I’d very much like to thank Author’s Lounge for allowing me the chance to describe my book.
HOMANCE is a queer erotic sci-fi short story by Daniel Fisher. It’s a stream of conscious tale inspired by William S. Burrows, sort of. It’s the story of one strange man and the lives impacted when the earth decides to kick the human race off of it for a “time out”. Known simply as the “World Slayer” Doug Glazer gets put in the unique position using some truly mystical tech to decide many very important questions about what to do when the world hates its creations.
Being on the spectrum, his biggest problem isn’t the death of the surface life on the planet, he has that well in hand, but his ability to navigate social relationships. Especially when a blast from the past who after thirty years of chasing Doug enters the picture. A love interest who won’t take no to winning this odd duck space wizard over. Their sex may be exceptional for Doug, but interpersonal entanglements flummox him to no end.
To make matters worse, for the people around him and all of those spared by what they call ‘Earth Death’, Doug Glazer has no illusions about not living long enough to see the Earth healed and repopulated. So, the many millions of people surviving on fifty giant ships floating in orbit for years on end, waiting for the fires to burn out so the planet can be healed, are a tad on edge that they will fall from the sky and burn. Seeing as the only person in all the fleet of ships that even knows where they came from, who provided the tech, AI and how the biggest liberation of natural treasures from around the world happened at all is Layla Wui, and they and Doug are always fighting in public like rabid dogs.
One year had passed from when the ships showed up above major cities to when the fires, volcanoes and tectonic plates rumbled to life, killing ninety percent of all life on Earth. Each ship had a purpose, a reason to be and its own populations and importance. Yet no one on Earth, and now in space could figure out how entire natural areas, vast swaths of forest, grasslands, rivers and the majority of water from the planet vanished along with the best and the brightest of people, dedicated to making the planet better, without anyone noticing.
All things considered, Homance is a hopeful dream of healing the Earth and bringing the best of people and cultures together with nature. It is my first purely sci-fi story, so it should be about the end of the world. It’s absurd, funny, tragic and messed up all in one. I like using a blend of comedy and deep emotion to convey the situation, development, triumph and tragedies of my characters. So even though it’s a bit of an absurdist comedy, there are real feelings and emotions that come through based on real life experiences that I and many others have felt.
I make no illusions that it meets the Joseph Campbell hero’s journey standard tale like so many other sci-fi novels, and nor should it be. This is a strange blend of what if? What could be and what the F**k was that. If I piss someone off, or they stop and think, even about any of the possibilities, how’s and why’s of this work, then I’m content with the outcome. As I stated, it’s a feel-good story about the end of the world, with a little more than just heavy petting.
Daniel Fisher
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