Richard began his writing journey as a freelance writer in 1984 and gained his first fiction credit serving as the lead writer for the first two issues of the Elite Comics sci-fi/fantasy series, Seadragon. In 2010, Richard retired as a sportswriter and returned to his fiction writing roots. Since then he has written several award-winning novels, two non-fiction sports books, and has appeared in over 20 anthologies including five Sherlock Holmes collections. He has begun writing the Starquest 4th Age series, beginning with  Galen’s Way and Galen’s Blade, space operas set in award-winning author John C. Wright’s Starquest Universe.

Richard’s Website: Richard Paolinelli

Reaching out with his right hand he snapped the curtain away from the pane…and came face to face with a hell Dante could never have imagined.

“Where am I?” he asked, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

“You’re still in San Francisco, Dr. Collins, just one hundred and two years later. A lot has happened since you last saw the city.”

“You have a talent for understatement.”

– Maelstrom

Steve Collins was just trying to save the world from the next killer asteroid. He wound up killing over seven billion people instead. A century later, he’s now the only hope to save the surviving one million humans left alive in the entire universe.

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“As we crossed the threshold the temperature difference between the air outside and the building we were entering was slight. But for some reason I felt a harsh, icy shiver travel the length of my spine.”

– Escaping Infinity

Lost on a dark desert highway, Pete Childress just wanted a good night’s sleep. Now he must find a way back out of a hotel with no exits and where tomorrow never comes. Worse yet, the fate of a ruined world, and the future of all humanity, hangs in the balance.

Working with the lovely, yet mysterious, Hotel Desk Clerk, Liz, and under the ever-watchful eyes of the hotel manager, Pete explores the many mysteries that lay within the walls of The Infinity seeking the answer to the mystery and the way back to the outside world.

AWARDS

2017 Dragon Award Finalist – Best Sci-Fi Novel

2017 Readers’ Favorite Awards – Honorable Mention

2017 New Apple Summer E-Book Awards – Official Selection

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A collection of stories by nine authors based on The Infinity Hotel from the 2017 Dragon Award Finalist for Best Sci-Fi Novel, Escaping Infinity.

These eight stories explore some of the other “guests” collected by The Infinity, as well as others who encountered the mysterious hotel but did not enter. Some of history’s most memorable fictional characters – including Sherlock Holmes and the answer to that one case Dr. Watson wrote about but never published, the true fate of Ichabod Crane and what really inspired a certain storyteller of the Arabian Nights – who will all cross paths with The Infinity.

This second book also helps set the stage for the next book in the series, Expanding Infinity, due out in 2022 and reveals one terrifying mystery regarding our universe.

After all, escaping The Infinity was just the beginning of the adventure!

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“I have waited for this day for many millions of your years,” the woman continued. “I feared that you would not come in time.”

“Who are you?” Matsuo asked, the first of the two men to find his voice.

“My name is Oracle Veritas,” she replied, “I am of the House of Delphi in the Caste Olympia. I have been tasked to tell you our story. There is much to tell and precious little time to tell it.”

“Why?” Buffa asked.

“Because a dark force is rising up once again,” the strange woman replied. “And I fear that this time it will destroy us once and for all.”

– When The Gods Fell

The first mission to Mars discovers our origin stories were wrong. Earth’s gods, led by Zeus, Odin, Ra, and Lucifer, waged a terrible war on the Red Planet millions of years ago; but the final battle still looms, and Earth will be the final battlefield.

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Millions of years in the future, humanity has been driven out of the Milky Way and now calls the Andromeda Galaxy home. Lost in their murky past are the tales of great knights that held the line against the invasion of a dark force until the rest of humanity could escape their doom. The last and greatest of these knights was Galen Underwood.

Long after that heroic stand, a mercenary by the name of Galen Dwyn has been hired to rescue a kidnapped princess. Enticed by a healthy down payment and a chance to settle an old score, Galen accepts the job, only to find out it’s a lot more than he bargained for.

Soon Galen finds himself weaving and dodging through a web of political intrigue as the very forces that chase him have set in motion plans that will throw the galactic alliance into civil war.

To his surprise, he also finds that the rescued princess might not be quite the spoiled brat he rescued from the clutches of her keeper.

Accompanied by the princess, his former mentor, and a snarky AI, Galen sets out to find a way to outsmart entire kingdoms, keep the princess alive, and avert the deaths of millions.

Of course, he’ll also learn the reasons behind his namesake’s chosen path, as he realizes that the only way to win is Galen’s way.

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The journey of Galen Dwyn continues in the second book of the Starquest 4th Age series.

While Dwyn lies in stasis, recovering from his injuries in his stand against Harmool’s fleet, Rhea has assumed the title of Regent of Salacia while leading the search for her missing father, King Iodocus. She is also helping repair the damage done to the Alliance in her Uncle’s and Mother’s mad quest to launch a new Empire. A shocking assassination attempt is thwarted at the last second by Dwyn, who seems to be a changed man now that he has exited stasis to save his love.

The King’s location is ascertained and a rescue mission mounted to retrieve him from the Wilds, a lawless area of space. An ambush splits their forces and Dwyn leads the ambushers away so that Rhea and her father can escape. Before Dwyn can find a way back to Alliance territory, an old enemy returns from the grave, and hold Rhea and the King hostage, while triggering a massive insurrection that overthrows the Alliance and installs a new Emperor.

Dwyn must now mount a second rescue while finding a way to rally a rebellion against this threat to peace in the Hominids’ corner of the Andromeda Galaxy.

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As a child all Walter Koch wanted to be when he grew up was a Navy frogman. He never dreamed it would be quite like this.
Now a 32-year-old Master Chief in the United States Navy, Koch has been tabbed to test out a new, state-of-the-art diving suit for Project Seadragon. The suit allows a diver to reach incredible depths without the need of cumbersome tanks and diving equipment.
A test dive to a wrecked ship four hundred meters below the waves ends in tragedy when an explosion rips the wreck apart, hurling Koch back toward the surface and killing the rest of his diving team. When he awakens, he discovers to his horror that he has been permanently sealed within the suit, it has been fused with his body, and no one knows how to separate the man from the suit.
As if his day hasn’t been bad enough, he is about to meet Brad Jefferies, head of the mysterious Epsilon Project who brings proof that the accident, and his current condition, was no accident at all.
Jefferies convinces Koch to come back to Epsilon with him, where they will actually try to find a way for him to escape his prison. Koch will enter a supernatural shadow world of Exotic Humans, created by the Epsilon Wave of the human mind.
And just when Koch’s world couldn’t get any stranger, he will discover an ancient city, Mu, that sank millennia ago at the same time as the city of Atlantis.
Not only are both cities alive and well at the bottom of the ocean floors of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but they are about to embark on yet another war. A war that threatens to engulf the entire world above the waves.

Based upon the 1985 comic book series Seadragon and The Epsilon Wave by Elite Comics, award-winning, best-selling author Richard Paolinelli returns to the Seadragon franchise for the first time in over 35 years. The writer of the first two issues of Seadragon offers a fuller look into the origins of Walter Koch/Seadragon, Brad Jefferies, Nightmare, Twilight, and the rest of the world created by Tom Floyd four decades ago.

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Earth’s Past Is Under Attack!

In the far distant future, with the galaxy locked in an area of dark space where electronics will not work, Little John Singapore sits in a prison cell on Pluto awaiting execution. Singapore is the First Mate of the pirate ship, the Timeless. As he awaits his fate he agrees to tell a young author one story each day about his ship and his Captain, Rock Congo.

Singapore tells how the Governor of the Sol system Garabaldi enlisted the ship and her crew to pursue Duchess Moran. Moran is an infamous interstellar thief tired of her plans being interfered with by the Earth-led Alliance. She has stolen the Amulet of Geraint, allowing her to travel through time at will. Her target is ancient Greece, where she plans to prevent democracy from ever taking hold by stopping King Leonidas from reaching the famed Battle of Thermopylae. By changing Earth’s past she hopes to prevent the Alliance from ever forming.

The Timeless, a ship that can sail through space, air and water with equal ease, is the only ship capable of time travel, and Earth’s only hope to save its past, present and future. Despite being crewed by pirates, Garabaldi sends them through time in pursuit of Moran.

When the Timeless arrives in ancient Sparta, the find Moran has already been there and has kidnapped Leonidas and his Queen. Now they have just a matter of days to find her and the King to keep his appointment with King Xerxes of Persia and preserve Earth’s history.

The first book of the Timeless series, a middle grade/YA science fiction/steampunk hybrid, is sure to be a hit with readers of all ages. As well as fans of historical fiction as the Timeless and her crew will be very busy in Earth’s storied past in future books in the series.

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Interstellar thief Duchess Moran continues her assault on Earth’s history. This time she travels back to ancient Egypt in search of a deadly secret: A gem that can raise an army of the undead to wipe out every living creature on the face of the Earth.

But to find the stone, she must first locate a scroll hidden away deep within the Sphinx. Captain Rock Congo, his First Mate Little John Singapore and the crew of the Timeless remain hot on her trail through time and space.

From the Library at Alexandria during Caesar’s siege of the city to the construction of the Sphinx and even further back as the legendary architect Imhotep tries to steer his Pharoah, Djoser, from disaster.

When Moran arrives looking to gain possession of the Eye of Anubis all of Egypt, and the entire planet will find itself on the brink of annihilation!

The second book of the six-book series is sure to please any reader from age 10 to 100.

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The Fall of Denver takes place simultaneously with the events unfolding in England during Wells’, War of the Worlds. Doubtless, even as England was being invaded, so were all the other countries around the globe.

In this story we will find out how the invasion of the United States plays out in general, and how it affects the men, and their families, stationed at a U.S. Army Fort near Denver, Colorado.

For Major Daniel Wayne, an arrow in his knee has ended his career in the U.S. Army. Shortly after he arrives at Fort Logan outside of Denver, Colorado to hand in his retirement papers, word is received of an extra-worldly invasion of England. Before he and the Fort’s commander can begin to process this information, the first Martian cylinder lands to the east of Denver.

Wayne is entrusted with the safety of the civilians at the Fort and in the surrounding area, taking them to the safety of the nearby Front Range even as the battle to defend Denver rages behind them. Wayne must keep the trust of his fellow officers to keep their familes safe, and confronts the ghosts of his own past, even as he longs to join the battle.

This story was originally published in the 2019 Edition of A Tribute To H.G. Wells, but was removed for unknown reasons by the publisher for the 2021 Edition.

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When Duncan Sinclair dropped off a beacon outside of Earth’s solar system inviting any alien species to drop by for a visit he had no idea if anyone would accept it. Now, years later, he must lead one last mission to try to save the planet from the one species that has.
A species that only wants one thing: To end humanity and strip its home world of all of its resources.

Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited

Inspector Mackenzie Bolton is caught up in the worst string of serial murders San Francisco has ever seen.

Even as he becomes the prime suspect in the killing spree, Bolton continues the hunt. The price of bringing the killer to justice may be Bolton’s very own soul.

Available in Kindle and Kindle Unlimited

DEATH STALKS THE RES

Who – or what – is killing members of the Navajo tribe? RESERVATIONS, the first book of the Jack Del Rio political mystery/thriller series, is set near Gallup, New Mexico, where the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni reservations lie adjacent. Three tribal leaders have been murdered – murdered in a fashion that suggests the deeds were carried out by COYOTE, a legendary supernatural evil trickster feared by many Native Americans.

The tribal president contacts an old friend in the FBI for assistance in solving the crimes and preventing more murders. Star agent, Jack Del Rio, is dispatched to New Mexico where he finds a situation tangled in political intrigue. Jack must work his way through those issues on his way to solving the mystery. Sparks fly as Navajo police officer Lucy Chee is assigned to assist him in his quest.

Question is can Del Rio and Chee solve the mystery and find the killer before he strikes again? Because the killer is on the hunt and he has his sights on Del Rio himself.

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In the second book of the series, Betrayals, FBI Special Agent Jack Del Rio is still recovering from the dramatic conclusion of the events on the Navajo Nation and quickly finds himself as the only man in America who can stop the strings of assassinations and conspiracies that threaten to topple the entire government administration and bring the United States under the thumb of evil dictatorship.

Unable to trust even his closest friends and allies in the Bureau, Jack must first survive multiple attempts on his own life then sort out the evildoers who have wormed their way into top positions and do this in time to save the President of the United States – who may just be one of the conspirers himself.

It’s a race to the finish with the free world hanging in the balance and Del Rio soon finds that no one can be trusted not to betray everything he holds dear.

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In the thrilling conclusion to the Jack Del Rio series, Endgames, the former FBI Special Agent has fallen off the grid and is content to let the rest of the world believe him dead. He has taken the name John Rivers and lives a secluded life on the Navajo Reservation.

But the shades of his past are not yet done with him yet. Surviving elements of his enemies from London and Washington D.C. want to see him actually filling out a grave and are coming for him. Compounding matters, a newspaper reporter from Phoenix is also on his trail and a former flame is coming from England and is bringing news that will change everything for Del Rio.

A pair of deadly ambushes just outside his new home proves to be the last straw and Del Rio returns to the fight with a vengeance. By the time he is done he will dispatch enemies on U.S. and foreign soil and be named an international terrorist. But even as the world turns against him, Del Rio uncovers one last gasp effort by the conspiracy he has fought for so many years to overthrow the U.S. government.

As his final battle draws to a close, Del Rio makes his final moves in an endgame no one will see coming.

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U.S. Marshal. David Crockett Hall and Texas Ranger, John Barclay Armstrong have set out chasing men, each for their own reasons.

When their paths converge in Kansas, they discover the men they were following separately have now joined together and are heading for a giant payday somewhere, but where the two lawmen don’t know.

This story is about camaraderie, friendship, hardship and an unerring desire to complete their jobs at any and all costs. Set against the background of the late 1870’s, the story takes us across the mid-west, southwest and into Colorado, unfolding a tale of two strangers becoming friends.

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On October 8, 1956, New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers. But the story you have never heard, a story that, had it not happened the way it did, might have changed the very history of baseball is the story of the man in the mask and blue umpire suit standing behind the plate and Yankees catcher Yogi Berra. That man was Ralph “Babe” Pinelli.

Had it been any other umpire that day other than Pinelli, Larsen’s perfect game might never have happened, if not for how Pinelli grew up in early 20th Century San Francisco, how he overcame losing his father in the 1906 Quake, how he overcame his hot temper to become a major league baseball player and umpire.

Perfection’s Arbiter looks at the amazing life and career of Ralph “Babe” Pinelli, the man fate chose to be exactly where he needed to be on one of the game’s greatest days.

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This second edition of From The Fields provides an updated narrative account, written by award-winning sports journalist Richard Paolinelli, of the first century of high school football played in Turlock, California – including stats, rosters, and interviews with former players and coaches.

Starting with the first team of 15 players from the 1920 Turlock High football team all the way through to the 2019 season.

Players spotlighted include former pro football players from Turlock – Bob Mitchell, Paul Larson, Jeff Winans, Jonathan Quinn, Tom Brandstater and Colin Kaepernick – along with moments in the history of Turlock’s connection to the football program.

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