Harvest
by Olga Werby
BLURB:
Almost a century after Keres Triplets asteroid impact and subsequent nuclear exchange almost ended all human life on Earth, a strange artifact is discovered on one of the moons of Saturn. Who should be sent to the outer reaches of the solar system to initiate the first contact with an alien culture? Dr. Varsaad Volhard, an evolutionary-socio-historian, is chosen to help the world understand the alien civilization that left an artifact some thirty thousand years ago, before humans even learned to farm, at the time when other human species still walked the earth. While Vars prepares for the mission, her father, Dr. Matteo Volhard, discovers nanobots among the microplastics he studies. The bots are everywhere and seem to have been created to bond with human cyber implants. Why? Matteo is made to keep his discovery a secret...as well as his and his daughter's true origins. Both were donated to a Human DNA Vault as babies. Matteo was raised as a Seed before leaving with his young daughter to study ecology around the world. Who knows what? Who is in control? How does one communicate with non-human intelligence? People seem to die in gruesome ways as their cyberhumatics go haywire on Earth and on Luna and Mars colonies. Is Earth under attack or is it all just a cosmic misunderstanding? Vars needs to use all she knows to solve the mystery of the ancient civilization on Mimas, as her dad battles the alien nanobots at home.
Excerpt Three:
Vars slept on the plane…or tried to. She was too confused, too keyed up to really sleep. That coffee might have been a mistake. Ian said that he couldn’t tell her anything until they arrived at his EPSA office in Seattle, which was conveniently her own hometown where she lived with her dad. The man just smiled a lot and talked about how much he had enjoyed reading Vars’s new book.
There was a strange edge to their interaction. If Vars hadn’t believed Ian’s credentials, she would have bailed on him a long time ago. Even so, she felt like she was being kidnapped. And, in a way, she was. She’d had to cancel the last two lectures of her book tour and apologize to her agent over and over again. Ian had promised that EPSA would send an official excuse letter, but Vars still felt like she let her agent and publisher down.
They landed at a general aviation airport, and another black car whisked them to EPSA’s headquarters, just outside of Seattle’s city limits. She was taken to a conference room on the top floor of the EPSA science building, which Ian called the “tree house.” She immediately understood why–it was surrounded on all sides by a balcony planted with a row of trees and some shrubbery. It was quite nice, but Vars couldn’t enjoy it; she was simultaneously exhausted and adrenalized. It was just a matter of time before she crashed.
She must have looked it, too, because someone handed her a very big, very steamy cup of coffee. She sipped it gratefully, completely oblivious to how she came to be holding it. It was still very early in the morning, way before Vars even liked to get up, much less attend a meeting.
About a dozen EPSA people joined her and Ian around the conference table. Vars noticed that several paper copies of her book were laid out; some even looked read, with cracked spines and dog-eared pages.
“So,” she said to Ian. “Is now a good time and place for you to tell me what this is all about?”
“Now is perfect,” Ian said with a big smile. “We are very grateful to have you with us today, Dr. Volhard. This is my exobiology team.” He pointed one by one to the people on one side of the table. “Dr. Alice Bear. Dr. Greg Tungsten. Dr. Bob Shapiro. Dr. Saydi Obara. Dr. Evelyn Shar. And Dr. Izzy Rubka.”
Vars had heard of some of these people by reputation, of course, but never met any of them personally. EPSA people were a reclusive bunch, tending to mix with their own to the exclusion of others, even with the same research interests. It was one of the reasons Vars always wanted to join the organization–to get access to the best and the brightest minds and a chance to discuss the origins of life over coffee… But the introductions were happening so fast, there was no chance that she would remember how any of these names linked up with faces. Vars doubted she would even recognize these people walking down the street.
But Ian just continued. “And this group,” he gestured to two men and a woman, “is on loan from JPL–Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Trish Cars, Dr. Ron Silverman, and Dr. Benjamin Kouta.” Vars gave up on remembering who was who. “And these two,” Ian said, nodding to a pair of identical twins sitting next to him, “are Ibe and Ebi Zimov, our computer science wunderkinds from EISS, European Institute of Space Science.”
AUTHOR Interview
How
did you choose the genre you write in?
I write sci-fi and magical realism. My background is in
astrophysics and psychology. Granted, it’s not a very likely combination for a career…a
regular career. But it is perfect for a writer of science fiction!
I've always hoped to live long enough to see the day when
humans fully dedicate themselves to space exploration…at least to exploring our
Solar System. I've studied math and astrophysics in college...went on to get a
doctorate... But I’ve realized that one of the best ways that I can
"push" for space exploration in particular and science, in general,
is by writing science fiction! So I write what-if scenarios and embed as much
real science as I can into a story that is gripping enough to get the attention
of just the right type of audience. My latest book, “Harvest,” deals with first
contact. I use this setup to discuss conditions necessary not only for life to
develop, but for advanced civilizations to rise and colonize space.
Do you work with an outline, or just
write?
By the time I actually start writing a new novel, I’ve
usually spent a year or so taking notes and doing research. I tend to have a general
idea of what the book will be about. But that said, I’m the seat-of-my-pants
kind of writer. I write to find out what happens next! Once I know my
characters and understand their predicament, the story is written by them. They
decide what they want to do and how to proceed and how to solve problems that I
throw at them. I know this sounds crazy, but it works well for me. I’m always
surprised by the end of the story—the finished book is nothing like I’ve imaged
it…but it does contain all of the elements of my research for the story.
Can you tell us about your book?
“Harvest” was published in May, 2019, after almost two
years of writing and editing and illustration. It got three 5-star reviews from
ReadersFavorite and has been entered into a few completions.
“Harvest”
is a story of first contact. 30,000-year-old alien artifact is found on one of
the moon of Saturn, buried in the ancient ice. This means that back when humans
didn’t even begin agriculture or domestication of animals or started using symbols
to keep track of ideas or to send messages to each other; before the days of
making clay pots and weaving baskets; back when we haven’t even discovered the
Americas; in the deep time before the dawn of our civilization (night time,
really), some aliens were already advanced enough to send a craft across the
trillions and trillions of miles of space to our home star system. Why did they
come? What do they want?
I became interested in the idea of galaxy’s first
star-fairing civilization a few years back. I wanted to use all of the science
I knew to extrapolate the implications of being the first intelligence and the
first civilization and then the first space-fairing culture to arise in the
Milky Way. There had to be the THE first. What if it is NOT us? How would we,
humans, handle first contact with such people? Would it go well for us? Would
it be like “Star Trek?” I had a feeling that it might not really play out that
way…
The story of Vars, a professor of socio-biology who studies
human origins and civilizations, came from my exploration on these ideas. I
wanted her—a “soft” scientist—to try to solve the puzzle of communicating with
someone very different from us, whose motivations we simply don’t understand.
For when the time comes, it won’t be the physicists and mathematicians who will
be on the forefront of interfacing with aliens. It will be diplomats,
sociologists, linguists, and lawyers! (perhaps teachers…)
There, you can also find a large collection of my short
stories, radio plays, other book excerpts, and lots of articles on writing, the
universe, and life in general. I also regularly post book giveaways and, for
those interested in subscribing to my rambling monthly newsletters, there is a
free copy of my fist book, “Suddenly, Paris.” It’s a story of virtual worlds
and love that overcomes all kinds of digital barriers.
“Harvest” is fully-illustrated—why do only kids get to have
pictures in their books? Below is a small collection of images from the book.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Olga Werby, Ed.D., has a Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on designing online learning experiences. She has a Master's degree from U.C. Berkeley in Education of Math, Science, and Technology. She has been creating computer-based projects since 1981 with organizations such as NASA (where she worked on the Pioneer Venus project), Addison-Wesley, and the Princeton Review. Olga has a B.A. degree in Mathematics and Astrophysics from Columbia University. She became an accidental science fiction indie writer about a decade ago, with her first book, "Suddenly Paris," which was based on then fairly novel idea of virtual universes. Her next story, "The FATOFF Conspiracy," was a horror story about fat, government bureaucracy, and body image. She writes about characters that rarely get represented in science fiction stories -- homeless kids, refugees, handicapped, autistic individuals -- the social underdogs of our world. Her stories are based in real science, which is admittedly stretched to the very limit of possible. She has published almost a dozen fiction books to date and has won many awards for her writings. Her short fiction has been featured in several issues of "Alien Dimensions Magazine," "600 second saga," "Graveyard Girls," "Kyanite Press' Fables and Fairy Tales," "The Carmen Online Theater Group's Chronicles of Terror," with many more stories freely available on her blog, Interfaces.com.
Links:
Selected Book Links on Amazon:
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER:
Olga Werby will be awarding 2 books to a randomly drawn commenter (LIZARD GIRL AND GHOST and SUDDENLY, PARIS) via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
