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Independent Author Offers Free Science Fiction Audio Books

Science Fiction author Mike Luoma is offering the audio book editions of his books "Vatican Assassin" and "Vatican Ambassador" as free MP3 downloads through ITunes and the Audio Book site Podiobooks.com. Luoma is a Vermont radio personality and a science fiction and comic book writer. "It seemed natural for me to record the audio book version of my writing," Luoma says. He put his radio skills to work recording himself reading the chapters of his books aloud. Luoma has just completed the second book, "Vatican Ambassador". The final episode is now available.

Why offer free audio books It's a way for an independent writer to promote his work. "I'm a self-publisher," Luoma explains. "So everything for me is DIY. I released 'Vatican Assassin' at the end of 2005, and the sequel 'Vatican Ambassador' last year. I started a podcast where I was putting out chapters of 'Vatican Assassin' and some other things, the Glow-in-the-Dark Radio podcast. Then I heard about Podiobooks. I approached them about hosting my books, and they picked them up. I began putting out the chapters of 'Vatican Assassin' last September, and I've just finished recording the final chapter of 'Vatican Ambassador'," Luoma says with some pride. "It's a way for me as a writer to get closer to my readers, along with my website glowinthedarkradio.com twitter, myspace.com and stuff like that."

"Vatican Assassin" and "Vatican Ambassador" tells the story of an antihero, Bernard Campion, aka "BC", who kills people for the Pope in the year 2109. A war between the Muslim world and the West has spilled beyond borders, beyond even planetary boundaries. The United Trade Zone and The New catholic Church (small "c" intentional) control Earth. The Universal Islamic Nation holds Mars, and those who don't fit either side's plans have ended up on the Moon. BC's story begins as he works to assassinate the head of Lunar Prime, the Moon's independent free state. "BC is a character who can't help but be conflicted," Luoma says. "He's killing people for a church that says you shouldn't kill! Even the ecumenical 'New catholic Church' of the future is pretty clear on that. The interesting thing is what happens to BC as he tries to live past his contradictions and become a better human being."

Listening to Luoma narrate the audio book gives the reader and listener a more intimate experience. "Reading the chapters out loud lets me give the reader, the listener, really, some idea of what I was hearing in my head as I wrote the story," Luoma says. "I like coming up with a different 'voice' for each character. It's the spoken equivalent of what you try to do as a writer when you're creating the story."

Luoma is putting the finishing touches on the third and final book in the trilogy, "Vatican Abdicator". "If all goes according to plan, 'Vatican Abdicator' will be out in June, and the audio book podcast will begin at the same time," Luoma says. Luoma's books are available through Amazon.com Lulu.com and other online bookstores, and locally in Vermont.

Luoma's free audio books are available through ITunes and from Podiobooks.com which offers Free serialized audio books. From the Podiobooks.com site: "The term podiobooks was coined by Evo Terra to describe serialized audio books which are made available in podcast format. Listeners to Podiobooks.com can choose to receive the episodes of their books via an RSS feed or by listening to episodes by directly downloading episodes from the site. Some listeners keep the audio files on their computers, some transfer the book to CD, but most transfer the file on to their mp3 player so they can listen no matter where they are."

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