Jerry

Very happy about the updated covers on my Bridge of Eternity series. They should be available from booksellers soon. In the meantime, I still have a stock of autographed copies with old cover art. I’m wondering if I should drop the price on them?

For years I wanted to write a very realistic story of interstellar colonization, and now I’ve finally done it. At the time I started writing, it didn’t look like faster than light travel would ever be possible, but teleportation would be. Maybe. Eventually.

I also didn’t believe there would be a sufficient push to create interstellar colonization without the looming threat of global extinction. You know, something to pull humanity’s collective heads out of our own backsides.

One thing is definitely happening at some point, possibly at any time: a giant asteroid strike.

So here’s how I figured it would play out:

• A huge asteroid too big to divert is coming at Earth. And fortunately Earth has an early warning.
• Faster than light travel is still beyond Earth’s capabilities, but nanotechnology and cloning is in an advaced state, so that any plant or animal (or person) can be coded and resequenced, and recreated.
• AI has become fairly sentient and because of strict controls, absolutely trustworthy. No evil AI robots here.
• Earth constructs and begins sending out self-replicating unmaned space probes (Von Neumann probes) that can maintain themselves during the insanely long flights to distant star systems.
• When one successfully reaches a new star system, it seeks out resources to replicate itself and send out more copies of itself.
• When one successfully finds a planet that sustains, or could sustain, life as we know it — it lands and begins the process of building “life factories” that seed the planet with Earth life, and also humanity.
• Meanwhile poor old Earth lay in ruins, life having been wiped out tens- or (by then) hundreds-of-thousands of years ago.
• These probes would spread out across the entire galaxy, seeding life as we know it among the stars.

This is the basis of my newest novel, Seeds from Ancient Earth.

It follows Katherina, the first human created by the machines — she was the beta test human. We see her born, grow up, and eventually face the final cataclysm that ends Earth.

But then we also get to see copies of her on colony planets in numerous adventures, and how she discovers her own past and connects with all her various “sisters” across the galaxy.

From surviving alien elements, to future corporate intrigue, through love and loss and discovery, we see humanity evolve and adapt and survive through Katherina’s countless eyes.

We also get to see humanity reach the point where distance no longer matters, and the barriers between various realities begin to dissolve. And as humans become more machine than human, we see whether or not humanity itself remains.

When I was twelve years old, my parents gave me this:

My latest novel leans heavily upon not only me using typewriters since an early age, but on the several years I spent rescuing and repairing old classic ones back in the 1990’s. The story actually came from me thinking it would be funny to write a novel simply titled:

TYPEWRITER REPAIRMAN!

I know, I know. Silly title. What was I thinking? 

I can trace the idea back to a Monty Python skit called “Bicycle Repairman!” where there’s a world full of superheroes, but one of them steps into a phone booth during a time of need and changes into “Bicycle Repairman.” And he’s a huge hero to all the superheroes, who apparently have no idea how to fix a bicycle.

In my novel, however, it’s not a world of superheroes, but the main character does find himself embedded among a loose-knit group of powerful supernatural archetypes. To his dismay, they insist he’s fated to find a typewriter imbued with dangerous powers. And this main character, being a nerdy, socially awkward typewriter repairman, is forced further and further out of his comfort zone, and finds himself in an adventure (and love story) beyond his wildest imagination.

So that is Typewriter Repairman, available now, and if I can get off my butt and update this website I plan on setting up a way for people to order signed copies directly from me.

(I’ll post another blog entry here when that finally happens, and also send out a message to those subscribed to my newsletter.)

In other news, I have another book coming out within the next few months. This one is a science fiction that I’ve been working on for years, and it’s finally ready. Doomsday, cloning, Von Neumann probes, interstellar colonies, adventure and discovery … it’s all there. And it’s pretty hard sci-fi too, so there’s nothing impossible going on — in fact it’s all very likely, given enough time.

I’ll send out another newsletter (and post here to the blog) when that one is ready.

Until then, thank you for reading! It’s a crazy world out there … stay safe, and let’s all take care of one another.

Sincerely,

Jerry