Announcing the release of Five Years, my first novel! It’s a sci-fi/dystopia/thriller, about a near-term future in which a cascading domino effect of multiple failures—environmental, governmental, social, and economic—results in total systemic collapse. Of everything. The world is dying, and it has about five miserable years left before all life on Earth ceases. People everywhere revolt against this death sentence, resulting in unprecedented levels of violence and chaos. 

The story imagines what would happen if a rural town were able to wall itself off from the outside world and the chaos consuming it. Though they can’t prevent the world’s imminent collapse, the citizens of the small town decide they can at least face their death sentences with civility and neighborliness. 

If that sounds depressing, you’re right: it is a pretty damn depressing scenario. But that’s only the situation we find the characters in at the beginning of the book, because the discovery of a life-changing resource might change everything if only they can come together and do right by it.

This is not a political book; there are no Republicans or Democrats or references to current and temporal politics. The words “conservative” and “liberal” are not mentioned. What the book does explore though is polarization, infighting, and civil discourse. And it looks at these issues from various aspects.

One of the things I loved about serving in the military is that we soldiers actually discussed things. We argued, we fought, we laughed at each other. Sometimes we might even avoid speaking to each other for a whole hour or two. But eventually, we put our differences aside, because we couldn’t afford to hold grudges against the people serving to our right and left. That kind of discourse is currently lacking. And that’s why I wrote this book. 

If it sounds interesting to you at all, I encourage you to read it. Five Years is available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover editions. You can read it for free if you are a Kindle Unlimited Subscriber. Otherwise, the Kindle version will set you back $7.99. 

And if you want it but are unwilling to go through Amazon, or you want a signed and personalized copy, you can message me and I will sell and send you a paperback or hardcover for the same cost as they are on Amazon, $14.95 and $19.95, respectively. I can’t help you with the ebook right now, because I have an exclusive three-month contract to only sell that version through Amazon. You can find the links to all three versions on my website. Eventually, the books will be available through direct purchase on the website and through more retailers. 

Thanks for reading this. And I hope you enjoy Five Years if you choose to read it. If you do, please let me know what you think.