While working on my first BS degree in Animal Science, I had a professor on a mission to inform the world how fragile our food chain was. This was not his only issue, but it was undoubtedly a major one for him. He was one of my favorite professors, so I took several classes from him. The result was my awareness of our food chain. This was brought to a head for me when I saw a woman interviewed on TV who expressed the belief eggs came from grocery stores. When in reality, they come from chickens, of course.
I have always been a fan of Science Fiction and grew up reading everything Heinlein and Asimov wrote. When I started working on my second bachelor’s degree in Psychology, I took a class in creative writing as an elective. I wrote some short stories for that class, and the professor encouraged me to turn one of those stories into a book, which became Adam’s Quest. The same professor encouraged me to participate in a regional writers’ conference, which I did. To my surprise, an early version of Adam’s Quest won the novel award at the conference. At about this same time, the aftermath of the injuries I incurred while on active duty in the Army became much worse, and I started becoming deaf. This was a hard path for me since I made my living by talking to people in those days. My writing became a way to maintain my sanity. I wanted this story to educate people on society’s dangers because of our fragile food chain. During this period, I dreamed about an alien invasion of Earth via an asteroid strike, temporarily disrupting our food chain. The natural outcome of that was massive food shortages. We know that because of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, people will do almost anything to continue eating. Knowing the history of primitive people’s turning to cannibalism during food shortages is the final plot of Adam’s Quest was formed.