Hi everyone! Today I am very excited to welcome the awesome Aleksandr Voinov to Joyfully Jay! Aleks is here as part of his Incursion blog tour to tell us more about the book and offer a great giveaway.  Welcome Aleks!

Thanks for joining me on the Incursion virtual book tour! Feeling lucky? I’m giving away three prizes to commenters on any of the blog tour stops. Comment on this post (feel free to ask questions!) and you might win! The first winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift certificate and a swag bag with assorted magnets, wrist-bands, and other goodies. Two more lucky winners will receive swag bags as well. I ship internationally and will draw the winners from all commenters after the tour is over. Deadline for entry is 7/15/12. Please include your email address in your comment so that I can contact you.  Enjoy!


Excerpt

I have an EXCLUSIVE excerpt for you today! On the Riptide site, you’ll find an excerpt with the beginning of Incursion: http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/incursion

After that, Kyle encounters the band of space mercenaries, and the excerpt I’m bringing you today is about their first meeting.  Let me know what you think!

* * *

Behind the final door was the brain of the ship. Some of the casings that held instruments and wires in place had been screwed loose, and cables were dangling everywhere, creating a scene that looked like a technical interpretation of Tamene’s southern jungle. And the man in the middle, half-hidden behind panels and rewiring cables and running programs off a number of diagnostics screens jury-rigged to the main power outlet, fit right in. Broad-shouldered and tall, he didn’t belong in a pilot seat, but that was undoubtedly his role. He probably got a lot of shit for it, like Kyle had at the Academy.

“Grimm, this is Kyle. He wants to travel with us to Ganesh,” Winter said.

“Anyplace that can fix me up,” Kyle corrected.

Grimm stepped out of the mass of wires until the tattoo on his face was visible. Blue-black whorls and twirls covered the left side of his face from hairline to chin, exaggerating his features while blurring them at the same time. The pattern indicated he was not only from Tamene, but the southern lowlands of the antipodean continent, near the ocean. The fiercest of the tribes, the one that took pride in going into battle first and returning last.

“Mother of Light,” Kyle said under his breath.

Grimm hesitated, then near-bowed. “Father of Darkness,” he completed.

Kyle didn’t know what to say, and Grimm seemed comfortable with the lull in the introduction. When the silence dragged on, Winter cleared her throat. “You guys know each other?”

Grimm waved his hand. “You want to explain, Kyle? I’m just tracking a wire I had somewhere around here.” He grabbed a handful of cables and lifted them to demonstrate.

“We’re both from the same planet. Even the same continent.” Kyle peered over at Grimm, but the man just gave him a nod and continued skinning a wire with a too-large knife. “But he’s a warrior.”

“Our Grimm? Really?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Grimm twirled two cables together between his dirty fingers. “I didn’t get the tattoo in a drunken stupor.”

More like a holy trance, but Kyle wasn’t about to talk about that. “Yeah, he’s warrior caste.”

“These days I’m mostly handy with a tool belt. And I fly this slingshot bauble, too.” Grimm wrapped insulation tape around the bared wiring and tested the area with a thumb. “That should hold.”

“What the fuck are you doing here anyway?” Winter asked. “This looks like . . .”

“I’m just improving performance. That should give us three percent more on the thrusters, and a good fifteen-point-five percent on the shield in the front. Figure we never know when we’ll need it.”

“You said you were going to hook up the second life-preserving system.”

Grimm glanced to the side, where parts were neatly stacked and completely untouched in a corner. “I’ll do that next.” He wiped his hands on an oily rag, then ducked under a strand of cables.


Blurb

Fighting with your back to the wall is all well and good—as long as you’ve chosen the right wall.

When the local authorities ask Kyle Juenger to hunt a shape-shifting Glyrinny spy, he can’t refuse. After all, he can use the reward to replace his paralyzed legs with cyberware, and maybe even to return to his home planet. Besides, he hates the morphs—those invasive, brain-eating monstrosities whose weapons cost him his legs.

Kyle’s best lead is the Scorpion, a mercenary ship armed to the teeth. Grimm, the Scorpion’s pilot and captain, fascinates Kyle. He’s everything Kyle lost with his legs, and he’s from the same home world. He’s also of the warrior caste—half priest, half savior. But Grimm’s been twisted by life as a merc, and Kyle’s stuck undercover as a criminal on the run.

That doesn’t stop Grimm from coming on to Kyle, or from insisting he’s more than the sum of his past and his useless legs. But Kyle has other concerns—like tracking a dangerous morph who could be wearing anyone’s face. And as if things weren’t complicated enough, Kyle can’t tell if Grimm is part of the solution . . . or part of the problem.


Biography

Aleksandr Voinov is an emigrant German author living near London, where he makes his living editing dodgy business English so it makes sense (and doesn’t melt anybody’s brain). He published five novels and many short stories in his native language, then switched to English and hasn’t looked back. His genres range from horror, science fiction, cyberpunk, and fantasy to contemporary, thriller, and historical erotic gay novels.

In his spare time, he goes weightlifting, explores historical sites, and meets other writers. He singlehandedly sustains three London bookstores with his ever-changing research projects and interests. His current interests include World War II, espionage, medieval tournaments, and prisoners of war. He loves traveling, action movies, and spy novels.

Visit Aleksandr’s website at http://www.aleksandrvoinov.com, his blog at http://www.aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.com, and follow him on Twitter, where he tweets as @aleksandrvoinov.