THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE is the first book in The Phantom of the Earth series. It was published on October 2, 2015. The second book was also published on October 2nd, while books three, four, five, and the omnibus were published on October 10th.
What’s the book’s first line?
The Earth’s surface was a beautifully lethal world.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
The Phantom of the Earth follows the story lines of several characters hundreds of years in the future during the Evolutionary War, a conflict that lasted for decades and was fought primarily inside the Earth. The main agitators are the Great Commonwealth and the Liberation Front. The lines blur somewhat on the commonwealth side, where one might say there’s actually three sides, including government loyalists, the strike teams, and betrayers within the government.
The strike teams were once independent protectors of humanity underground but have over the centuries had their autonomy eroded. Their unofficial leader, Captain Broden Barão, was recruited to an elite research team formed by the government to find a cure for the Reassortment Strain, the bio-weapon that nearly wiped out humanity. The captain’s recruitment linked the strike teams to the commonwealth.
The commonwealth is led by Chancellor Atticus Masimovian and his wife, Lady Isabelle Lutetia, who acts as his enforcer of the law. On the other side, the Liberation Front was founded by Jeremiah Selendia and his deceased wife Solstice Rupel. All sides in this conflict want to find a cure to Reassortment and return to the Earth’s surface, but they have differing views on the way the world should be ruled before and after that happens, particularly because humans have access to gene therapies that can give them a theoretically infinite life span.
THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE is the first book in The Phantom of the Earth and acts as an introduction to the conflict and the characters. The story begins with Captain Barão and his team on the surface of the Earth, working through a clinical trial for a treatment against the Reassortment Strain. At the same time, 300 meters underground the Liberation Front inaugurates Johann “Hans” Selendia to lead them as interim president following his father’s capture by Lady Isabelle. During THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE, Hans and Captain Barão will have to make difficult choices. Hans’s actions attract the attention of powerful enemies, while Brody’s draws the ire of powerful allies. By the climax, neither their lives nor those of anyone in the commonwealth will be the same.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
The oil spike and economic collapse in 2008 provided inspiration. It made me ask the question: What will happen when the Earth truly runs out of economically viable and readily available raw materials? How will humanity survive? These questions remained unanswered for a few years until I came across a book called REGENESIS and an article in The Atlantic called “Hacking the President’s DNA.” They dealt with the emerging field of synthetic biology (i.e., synbio) and the intriguing possibilities it presents from a sustainability perspective in REGENESIS to a malicious perspective in “Hacking the President’s DNA.” The world of The Phantom of the Earth and THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE wouldn’t exist without synbio, where humans have evolved further to a species called Homo transition and where these trans-humans use biological processes to create raw materials they need to survive underground.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
THE SONG OF THE JUBILEE has interesting characters in interesting situations. Moreover, the story, settings, characters, and plot have been created with input from more than 30 people, including readers, writers, editors, artists, and scientists, among others, from 6 different countries. Their perspective was invaluable in terms of creating a professional post-apocalyptic book and series with three-dimensional characters and real, if theoretical, science based on present and futuristic technology. I hope we created a world and story that readers will want to return to again and again.