News From The Squares
Bobby Llew's Sci-Fi Sequel.
1 February, 2013
If it only seems like a little over a year since Robert Llewellyn launched his sci-fi novel News From Gardenia via crowdfunding publishing platform Unbound, that's probably because it was. Never one to rest on his laurels, however, Robert has returned just a matter of months after the first book successfully saw publication, and has now opened a pledging page for its sequel.
Unbound sees potential readers of a book pledge their support in advance of its publication - in exchange for rewards that range from a digital or hardback copy of the book, right through to all manner of special events laid on by the author. If the book attracts a certain number of backers, then it will be published - if it doesn't, then everybody who's pledged simply gets their money back. It's an increasingly successful funding model in this digital age, as the success of Gardenia proved.
The sequel - and hopefully the next in a continuing series - is titled News From The Squares, and here's Robert himself to explain what it's all about:
In my last book, News from Gardenia, Gavin Meckler slips through a split in time and arrives two hundred years into the future. He discovers a world much changed from our own, a world with no money, no laws, armies or wars, no recognizable traditions or family structures and where nothing is burned to make anything else. At the end of the book he tries to return home to his own time, but something is amiss.
In News from the Squares, I am trying to create a very different world, another possible outcome for the human race that doesn't require the total breakdown of society and a return to pre-medieval violence and disorder.
Gavin soon understands that he has travelled sideways through time to another possible future, as unlike Gardenia as our own era. He arrives in the midst of a teeming mega city, a London that covers almost the entire landmass of what we currently know as the United Kingdom. He soon discovers that this city exhibits a few other major changes in the way the human race lives and organizes the population. Once again it is a completely sustainable and highly technologically developed society, structured around a seemingly endless series of squares. In the centre of each square there are huge fields dense with lush vegetation and trees.
Much of this environment is recognizable to Gavin, people still live in buildings, work, eat, sleep, get married, some have children, they vote in elections, use money and usually die of old age. The big difference is who administrates of this vast urban landscape.
The governing bodies, security services, medical establishments, companies, legal profession and scientists are all women.
As with the previous book, pledging at higher levels of support will get you some pretty special rewards - including a tour with Robert around "London's most advanced contemporary houses", and a special lunch with the man himself and "three visionary women thinkers/entrepreneurs". Every backer - no matter what the level - will also see their name printed in every edition of the book.
At the time of writing, the project was just under 200 backers short of hitting its completion target - why not check it out and join them?
Find out more and pledge your support for News From The Squares at Unbound!
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