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Cover by Jade (Click pic for a high-rez view) New 2008 jacket, new typeset throughout
HELLGATE: Deep Sky by Mel Keegan
ISBN: 0-9750884-3-2
364pp cover by Jade
Price: US$23.00 US$9.95(eBook)
PDF, EPUB, KINDLE, STANZA etc. -- click here to buy
Read the first 10% of this novel online! READER ALERT / CAVEAT: the sample readings offered here encompass about the first 10% of these works, and they're uncensored, unabridged. If you will be disturbed by candid descriptions of same-gender romance, or by realistic violence, please don't download! These samples are not intended for younger readers. By clicking to open these documents, you agree that you are of age in your local jurisdiction; you know what you are about to read; and the material will not disturb you ... 'nuff said.
Any "content warning" to readers? Realistic violence, frank description of same-gender relationships.
PUBLISHING HISTORY:
Two editions produced. First printing: 2002 US paper edition: 2008.
Kindle edition: 2010 Stanza edition: 2011
IN PRINT? Yes.

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HELLGATE: Deep Sky
In a place where space and time collide, the future of mankind will be decided ... the new masterwork of science fiction from the accalimed author of DEATH'S HEAD, EQUINOX and FORTUNES OF WAR.
Continuing the massive saga which began with HELLGATE: The Rabelais Alliance
Six centuries in the future, Mankind faces our darkest struggles for survival, and our only allies are the last, fugitive remnants of the race long believed extinct...
Neil Travers and Curtis Marin are back in action in the second volume of the HELLGATE series.
While the Confederacy tries to use the DeepSky Fleet to crush the breakaway colonies, a handful of rebels may be the only force standing between the new human homeworlds and the shadowy enemy which almost exterminated the last race to whom these far-flung stars were home. The Resalq have survived ... but the threat is greater than ever. On one hand, the Zunshu strike out of Rabelais Space, also known as Hellgate. On the other hand, the government of Earth is determined to bring the unruly colonies back into line. Between the two, the humans of the frontier worlds and the last of the Resalq fight to survive, and the odds are against them. Nothing is what it seems, with allies within the Fleet and enemies among the Freespacers. And when Travers and Marin are assigned to the super-carrier Kiev on the Omaru block- ade, all bets are off, and it’s every man for himself.
Mel Keegan’s name is a byword for thrilling gay adventure in the past, present and future — MILLIVRES on Aquamarine.
The HELLGATE page
Read the first segment online! (Note: see our caveat.)
Reader reviews are online on my website. You can post your own comments ... please note that this is a "moderated forum," where comments will be monitored, and may be edited prior to posting to prevent burned fingers and trodden toes!
SEE ALSO
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Mel Keegan comments on DEEP SKY
The title for this one was originally 'Probe;' (readers with sharp eyes will notice it on the 'due' list of the first book, under that title), but as often happens, the story attained a character and nature of its own, not only in the writing, but in the re-writing. I found the plot line swerving away and the emphasis changing ... the original material (about a Zunshu probe, obviously: hence the original title) is still there, but on the last draft it had been so far supplanted by other events, the title was just not right any longer. Ooooh, great. So then the hunt was on, with about four weeks to spare, for a new title! Sometimes you have a title in mind before starting to write; in fact, a title can even suggest a whole story. But for this one it was quite a chore to come up with a title which really covered the story. I think 'Deep Sky' says it all. And I loved DreamCraft's remark (somewhere on this site), that it reads like a work conceived by Greg Bear and Tom Clancy, conspiring to write a gay SF-thriller! That really made me smile.
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