I’ve been tagged by Heidi Ruby Miller for this year’s
777 Meme.
The rules are:
Go to the 7th line of the
7th page of your work in progress.
Post the first full 7 lines.
Then tag 7 friends.
My
current project is a prequel to my novel The
Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes.
Though it occurs before the events of that book, it really should be
read after it, since the story in the prequel—called In a Suspect Universe—gains greater significance when read after
the first book. It’s self-contained and
can be read alone, but the prequel will begin with this message:
At the end of The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes, Pia
Folinari asked Mykol Ranglen if he would ever tell her the “big story” she was
sure he kept hidden in his past.
He never
said he would.
But this is
that story.
Ranglen—the
protagonist of the first book—has just been rescued from a storm in the desert
on another planet by an amateur archaeologist surveying the ruins of an extinct
alien race. She’s working alone and she
doesn’t trust him since she suspects he’s treasure-hunting at the site. In an attempt to learn more about him, she insists
she’s not after treasure herself, and we then get these 7 lines:
He showed no
change at all. “Neither am I, and you can believe that.”
She wasn’t assured
but she didn’t feel as threatened by him now.
His personality didn’t seem contentious or selfish. But she knew—she knew!—he had secrets, and his real focus seemed far away.
This disturbed
her.
Still, she felt
she couldn’t do much else. “All right,”
she said.
He turned away
from her and closed his eyes again. And this time, maybe overwhelmed by
fatigue, he fell into a genuine sleep.
The two
go on to have a tentative if difficult relationship. But she’s correct that he does carry secrets, and the rest of the
novel gradually reveals them.
She will
regret learning what they are.
The story
will be an intricate brew of meetings in a desert, fighting on a tundra world
against peculiar denizens of a “Blight,” and a frantic search across many
planets. For anyone who wondered why
Mykol Ranglen in The Man Who Loved Alien
Landscapes is as withdrawn, guarded, and paranoid as he is, In a Suspect Universe will explain
why.
I tag:
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