on November 15 2018
Genres: Sci-Fi
Pages: 358
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Goodreads
When the virus which killed millions of people is gone, humanity lives in a planet-wide quarantine enforced by an alien species.
The year is 2355. The deadly virus that killed millions of people is gone, thanks to the quarantine measures put in place by the Criterion, an alien species who appeared just in time to save the human race. In exchange for complying with their tough control measures, the Criterion promised us the technology for interstellar travel. We’ve done all they’ve asked, yet we’re still on Earth with no way of getting into deep space. The Criterion are lying to us. What they don’t know is that we’re lying to them...
Kethryn Miller is an award-winning actress, but nothing will prepare her for the role she’ll take on when a strange woman who shouldn’t be alive turns up in the city, threatening to expose the lies that have kept peace on Earth for 200 years.
I am excited today to have D.L Richardson on the blog today, with an exclusive Guest Post for me and a look at her new book series Earth Quarantined. Also a chance to enter a giveaway too!
So you read the blurb right!? What a concept!
Goodreads reviewer says
EARTH QUARANTINED is an exceptionally engrossing futuristic science fiction, a novel whose themes have applications for the present time as well. There’s lies and conspiracy, alien intervention and control, and humans “just trying to get along.” For a certain segment of these, that means pure survival, away from the alien Criterion and from the Criterion’s human Quislings.
Goodreads reviewer says
Told from several points of view, humans and aliens, the story moves along quickly as tension builds, leading to an unknown future, different from anything humans have experienced since the arrival of the Criterion. Short chapters keep the pace lively and I found myself reading faster and faster, eager to find out what would happen next. Now, I’m eagerly anticipating Book 2, Earth Arrested.
The importance of ‘world building’.
By D L Richardson
A high-profile celebrity. A guard in a hidden city. A politician with a deadly secret. And an alien trying to keep peace on Earth. In the tradition of The Expanse and The 100 comes a human survival sci-fi thriller with loads of twists.
That’s the awesome hook a reader came up with. Honestly, I’m 8 days away from release as I write this and my head is filled with goo. But ‘Earth Quarantined’ release is finally here.
This book takes place 300 years into Earth’s future, when the virus which killed millions of people is gone, and humanity lives in a planet-wide quarantine enforced by an alien species. I will be honest here. It took me a while to get this book to this finished state, one that I’m thrilled about because I think this is my best book yet. The story germinated a few years ago and it was very character driven. The story and the characters were never a problem. ‘Earth Quarantined’, in an earlier version, very nearly got picked up by a US literary agent. Their response as to why they didn’t go with it was that something was missing.
The missing ingredient became clear when I submitted it to a publisher and they rejected it stating:
“Your writing is vivid and I was swept up in the characters, but I’m afraid I wasn’t as convinced by the world building as I had hoped to be.”
The story took place in an underground city. I used news clippings to explain how this world came to be. I could see why this approach didn’t impress the publisher. They didn’t want to know the ‘how’. They just wanted to ‘see’ this world. I knew what it looked like. So why wasn’t it on the page?
The book got put aside for a month or so while I was working on Book 3 of my ‘Welcome to the Apocalypse’ trilogy. My lightning bulb moment came after a binge session on Netflix for the second season of ‘The Expanse’ which led to a binge session of ‘Altered Carbon’. The world isn’t explained. It just exists and viewers are swept up in it. I also binge watch ‘The 100’ so I don’t know why I was so hesitant about creating a big bad world. Probably because I already see a big bad world.
Sometimes I find that the real world forces its way into my writing, and I forget that readers want to escape this world and visit another. This realization was the start of the overhaul of ‘Earth Quarantined’.
I made the world bigger and more fantastic. I added aliens who placed the planet under quarantine and became the big bad guys. And when the goal of humans is to reach space, well I had to include scenes on the Moon. Who doesn’t love the Moon?
In this case, some good can come out of a rejection from a publisher.
Giveaway Time
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jenchaos76 says
If they fail at world building the reader gets lost. That’s why I get so picky.