heart-shaped cloud above an island

It’s Written in the Clouds

Did you ever gaze up at clouds as a kid, or even an adult, and compare their shapes to animate objects? That one shaped like a heart, or a whale, or some kind of strange submarine…

In my Other Worldly series, the shape of clouds, in particular ventricular clouds appearing like flying saucers, feature as a pertinent subject related to various alien species on and visiting Earth. Including Red Orbiters, who are so enamored of clouds that their planet of origin is named Cumulus (humans only think it’s named Jupiter).

Beginning with the first book, Alienable Rights, which includes cumulus clouds on its cover, Rowan Layne justifiably feels as if she’s being watched by menacing, creepy clouds forming thick and low above her as she walks her dog, Bodie, in the rural central Nevada town where she resides. Flying saucers stacked like a vertical runway, she muses. As if they’re telling her, I’d turn back if I were you.

It’s not long before Rowan realizes that these curious cloud formations are in fact camouflage for alien spacecraft. She’s witness to Red Orbiters actually rendering the sky cloudy so that she and others might surreptitiously depart or arrive via red orbs, flying saucers, or an unusually shaped iridescent spacecraft.

But soon after she moves to the Las Vegas valley in Feeling Alienated, it’s a huge gray cloud looming beyond the end of her street, discomfiting like the threatening alien monstrosity in the movie Armageddon, that creeps her out—again while she’s walking her skittish pooch, this time in her new neighborhood.

Is it aliens keeping tabs on her, or something more sinister? Or perhaps the otherworldly are simply being snarky to freak out the anti-alien contingent wreaking havoc on Earth.

In book five, Alien Sensation released last June, it’s noted how thick clouds seen as yellow from Earth are believed by scientists to trap heat on Venus. But that planet is in reality (in my books) called Lacerta, and those yellow-seeming clouds are actually obscuring amazing and wondrous ecosystems beyond one’s wildest imagination. Because clouds hold rain, and rain brings any number of fascinating flora and fauna within complex ecosystems.

For Altogether Alien, coming-soon sixth novel of the Other Worldly series, fluffy white clouds also obscure something in the distance other than a spacecraft, and Rowan wishes she could simply float along with their pleasing puffy formations that glide toward tropical island mountaintops each afternoon.

Oh, and Rowan still gets that cloud-like sensation drifting into her cerebral cortex when a certain species speaks to her telepathically.

And I’m still gazing up at strangely shaped and shaded cloud formations as I walk Bodie each morning, letting my imagination wander. Perchance that particular curiously shaped cloud wafting across the Vegas sky will feature in the next novel of my Other Worldly series.

In fact, clouds may come to the rescue when Rowan finds herself in a precarious situation in the opening scene of Aliens Watch, seventh novel already in the works.

But if there’s a cloud shaped like a heart floating into her orbit, will it reveal who Rowan might finally recognize as her heart’s desire? Or maybe it’s merely heart and cloud emoji texted by Mom, sending love, but also fussing about cloudy, rainy weather in her neck of the woods.

Whatever happens next is written in the clouds. Altogether Alien, breezing into online booksellers soon.

 

2 thoughts on “It’s Written in the Clouds”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *