It is a story to give hope to the quiet, the shy and the geek in all of us, as a 14-year-old girl named Lauren gets accepted to a secret space academy on the dark side of the moon. The ordinary becomes the extraordinary, Lauren saves the day, and it takes place in a school setting. In short, Harry Potter in space.
While the setting is a lunar base where starships are space whales and their caretakers are intelligent robots, at its core is a story about students adjusting to a new environment and new classmates. In an academy designed by the governments of Earth to train kids to defend against the enemies of the space whales, Lauren and her friends struggle to find a niche for themselves and find a place where they might finally fit in. Amid the daily problems associated with being a teenager, Lauren learns she was accepted into the program because the director suspects her inherent empathy might be the key to unlocking the mystery on how the majestic spaces whales came to Earth and what chased them here. Beneath the layers of adventure and discovery lies the memorable search for belonging and acceptance, and while it ends a completed tale, it leaves behind a universe open and ready to be explored.
My first child was born while I was deployed to Iraq. Since I couldn’t tell her stories over the phone, I used my free time there to write this novel in hopes she would enjoy reading it someday. I drew upon my four years at the United States Military Academy as the basis of leaving a safe and secure small town for an overwhelmingly different and intense educational experience. I also relied heavily on the story telling techniques I developed earning my MFA in Film and Video Production at the University of Texas.
This will be a series of books which will chronicle the development of Lauren and her classmates and their space whales over time. Eventually I will post a selected chapter excerpt.
To learn more about me and my other works, please visit SteveMetze.com.
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