I’m about two-thirds of the way through writing the second book and could use some help coming up with names for carnivorous alien birds, as well as a title for the alien cave dwellers that Andor and Faron will encounter on the surface of the Earth in the 23rd century.

Would love to hear any suggestions you might have. You can send them to plainjump@msn.com

As a thank you for reading this post, I’m pasting a section of the description of Agartha, an underground alien city, from the second book.

The city of Agartha from Chapter 9:

We remove our headlamps and place them next to his lantern. The air is humid but cool, so I drop my pack from my shoulder to shrug into my dirty cloak. Then I stuff my headlamp into my bag. Andor does the same. We sling our packs over our shoulders and follow Alistair beyond the rocks.

“Welcome to Agartha.” My uncle sweeps a hand across the scene.

I gasp, my senses bombarded.

Never before have I seen anything like this place. An enormous, high-ceilinged cavern looms ahead. It’s as bright as day but without a discernable light source. A few stalactites line the edges.

Honeyed scents tickle my nose, and real birdsong reaches my ears, unlike our domed city’s piped-in versions. The melodies are complex, sweet and pure.

We ascend a stony knoll through a narrow path in the rock. When we reach the top, I get full view of the city, and it takes my breath away. To my right, less than a mile away, stands a row of sparkling white castles, five in all, that glisten in the light. Colorful flags fly from their pinnacles, reminiscent of a scene from King Arthur’s legend.

In front of the castles lies a wide aqueduct, several hundred yards long and of the deepest blue imaginable. It’s spanned by two stone bridges, one at each end. A long road snakes between the castles and the aqueduct.

To my left and on the other side of the bridges are blue hills—yes, I said blue hills—that nearly brush the cavern’s ceiling. It’s hard to tell where the water ends and the turf starts. Horses graze on these rolling, blue-grass hills, and clusters of flowering trees, their leaves every color but green, stipple the landscape.

A hot-pink creature with multiple eyes and several tentacled appendages leaps out of the aqueduct. It flips its broad tail and then dives back in.

I lean on Andor for support. “What was that?” I gasp.

“A Guvron,” Alistair grins. “Think of it as a combination of an Old-Earth octopus, a fish and a very large insect. Quite harmless really.”

I have so many questions, but can’t decide what to ask first. Fortunately, as we approach the castles, my uncle answers some of the most pressing. “The plants and animals here are not from Earth but from a distant planet called Shalea.”