Happy Wednesday adventurers,
I absolutely love being part of a small publishing company. Not only did I feel like WiDo Publishing was a great home for The Dark Pilgrim, but I enjoy the camaraderie between the authors in the WiDo family. Since joining the author lineup, I have been lucky enough to have fellow authors ask me to read and review their work. It has opened my eyes to genres I wouldn’t otherwise read, and each of these writers have phenomenal stories to tell. I’ve read literary mysteries, heart breaking memoirs, middle grade fiction, fantasy, and sci-fi.
A while back, I was contacted by fellow WiDo author Karl J. Hanson to read The Third Thaw. His debut sci-fi captured the technological concerns of establishing a new human civilization on a distant planet woven with social commentary, politics, and raw human struggle. I was confronted with thoughts and questions that had never occurred to me in prior sci-fi novels I’ve read. You watch the characters such as Horst, Hansel, and Ingrid grow from children. As a reader, you are learning and discovering right along with them. I was so enamored with everything Hanson thought to include in his story. When you contemplate sending mankind to an uninhabited planet to escape mass extinction, you have to start from scratch. These children are forced to discover Earth’s history, and decide for themselves how they will create their new civilization. Between emerging technologies, basic survival, human nature, and a power struggle, this sci-fi has something for everyone. I could not put it down. And I was very sad it was over.
Needless to say, I was beyond ecstatic when I was asked to read the second installment in Hanson’s trilogy. In The Third Thaw, Hanson introduced us to generations of embryos fighting to colonize a planet far from Earth. In Before the Thaw, Hanson really delved into Earth’s last days before the embryos were sent on an 80,000 year journey through space in hopes of preserving the human race. Picking up decades after where the first book left off, it was wonderful to see my favorite characters as middle aged men and women who had come into their prime. They had seen the rise and fall of life and had made a place for themselves on this alien planet. But despite being on an alien planet, human nature is still flawed.
Hanson beautifully wove a sci-fi (with all of the advanced technical elements I enjoy in the genre) with a raw tale of survival, human nature, and a little bit of mystery thrown in for good measure. There was such a depth to each character, and Hanson has a fair number of characters to wrangle.
I am anxiously awaiting book 3. Even though I have finished reading, I find myself revisiting the book over and over again. This is a story that sticks with you. Bravo Hanson on your unique and thought provoking read.
The concept behind The Third Thaw came to Hanson years ago. He explains, “Sometime in the early 2000’s, I thought of a unique way of sending humans to another planet, light years away. The method I envision is largely dependent on advances in artificial intelligence, which seem plausible in the not-too-distant future...Realistically, will human beings ever be able to travel to distant habitable planets? It is a tremendous challenge, a seemingly unsolvable puzzle. But, perhaps, there is a "way".”If you want to learn more about Hanson’s scientific ideas and connect with him, check out his website here.