Rocket Roll

In the 23rd century, Melody Rich is on her way to an offworld vacation when an alien thrusts the key to a lost world down her throat. Following a star map, Melody has to face down space pirates, aliens, and eternity, striving to remove the key before it kills her—again.

Rocket Roll is a literary-mystiphysical space adventure that provides readers with an enthralling experience beyond the norm, exactly equal to the book's unique, stylish energy.

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Two hundred years from now, Melody Rich (19) plans to visit relatives in another star system. In the Wyoming spaceport, she learns that the planet Eden Only (home to aliens called Pales) has vanished. Seeking an illegal spaceship to save money, Melody disturbs an alien (a Renewal named Blttr) who forces Melody to swallow an object. Blttr is then killed by a Headhand. The ship's pilot, a Pale named Eight-Man-Of-Strength, rescues Melody, and they flee Earth.

Headhands are a race who live with their skulls detached from their bodies. Renewals are Headhands whose heads have been put back in place. Since the Pales are responsible for Renewals, the Headhands punished them by stealing their planet. As Eight Strength searches the stars for his lost world, the Headhands try to kill him, and Melody is in the middle. It's soon discovered that inside her is Eden Only's simulacrum, which dictates the planet's position in the universe. No one knows how to remove it.

Melody and Eight travel through space guided by the map that is dead Blttr's reconstituted body. After being eaten by a huge megabug, kidnapped by space pirates, struggling with evil rocket ships, and swimming naked in the ether lanes, Melody comes to the end of the map. In order to save his home world, Eight can sell Melody to the Headhands. Melody would pay with her head.

Rocket Roll is a coming-of-age story about a young woman who has to apply her high-tech education to metaphysical dilemmas. Ultimately, Melody learns that her character and inner strength are her best weapons for facing the Great Unknown.