Author Jason Chestnut (Facebook, Twitter) is today’s featured Inkshares / Nerdist contest entrant. His book, To Live and Die in Avalon, looks absolutely wonderful. I am definitely getting this one.
About the book:
On New Year’s Day in the year 1970, the planet Earth was scorched and made uninhabitable by a mysterious alien terrorist force known only as the “Cleansing.” A benevolent race of beings saved over a quarter of the world’s population as well as many of the planet’s animals, cultural artifacts and history and relocated them to a massive space station on the far side of the Earth’s moon. The humans called it Avalon.
Fifty years later, the human race has flourished on Avalon, which has now become a hub for humanoid aliens from throughout the galaxy. The remnants of humanity adopted what they believed to be the height of their culture and history…the aesthetics of the 1960’s.
Penelope “Penny” Thorne is a secret agent for the A.I.S. (Avalon Intelligence Service) tasked with recovering a cryopod containing MIT scientist Dr. Anita Baxter, who was frozen in 1969 before the world ended. The military forces of the “Sons of Mars”, made up of humans who deserted Avalon and embraced the idea of galactic domination, are eager to recover the scientist by any means necessary…but, why? What secrets could a scientist from 1960’s Earth hold that could possibly catapult the galaxy into war? And how does this tie into the mysterious faction that laid waste to the Earth in the first place?
About Jason Chestnut:
Jason Chestnut is writer of science fiction and fantasy who lives in the mountains of Asheville North Carolina with his wife Shannon, their two kids and pug. When not writing he is tinkering with computers as an IT security analyst, playing punk rock or apologizing to people who think he’s being sarcastic. In all fairness, he usually is. “To Live and Die in Avalon” is his first novel.
Q: What about your universe really excites you?
A: The feature of the world/universe that excites me is that it is a blend of classic science fiction serials with old-school spy movies. While writing the book, if I ever got stuck I just framed the story like a Bond movie, but instead of taking place in exotic parts of the world, the action moves to different planets in the solar system. In place of the usual spy movie bad guys, you get robots, mutants and evil warlords, not unlike the kind of aliens and villains you’d find in a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon serial.
