Hurricane Moon

In the late 21st Century, with Earth wracked by climate change and political upheaval, an ambitious private foundation launches a starship to find a new world. Among those aboard Aeon are Catharin Gault, an idealistic astronaut-physician, and scientist-passenger Joseph Devreze, a molecular biologist as brilliant as he is irresponsible. He has his own hidden motives for fleeing old Earth. Things begin to go amiss while everyone is still in the cold suspended animation called cryostasis, on the long journey through interstellar space. Programmed to search for a planet with a large moon—the only way to guarantee stable seasons, tides and an Earthlike ecosystem after terraforming—the starship finds a destination better than Catharin ever dared hope for: two Earth-sized planets locked in orbit around each other. Planet Green has abundant plant life and a puzzling lack of large animals. Planet Blue is an oceanic world covered with hurricanes. The green planet with its bright blue moon seems like a perfect stage for the drama of civilization to begin anew and turn out better this time. But the journey took far longer than anyone anticipated, and a millennium of cryostasis exacted a heavy price: insidious molecular damage. Now Catharin must rely on the untrustworthy maverick Joseph Devreze to help her save humankind on Planet Green. Their mutual attraction ratchets up even as their conflict escalates. Together Catharin and Joe must decide how they can face, and embrace, a future at odds with Aeon’s planned mission and their own expectations. Meanwhile the mystery of the Hurricane Moon looms over them all.

I belong to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), work at the Rice University Library in Houston, Texas, and teach creative writing through Rice University's School of Continuing Studies. When not taking flights of the mind - writing science fiction and fantasy - my favorite activity is flying sailplanes. I have a private pilot glider rating. The sky always beckons. I have an MA in Systematic Theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. At the GTU, I was affiliated with the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, and I explored the relationship between science and religion. My science fiction and fantasy tends to have theological or spiritual angles.