For fans following my work from the beginning, you're going to see in these stories the continued trend in my voice towards the absurd and scandalous. For fans who are reading me for the first time, or have just read my latest novel, A Land Overflowing, be warned, I don't write happy endings. Well. I know how to, but so often a happy ending seems disingenuous to the characters living these stories. Life doesn't get magic fixes.
My characters make choices. And often these choices lead to unhappiness, disillusionment and heartache.
Helium Quest is a series of sequels. Of sorts. The stories are set in the same universe as ALO, that is they are set in the same vision of the future: no bees, no helium. The earth is a dying planet, just not in the expected ways. There's still water. There's still food. There's been no nuclear war. Robots haven't taken over. Neither has a fascist government. Humans have just been careless about using their resources and now the way they must live their lives has been restricted. There's still greed. There's still war. There's still jealousy and betrayal.
In these stories, what interests me most is how humans treat other humans. Do the lack of bees and cheap food change how humans treat one another? Does the lack of affordable and meaningful healthcare from lack of helium change how humans treat one another? Those are the types of questions I'm am trying to answer--or at least pose in these stories.
So. What can you expect from the series? The first two stories will each look at the quest for helium in different ways. In one, two men, having been aboard the space vessel Helianthus for some twenty years, must fight for their sanity in order to continue their mission and save humanity. In the other, we see a rather sacrilegious faith healing. Is the healer a con artist taking advantage of the gullible? Or is he really a prophet? Or even something else?
As always, happy reading. And stay tuned for more about Helium Quest including release dates.
No comments:
Post a Comment