Episode 1156: Banterrific!

In the end, I went with carrying on writing within the Safehaven universe. So I've just finished a prologue to the two chapters I've already got, to begin fleshing out the story's setting and establishing the motivations of the protagonists. I think the picture that's emerging for me at this point is growing more layered. Instead of the Exodus being humanity fleeing from a catastrophe on Earth, I've decided to portray Earth as having developed into a utopia of sorts. Efficient arcologies have replaced urban sprawl, and as a species we've grown to a level of cooperation that would have been inconceivable at the present time. However, efficiency can be stultifying, and the people who leave on the Exodus are making a conscious choice to escape this way of life. (Shades of Tony Ballantyne's Watcher trilogy here!) While life on Safehaven doesn't exactly prove peachy for most of the colonists, it's still an independent civilisation that's been established. The arrival of the Last Ark from Earth is thus seen as a threat, since it carries the Founding Families who were the literal and figurative architects of the Exodus. It's not like they're the bad guys though, and it's all these layers of ambiguity that I want to play with in my story.

On a separate note, James Gapinski at The Conium Review has kindly reviewed Eunoia Review here. (He's also a contributor to the journal, and you can read his stuff here.) I didn't know he was going to do this, so it came as a pleasant surprise. Always nice to know there are people out there supporting what you're doing! He also praises the daily posting concept, which meant a lot to me because I think it's what sets Eunoia Review apart from a lot of other online journals, in terms of the sheer amount of work it allows me to showcase as an editor. (That and my half-day average response time!) What I really want is a way for people to click a button on the site that just pulls up a random post for them. I'm sure I could find a way to do that, right? Anyway, in case you're wondering about the title, it's what I suggested Laura name her blog. I thought it was an excellent pun, and it sparked off a brilliant comments thread on Facebook that pretty much made my day (and Sophie's, when I told her to check it out). Banterrific, to employ a neologism. I literally had to stop from bursting out laughing every time a new comment was made on the thread, which was kind of awkward because I was walking to my seminar in the cold, and then I was actually in the seminar for the next three hours.