Well, it had to happen eventually. An estimated 4500 hours of scribbling, on three continents, numerous airports, innumerable hotel rooms and a comfy blue leather chair, inflicting the results on mere mortals, vivisecting the thing then reassembling the parts cannot go on forever.

I sent the last, final, final edit of “Outland Express; Book One of Old Men and Infidels” to the publisher on Monday. If all goes well, I will have an actual document by September.

I am anxious to get some pre-release reviews.

The book is a NON-YA dystopia political novel set in the middle of the 22nd Century after the dissolution of the United States. The protagonist is a young middle-aged policeperson from the Democratic Unity (aged seventeen) who is sent to propitiate for her bureaucratic sins into the savage outlands where she is almost immediately captured by a middle-aged savage (in his mid-seventies, life expectancy has ballooned a bit). Malila’s enlightenment proceeds with encounters with Percy, Death Walkers, bison, wolves, Bear, the Devil’s Bridge and especially young Ethan (an elderly seven days old). Her real trials begin when she is brought home to the Unity. Book two takes up the story of Jesse and Malila.

If anyone is interested in trading reviews, please contact me for a non-editable word doc.