Refractions of Frozen Time

Marcha Fox has loved science fiction since she was a child with the stars always holding a strong sense of mystery and fascination. Her love of astronomy resulted in a bachelor of science degree in physics from Utah State University followed by a 21 year career at NASA where she held a variety of positions including technical writer, engineer and eventually manager. Her NASA experience was primarily at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas but included trips to Cape Canaveral in Florida, visiting other Centers in Mississippi, Alabama and Maryland as well as visits to the European Space Agency in The Netherlands. Her most memorable experience, however, was the sad task of helping to recover space shuttle debris in East Texas following the tragic Columbia accident in 2003. "NASA was a great career experience, but writing is what I've always wanted to do. To me there is nothing more exhilarating than bringing a character to life." Would the truth be known, her first love has always been writing and her primary motivation in obtaining a physics degree was to produce more accurate science fiction. While working at NASA she remembers going to see the movie "Armageddon" with a friend who was in the oil business. Afterwards the two proceeded to rip the movie apart for its inaccurate representation of both industries. "My daughter told us to lighten up, that it was only a movie, but I was upset because of all the people, especially teenagers, who would think what they were seeing was correct when it wasn't. It doesn't seem as if it would take that much more to get it right so that entertainment is also informative, not something that may have to be unlearned later." She has made it a point to "do the math" regarding various elements in her books to assure accuracy and hoping to instill an interest in science and engineering to her readers in an enjoyable and entertaining way. She admits that Cyraria's figure-8 orbit around a binary star system is a bit of a stretch but maintains it is mathematically feasible even though it would be unstable with life on such a planet beyond challenging with its seasonal extremes. "But that's what makes it a good setting for the story," she adds. It's difficult for her to identify her favorite character but admits she leans toward Win Sendori, who appears in Volume II. "He's a gutsy, honest, action-oriented person who has no qualms pursuing the right thing to do, regardless of the consequences. He just showed up as what I thought would be a minor character then worked his way into the story and became an integral part of the plot." Born in Peekskill, New York she has lived in California, Utah and Texas in the course of raising her family, which included fifteen years as a stay-at-home mom before returning to college in her 30s to obtain her degree, a feat accomplished while she still had six children at home. All are now grown with children of their own providing her with 17 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren so far. Never at a loss for something to do, besides writing she enjoys gardening, her two Bengal cats and keeping up with her family. The fourth and final episode in the Star Trails series, "Refractions of Frozen Time," was completed in 2015 but there's no telling whether or not it will be the last. "These characters have a life of their own and may move on to other adventures."