EMISSARY SEQUEL

No, I haven’t finished writing Qilin (chee-LEEN) yet. But I am very near to competing the first draft and expect to finish that by the end of the year. 

Then I will set it aside for a month to marinate while I finish writing a novella that goes back to Earth to explore what life was like for ordinary people living in the last days of Earth. This is in response to readers who have asked for more about the lives of ordinary people as the end of the world approaches.

The novella is tentatively titled The Last Ark, and explores three perspectives: (1) a young man living outside the Greater Cairo Enclave; (2) a young woman living in a poor section of the Buenos Aires Enclave; and (3) a thirteen year old girl in a middle class neighborhood of the Greater San Francisco Enclave. 

I had hoped to publish Qilin in winter 2023, but it’s looking like it will slide into the spring. Writing a realistic story about colonizing an alien planet, while avoiding the myriad cliches found in similar books, has proven more challenging than I expected. But I think I’ve got a good handle on it in the first draft. It contains a few surprises.