As a Writer
As I was graduating from my bachelor's degree at the University of British Columbia - Okanagan with a major
in psychology, a minor in philosophy, and having taken pretty much every first year science course, I
started working on a literary project which was part work of fiction, part existential treatise, part trying
to explain everything I had come to understand about life, the universe, and everything.
These books are works I am incredibly proud of, but they have gone through a process. The original trilogy
of books are artefacts of another time in my life, and I am currently hard at work updating them into a
complete revised six part series. The originals reveal much about me, at times perhaps too much, and my
thoughts and views (and willingess to expose myself in that way) have changed over time. These books have
once again become my primary creative focus and I'm excited to be working on them again. I have removed
them from being for sale online, and am instead making them available here on this website to anyone
who would like to keep up with my work and maybe even offer some feedback as I develop them further.
I think them being in this format is cool; I like that they can easily be read like an e-reader in any browser.
That being said, if you'd like to read any of these and specifically would like them in a particular file type
feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to provide it to you.
New Horizons
The New Horizons trilogy is about a utopian vision of the future, a therapeutic thinking through of how it could all work out despite everything in reality trending so negatively (and that was pre-Trump). It's set in Vancouver 150 years in the future, and focuses on a generational starship which leaves on a 150 year journey to a distant neighbouring star.
Book 1: Chasing Stars
Markus Bowland is a dipshit fail son. Wealthy and talented, he has squandered every opportunity anyone else could have ever hope for. Emotionally crippled at a young age by a tragic loss, the expectations on him left him unwilling to try, unwilling to put himself in a position to fail in any way. Working a dead end job, keeping his wealth secret from his peers, and mooching off of his sucessful brother when necessary, he is afraid to even have a relationship with a human woman, preferring instead his favourite simulant prostitute.
Largely just to annoy his brother, he enters a lottery to win a spot on the New Horizon generational starship. When he wins the spot and learns more about the mission and the vision of the people behind it, he finds himself strangely unwilling to sell the seat. He starts seriously considering going himself without understanding why, and begins to dare seeking out real meaning in his life for the first time, and asking why he's resisted it so hard for so long.
Book 2: Midway
More than two centuries into the future, the New Horizon generational starship is halfway through its long journey towards the planet Haven. It is the last great project of humanity, but after eighty long years the journey is still only half over. The last person to have known Earth has died and new ship borne generations are having to suffer the existential nightmare of a complete and total absence of choice in their lives. A horrific event starts unravelling their small and seemingly harmonious society, threatening the mission, and their lives…
Midway flips the situation and focuses on individuals halfway through the journey, the crew who grew up on the small ship, who will inevitably die on the same small ship, and must suffer this existence for the sake of other people's dreams, with no possibility of pursuing their own. Mission founders with maximum privilege have cursed them by leaving them with none.
Book 3: Arrival
The long wait is over. After a century and a half, the New Horizon Generational Starship has finally arrived at its destination and the planet seems to be everything the crew could have hoped for. Four simulants of the mission's original founders wake up after their long sleep to discover a dangerously factionalized crew, with the animosity and hatred amongst the crew threatening to destroy the mission before its dream can be triumphantly realized.
Arrival is the third book and is about what happens when the New Horizon finally arrives at Haven. Simulants of the original mission founders wake up excited, expecting to help establish a toehold on the new planet, but instead find themselves mediating a embittered conflict amongst the crew. One faction takes drastic action and the results leave not only the mission's ultimate success in peril, but the lives of everyone who travelled so far as well...
Much like Midway, Arrival is complete and in a polished state, but it has become somewhat dated. I believe it requires some revision and will benefit from another pass of editing. This was really the first book I self consciously wrote for the reader, just trying to tell a compelling story well with far less self indulgence. It was so gratifying to finally get here, and to appreciate the scope of the journey through the founder simulants and finally be able to tell their own story. I hope you enjoy it too.
Book 4: Reunion
Reunion is the fourth book in the overall series, but also the first in a sequel trilogy. It is about the descendants of the Haven colony 500 years hence, and begins on the day they are first able to return to the long abandoned New Horizon in orbit. It has served as a powerful reminder of where they come from, and their destiny to return.
Just as Commander Kathryn Barnes steps foot on the ancient ship, humans from another colony make first contact witht them with an intriguing but suspicious propsition. They clam friendly intent, but their technology is frighteningly advanced to theirs by comparison. They learn of a network of rifts they have developed which may enable them to investigate the greatest mystery on multiple planets: what happened to Earth?
This book is complete and I have recently completed an edit of it in preparation for finishing the fifth book. I have been both pleased and dismayed at my ability to so dramatically improve upon material I wrote so recently! It's like I told my manager at AlayaCare when I started: I start slow, but I accelerate quickly.
Book 5: Contact
Contact takes place fifteen or so years later when the first drone ship sent to a non conlony system makes
first contact with them back home, allowing an expedition through the rift to a new system for the first time.
Kathryn is tasked with captaining the newly constructed New Horizons II through the rift to explore the new
system. They have their first encounter with non human intelligent life, and find themseves thrown in the middle
of a galactic civil war, needing to pick based on too little information before they are destroyed.
This book is currently only about two thirds complete. I abandoned it when I stopped writing for a while between
running out of steam and being demoralized over the reception of my first books. I am currently editing what I have
already written and am excited to finish this story! I have currently edited through Chapter 16 and you can follow
along through the link below.
See here what's been written of Contact so far
Book 6: Resurrection
I have conceived the final book but I have yet to birth it. I know its heart and shape, but I haven't written a word yet. Stay tuned! It will be an exciting and satisfying conclusion, but I'm not ready to give anything away. I am so incredibly excited to get my ideas out but have to finish Contact first. I also at some point plan to take another crack at these titles. I felt the one word titles worked really well initially, but 'Contact' and 'Resurrection'? Come on, I can do better.
Keep up with the develoment of Resurrection here
Book 0: Launch
If you absolutely, positively must, I will also make the original novel Launch available. Please don't read it though. If you've read everythign else I've written and want more, read it. If you want to compare how abysmal my writing was to how improved it is now, sure. If you are specifically looking for a navel gazing, thinly veiled auto-biographical existentialist's master's thesis written entirely for me and not for you? Then by all means read it. If you enjoy page after page of endless digressions explaining things I think are cool and how I would solve the world if it would let me? Well hey, if that's you you might love it. If it's not, do us both a favour and just don't.