A Dubious Hope and Thwarted

Fear can be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

A DUBIOUS HOPE

The tight-knit residents of a doomed generation ship are rescued by mysterious aliens and set in orbit around a beautiful habitable planet.

Opal, an anxious teen, is selected by their telepathic benefactors to be their translator for her people. She blooms in her role, but the pressures of planetary life, reliance on invisible mindreaders, and interplanetary trade create rifts among her people and leave her feeling sidelined.

The long journey has created a communal society of polyglots who’ve renamed themselves Spacers and pride themselves as being free of the negative traits of their ancestor humans. Planetary life’s pressures rattle that unity, as does the abrupt introduction to their new neighbors: burrowing grizzly-sized “tardigrades,” space-faring “cuttlefish,” massive mandible-gnashing praying mantis-like creatures, and egotistic muscular furry dinos.

Opal trusts their new benefactors, who outlaw war, not everyone does. The Semqu are the only species no one can see, and secrets in this new environment run deep. Some of their neighbors here lack a history and archeological record, yet have faster-than-light travel.

Watchful Spacers realize some want the Semqu’s powers — and the Spacers’ planet — for themselves. Not enough attention is paid to resentful Spacers who want to live free of the Semqu’s attentive eye.

In the space of a day, greed and poorly placed trust shatter the peace. In the chaos, Opal’s mental companion and protector is attacked. Her trust, sense of community, and emotional and mental stability are ruptured.

The peace holds, but now even Opal wants revenge.

THWARTED

As events hurl her new home toward cataclysm, Opal must protect and guide a young powerful Semqu to maturity. Together they must choose who to save, what to protect. Along the way Opal rediscovers her own fiercely held values:

Resilience.

Service.

Commitment.

Community.

Yet both love and a long-simmering desire for vengeance will play into the only choice she’s made entirely on her own for decades: if she wants to live forever.

A Dubious Hope, coming in 2025. Thwarted, TBA.

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