QUASARPHYSICAL
When it's suggested he find a replacement for his last partner, Quasar 169, Alex discovers humself instead in the middle of a manhunt for the beautiful fugitive Damian Baker. The only way he can help is by tearing up the joint Roglitz-style, but can he outwit a team of alien bounty hunters programmed to win at all costs?
QUASARMOON
Amanda shows up unexpectedly at the home of a retired veterinarian with an interest in the paranormal at the same time a half-baked group of werewolf-wanna-be's plan to hold their big annual "pack meeting". The fur flies when things go horribly awry and only a shady stranger from New York can set things right.
QUASAR REAL
Alex's immediate supervisor is very straight-laced and by the book, but he throws the book away when he requires him to tackle a very personal undercover operation. Illusion rules when Virtual Reality is taken to a whole new level with stolen alien technology behind it. Alex and Amanda must decide what is real and what is not when greed and deception leads to murder.
QUASAR SLEEP
The Silver Sphere aliens return! One by one, his co-workers succumb to their desires until only Alex and Amanda are left to halt a potential worldwide invasion.
Querant: Why did you decide to let your main hero and heroine each get their own seperate story in Illusions?
Ed: People seem to like both characters equally well, so I wanted to see how well they'd like them without the other. In QPhysical, we pick up where Alex left off at the end of the collection Silver Sphere Sightings, his partner missing right when he's finally starting to admit that he likes her just a little bit more than he thinks he ought to. He's been depressed since her absence and undergoing counseling, and the counselor, who's never met Amanda before, pretty much thinks it's time for him to just move on. He's a little emotionally messed up in this story, which leaves him wide open for a visit from a saucy little dish named Damian Baker. She's not Amanda, but she's cute and willing and danger seems to follow her wherever she flees, so Alex rallies behind her in an impossible quest to help aid her escape from a collection of android bounty hunters. He doesn't care if he wins or loses--he's just having a blast 'til the end. It's notable because it contains Alex's first real sex scenes, and also because it leads the way for a follow-up story where he visits the Geminarian homeworld on another android hunt.
In QMoon, Amanda hooks up with Geoff McKenna--a very sensible and down to earth veterinarian with an interest in the occult. It's unique in that it's told from Geoff's point of view instead of Alex's, and we get to see how a member of the normal community might react upon meeting a quasi-reality like Amanda. This story launched Geoff as the third main character in the Quasar series, right behind Alex and Amanda. A few more of the stories to follow are either told by him or by both him and Alex.
Q:In Quasar Real, you really throw your readers for a loop.
E: True. I felt I wasn't writing enough alien stuff at the time. I mean, I've opened up this format where you have a guy who polices space alien activity on Earth, but the aliens thus far have been mainly humanoid, or totally lacking from the story at all like QMoon. Now that my hero and heroine were reunited, it was time to get them back doing what it is they're trained to do.
Q: Right, but the story focuses more on a virtual reality arcade and its owner...
E: Which makes the impact that much stronger mid-story when we discover just how aliens are involved with it.
Q: You keep dropping hints that Alex might be of otherworldly origins, especially wherever the Silver Sphere aliens are involved.
E: It all goes back to his mother's abduction by aliens when he was five. Much later in life he starts wondering if maybe they were after him that day...if maybe his mother was one of them all along and only returning to her world with them...he's definitely different. He's a mind-reader, and as the stories progress we'll see how many more astounding mental capabilities he'll manifest. Look, you know my screen name is Phikindic--PHIlip KINdred DICk. In "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" his main character, Deckard, has issues concerning identity and what makes something alive or human versus only a machine. In Blade Runner there were hints that perhaps Deckard himself might be a replicant. Themes like that permeate the entire Quasar series. Alex is searching for his identity, his origins, and the subtle differences between right, wrong, and reality. His morals are constantly challenged while his sanity erodes--or is it somehow evolving? Blade Runner's my favorite film, Phil K. Dick is my drug of choice, and I'm proud not only to be able to explore these issues through my own semi-autobiographical sci-fi, but to have my stories so near his in alphabetical listings of sci-fi by author. The Silver Spheres are The Unknown in the total equation of Alex's life. Amanda may be his key to redemption or ruin. Geoff is his ideal, Haines his shadow side. It's all just an ongoing mystery...
