The Hummingbird Series

Houdini Scientist: Noun. 1) A young inventor that hides the secrets to her science behind elaborate misdirection and an illusion of incomprehensible complexity, like a magician would. 2) Just another soulless zombie trapped in a secret base that officially doesn't exist. 3) A girl that will save the world, if she can save herself first. * * * "Some savants can play concert-level piano at the age of five, without ever taking a lesson. Others can do advanced math in their heads, draw a Picasso with crayons, or recite every word they've ever read or heard. Her piano was a lathe, a plasma cutter, and an automated mill. And the songs she played shook the world." * * * In the control room of a secret mountain base, a dozen engineers crowded around a wall of monitors as the girl on the screens connected the final pieces of a month long, multimillion-dollar project. "They can't seriously be thinking about turning that thing on, can they?" the new engineer said. "Believe it." "She's what, thirteen?" Stepping closer to the screen, the lead engineer just shook his head, "I've seen her like this before. Almost a trance the—" "Have you looked closely at that thing?" He pointed to the array of ducts, pipes, and tubes that fed an enormous ring bolted to the ceiling, dripping with frost. "Staring up, it almost looks like a—" "A Stargate, right out of the TV sho—" "And they're prepared to let a teenage girl not only build one, but turn it on? Are you crazy?" Right then she hesitated, held out her hand as if conducting an orchestra, and pointed to the camera. "God help us," the lead engineer said, sending more power than the entire US grid surging through the alien-looking device. Booooommmmmm!!! They plunged into darkness as a muffled explosion rumbled through the base. "Richter 3.9!" someone announced, lights flickering on. "Get me eyes in that chamber!" the XO said. "I want to see what kind of rabbit she just pulled from our hat." A much calmer eleven years earlier... The newly transferred major showed his badge at the gate... The Art of the Houdini Scientist is a prequel to The Hummingbird Series (Patent Mine, Hell from a Well, The Heredity of Hummingbirds, and Mourning After Dawn) and Daughters of Immortality Prequel, in this case, literally means it was written years after "Patent Mine" but takes place (within the storyline) before "Patent Mine". Because of this it naturally, and unavoidably ends where the other begins. The books in this series can best be thought of like seasons on TV shows, with "The Art of the Houdini scientist..." as season one.

Short description Back of the book: In a state where the rules for properly beating your wife are posted on the bedroom door, one woman tries to keep her small corner of the world from falling apart. But events suddenly get worse when an unstoppable madman hijacks her entire religion and leads her country into war. How far will she go to protect her daughters? Extended description Hell from a Well is a stand-alone novel in The Hummingbird Series and picks up from where Patent Mine leaves off. It opens with the birth of an immortal who failed at his only mission in life. Pissed, he finds himself in the perfect place to unleash a vengeful rage, surrounded by terrorists. But like all of this series, nothing is as it seems. His story, always there, melts away to another story told. That of a family in a war-torn part of the world, barely getting by. A family with nothing finds two orphans that, as bad as things get, they simply can't let die. And the wrath that that brings into their lives

In the blink of an eye it was over, but the curse of the night sky remained. Without their mighty technology, they went on with the slaughter, bloody hand to bloody hand. Until the problem became too obvious to ignore. 9 out of every 10 were infertile, and the brilliant men of science had arrogantly failed the world again. Populations collapsed. 500 years passed and the curse only grew worse. Those that survived in peace were simply too remote for those who lived by the ways of war to reach. A band of refugees hears rumors of a village with a young seer, a paradise of sorts. It will be a long and hard fight to get there, but at least there's hope. But is hope alone enough? The Heredity of Hummingbirds is in the Hummingbird series and follows where Hell from a Well leaves off, but also stands alone like all the rest.

One, two, three, four. They had escaped, they were free! The four of them had broken out from the most sadistic hellhole he had ever imagined, had been chased by an entire army into these nearly inaccessible mountains, and were now surely left for dead. One, two, three, four. Their guide and only defense lay dead just a few feet away. But all was not lost. He knew where the village was, the general direction at least. He could make it there before the weather really hit, even on foot. One, two, three, four. He sealed his lips around hers, then blew. He could make it there easily, if it wasn't for her... One, two, three, four. He was doomed. Mourning After Dawn continues the story from where The Heredity of Hummingbirds leaves off, but it stands alone like the rest of the Hummingbird series as the reluctant lovers fight to survive in a mountainous valley that may prove more lethal than the army they left behind. ... Daughters of Immortality picks up where Mourning after Dawn leaves off.

As Shela reflected on her parents' lives, a strange thought entered her mind. What if everything she thought she knew about them was wrong? Her father had always been the picture of health, while her mother seemed to spend half her life sick and in bed. But what she had just seen over the last few days had turned all of that on its head. When she found her parents, dead in their bed, her father looked old, withered, and mostly decomposed. While her mother, dead just as long and under the same layer of dust, looked younger than ever and was perfectly preserved. She couldn't help but notice that her father burned like straw in the funeral pyre, while her mother seemed nearly immune for hours longer than should ever have been possible. But if everything she thought she knew about her parents was wrong, what did that mean about the rest of her family? She stared at her hands as she wondered just how much of her mother's blood, was in her? Daughters of Immortality is the sixth book in The Hummingbirds Series and picks up where Mourning after Dawn leaves off.

Back of the book: Rahani stood at her grandmother's bookshelf and ran her fingers across the aligned spines. They were all written over a hundred years ago, all first drafts, hand typed and bound by a legend in their family, the greatest inventor the world would never know. She pulled the only one in a red cloth cover. It had been in her family forever, yet only one word of it had ever been read, the title, "Waffen". She gently tugged at the covers, and found it as sold as a block of wood. Its delicate pages and soluble ink had been glued together, to keep its dangerous knowledge from ever landing in the wrong hands. This shelf was their tree of knowledge, and this book was their forbidden fruit. She had read the others as a child, but this one always held a spell over her. Her curiosity ached to know what secrets were locked within. She wanted to sink her teeth into its forbidden truth. But once opened, it could never hide in plain sight again. Eventually, all its secrets would leak out. She marveled at the ingeniousness and the utter simplicity of this ancient form of lock and key. Pick the wrong solvent, and the ink washes away, along with the glue. Try to force it, shave it down one whittle at a time, and you'd spend a tedious forever, and still lose all but a few of its precious words. Yet, soak it in the right formula, and it emerges as legible as all the rest, just with a permanent stench of death. She put it in the plastic bag. Her grandmother was missing, and may well be the first casualty her family would have to endure. The rugged mountains that had protected them from their enemies for centuries... protected them no more. This, was war. She added the solvent, closed the bag, and pondered the irony, while the glue released its grip on the past. The key had been hiding under everyone's nose, the entire time. The most dangerous book in the world was guarded by a creature so fierce that bears, mountain lions, and ravenous wolves ran at the very sight of it walking their way. It feared nothing. Was feared by everything. And an ounce of its essence unlocked the most powerful book in the world. She turned her head and coughed, as tears ran down her cheeks from the fumes. Waffen was German for weapons, and the book was now, and forever more, seeped in the stench of its key, the bitter wrath only dozens of skunks could unleash. Rahani just hoped that what these trapped words could release would be as powerful as the smell. She hoped it would be enough to turn back the evil army, marching their way... an army that had never known defeat. Waffen is the Seventh book in The Hummingbird Series.