Margins
Upon This Rock book cover 1
Upon This Rock book cover 2
Upon This Rock book cover 3
Upon This Rock
Series · 3 books · 2017-2021

Books in series

First Contact book cover
#1

First Contact

2017

An epic new science fiction series about family, faith, and alien invasion in the wilds of Alaska When a shooting star plunges through the atmosphere and touches down in the Alaska wilderness, only two earthlings are around to witness the event. But they see two utterly different things. What park ranger Jace Kuliak sees is a UFO and the arrival of a dangerous alien species from beyond the solar system. What Poppy Prophecy sees is the star called Wormwood, as recorded in Scripture, and the arrival of a an archangel of the Apocalypse. The thing is—they’re both sorta right. Poppy Prophecy is the despotic patriarch of a large End-Times prepper family that is busily converting a depleted copper mine into its own private doomsday bunker. Their copper mine is a century-old relic from territorial days when East Coast robber barons ruled Alaska and plundered its mineral wealth. Today the abandoned mine sits in the middle of the largest, wildest, most majestic national park in the United States. But Poppy isn’t impressed by mere natural beauty, and he doesn’t mind bulldozing federal land when it suits his purposes. Backcountry Ranger Jace Kuliak does mind, and he and fellow rangers confront the fundamentalist family in an armed standoff over the construction of an illegal airstrip. It doesn’t help matters when Ranger Kuliak falls hopelessly in love with Poppy’s second daughter, the lovely, innocent, and totally clueless Deuteronomy. An uneasy truce between the Prophecys and the park service is shattered when the falling star lands in their back yard and is claimed by both sides. What is it? Who is it? Better yet, of all the pit stops on all the planets in all the galaxies, why did the Visitor choose this particular rock to screw with?
Glassing the Orgachine book cover
#2

Glassing the Orgachine

2019

Sound the Trumpet—Light the Signal Fires From the alien’s point of view, its First Contact with earthlings (Book 1) is a bust, but at least it has survived the ordeal. After executing an emergency landing on the nearest inhabited rock, the celestial being is captured by the Prophecy family and locked away in their doomsday mountain retreat. There it speaks to them in their natural language of fundamental Christianity and appears to them as Martha, a Seraph in the First Rank of the Ninth Order of Archangels. Archangel Martha bears the key to the “Pit of Hell,” a necessary component of God’s final victory over Satan. But the angel has been grievously wounded in the War in Heaven and is unable to fly. So she pleads with Poppy Prophecy, the strict patriarch of the large Alaska family, to risk the family’s lives and resources to help her summon “heavenly hosts of angels to my aid” before Satan’s army of demons can locate her. Poppy agrees to light a beacon capable of being seen from the Throne Room of Heaven. But the beacon’s radiance is too faint, and the Prophecys soon see through Martha’s subterfuge. They cast her out of their mountain keep, but not before blood is spilled. What Do Reverse Cyborgs Want? In Book 2, the heavenly visitor must quickly find a new human host to assist in its rescue plans. It reveals itself to park ranger Jace Kuliak as a stock Hollywood sci-fi space alien and pleads with him to help it “phone home.” By this time, the “War in Heaven” has spilled over into our solar system, and Jace must bear the burden of deciding the fate of humanity.
Consider Pipnonia book cover
#3

Consider Pipnonia

2021

Despite the alien’s best efforts, the so-called Little Nudge has failed, and the rogue planet Pipnonia is once again on a collision course with Earth. It’s time for the “Big Bump,” the alien’s last-ditch effort to save Earth and its inhabitants from total annihilation. But first it pressures Ranger Jace Kuliak to accompany Deut Prophecy, the Thirteenth Apostle, on her mission to Pipnonia to preach to its doomed population. Meanwhile, civil society is disintegrating around the world. Vera Tetlin, the popular governor of Alaska, and her family are on the run from agents of the Antichrist. And Doomsday Preppers from the Lower 48 are seeking refuge in the little ghost town of McHardy. Among them is a petty tyrant and racist who wants the town for himself. Things are heating up—literally.

Author

David Marusek
David Marusek
Author · 11 books
Author David Marusek writes science fiction in a cabin in Fairbanks, Alaska. His work has appeared in Playboy, Nature, MIT Technology Review, Asimov’s, and other periodicals and anthologies and has been translated into ten languages. According to Publisher's Weekly, “Marusek's writing is ferociously smart, simultaneously horrific and funny, as he forces readers to stretch their imaginations and sympathies." His two novels and clutch of short stories have earned him numerous award nominations and have won the Theodore Sturgeon and Endeavour awards. “. . . Marusek could be the one sci-fi writer in a million with the potential to make an increasingly indifferent audience care about the genre again . . .”—New York Times Book Review. “Marusek is one of the relatively few contemporary sf writers who seems deeply responsive to the contemporary world”—Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. His current novel project, Camp Tribulation, is a tale of love, faith, and alien invasion set in the Alaskan bush.
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