lives again!

John C Wright, and his inner circle of space allies, seeks to break the fetters on the imagination which have bound our brains for too long. There are rich, loud, outrageous tales of heroism and villainy yet to be told, against the infinite backdrop of the stars, and all the reaches of eternity.

STARQUEST is an homage, a renaissance, and a return to those epic space yarns of yore. No editor with a political agenda can censor this work, no decrepit publishing house can push postmodern pretensions into the text. No one will spoil our fun. The writer answers directly to the reader, you. You are my beloved customer: I am writing what you want the way you want it: because I am a disappointed fanboy myself, and, rather than complain that science fiction is dying, with you help, I can do something to cure it.

STARQUEST is a crowdfunded experiment in pulp publishing. The working title for the first episode is PHANTOM PRIVATEER VERSUS SPACE PIRATES OF ANDROMEDA. That title should tell you what we have in mind.

In PHANTOM PRIVATEER, Lancelot Lone of Star Patrol must infiltrate and destroy the Space Pirates of Andromeda, before their chief, Captain Ahab of Nastrond, obliterates the peaceful planets of the Miaplacidus star system, using an ultimate terror weapon known as the Blood Moon.

He is captured, tortured, and is left for dead, but escapes by a miracle — or, rather, by an ancient legend come to life again, one of the disciples of mysteriously missing Jaywind Starquest, the last Templar of the Galaxy, uses her mysterious power to save him.

The Star Maiden Lirazel, outcast student of the Arcadian Order of psychics of hidden planet Mira, defies her superiors, and seeks through the stars for the cure to the horror that obliterated her homeworld. Believed by no one, Lyra is alone, save for an unseen spymaster called Shadow Fox. Is her quest the same as his? The pair form an unlikely alliance.

Lance, now thought dead, dons the Infinity Mask, an ancient artifact of a supreme and long dead race, and assumes the disguise of his remote ancestor, the first pirate hunter, a nameless figure known only as the Phantom Privateer, to renew his remorseless war against Ahab and his bloodthirsty space buccaneers!

But the sinister forces behind those pirates, funding them, supplying them, are already weaving other webs to snare our gallant hero – in Andromeda, things are rarely what they seem — but thrilling future sequels will tell those tales.