Blurb

A journey to collect books becomes a race against time to escape an inwardly collapsing artificial universe.

In the far future, possessing literature or philosophy of any kind is strictly forbidden. Mira Rous works for the Reconstructionists, whose goal is to rebuild Earth's library of classics by harvesting similar works from parallel universes.

The job is slow and dangerous, but it is proceeding well enough until a scan of a parallel world reveals something altogether new: a country whose space is not on a parallel Earth, but is instead carved out of probability itself.

There Mira discovers literary riches beyond her wildest dreams. But when a freak occurrence destabilizes the artificial universes, retrieving their books turns into a life-threatening endeavor, both on account of the rapidly deteriorating physical spaces and government secrets that some would prefer stay buried.

Read if you are interested in…

• literature
• an exploration of isolation and fear
• a new way to explore the metaxia from what was depicted in Voyage Embarakation

Inspiration

The idea for Intersection Thirteen came to me all at once at the beginning of the first Covid lockdown of 2020. I wanted something that would capture the isolation and fear in science fictional form. I invented for it the idea of an artificial universe created by humans, one which would be subjected to a once-in-three-hundred-years event that would cause it to destabilize and implode inward on its citizens. Instead of making the people sick, I made the universe sick—but same effect. The problem was, those same feelings when put into my main character created the kind of personality who would seek out safe places and answers to her questions. Mira Rous refused to stay put in that collapsing universe. Intersection Thirteen turned out to be about Mira overcoming her instincts of fear, self-isolation, and assuming the worst in people. Despite the decidedly apocalyptic events that inspired this novel, Mira helped me find a way to see the goodness and hope shining out through all that darkness.

Editions