Introduction
Book One is the first of six planned books in the Star Gazer series. The first trilogy is more science fantasy, where Giants, Elves, Dwarves, Ogres, Trolls, and even Leprechauns, are represented by some of the other Tribes.
There are also elements of science fiction, especially ancient machinery, such as transporters, which were left behind by an alien race known as The Ancestors.
Early in Book One, Jack the hero, discovers there teleportation devices are operated by a stone age culture, one that is not homo sapien sapien.
The first trilogy is set in our known, contemporary world of today. Book One begins on 26th August 2010. Incidentally, the world as we know it, ends on the 10th March, 2016.
The books themselves come with additional information, such as black and white map (Print) or colour map (EPUB), an index of chapters with page numbers, a list of main characters that grows with the books, and a brief recap
of the previous book (prologue in Book One).
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ISBN: (Print) 9781910711040
ISBN: (EPUB) 9781910711071
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| Other supporting information is included on this website; Jack's backstory, which explains how he came to the
Island in the first place. And The Missing Chapters, abridged from Book One, which detail his castaway life before human contact, and replaces the prologue.
Synopsis
The Gatekeeper and The Guardian, the first episode of the Star Gazer double trilogy, is set the contemporary world of today, begins with the hero, Jack Barleycorn, being washed ashore on an imaginary island in the South Pacific.
He is almost dead, but an inner voice guides him to shelter. Was that his imagination, or an entity looking out for him?
Jack survives, and makes a new life for himself. One day he discovers a small black rock which sparkles with miniature stars in the light. That same day he discovers a cave, with smooth walls made from the same black stone.
The cavern is filled with rock, and he moves on.
The next morning, a food parcel is left by his head, and this repeats every morning, until he wakens early, and in time to see the small package materialise. He was already close to insanity, and this almost tips him over the edge;
but hero's are made of stouter stuff.
This leads him to return to the cavern, where he discovers a transporter, which takes him inside of the un-scalable volcano walls. Later he meets the Island inhabitants, a race that are not quite human, a branch of human kind long
thought to be extinct.
He makes friends with some of the King of Forest Meade's people, and meets an old smith who is extremely interested in his black stone. Jack is made aware he must hide the stone, and that n'Gnung, who becomes his best friend,
will protect him with his life. The smith is later revealed to be Lo Si, the Keeper of Ancient Knowledge.
On his first night in the capital city, Grimwaldi Rinns, Jack is imprisoned, but is released some days later by the Empress Elect, Jien Noi, the girl who he knows was sending the food parcels. During the weeks that follow,
Jack learns the Islander's language, and the reader learns much about their matriarchal society, when Jack visits the hot springs. Lo Si appears one day, and the book's pace increases, when we learn the Empress has imprisoned her
daughter.
Jack and his party return to the capital, but fee when Imperial guards come looking for them. It is then we learn Jien Noi is to be executed. The transporter is used to send a living being, for the first time in 10,000 years,
and Jack rescues Jien Noi from the execution block, and a small team escape to the Outlands, as the headland of Jack's arrival becomes known.
It would be wrong to give the story away, so suffice to tell, the Empress is murdered (later revealed by Jack and n'Gnung), Jack marries Jien Noi, and the island is invaded by an Ogre general. The Queen of the Eleventh, or
Elves, sends Jack and Jien Noi a holographic warning, and later, when battle is at its fiercest, the Elves and Dwarves come to the Islanders aid as allies.
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