The Story Before the Story

As if I have no clue about “what’s at stake.” Like I somehow forgot the war that raged during my entire childhood and killed four hundred million people.


The Hudson would carry her forty member crew and one hundred fifty colonists on a seven month journey to Dremiks—a Saturn-sized planet

orbiting the sun Santalas. Santalas, its system of six planets, and its corner of the universe had been unknown twenty-five years before.

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These brief lines from the first two pages of "Dremiks" offer  the succinct backstory of the novel. Humanity has been at war--as it always is-- and has nearly destroyed itself once again.  Aliens need help from humans and offer technology in exchange for that help.  They also broker a peace.  In their naivete, the Dremikians believe that human beings will move past pettiness and genocide once presented with a uniting cause beyond the solar system.  The story of "Dremiks" explores the challenges human's face in trying to overcome the harsh Universe and our own brutal natures.

Before the Hudson's journey, though, there was a war.  Admiral O'Connell rose to power during that war, dragging his motherless daughter along on his quest for prestige.  Four hundred million people died during Maggie's childhood as a direct result of the war.  Many more died from so called "natural causes".  Alliances and countries tumbled at the same time that an alien race made first contact.  There is a story here that needs to be told.

This is why my weekly offerings for Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday will now take the form of snippets serializing the backstory of "Dremiks". Each week, readers will get a ten sentence look at the journal of a man imprisoned for following his conscience.  He gets to be caustic, sarcastic, despondent, and insightful because no one cares what he writes.  He's been sent to Lunar colony to die.


He is prisoner 1138.  His journal is our cautionary tale.