The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Oasis 4 by Dale Chamberlain

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

Oasis 4 by Dale Chamberlain https://www.amazon.com/Oasis-4-Dale-Chamberlain/dp/196122545X Dalechamberlainbooks.com Oasis 4 is a space station located at a galactic crossroads in deep space, and it's the property of Stellar Logistics and Freight Corporation. Phil Ross is the manager of that station. The purpose of the station is to provide a place for commerce and trade to take place. Being situated where it is, the station is also often dragged into unfortunate situations and often becomes the location for less-than-legitimate activity. Phil Ross and his staff find themselves constantly dealing with situations that often have huge implications for a great many worlds. Phil and his staff go by a simple guiding principle to get them through situations, and that is to do the decent thing, whatever the challenge may be. The result is a multiworld criminal syndicate has been put back on its heels, and the slave trade was dealt blows that they may not recover from.

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Because you're about to go on a moment. monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss here from the chrisvosh show dot com ladies you know in the early season that makes official welcome to 16 years and 25 under episodes of the chris vash show we've been doing this so long our arms are tired we've just flew in and any guys refer to your family friends and relatives go to goodrease dot com for chest christmas LinkedIn.com for Chess Christos Chris Voss 1 on the TikTok and ChrisVos Facebook.com

or Facebook.com forststststs Chris Foss. You know where we are, just go find us. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. And any guys, we have an amazing young man on the show. We're talking about his

amazing novel. It is called Oasis 4. Out on Paperback, Hardcover, and Kindle. June 27th, 2024, Dale Chamberlain, we'll be joining us to the show. He'll be talking to his book, his collection of stories, and why you can find this as an entertaining read and maybe learn some things. I don't know.

Space and science fiction used to be the things I used to enjoy. He's to read a lot of Alan Dean Foster when I was a kid. So there's something about space and science and fiction. So we're going to get into it. Dale isn't just an author. He's a storyteller who connects with readers on a profound level. His latest masterpiece, Oasis 4, is a testament to his gift for crafting rich narratives that whisk readers away to fantastical realms. Whether it's sci-fi or fantasy, Chamberlain's stories have a universal appeal.

Like many writers, Chamberlain's journey began with the love of storytelling. Through years of dedication and exploration, he's refined his craft, creating stories that touch the hearts of readers everywhere. But Chamberlain's impact goes beyond the page. he actively engages the audience, fostering genuine connections, and enhancing the reading experience for everyone involved. Welcome to the show. Dale, how are you? I'm fine. I didn't know I did all that, but I'll take it. Well, according to your website, sir. And storytelling, what a great thing to do. That's basically what the Chris Fos shows. We're storytellers and we share stories.

So give us dot-coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Dale Chamberlain, I'm sorry, Dale Chamberlainbooks.com. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's to send your book, Oasis 4? Oasis 4 is a, it's actually a collection of short stories. It revolves around a space station called Oasis 4, which is a space station owned by a corporation, and it's at a crossroads between trading routes, between planets. And because of where they're located, they, there's a, you know, it's a legitimate company, but that sort of thing attracts a lot of the illegitimate, or I'm sorry, less than legitimate business.

And they slowly uncover a criminal syndicate and a slave trade. And this, of course, the criminal syndicate thrives off the slave trade. And they have to work hard to, well, not let it affect them, But, you know, they find themselves right in the middle of trying to do as much damage to both the slave trade and a criminal syndicate as they can. They're quite successful. But the story basically, the book revolves around the space station manager, guy named Phil Ross. And he just, he deals with situations by just doing the decent thing. That's, you know, pretty much what anybody can.

A lot of people would shrug their shoulders and say, well, I can't do anything about that. But, you know, he's just, he can't, there's some things he just can't let go. Mm-hmm. You go. And so is he, is he the main character in most of the stories? In most of the stories, yes. Mm-hmm. I think we talked about it was a collection of short stories, as it were, or just story.

Yeah, I wanted to, I wanted to write a book about, you know, with just a collection of different non-related stories, but I wrote Oasis Four. And I said, you know what? I enjoyed that so much. I think I'll write another one, another short story about that. And I've said it before, I really snowballed from there. The story started getting longer and longer. And then I kind of wrote myself into a corner. And I said, well, there's a lot of things in here I need to resolve because the readers are not going to be happy about, you know, they're not going to, about not knowing what happens next. So there are a lot of things I had to tie off. It turned into its own thing. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. So, now, why did you decide to make it, well, let's start from the top. What made you, what prompted you want to write this book?

This is your first book. Is that correct? Yes, it is. Something I wanted to do, I always felt I had a, you know, I could write a narrative or, you know, entertain people with a story. And I wanted to try it. And, you know, and I hate to say, but, you know, with J.K. Rowland. and all of her success with the harry potter series i read all those books i said this doesn't look so

tough maybe getting it popular it's kind of hard but uh you know there were and there was uh there's other writers too that i i really uh enjoyed reading like tom clancy is one i tried to pattern some of my style after his but you know he could he could uh he could take 10 pages to describe a number two skill craft pencil i tried not to get that involved with it but uh there were other writers too short story writers like um pat pat macmanus he used to write the last last outdoor life he's one of my favorites so he was the master of the short story and the humor humorous narrative yeah it was something i would you know i thought well maybe there's something that i'd like to try I try to entertain people doing that.

And so when did you start with this book? When did you start writing? Oh, it was, it was, actually it was way before COVID even. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. In fact, it's kind of funny. There's one place in my book where they talk about a pandemic, you know, a planet going through a couple pandemics.

Oh, boy. And that was before. That was before COVID. So I hope I didn't get anybody, get anybody bad ideas. I think it's your fault. We can probably blame COVID on you. A lot of stuff can be blamed on me. So might as well.

I talk to your wife. That's true. No, I'm kidding. I don't even know if you're married. I am not. Usually wives keep a list. So you're probably better off then. So the list of everything you've ever done wrong.

Marriage jokes, folks, don't write me. But what attracted you to science fiction? I mentioned at the beginning of the show that I was attracted to as a child. loved reading Allendeen Foster books. I can't think of some of the other authors that I read, but boy, I really love science fiction. I used to eat it up. I've always enjoyed

of course, you know, grew up on Star Trek, and Star Wars came out when I was a teenager. So, you know, that I wouldn't conflate the two. You know, they're just my opinion, two different genres. One is fantasy and another one

is more, you know, based in science. But, you know, I don't know. I've always enjoyed that sort of thing, you know, space, even movies like alien. Oh, yeah. And I've kind of struggled with what kind of, what are these ships going to be like? What's the space station about it? It's going to be a grungy affair like an alien or is it, you know, or sleek and polished like Star Trek?

you know i i hope i hit a more realistic you know did you have any point of year people point of air people in the book no i'm just doing spot jokes most people are built like uh some have extra fingers uh there's uh one one uh race they run into they're they actually look like pre adolescence really or you know but you know they're they're full grown people but you know you can mistake them for someone that's 10 years old. I think I see that on Twitter every day. You know, that very well could be.

A lot of kids will surprise you. Yeah, we do a lot of Twitter callbacks on the show. Yeah, there's a couple of species, you know, that are really unusual and others that are, you know, more like humans. You can tell them of art, but easily mistaken for humans if you're not,

if you're not careful. Well, the humans are used to the weirdest ones, you know. But yeah, in my opinion, Well, in a lot of science fiction, the humans, they're kind of weak, you know, and they have to be, you know, the aliens are aggressive and have superior weapons. And in my book, it's the aliens that go, okay, just note to self, leave humans alone, you know. Yes. We're definitely not the weak sister in that crowd.

That's kind of a change, you know. That's kind of refreshing. so now do the the stories in the book that kind of stand by themselves do they still revolve around the same character's perspective like first person or do they maybe work with other characters like their perspective I think no they uh they work on their own their own perspective

as the stories laid out and told and stuff yeah um what were some examples from the book, maybe some anecdotes. Can you pull some anecdotes that maybe some of the content you put in the book or maybe some of the reasoning you put behind some of the scenarios you built and why you built them that way? Well, there's a couple instances where, you know, the Phil Ross, the manager, I wanted to get him in a space suit outside the space station.

And I had to come up with a scenario where, Given a maintenance technician had to don space suits and go out and retrieve an artifact from the outside of the space station. I just, for some reason, I wanted to write that in somehow. Yeah, that's fun. I've always dreamed to do that since I was young. Experiencing zero gravity and, you know, all the, all the, yeah, everything that's involved with doing it. I didn't talk about the claustrophobia that has to be involved in getting into a space suit. But maybe they're over, maybe they're over that.

I don't know. There's a lot of things that I could have got into that I just didn't have, didn't think I had time to write it or it would have detracted from the story, maybe. Well, it's definitely a claustrophobic sort of experience. I mean, yeah, I say that for book two. That's what we always say as authors. Yeah, save that for book two. You get done with all that material after book one and a lot of it hits the cutting room floor post-editing. And you just go, yeah, I got some material for the next book or all that sort of good stuff.

After writing, you know, your first book in science fiction, do you see yourself wanting to return to that genre and continue onward? Well, the next one, I'm actually working on it now. It's, I tied off Oasis Four, what's so I thought. And I thought, you know, people have been asked me, well, how, is there going to be a sequel to that, you know? And I said, well, the characters are pretty much, you know, they've got to where they're going to separate ways.

I said, well, there's a way I can use the Oasis 4 universe, and so I've introduced brand new characters, and they go to OASI for and they interact with some of the characters from the original book, but, you know, a completely different scenario. I've got two or three stories I can write in that way, where it's not specifically Oasis 4, but, you know, it's in, it's in that world, so to speak. Well, it should be exciting. to read. What's the feedback you've gotten from readers so far?

You know, very positive. There's some people I gave a book to, and they haven't had the time to read it yet. See, if you get another book for me, Buckwheat. But anyway, my mom read it, and my mom is not a science fiction person. My aunt read it,

and they both loved it. They thought it was a super book. mostly because it's not hardcore science fiction it's more space adventure space adventure yeah you know science fiction you get into some pretty strange concepts and I wanted more the adventure part of it not the you know sciencey part of it yeah but that's kind of the fun is that kind of the fun go ahead I was on Hollywood Book Review uh had a very Very nice write-up on the book.

And, you know, you get the idea, a lot of these reviewers, they, they, they just open a book in the middle and read some of it, and they write a review based on that. But it sounds like this writer really went through all the book, and she had a very kind write-up on it. And I, it was a Hollywood book review, was the name of the website. And I thought it was very nice. But, you know, a lot of people I've talked to that read it, they, they like it. They comment on it, you know, about some of the funny names they gave the aliens. And you could get yourself into a lot of trouble doing that, too, you know. You know, I've made, I come up with a situation where this one group of aliens, they don't have surnames.

They use the middle and, the first initial, or I said, the first syllable of their father's name and the last first syllable of their mother's name. That's the firstborn does that. I come up with his whole sequence of how they come up with names. Wow. You kind of write yourself into a corner doing that, you know? Did you really? Yeah.

And some of these people had some really odd names. Well, you gave them to them. It is what it is. You gave it to them, but I guess if they are anything, they have weird names, right? they're going to have who are we to say we to judge they probably look at our names and go you got some weird stuff going on there you weirdos

yeah that's why that's why aliens in real life don't contact us because they come here and they just go what the fuck they fly they fly past earth and lock their doors you know lock the doors roll up the windows as they drive by yeah we've seen those people yeah just keep moving

keep moving go to Saturn people are nice in Saturn so anyway they might be underground though i don't know anyway um so what sort of process do you use when you write do you usually uh what did you find that was successful to you there's a lot of aspiring writers or writers that listen to the show what what did you find work for you in keeping writing on a consistent basis and and uh you know getting the words down on the paper i you know i honestly can't answer that you know it's just things would come

to me, or I would, as I said before, I'd say, well, I want to get this guy outside the space station. And I would, you know, once a week, I drive, I have about a two-hour drive, you know, once a week. And during that drive, I'm, I'm not on, you know, I do pay attention on the road. But my mind is, you know, literally 10 million miles away in Oasis Ford, going, okay well what's you know how do i get that character from where they're at to where i want to get them you know what you know what needs to what needs to transpire doing that and i've never sat down and wrote an outline for a story or anything it's all been just uh letting things stew a little bit and then okay i want to get that write that down before i forget it

So basically, you know, making sure you keep notes. The great thing about long drives like that or, you know, having time to ponder stuff is I think you're, you know, the subconscious mind, the conscious mind worked together to cook up really cool ideas and, hey, what if you did this? Hey, what if you did that, you know, that sort of thing. Is that kind of what you found? Did that come through? Oh, I was, I was distracted there. I'm sorry, was there a question there? Sorry, I think maybe the audio drop.

When you, you know, the great thing about those long drives is you can take in, you know, the subconscious mind, the conscious mind can work on different things to come up with things. And, of course, writing down those good ideas. You know, I've had so many ideas that I'll have in the middle of night or in the morning or usually before bed, you know, I'll be laying there in bed trying to sleep. And my brain is like, you know, just coming up with ideas. And you're like, this really is the sleepy time. Do you not get the memo?

And, you know, I found that writing them down really helps get them off my mind, but also helps record them because sometimes you're like, oh, remember it in the morning. You wake up in the morning, you go, that's a great idea. I had it was a great idea. It's gone. So that can really help. Yeah, usually when I get back to the house, you know, after giving it a good think over a couple hours, I'll know where to go, you know, with my narrative.

so and even if I it happens a lot especially on this one I'm working on now I'll write it out and then I'll say okay well that's it that's a story that's written now when I say right I do all

people think I'm weird I do all my work on an Android pad I don't use it I don't type it on a computer so I can just sit back and relax and do it but anyway I'll have it all on the pad and maybe a day or two later I'll look at it and say you know I really need to fluff that up somehow or move that I don't know how many times I've changed chapter one no I think that should be chapter one and I'll move things around just based on who I think the main character should be and when to introduce different characters and like I said you know it's the nice thing about computer technology is you can

you can rearrange things and if you don't like it put it back or put it someplace different you know yeah i'm learning more and more um i am not i guess i work on airplanes but i when it comes to computers i am not the most tech savvy person on the planet you know is but luckily i'm working a flying club where half the half our members are computer engineers so I can get help there. In writing the book, was it hard to find a publisher? How did that work out for you and trying to get it published? You know, I kept hearing advertisements for page publishing in Pennsylvania on the radio.

And I thought, maybe I'll give them a try. And I sent them the manuscript and they said, yeah, we could take this project on. so really that that wasn't difficult in the least of course there's a lot there's a lot of things they don't do they they you know they'll put out a press release and they'll let Amazon know what the book is out there

but that and yeah I mean there's they help with editing and I've had more arguments with editors shit editors no you have to you have to say the you know, I don't want to put the word the word the in there. Have you ever heard an aircraft controller talk?

You know, in the book, that's the way the station controllers talk. You know, that clipped speech. And a lot of things that, you know this person's in tears. Read the book, they're just so frustrated. But I know what I really know what I'm talking about here, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty wild. All the stuff that's out there. And with science fiction, you have such, you kind of have an endless palette of different things you can do, because all of it's really creative, right? If you write something here that's kind of about, I don't know, humans in life, you're kind of stuck in a box of what it is unless you maybe, I don't know, write about the future of humans, and that kind of becomes science fiction. But with science fiction, you know,

you can make of aliens and spaceships and scenarios and you can kind of utilize, you know, the endless reaches of space as your contact. hard to come up with a fresh new idea because all the really cool ones have been taken yeah well i mean what is that old thing that uh you know all the good stuff gets repeated anyway eventually that's that's true but yeah you want you want to be you don't want people like it's like yeah you did you know i saw that Schwarzenegger movie yeah me too yeah you don't want to rip people completely off and kind of create your own lane but i think that's where, you know, developing characters and stories and kind of making it kind of your

genre, like a lot of great authors, you can, you know, when you read them, you can be like, I know who wrote this kind of sort of thing. I mean, I imagine you can pick up on Stephen King or Alan Dean Foster. I mean, I imagine. I don't know. But yeah, there's kind of a fingerprint, I think, that you have in the art after a while. People might use. Like I said, I've, there are authors. that I really admire that you try to say, I want to find my book to read a lot like his, you know. Do you have a favorite science fiction or a few favorite science fiction authors? Not really.

You know, in our family, I wasn't the sci-fi guy. Really? Yeah. I really did not have a, I enjoy science fiction movies more than anything, but I've got a small collection. of sci-fi movies from like the 50s which which were you know like forbidden planet and things like that which if you look at them now and it's like you know that for the 1950s that was really cool you know and a lot of concepts that were kind of out there mm-hmm yeah uh it's so movies maybe may have been the biggest thing like you said star trek and star wars are kind of your

influence yeah a little bit yeah and i didn't want to copy them exactly uh well they do that star wars does that pretty much on its own like yeah they do and you look at star wars and it's they act like all the habit you know inhabited planets are like next to each other you know you could get a good pair of binoculars and see the next one and i you know it's really not that way In real life, you know, it's what kind of distances you would have to travel to find another planet would support life, you know, a really long distance, you know, like many thousands of light years away. It's like you said, Star Trek, gigantic spaceships blasting away at each other, and I don't know, it just sounds kind of, that sounds way out there to me. Yeah, totally. out there. The, you know, the one thing I kind of made me take the shine off of Star Wars was

so many of the movies were just, I'm like, another Death Star. Really? We're blowing up another Death Star? How many times are we going to regurgitate this story of the death? Can we come with something other than a Death Star? It got a little old for me. I was like, I was like, can we do something different? And then if you've seen Star Wars is based off the movie, I believe the Fortress by by the famed director of film Akira Kirasawa, I believe it was. And the Star Wars plot, the movie, the characters, everything. It just said in a different time is literally lifted. And even what's his face, the gentleman who did Star Wars, the famed director for that,

he literally admits that he lifted it from George Lucas, yeah. yeah that's what Hollywood does he borrowed a lot of stuff he would take a picture of oh yeah it was like the Millennium Falcon cockpit was he based on a B29 cockpit yeah so that's how they develop stuff I mean it's it's kind of how it works I mean everything's kind of regurgity they borrow from each other they lean on each other creative swiping we call it in business

so as we go out give people final pitch out to order up your book where refined books are sold yeah you can get that from dale chamberlain books.com do they get any bonuses if they order it from you off your website i get the bonus i don't have to share it with amazon so folks go to his website and order it up there and you can find the book where refined books are sold oasis four out on paperback june 27th 2024 by dale chamberl and dale thank you very much for coming the show we really appreciate it. You're very welcome. Thank you. And thanks for

tuning in. Go to Goodreach.com, Fortresschus, Christchrist, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, for Chess Chris Voss 1 on the TikTok and Facebook.com for just Chris Foss. Begut to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. And that you have a