The Girl on the Kerb is a stand alone novel that mixes the flavors of the future with those of the past.
The future is a distant one – a resource depleted Earth after the catastrophic collapse of its solar system spanning civilization. The past is the mid-20th century level society that survived this collapse. This society is governed by the Code, an all encompassing set of regulations designed to ensure that the leftovers of the Solar Age will last for the eons to come.
The inciting incident is the crash of what appears to be a Solar Age aircraft. Its wreckage is removed within hours and the story suppressed. The administrators of the EuraCentre and EuraNorthwest regions see the hand of the Duchess of Fauconcourt, the Administrator General of EuraEast, in the incident. She has long campaigned to alter the Code – one way or another – to allow greater use of resources for an eventual return to a new Solar Age. Her changes to the Code denied, does this aircraft point to her other way? Two amateur agents are dispatched to EuraEast to find out.
Henri Hardy is an analytical engineer knowledgeable about Solar Age technology, currently employed as a low level clerk in EuraNorthwest’s Ministry of Innovation. By night he writes adventure stories set in the Solar Age, i.e. historical fiction.
Jean Murat, the Countess Montbleu, is an economist in the EuraCentre’s Ministry of Commerce. She has, for years, been collecting economic data on EuraEast in an effort to decipher the Duchess’ ultimate plans. By night she runs with a wealthy and rather scandalous social circle.
The novel relates the story of their mission to the east, which quickly goes south.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am going to shop this novel around to agents and publishers, hence the earliest publication date being sometime next year, whether self-published or traditionally published. While I have no illusions about the likelihood of this story being picked up by an agent or publisher, I think the process is worth the effort, if only to see what, if any, feedback I receive on my work.
As it turns out, the British science fiction publishers, Gollannz just happens to have a rare one month long window this June when they are accepting non-agented manuscripts, so I will be tossing The Girl on the Kerb over their transom very shortly.* Just like old times. There will be 1,000-1,500 manuscripts tossed as well, so I do not expect to hear anything for 6 to 12 months. But it is a start.
In the meanwhile, my wife will do her proofreading on the manuscript, and then it will be sent out to my volunteer beta readers who also will proofread it and offer their comments and suggestions. If you care to volunteer to be a beta reader, just email me.
I will talk more about this story in future blog posts.
UPDATE: I did submit it, though I used The Road to Eura title for that submission, as The Girl on the Kerb was a later change.
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