Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Harvest NBtM








“Harvest” is what one would classify as “hard science fiction.” “Hard” doesn’t mean it is hard to read or understand, just that it has a lot of fun (and accurate) science in addition to a great story. The story starts with the discovery on a very old alien artifact buried in ice on one of the moons of Saturn. Scientists and the military have to quickly make an assessment: what do these aliens want? Are they dangerous? If so, how could humans protect themselves? But how can we tell when something wants us harm? Some of the biggest cultural mistakes on Earth came about from simple failure to communicate, to understand the alien other. When the other side is overwhelming in power and knowledge, making a diplomatic mistake can end human civilization. It’s a fun premise and a good story.

But many years before the alien artifact was found, the earth was hit by three asteroid shards: the Keres Triplets. The impacts and the following nuclear exchange devastated the planet. Africa and most of the Middle East were no longer habitable. The humanity came to the brink of extinction. To salvage diversity and genetic heritage, Human Seed Vaults were set up by the Human Genome Heritage Project. Individuals with particularly interesting genetic makeup were taken from their parents as infants and deposited into the Vaults, deep underground. There were several such genetic banks. And over time, there developed a mythology about the people who lived there—Seeds.

Earth was in ashes for decades. The nuclear winter swept ice and darkness from sea to shinning sea… But humans are nothing if not resilient creatures. It didn’t take long for Earth to recover, although what was lost was lost forever.

Matteo was brought into the Seed Bank in the far north of Norway as an infant. He met his seed sister, Phoebe, there. And while Phoebe, a brilliant biologist, was happy to spend her life below ground. Matteo wanted to see the world. One day, when he was patrolling the upper layers of the Vault, a child was dropped off. It was a strange drop. The child was a little girl. She was too old to be accepted into the Vault as a Fresh Seed. To save her, Matteo left the only life he knew (and the only woman he loved).

That story, a prequel to “Harvest,” is called “Fresh Seed.”

The story of “Harvest” picks up almost thirty years after Dr. Matteo Volhard adopted Varsaad (“fresh seed” in Afrikaans) and raised her as his daughter.

The world rebounded by then. People landed and built colonies on Luna and Mars and even on some of the moons of Jupiter. It was an amazingly fast recovery given the severity of the devastation. Miraculous, even.

Vars became a scientist like her father. Her field of study was evolutionary biology and anthropology. She studied human civilizations.

Then people started to die unexpectedly…
Their digital tattoos were melting and dissolving into their bodies, causing grievous harm. What was it? Why?

Vars was recruited to travel to one of the moons of Saturn to find out…
While her dad worked hard to save humanity back on Earth…

“Harvest” is a fully illustrated novel, sometimes dark, sometimes disturbing.

“Harvest” is written for people who are interested in human origins and the births of civilizations. I wanted to answer the question of “why”—why did some peoples succeed and some didn’t? Why did some civilizations flourish for many centuries while others burned out in but a short flash in history? What is it that makes the difference? Does it simply comes down to luck?

I’m a scientist. I’m very interested in the development of life, consciousness, and civilization. Over the past several decades, we’ve learned a lot about human biology not only on the molecular level (DNA) but also the chemistry and physics of biology. We can see the range of possibilities for behavior and emotion programmed into us by our evolutionary development. We’ve also learned about other human species that didn’t survive to the present day but whose echoes we carry in our very genes—Heanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo denisovans, and the newly discovered Homo luzonesis. There are many more, of course, but it takes time and luck to find evidence.

Only the Homo sapiens are alive on our world today. And only a small percentage of those developed the capacity or desire to take over the world and impose their culture on the rest of the peoples. Why? Why did some Hominids made it and some didn’t? Why did some civilizations flourished and others fell? We can answer some of these questions with psychology, sociology, paleontology, anthropology, biology...

Luck seems to have played a huge role in human evolution and survival on our planet. Those who were lucky enough to live in fertile environments with species of plants and animals that were easy to domesticate won the life lottery, so to speak. The unlucky ones didn’t make it to the present day or ended up colonized…

We have some ideas about what it takes to survive and thrive on Earth. But what does it take to survive in the galaxy? Can we use the same principles and apply them on a larger scale? “Harvest” is a book that focuses on galaxy-wide civilizations and what it takes to become one.

“Harvest” book trailer:

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Don’t forget to visit the other stops on the tour.

Author Bio and Links:

Selected Book Links on Amazon:
“The FATOFF Conspiracy”: