Lisa Silverthorne has published eighteen novels, two short story collections, and over 100 short stories in the fantasy, science fiction, romance, and mystery genres. Her short fiction has appeared in professional publications including: DAW Books, Roc Books, Prime Books, Pulphouse Magazine, and Fiction River. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. To discover more of her stories, visit LisaSilverthorne.com.

Experiencing True Purple - Books 1 & 2 by Lisa Silverthorne

A Genetic-Engineering Military Alien Invasion War Saga

What if you discover your life doesn't belong to you?Forced to give up your dreams and live a life you never chose.Because you and your DNA belong to the government.What if the government stole your memories?Parsed out your family and friends?How would it feel to live life in the third person?

Private Peter Mitchell, one of thousands of recycled, cloned soldiers holds the front lines of a deep space war. To save a world he'll never see. He survives because of a memory replacement chip (MRC) that parses out the horrors of war and anything that stops him from killing the enemy.

But Peter isn't like the other recombinants.

He doesn't want to fight or kill. He wants to live. Marred by deep sensitivity and self-reflection, he is failing his training sims. Endangering his entire unit.

As the Antarans push closer to Earth, Hardware Reclamation Specialist, Dr. Jeannette Kingston discovers a catastrophic failure in the recombinant tech, affecting entire batches of recombinants. She must make a brutal decision:

Report the defect and destroy hundreds of recombinants, including Private Mitchell

Or say nothing and risk losing the war—and her home world.

 

REVIEWS

  • "Recombinant tells the action-packed story of an alien war fought by created human beings who are treated as soulless slaves. Caught in this losing war is Peter, recombinant with more humanity in him than almost anyone, his citizen lover Diana, her brother, Peter's Officer, His best friend Sting, and the doctors trying to figure out what has gone wrong with the recombinants' patented DNA. What do the aliens really want and why can't any of Earth's advanced weaponry help the humans fight? This is the beginning of a wonderfully compelling saga."

    – Amazon Review
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

PRIVATE PETER MITCHELL huddled in a trench and hoped the mud would hide his shaking. His gut clenched, the odor of sulfur and sweat making him ill. If only he could sink into the soil and disappear. The other soldiers would be glad to see him gone. One less terrified recombinant to risk washing out the entire unit.

He'd failed enough training sims. He couldn't fail any more.

Gripping the plasma rifle in stiff, aching hands, Peter scanned the swamp. Trees tangled along the banks, blackened trunks trailing skeins of vines and brown moss. The murky water swirled and rippled, lapping softly against grassy patches of mud. Fog settled in pockets of brush, obscuring the distant landscape.

Heat roiled in the trench, the air so thick and raw with sulfur that his throat burned with every breath. It would rain again before the mud hardened. A simulation of summer at the front.

Peter hoped he never saw the real thing.

Three other recombinants crouched in the trench beside him. Their taut, grim faces burned with concentration and a hunger that Peter didn't share. The barrels of their plasma rifles skimmed across the edge of the trench as they scoped for their target. Antarans.

Again, Peter reminded himself that the enemy they faced was only a VR image, but he had no stomach for killing, not even virtually. He wanted no part of it.

Private John Stingley crawled across the trench and flopped down between Peter and Private Steven Drake. Sting ran a muddy hand through his curly blond hair, darker than Peter's straight blond locks, and scanned the horizon. Sting grabbed the small sensor grid hanging around his neck and swung it in a quick arc.

"Nothing's out there. I don't get it," Sting said.

Sting turned his back to the horizon, slumped down in the trench, and sniffed the air.

"Maybe that's part of the sim," Drake muttered. His stringy, chestnut bangs clung to his forehead. He brushed them out of his hard, grey eyes. "I just want to shoot something."