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Killer Compost
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Publisher: Sylvia Kay Rose
Published: Jun 9 2025
Pages: 236
Weight: 0.71
Height: 0.54 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Please do not buy this paperback from Amazon. The edition is outdated. Author name on cover should read Sylvia Kay Rose (not Sylvia Rose). You can get this print book at Barnes & Noble, Bookshop dot org, or Walmart. Thanks & enjoy!
As robot wars plague Earth, a genetically engineered compost heap on hidden space station Pharos gets a craving for human flesh.
Aboard the space station, scientist Kate Prowski develops a powerful microbiotic yeast culture designed to give Earth Compost Remediation Application (ECRA) enhanced powers to re-green the planet. It all goes awry when grieving alcoholic Meredith Wright uses the 3D printer to print beer, and scientist Frank Slater begins acting stranger then usual.
Kate's estranged husband Matt Robinson and sexy computer analyst Vanessa Vale embark on an affair, straining Kate's professional demeanor. The crew has been on Pharos for over two years now, and tempers are quick to flare.
When ECRA goes rogue and begins consuming crew members, orders come to evacuate the premises. The survivors barely make it out alive, with the help of mercenary space pilot Lance Manley and his ship, Stella Starlight. They're joined by two others, scientist Stanley Kim and student Anna Lebenshof, who stowed away on Lance's ship to escape a bot attack on Earth.
Meanwhile, villains Druscilla Scythe, cruel and beautiful CEO of Scythe Industries, and inept genius Leo Lather, equipped with a cybernetic arm, plot the downfall of the human race. Leo builds a twenty-story robot, Automatus, who is to become a traveling command center and an unprecedented force of destruction.
Pharos Earth contact Deepak Shandra runs a lab in semi-tropical Norway, aided by ex-resistance fighter Sven Karlssen. Sven has a hard time getting over his third husband, Brandon, who was killed in a bot attack. At Deepak's lab, his female-themed helper bot Mary Lou is programmed to be in love with Lance, but the attraction remains unrequited.
When she's abducted, she finds herself with four other robots in a re-education complex. They get away, only to be caught by rebels looking for workers. With bad luck and good timing, the bots flee the base when it falls under attack, and take to the skies in a cargo jet. They meet up with Lance, the Pharos crew and ECRA at the isle of Ravne . The giant robot captures ECRA, Stella Starlight and the humans, and takes them to Scythe City, just north of Old New York.
ECRA and Automatus become dire enemies and seek to destroy each other. A titanic battle of Green vs. Mean rages, while space heroes and evil contenders fight for control of the city, and Druscilla Scythe lusts after the secret of eternal life. It's a nonstop action thrill ride, as humans and bots struggle against all odds to stop the forces of evil and save a dying Earth.
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