(SOME OF) THE STORY BEHIND INDIGENT EARTH
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Unless you buy the hardcover edition, you won’t see all the gorgeous artwork my cover artist provided, so here it is.
Readers often wonder where writers get our ideas. Well, in the case of my newest novel Indigent Earth, a number of sources came into play.
Worldwide, the year 2023 has been a year of fierce heatwaves, devastating droughts, rampant wildfires, and horrendous floods.
Climate change is upon us.
At the time I wrote Indigent Earth, things weren’t quite this extreme, but I knew they could get to be. I’d already taught a college course about climate change for a semester (I didn’t enjoy the experience enough to continue, but that’s another story). I was also watching the rise of private sector space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. I don’t consider them a bad thing, but depending on billionaires for all our space technology might have risks. Plus, economic studies were showing that the world’s 2000+ billionaires hold as much wealth as 60% of the rest of Earth’s population. That divide is increasing, with no end in sight.
Could conditions on Earth get so bad that the rich and powerful might abandon the planet?
On another front, two of my grandkids are part Cree (on their father’s side) and that heritage is very important to them. It’s special to me, too—I have a deep love for the natural spaces of my home country, Canada, and inevitably link them with our indigenous peoples, for whom I have great respect. But, as in many places, Canada’s history with its indigenous peoples is troubled, to say the least.
Indigent Earth is set in a North America of six centuries from now, at a time 500 years after the world’s wealthiest people abandoned our damaged planet to live in space colonies and have now chosen to return. Killian Morningcloud feels like a prisoner in his constrained Earth community (known as an Allocation) and has bright hopes for the colonists’ reappearance. Celebrated citizen of the colonies, Natira Celestia, looks forward to meeting the “noble primitives” she’s sure must inhabit the home planet. Both will have their dreams dashed; thrown together, they will struggle to survive long enough to uncover dark secrets that powerful people are desperate to keep hidden.
Yes, I’m afraid that the face of colonialism may change, but it’s something our species will find hard to escape. My Dedication for the novel reads:
To the indigenous peoples of the world
who have been displaced and marginalized.
I can’t speak your truth; I can only acknowledge it.
More broadly, I believe that being on the wrong side of the ‘privilege gap’ could happen to any of us in the years to come.
So those facts provide some explanation of where the novel came from.
That said, Indigent Earth isn’t a rant or a lecture! It’s an exciting adventure story with vivid settings and characters including a fire-and-water pairing if there ever was one. Killian and Natira are about as different as two people can be, so it was a lot of fun to write such a charged relationship!
With a publication date of September 30th, I hope you’ll use this Universal Book Link to find Indigent Earth at your favourite online bookseller (or ask your local bookstore to get it for you) and give it a read. I really think it’ll grab you.
