In my new novel Dunamis, the universe expands. Literally.
The first book, Mirrobius, touched on the fact that people can travel via shuttle to other planets, and numerous characters are from worlds other than Earth. In this new story, we actually see that play out: we see the shuttle station, the shuttle itself, and eventually we see another planet: an icy world called Gele (pronounced GEH-lay).
We also get to see a little of how this other planet is governed, or more accurately, ruled: the planet has a Royal Family who oversees the concerns of the populace.
Understandably, the King of Gele is displeased with the situation on his planet that has brought our heroes in to help with. He is concerned with the well-being of his citizens. However, he takes increasingly extreme measures to pursue it: checkpoints, door-to-door raids by soldiers, and other measures that make life more restrictive and difficult.
There is more to the King’s reasoning that we discover over time, but in general he is doing so out of a heightened sense of paranoia and vengeance. He is forcing his people to give up a certain amount of freedom for increased security.
This likely sounds familiar.
I certainly had plenty of inspiration to work with when developing this part of the story. Any echoes to current events is certainly more than coincidental, even if there are differences in the specifics. The book includes an exploration of people in power thinking that they’re doing the right thing while doing harm and the unreasonable factors that go into making such decisions.
My goal was to provide some commentary from 90 degrees sideways, and I am pleased with the results. I hope that readers are as well.
Dunamis releases March 3rd. You can pre-order it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, and Smashwords.
Jeffrey A. Nelson 