Endless Fall of Night
Based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, we see our future that shows striking similarities to this age of imperialism, classism, and capitalistic expansion where racism is commonplace, slavery exists, and a minority of people are in absolute power. Instead of Belgium Company’s outposts along the Congo River in Africa in 1899 or a US Swift Boat going up the Nung River in Vietnam in 1969, this is the great Third Republic on Earth and colonies on Mars in the year 2126.
Cassandra XI, patrician and first-class citizen, is exposed to a traumatic experience that later has her questioning the established social order. She is eventually tried and convicted as an insurrectionist, her personal AI deactivated, social status and titles revoked, and she is sent to prison. Cassandra is then approached by Captain Willard Bennett of the light cruising ship the Jefferson Davis to investigate why the Martian colony New Georgia went dark, leaving severed heads on spikes and the message “Bring Cassandra Kurtz.”
With no choice but to go, Cassandra’s life is about to change in unimaginable ways.
Heavy Weight of Darkness
Willard Bennett – court marshaled, imprisoned, and class status revoked, he is now like most people: limited freedoms, no opportunity to advance, rights and privileges restricted, life-extending health services denied, and worse, the shame of once having it all, and then losing it. Many hard days and fitful nights he had dreamed of retracing his footsteps, finding the woman who did this to him, and ending her.
In a desperate act to curb insurrection on Earth, space command’s admiralty and tribunal branch offers him redemption in the form of a new mission: track, find and kill Cassandra Kurtz. In return, he will receive his freedom, commission, life extending health care and a return to his former glory.
Originally enthused, he researches Cassandra’s origins, the once first class, full citizen from the oldest family of the Third Republic turned insurrectionist on Earth and a full-blown terrorist on Mars. But it’s after his investigation of the Delta Quarter, where it all started for Cassandra, that Bennett’s resolve diminishes.
Drawing inspiration from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the Heavy Weight of Darkness is the sequel to the Endless Fall of Night where questions are answered, lives are altered, and truths come out in the final confrontation between Acting Captain Willard Bennett and the infamous disrupter, Cassandra Kurtz.
"Tight writing, fast pacing, prodigious conflict, and a knack for no-frills description make Erickson’s dystopian thrillers a good bet for sci-fi readers also interested in the complexities of racial and class inequity, extreme capitalism, and imperialism." - US Review of Books RECOMMENDED
Publication: September 1, 2024
Kindle (EPUB) 978-1-942708-56-8
Amazon: ASIN: B0DFTYCL1X
B&N Softcover: 9781942708551
B&N eBook: 2940186138525
Time is for Dragonflies and Angels
2017 Best Indie Book Award for Novella category
Gold Medal Winner of Readers' Favorite 2017 International Book Awards
Finalist for 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award
Foreword Reviews Announces Finalists for 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards
Kirkus Reviews'The Best Books of 2018 (December 2018 Issue, Volume 88, No. 23, page 199)
Time is for Dragonflies and Angels is a collection of flash science fiction and novellas that embraces the ideas of multi-universes and dimensions, critical decisions and judgments, and human struggles associated with racism and dystopian societies.
Publisher: J. M. Erickson (author), Suzanne M. Owen (editor), and Cathy Helms – Avalon Graphics, LLC (cover designer), e.B.Format (book format)
ISBN - 13: 978-1-942708-24-7 (ePub)
ISBN - 13: 978-1-942708-25-4 (Softcover)
Publication Date: October 3, 2016
Pages: 211 pages
Cost: $10.99
Time is for Dragonflies and Angels made #1 on Amazon's "Hot New Releases" in the Teen & Young Adult categories, science fiction-steampunk genre; reached #4 in the "Top 100" in the same category and steampunk genre and #6 in the "Top 100" in the science fiction-anthologies & short stories genres.
Awards
International Impact Book Awards
Science Fiction/Fantasy – Dystopian Stories Categories – Endless Fall of Night is Winner at the International Impact Book Awards!
Literary Titan Gold Book Awards
Endless Fall of Night and Heavy Weight of Darkness presented the Literary Titan Book Award in Science Fiction
Los Angeles Book Festival Awards
Endless Fall of Night Winner at the 2025 Los Angelas Book Festival Award in Science Fiction
Feathered Quill Book Awards
Endless Fall of Night – Silver/2nd place award in the 2025 Feathered Quill Book Awards Program for the Science Fiction
Future Prometheus: The Series
The series rated as #1 in Amazon Best Seller in Science Fiction's Steampunk category, #5 in Anthologies & Short Stories and #30 in Space Marine category in July 2018
2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards - Finalist
2016 Best Indie Book Contest - Finalist
"Our awards program is known as the 'Sundance' of the book publishing world," says Catherine Goulet, Chair of the 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards program.
Contributor(s): J. M. Erickson (author), Suzanne M. Owen (editor), and Cathy Helms – Avalon Graphics, LLC (cover designer)
Publisher:J.M. Erickson
ISBN-13:978-1-942708-16-2
Publication Date: November 13, 2015
Pages: 576
Price: $19.40
Synopsis: In the tradition of dystopian science-fiction, the Future Prometheus Series compiles five novellas into on full-length epic of a world where the science we know today has warped into masterful and terrifying ways.
“A gripping SF tale that explores themes of humanity and loyalty.” - Kirkus Review
“…simultaneously eerie and inspirational—a fitting achievement for a book that unflinchingly explores the depths of human depravity.” - Kirkus Review
“…blindside story twists, bursts of clever banter, boundless imagination, and sly social critique make this darkly prophetic work of sci-fi a quick and memorable read.” - Self-Publishing Reviews
Publication: June 1, 2024
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-942708-53-7
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-942708-51-3
Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse
Finally...two science fiction novellas together in one book...
Intelligent Design: Revelations is a science fiction novella published in July 2014 by AIA Publishing that won silver at the Foreword Reviews 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year. Revelations starts sixty five million years ago revealing new worlds, great technologies and the efforts of superior beings trying to save several species of hominids. Come forward to present days, there are only a trusted few humans that know that Earth is not the only planet in the solar system that has sapient life. The truth of our origins and greater threats and plans to come will test human resolve. And it will all fall onto two women.
Intelligent Design II: Apocalypse picks up from where Revelations leaves off, with more answers that are far darker than the questions. Hidden planets, preexisting advanced civilizations, coexisting hominid species, and new revelations have all led to the end of days. Whether by twist of fate or by design, the Jovian planet is about to ignite into a sun. The civilizations of Mars, Earth and Terra are now at risk from the cataclysmic effects of an impossible astronomical anomaly. Critically acclaimed and recipient of the Readers' Favorite Five Stars Review, Apocalypse reveals all truths, including a hints of yet another civilization in the Sol System.
Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse was rated as Amazon's “Hot New Release” in December 2015 reaching #2 in literature & fiction, fantasy category for adults, while reaching #22 in the top 100 ranking in science fiction & fantasy, anthologies & short stories categories.
Published October 27, 2015; available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords; (MOBI Format) 978-1-942708-13-1 (ePub Format) 978-1-942708-14-8; Paperback: 978-1-942708-15-5
Future Prometheus II: Revolution, Successions & Resurrections
Foreword Reviews 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards - Gold
Contributor(s): J. M Erickson (author), Stacee Gravelle Lawrence (editor), Suzanne M. Owen (editor), and Cathy Helms – Avalon Graphics, LLC (cover designer)
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN-13: 978-1-4787-3477-2
Publication Date: May 14, 2014
Pages: 482
Price: $10.99
Synopsis:
Jose Melendez leads his new team to form alliances with a militaristic matriarch and the natives called "Americans" to confront a cybernetic army committed to the destruction of the human race. Lessons from a distant war comes full circle as the final conflict begins.
The Prince: Lucifer's Origins
Shelf Unbound 2016 Indie Book - Runner Up
2016 Best Indie Book Contest - Semi-Finalist