About

The Tales of the Terran Diaspora portray situations and  events starting in the 22nd century.

Scientific developments in food production and energy management led to huge population growth and inevitable dispersal to the far reaches of the Solar System.

The first story, ‘ATTUNGA’, is set in the asteroid belt. An artificial structure, housing over eight hundred million people, has just reached a milestone with the enhancement of dolphin intelligence, and three young friends become involved with Artificial Intelligences and a clash of societies.

The second story, “MPARNTWE’, really a prequel, relates how two boys with serious disabilities and special gifts meet an Artificial Intelligence and change the World.

***********

The tales originally started as a mind game about what the future might hold after the occurrence of Ray Kurzweil’s singularity. I started roughing out specifications for a self-contained space habitat with considerable living space and the technology needed to sustain it. One night, from out of nowhere, came the idea of writing a short story to show what life on such a space city might be like.

The characters and the situations took over and the short story became the first novel, ‘Attunga’.

In my travels I’ve had the privilege of meeting First Australians, talking with their elders and living in a traditional camp. I decided a premise for the story would be the resurgence of their 50,000 year old culture.

In my travels I also had an unforgettable dolphin encounter at Monkey Mia in Western Australia and the habitat dolphins in the story are modelled on the bottlenose dolphins of Shark Bay.

The second story, ‘Mparntwe’, though written after ‘Attunga’, is set a hundred years previously and tells how the first truly independent Artificial Intelligence (AI) came into being. As well as the science fiction elements I have also incorporated a disability theme.

‘Attunga’ is a First Australian word which means ‘a high place’, hence the setting in the asteroid belt.

‘Mparntwe’ is the First Australian name for the Alice Springs area in Central Australia – the main setting for the second story.