When you go through a portal to a parallel universe, what waits for you on the other side?
Sam Tolliver and his five companions find many things familiar in the land of Melenca—but others radically different, as they search for an elusive spiritual figure, Mentor Perroso, who may be able to tell them how to return home. Will they find him before they’re trapped by spreading environmental damage caused by the fuel powering vehicles or the strange new gas that’s killing many; or Perroso is abducted by crazed cultists devoted to a sociopathic con man, Flimsel Flammer, who has managed to get himself elected chief administrator of Melenca; or Sam and the others are caught by agents of an entity that hunts down migrants from nearby lands? And will Sam be able to keep his small band together amid disagreements while he sorts out his feelings for his lovely companion Allie Siddell and those for the beautiful Melencan aiding them, Katera? Find the answers in this sharp-edged satire of American politics and society set in a strange land beyond our universe.
-
A Review of Transportaling
— BookLife Reviews
“At its heart, Transportaling is a sharp satire of contemporary American society. Milks draws biting parallels between Melenca and Earth, weaving in commentary on political polarization, health care, and immigration issues, all through the lens of Melencan politics, which is split between the opposing factions of Unifiers and Compactors.”
Robert Milks
Connect with Robert: author@robertmilksbooks.com
As the son of a career U.S. Air Force officer, Robert Milks grew up in many different places (all in this universe). By the time he left home for college at eighteen, he had spent half his life outside the continental United States: three years in Alaska (when it was still a territory), three years in Germany, and three years in Canada. For the other half, he lived in five U.S. states.
In this childhood, he witnessed cultures different from his own, but honestly, nothing prepared him for the America from 2016 on, so he felt compelled to make some of the types of people and the events of those years the object of satire (well, really, they suggested themselves), and placing them on a world in a parallel universe seemed a good way to proceed. Thus was born his first book, Transportaling: Adventures in a (Nearly) Parallel Universe, published on Kindle Direct Publishing and available on Amazon (there’s a link on this page). Plans for a second book are in the early stages: stay tuned.
After working in writing and editing for forty-five years, in journalism, organizational communication, and publishing, he’s mostly retired, spending his time writing fiction and getting things done around the house. He's also taken lately to studying French, German, and Spanish, all of which he studied in his youth, in hopes of being able to communicate in them at home and abroad, but is finding now that remembering vocabulary and grammar is harder than it used to be—who knew? (When you're good at something when you're young, you should be good at it in your dotage, it seems to him. That only seems fair if you have a skill in life.) He's contemplated picking up his trumpet after more than forty-five years and relearning how to play it, but he's fairly confident his wife and their dog would not be pleased.
He has a BA from Davidson College and an MA in English from NC State University.
He lives in Cary, North Carolina, with his wife (and dog).