It's Raining Books: Slaves of an Alien Game by Nina Schluntz

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Slaves of an Alien Game by Nina Schluntz

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $25 Amazon/BN.com gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Welcome to It's Raining Books. What books/authors have influenced your writing?

I grew up reading a lot of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. You just can’t go wrong with those guys.

Tell us something you hate doing. Why?

Big social events. I’m always that quiet guy who can’t get a word in. Although now I try to use it as an opportunity to “people watch” and gather info I think I could use to create a character. Ops, I probably shouldn’t say that, huh?

Share a funny incident in your life.

My husband once gave our cat an oatmeal bath. Yeah, I can’t picture it either, but he claims she enjoyed her day at the spa…

Have you ever had one character you wanted to go one way with but after the book was done the character was totally different?

That actually happened several times while I was writing Slaves of an Alien Game. Initially, Game Warden Vicr was not supposed to be a love interest, but once he met Caden at the banquet there was so much chemistry on the page I realized I couldn’t keep them apart. Caden was never supposed to be involved with Vicr and sure takes a while to pry them back apart.

Jenny also got away from me. She was supposed to be the main character for book 3. The whole book was going to be from her point of view, but she didn’t have the charisma to pull off being a main character. So, I had to nudge her to the side and give the spotlight to Game Warden Ivard. His whole storyline was a last minute edition.

What’s you next project?

I’m working on several stories at the same time. The sequel to “Kidnapped Killers” will be out this March, shortly after the third book in this series. I’m also working on an audiobook release for “Slaves of an Alien Game.”

A contemporary story about a school bully “Faking it with the School Bully” will be out soon too. I basically had six books all in the works at the same time, and now they’re all getting completed close to each other.

What's the one thing, you can't live without?

Slurpees!! I love me a good frosty coca cola slurpee! I have been known to drive to three different 7-11 stores in an effort to find a working machine.

What is your favorite song?

I am really big into Adam Lambert right now, anything he sings, goes right on the playlist.

Game Wardens rule most of the galaxy by a fierce empire built on enslavement and brokered deals. The only means to earn one’s freedom is by playing in the Alien Games. Two slaves go in the arena, the survivor, if there is one, is given their freedom and crowned a king, earning them a small country to rule and slaves of their own.

To make the battle more fun for spectators, genetically enhanced monsters, sahalias, are given to the combatants, but they must found in a scavenger hunt. Five orbs, each hatching into a lizard that will bond with their keeper, are hidden on a random planet. If the competitor finds all five, they have a great imbalance of power over the other, who will have none. The sahalias are created with one purpose, to battle to the death and destroy the other competitor.

Caden works at an all night diner in a small town near the interstate. When a man comes in late at night, asking for access to the roof, Caden knows the man is a bit off. But his ruffian nature and a small bribe makes Caden decide to let him go up.

“It’s a scavenger hunt,” the man says. Caden thinks he’s being helpful when he finds the item, a black orb, but when he touches it, he unknowingly becomes a competitor in an intergalactic competition that ends in a battle to the death. Manipulated and lied to, drugged by the alien Incubus, Raghib, whom he is now allied with, he must train his lizard battle creatures to fight for him on an unknown planet with rules he barely understands.

He has little chance to survive and although he wants to trust, Raghib, who will earn his freedom if Caden wins the battle, he worries he is simply being used. A bit of truth is revealed when one of the Game Wardens takes a liking to Caden, but his alien species is known to eat humans, so Caden isn’t sure if the desire is that of hunger or true romance.

Either way, Caden is nothing but a slave to their alien games.

Caden is free. He won his battle and got what he wanted. Sent back to Earth with his won kingdom given to the slave, Raghib. However, life on Earth, back at the diner isn’t the same after living on an alien planet. He still suffers from withdrawals from the Incubus influence and drugs Raghib forced on him, and nightmares from the horrible battle to the death.

When a woman arrives, the latest competitor in the alien games, she offers him a chance to visit Raghib. All he has to do is be her slave during the games and help her find the orbs. He agrees and finds she is a higher level competitor than Raghib was, the hunt is on a deadlier planet, one covered in darkness and monsters.

Caden is eventually reunited with Raghib and gets to see the kingdom he won. Raghib is more broken from the battle and haunted by the brutality of it than Caden. He has a new lover and is driving his country to poverty so he can buy drugs to forget the pain. Caden turns to the Game Wardens for help, offering to go back in the arena again, with the woman he helped in the scavenger hunt. He is a fan favorite and knows their ratings will improve if he goes in again.

He arranged to go in as her pretend slave, in a role that will have safety features turned on so he will be in no real danger. He thinks its his idea to go back in. Confident he’s messing with the structures in place and trying to leverage the Game Wardens to change the deadly games into a nonlethal form.

However, it was their plan for him to go back in from the start. Caden is still nothing but a slave to their alien games.

Caden’s long-term girlfriend on Earth is pregnant, and Caden is missing. Jenny worries he has been kidnapped and drugged again. A strange woman arrives, saying she knows Caden and where he is. She offers to take Jenny to him, if she helps her… they just need to find some orbs in a scavenger hunt. Jenny agrees, but is careful to not touch the objects. She doesn’t trust this woman.

They find four orbs and encounter the other competitor. The fifth orb is there, and Jenny is forced to pick it up. The other competitor forfeits and Jenny finds herself now in the games, the woman she’d been helping now announced as her deadly competitor.

She is taken to an alien planet and united with a distraught Caden. He confesses that he has a relationship with a man, an alien man, an Incubus named Raghib, and the woman Jenny must fight is Raghib’s daughter.

Caden is in an impossible situation, either his lover’s daughter dies or his childhood sweetheart dies, but there is a rule in the games, a protection for slaves and their offspring, who are viewed as profitable future slaves. A pregnant woman may not enter the arena, instead the sire must.

Caden is again forced to play in the games, but this time he has no sahalias to battle on his behalf, and safety features are not allowed. If Caden is to survive, he must find a way to not be a slave in their alien games.

Read an Excerpt from Book Three

Battle of a Thousand Deaths-Day 1-Jenny is Officially a Competitor! Join Team Jenny Today!

The hurried man only paused for a moment before running a hand down the front of his suit to smooth the wrinkles. “I heard she might be interested in the game.” The excitement was noticeable in his tone. He was practically jumping around like a giddy child.

“Ivard, she will hear her options and gauge her decision without bias,” Vicr said.

“I know, I know.” He raised a hand to silence Vicr and looked at me. “But you would be…,” he took a deep inhale, “a hero. The fans. They love you. They want to see you win. Hell, I want to see you win.”

“Fans?” I asked.

“Ivard,” Vicr growled.

He waved his hand dismissively again and held up a tablet. He had a photo of me and lots of writing that I quickly recognized as a fan page full of comments.

“They are furious Caden’s girlfriend was betrayed, and they want to see justice. They want you to slay Erum in the arena,” Ivard said. He looked at Vicr. “You’re the one who said we need to start moving away from barbaric fights. People want stories and background. She’s proof. It doesn’t even have to be a real fight. We can stage it, and—”

“Please excuse Game Warden Ivard,” Vicr said, grabbing his shoulder and pushing him out the door.

“We can make it worth your—” The door was shut before he could finish.

“I apologize,” Vicr said. “Please resume.”

“What exactly is this?” I asked. “What are the Games?”

One of the lawyers slid a tablet across the table in front of me. I’d taken a few history classes in college and recognized the words were in Old English.

“This is the historical context. If you care to read it.” He pushed a second tablet. “This goes over the rules of the game, including what you would win as the victor and what you lose should you opt to go into the game with safety features.”

“Why wouldn’t everyone use the safety features?”

“A deal must be made with a Game Warden. Someone must sponsor you. That’s the only way for the safety features to be on. If you win, you are free of the contract. But should you emerge after losing, you are obligated to whatever commitment you agreed upon with the Game Warden.”

“You would make the deal with me,” Vicr said. “I would do it for Caden. I’ll have something drafted. Your obligation to me would be marginal, but some trade would be required.”

“Why would you do this much for Caden?”

“He’s good for business,” Vicr quickly said, making me think there was more to his words than he was saying.

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