Not by Dark Alone

To the left is the cover of my first long format work. Science Fiction, for I love the genre and always have.

I recall my younger sister saying, "Science Fiction? No. That gene skipped me."

And it's true. I and my other two siblings inherited our father's love of the genre. But the third in the family, no.

This story — more about it at this link — began life as a National Novel Writing Month exercise. My first. As such, it suffered from early KjM writing, to say nothing of the tricks NaNoWriMo writers get up to to make their word count.

It needed to marinate for a couple of years before an actual story could be made of it.

When I was younger, traveling to school on city busses, I had the experience of sitting off to the side of a group of people my own age — all of them signing. Utter silence. But much hilarity, excitement, animated conversation going on five feet from me. And I was as one deaf. I knew nothing of what was going on. The image, the feeling, have stayed me to this day.

What would it be like for a non-telepath in a race of telepaths? What could such an individual bring to society? What would one like that see that others might miss?

And so, Alphard, the protagonist of this story.

If you get to read the story, I'd love to know what you think. Honest!