Have you ever had an idea so complex and so compelling that you had to write it down – and one so detailed that it took you ten books (and counting) to recount the tale? Well, I have, and I call it the Utopia Saga (that title, by the way, is a work in progress).
The first book, Adam's Quest, introduces many characters and the background for the entire Saga. Here it is in a nutshell.
Among the varied races in our Galaxy who have achieved faster-than-light (FTL) travel between the stars, there is a Council that – for millennia beyond count – has been dominated by a benign but very scientifically-advanced race, known to themselves and everybody else as "the Watchers." In the past, they did more than watch – using their advanced science, for instance, they spliced their DNA into the race of humanoids on Earth who – with their help – evolved into Cro Magnon, the Human Race we know today. But they've long since grown out of that habit of meddling, though they still have a special fondness for Humanity.
Then along comes an upstart race, a feline-like race of carnivorous beings, the Emperians, who – under their vicious Empress – have their own eyes set on Earth. Two reasons:
First, Earth has an element in abundance that is lacking in most other habitable planets, and the Emperians have a sub-culture, the Merchants, who are always looking for a deal. A race without FTL travel is not eligible for the Galactic Council, so the human race's fate is in its own hands due to the Emperian's fear of Human nuclear weapons. The Empress wants to knock Humanity back into the stone ages, then go in and take what they want. The other reason is even more fundamental.
Second, humans are considered "good eatin'" in many parts of the Galaxy. The mercantile Emperian Merchants want to see Humanity knocked back into the stone age so they can – like cattle – be harvested "on the hoof" at little cost.
There's a problem, though – or, actually, two problems.
First, the Emperians hadn't counted on the Watchers caring enough about Humanity to not give the Emperians a free hand.
Second, the Emperians' idea of knocking Humanity back into the stone age is a bit over the top. They send an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth and let that catastrophic "encounter" do it for them.
But – for a variety of reasons – meddling from the Watchers and the ultimate choice of a rock that's way too big and sent way too fast, and it looks like it will be not a civilization-crushing disaster but an "extinction-level" event akin to what wiped out the dinosaurs.
It will create environmental havoc that could delay the Emperians' mining projects by decades or more. Worse, it might wipe out Humanity, or at least knock it so far beyond the stone age that the "herd" will be too small even to consider harvesting. Oops.
But while Earth's fate is sealed, the Big Rock is still a year away. The Watchers realize they can't stop Humanity's potential destruction. They can coerce the Emperians to send some massive interstellar transport vessels to bring small groups of humans away from Earth and transplant them onto a variety of Earth-like worlds that are likely to be habitable for humans … and so well-hidden that they can develop new cultures without also providing the steaks for an alien cook-out.
However, there are problems, and this is what the first Saga book is about. It chronicles the activities surrounding just one of the four rescue ships, dealing with how they not only find the right humans to save to re-start Humanity's development but how to also obtain all the supplies the humans will need to survive the trip through space – which, though FTL will nonetheless take quite a long time – as well as what they'll need to stay on a new planet until they can develop agriculture and other skills required to survive on their new earth-like planet – a place the early human recruits decide should be called, for obvious reasons, Utopia.
That's all I will tell you now, but stay tuned. We're going to have a lot of fascinating blogs for you to enjoy. Some will talk, as this one did, about the story itself. Others will allow me to share my writing style with you and how I – as a writer – develop my ideas. Others will present scenes from the first book.