Cold Trap

Miles from the multinational Unity lunar outpost, a lone explorer extracts a mysterious object – a missing chapter from the primordial past – from deep beneath the grime ice in the never-ending darkness of crater 6L43A. Inexplicably, the explorer vanishes, and the object along with him. Nearby, the gears spin on a secret device, setting in motion a chain reaction that could avert a civilization-ending cataclysm. Known only to a select few, the machine must be protected. But watching from the shadows, a brilliant sociopath has plans of his own. . .

Miles from the multinational Unity lunar outpost, a lone explorer extracts a mysterious object – a missing chapter from the primordial past – from deep beneath the grime ice in the never-ending darkness of crater 6L43A. Inexplicably, the explorer vanishes, and the object along with him. Nearby, the gears spin on a secret device, setting in motion a chain reaction that could avert a civilization-ending cataclysm. Known only to a select few, the machine must be protected. But watching from the shadows, a brilliant sociopath has plans of his own. . .

Raised on a ramshackle ranch at the edge of a state park in southern New England, Jon Waskan (1969- ) quickly learned to ride horses, split wood, and root for the Sox. His father tried to teach him that there are no shortcuts in life and there’s no easy money, but the lesson refused to take until Jon made a graceless exit from an Arizona flight school and set off on his own to Atlanta. There he nurtured the dual ambitions of becoming a philosophy professor and writing thrilling science fiction, though in a fit of jealousy the former ambition drove the latter from the nest ... whereupon it was presumed dead ... until recently. Now it's back. And it is seriously teed. Even so, Jon continues to serve as a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he regularly publishes with top journals in philosophy and cognitive science. His research monograph, "Models and Cognition" (MIT), was called "beautifully written" by Choice Reviews on the way to earning Outstanding Book honors. Jon's research concerns artificial intelligence and computational modeling, topics central to the narrative of his debut fiction offering, “Cold Trap.” Jon can be found on the web at www.jonwaskan.com and www.facebook.com/jonwaskan