Josh and the Cargan

Josh and the Cargan is the story of a young man's struggle with life while helping thwart a sinister interplanetary plot. JOSH SMITH'S hormones are raging, and he can't wait to get intimate with a girl. He also wants to be a famous rock star, and has an amateur band of his own. One evening, he comes home from band practice to learn his rich, eccentric great grandfather, CHARLES EVANS BASTIN, is dead. When the will is read, Josh inherits one of Charley's ugly sculptures while his father inherits the rest. Back home, Josh accidentally discovers his sculpture is a CARGAN, a device used for interplanetary travel as a ghostly presence called an ENTITY. He travels to the planet destination of his sculpture and finds it's a very exotic place. Hollinger is well known for his science fiction thrillers and books in his Cross Time Science Fiction Anthology have won many awards:

Lifeboat 2200 - Honorable Mention 2005

The Blushing Bride - Fourth Place 2006

A Woman's World - Fourth Place 2008

Millie's Ghost - Second Place 2009

The Boys - First Place 2010

Author's fiction has received wide recognition, including the following:

Hamilton Writer's Guild Competition; A Space Scam, honorable mention, 2011

Martian Wave Ezine; Tour of Duty, published 2008

Seti Universe Ezine; It's Your Turn, published 2008

Writer's Digest Short Story Competition, 2011: The Dragon Princess, Placed 52nd out of over 1500 entries

Josh and the Cargan by M. L. Hollinger is a 2013 grand prize winner of the "Books Without Publishers" Competition.

Josh and the Cargan is my favorite among the books I've written. Every man experiences Josh's problem with girls during the awkward days of puberty. For some of us the problem continued on into high school. When I finally overcame my shyness and learned how to speak coherently to the opposite sex I was baffled by their attitude towards sexual intercourse. It seemed to me that they gave every indication of wanting it, but they recoiled at the prospect of actually consummating the act. Considering the hormones raging inside my body, I wondered why females didn't experience the same drive. A key factor in my puzzlement was the fact that I grew up in the 1950s. Morals were much tighter then, and any girl who was known to have experienced sex before marriage was branded as "loose"or worse. Girls knew boys couldn't keep a secret when it came to sex, so they refused to believe my honest proclamations of confidentiality. I often thought it would be good if there were another planet where sex was safe, confidential and ultimately pleasurable. On such a planet girls would feel no compunctions about sex. It would be a Nirvana. Little did I know that Earth would become such a planet in the 21st Century.