411 on Books, Authors & Publishing

The Ancient Ones

By c.b. strul

Synopsis:

The Ancient Ones is a Science Fiction adventure that takes place on Earth 100,000 years ago. It is the survival tale of a teenage girl named Blue Flower who escapes into the wilderness as her tribe is captured by an opposing clan. Out in the far reaches of the desert landscape, she is rescued by a being from another world and the two of them form a bond through music. Blue Flower and Crow Mother develop a relationship through song though their words have little value to one another at first. Ultimately, they realize they want to trust each other, and Crow Mother helps Blue Flower to find her captured tribe.

Read an excerpt:

Blue Flower had only died for a moment, perhaps a couple of hours… could a day have passed? When she finally opened her eyes, she did not know where she was, or why it was so much cooler in this place, or what that odd dripping appendage was hanging just over her face and mouth. The walls of the cave were all mossy stone and grey and red. Some mineral deposits colored the stones with starkly beautiful layers of crushed sediment. Droplets of water had been falling onto her face from the appendage, and she realized it bore an off resemblance to some of the water pots of Tetset at the end, though there was an extension of metallic tubing coming out the back end of the thing that did not look familiar to Blue Flower in the slightest.

She shook off the small puddles of liquid that had been forming around her eyes and chin where the drip had missed its mark. She sat up slowly, feeling the ache in her muscles from the long journey she had just taken. She followed the metal tubing with her eyes to see it extend from wall-to-stalactite-covered-ceiling. Her sidelong glance brought her attention to a cluster of humming bricks formed from that same metal. The boxes were new with no signs of rustication. If Blue Flower had known much about metal, she would have recognized that none of those components could have been there for very long. But all of it was beyond Blue Flower’s comprehension. Her people had not been metallurgists. Tetset had never imagined the need for stronger, more durable materials like these. Still, she marveled at the shine of the stuff.

More metallic objects lingered beyond those boxes, with soft, velvety surfaces inlaid atop them. What this substance was, she had even less of a clue about. And why were there so many shiny finger-sized circles and sticks jutting up from just below the velvet? Had all these things been built by someone? They did not appear natural — not like anything Blue Flower had ever experienced.

Eventually, she decided she should stand in order to see the rest of the room. Her aches seemed to dissipate as her sense of disoriented curiosity overtook everything. Now on her feet, she realized the room was much smaller than she had initially thought. She would have been able to walk from one end to the other in perhaps six long steps if she hadn’t suddenly become distracted by the other creature with its back turned to her behind the place where she had been sleeping.

Author bio:

C.B. Strul is excited to launch his first full-length science fiction novel entitled The Ancient Ones. He has previously released a series of three novellas: Spinners, Forget the Complex, and What Grows from the Stump of a Tree? He lives in Los Angeles with his fiancée, extended family, and two sweet pugs. To learn more, please visit OdomsLibrary.com or follow him on Instagram @CBSciFi.

Purchase the book on Amazon.