[Crucible 01] • Crucible of a Species

The Endeavor Expedition;

A Colony and a Starport among the dinosaurs . . .

Year 2056AD: Mark Nolen, son of the famous Dr. Phillip Nolen, made billions founding a company to mine the waters of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Secretly, Mark’s people continue their forbidden research into both interstellar and time travel but the International Space Agency has become suspicious.

Nolen decides to move their research and begin the construction of an Interstellar Port back on Earth, but not the Earth they know. They depart on their journey far back in time but an incident forces them to emerge from the timeslip at the worst possible point – the final days of the Cretaceous Era – danger close to a point when all of the dinosaurs died in a terrible catastrophe.

Even so, there is hope. This undertaking will be different from the military venture of Nolen’s father and the Argos Expedition. After all, these are scientists, engineers, skilled workers … and their families – 322 men, women and children.

They setup operations on a peninsula jutting out into the ocean in what some day will be West Texas, USA. This time, they are prepared and the climate is friendlier. They know what to expect and how to handle a world of fierce theropod dinosaurs. After all, how much different from his father’s experience could the world in this latter timeframe be?

The colonists quickly discover life is more abundant, beautiful, larger, and savage than expected. It is the time of the ultimate predator – Tyrannosaurs Rex , and like everything else this beast is much more than they anticipated. Their last minute decision to forcibly draft Paleontologist Sara Wenford and her family may be their only hope of survival.

To my faithful readers …. FORGE OF A SPECIES is an extensive rewrite of an earlier novel, 'NODAL CONVERGENCE'.

With this new novel, you will find:

- FORGE is a new and expanded tale with many new adventures that results in a story that is more than twice the size of the original story.

- All of the old novel’s scientific references and discussions have been removed.

- FORGE contains new characters, new situations and a new ending.

- FORGE now properly fits into the richer ‘Crucible Series’ universe.