A Coming of Age story, and so much more.
OldEarth is long abandoned, practically forgotten. By now NewEarth rules colonies on far-flung planets. One such, Demmos to its settlers, is a mild-climate little world that's inconveniently at the outer limit of NewEarth's expansion, but a welcome source of basic food-grain, and a breeding ground for any useful talent they decide to harvest. And it's growing nicely now their real settlers have been added.
Several generations in, the colony's considered settled and successfully established, but it's very far from NewEarth's rules and regulations, and by this time somewhat undervalued since it hasn't caused the homeworld any problems.
But its inhabitants have learned to hug their secrets closer now than maybe they envisaged.
And a change is coming...
Book four of the Worlds Apart Collective. This story can be read as a standalone, or with the other pieces of the collective to build a broader picture. Imagine you can float in space and time. Twin planets catch your eye [in Harpan's Worlds and Worlds Aligned] and from on high you watch a moment in their history, their evolution. Then you turn and scan the ancient lightwaves, [Homeworld] and perceive a portion of the past that spawned them. Now, you turn your back on that as well, which calls you to this future-present once again and Demmos...
Autorentext
Terry Jackman, variously teacher, tutor, Clarks shoe fitter, award-winning picture framer, lecturer, article-writer and/or committee chair [for the UK's Fine Art Trade Guild], joined the first BSFA online Orbit [writers' group] in 2005 and developed that for 16 years - 14 groups by then, scary thought - until a brain tumour and Covid's arrival interrupted. So she gave up the day jobs, but she finally shared some stories.