The Last Voyage (my new sci fi novel)

 

 

 

It's 2056 and international oligarchs have pushed the world to the precipice of ecological, economic, and nuclear catastrophe.

But two philanthropists have teamed up to establish a viable outpost on Mars.

Could this daring outpost be the next chapter in the story of the human race? Or will its brilliant team of scientists and engineers repeat the folly of humans on Earth?

When the project's founders on Earth discover that Mars Base has been keeping a terrifying, multi-layered secret from them, they recruit an unusual crew for a last voyage. Will these young voyagers bring what's needed for the fledging community on Mars to flourish?

In this first volume in a thrilling new trilogy from Brian McLaren, you'll explore the limits of technology, the deepest needs of the human spirit, and the abiding questions that energize humans wherever they live ... on Earth or in space.

Available July 29, 2024

Order/Pre-order Now:

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-last-voyage-brian-mclaren/20243554

Amazon: https://a.co/d/czH5KmY

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-last-voyage-brian-mclaren/1143718471

 

Brief responses to questions people are asking:

Why Sci-Fi? Why now?

My long-time readers will remember a fictional trilogy I published back in 2001-2005, so fiction isn't new to me. I've always loved the science fiction/fantasy genre, and several years ago, I began work on this project. Just as reading helps us keep our sanity in insane times, writing this new trilogy has done that for me. Sci Fi for me is a way of grappling with our current problems on Earth by projecting them across space and time. Getting that distance sometimes helps us see and face things we couldn't face otherwise.

You recently wrote Life After Doom, which focused on ecological overshoot. Is The Last Voyage cli-fi?

I think so. But less as a fictional warning about the nonfiction of climate change like Don't Look Up (which I thought was very powerful, and - unfortunately - very needed). The Last Voyage is more of an experiment in imagining a new kind of human-Earth and human-human relationship.

Why Mars?

Humans (most recently, Earth's richest person) have always projected their hopes and fears on Mars. Sadly, for some it represents an escape plan ... "If we ruin the Earth, we can always retreat to Mars," they seem to think. I wanted to confront that delusion as directly as I could. For me, what Mars represents is less possibility and more sterility. I see it as a sterile environment, like a laboratory, that helps us see more clearly who and what we are.

Who is the protagonist?

In this trilogy, the protagonist isn't a single person. On one level, the protagonist is a team of people, diverse, troubled, conflicted at times, but ultimately good, resilient, and wise. On another level, the protagonist is a set of human values or qualities that bond this team together. There are several important individual characters, of course ... a billionaire philanthropist who poses as an oligarch but actually operates from a completely different set of values ... his partner, the Ukrainian widow of an oligarch who despises the code the super-rich and super-powerful live by ... a young American theologian-ethicist who has been recruited for a challenge she feels is too big for her ... a teenage musician-poet from Palestine who has survived too much already in her young life ... a Guatemalan geneticist who tells corny jokes ... an aging ecologist who knows he is arrogant but can't seem to do anything about it.

What follows The Last Voyage?

Volume 2 is called The Great Rift. It unfolds on Mars Base, which is located in the Valles Marineris, the great rift of Mars. The human community there must face a kind of social and spiritual great rift that is tearing them apart. Volume 3 is called Ethnogenesis. It unfolds thirty years after The Last Voyage and The Great Rift, and involves a woman on Mars secretly re-establishing contact with a group of humans on Earth who are in constant danger from the oligarchs and the global network of labor camps they have established.

What draws a former college English teacher and pastor, a public theologian, and activist to write a book like this now, in this moment?

The themes that I have written about for my whole career have suddenly shown up in the headlines every day ... what does it mean to be a human being ... a good human being? Why have both religion and science failed to make us more wise and generous? What practices help people mature and change for the better? What happens when institutions we have long taken for granted begin to fail? What makes a life truly meaningful and worth living? How does needed social change happen? Does money always win in the end? Writing this trilogy is helping me engage with all of these themes ... not just theoretically or abstractly, but in a concrete story with characters I have grown to love.

Finally, what are your favorite science fiction books or movies?

I recently read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I loved it and can't stop thinking about it. I'm a fan of all of Kim Stanley Robinson's work - especially his Mars series and Ministry for the Future, and Andy Weir's Artemis and The Martian. I appreciate Orson Scott Card's fantasy and sci fi, and, of course, Tolkein and C. S. Lewis. Mary Doria Russell's The Swallow is also a favorite. When it comes to series and movies, of course, I love Star Trek in all its iterations. I loved The Expanse. As for movies ... Arrival, Interstellar, The Hunger Games ... the whole genre fascinates me. I'm a fan of all of literature, but there's something about science fiction/speculative fiction that helps us imagine new possibilities. We need that these days, don't we?

If you'd like to schedule an interview with Brian about The Last Voyage, contact: kaitlyn.shokes@johnmurraypress.co.uk

 

 

 

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0 Comments8 Minutes

Do you think this quote from Bonhoeffer is relevant today?

"The upsurge of power [they experience] makes such an overwhelming impression that people are deprived of their independent judgment, and—more or less unconsciously—give up trying to assess a new state of affairs for themselves. The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead us into thinking that he is independent. One feels in fact, when talking to him, that one is dealing, not with the man himself, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of him. He is under the spell, he is blinded, his very nature is being misused and exploited. Having thus become a passive instrument, the fool will be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. Here lies the danger of a diabolical exploitation that can do irreparable damage to human beings."

A friend shared this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It comes from a shorty essay,"After Ten Years." This isn't the kind of thing Bonhoeffer could publish publicly for obvious reasons, so he shared it privately with friends in 1943, reflecting on 10 years under the rule of a malignant narcissist. By prolonged submission to the malignant narcissist, people were rendering themselves "fools" and were being sucked into "folly." They were simultaneously becoming victims of "diabolical exploitation" and "capable of any evil."

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A Vice President, a Medieval Theologian, and a Pope Walk Into a News Story

I was reading an article about Pope Francis' recent letter to American bishops, and then about a lawsuit filed by religious leaders today.

(You can join me in voicing your support here.)

I couldn't help but consider this gospel story from Luke 10 [not]:

Luke 10:25 ff (PRSV*)
An expert in God’s holy and inerrant Word stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Scriptures? What do you read there?” The man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied,

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he said, “According to the ordo amoris, as will be taught by Thomas Aquinas and JD Vance in the distant future, my first obligation is to my family, then my neighbor, then my community and fellow citizens. I cannot be certain whether this person is in any of those divinely ordained categories, being a complete stranger to me. He may even be an illegal alien. So I will hasten to the other side of the road.”

So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, said, “Helping this fellow will interrupt my spiritual work as a Levite. Nothing can interrupt that work, because it is for God, praised be His Holy Name. Not only that, but I have no way of knowing that this fellow isn’t being punished by our Sovereign God for his sins, and I don’t want to interfere with the righteous judgment of the Almighty on a sinner. Not only that, but if I am late for my Levite duties at the Temple, I might lose my job, which would mean I couldn’t support my family, and they are my highest priority according to the ordo amoris, as will be taught by Thomas Aquinas and JD Vance in the distant future. Not only that, but as a faithful conservative Levite, I don’t want to be guilty of toxic empathy, a spiritual disease of progressives. Let me hasten to the other side of the road.”

But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion, for he, being a Samaritan, knew nothing of the doctrines of ordo amoris or toxic empathy. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 

He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”

 

Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

*Politically Revised Standard Version

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Something about me you may not know …

In these crazy times, I've found myself immersing myself in music.

I think many of my friends who knew me when I was in high school and college would have expected me to become a musician as my career, as music was one of my great passions. I did do a lot of songwriting and concerts for a number of years, and even produced some LPs and Cassettes, if you know about those ancient technologies. (The precursors to MP3s. Think of them as your private Spotify that you only pay for once.)

I've continued to write music through the years ... some for congregational singing. I can't sing well enough for public performance anymore, due to getting old and too many years coaching my kids' soccer teams when they were young. But I'm honored and grateful that some other musicians have recorded some of my songs. Here are a few examples, in case you're interested.

From my beloved friend Fran McKendree, who passed away too soon in 2021:

If We Don't Have Love (a fun congregational song)

https://www.convergencemp.com/artist/fran-mckendree/if-we-dont-have-love.html

https://brianmclaren.bandcamp.com/track/if-we-dont-have-love

 

Canadian singer-songwriter, another dear friend and wonderful human being, also recorded a few of my songs:

Here are chords: https://brianmclaren.net/q-r-your-song-kindness/

 

Glenn Soderholm, another Canadian friend, singer-songwriter, and also a gifted pastor - recorded this song too:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=XReSKQwx13U

 

For more on congregational music I've written and made available, check out: https://www.convergencemp.com/about

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