Jason Dias's Blog, page 2
December 23, 2018
Review of Who Fears Death?
Who Fears Death
It’s a question, if you were wondering. As in, “Who fears death? I don’t.”
How to sum up this story? The Okeke women, as part of their ritual of adulthood, are given a small stone to keep under their tongues. In Onyesonwu’s village, that stone is a diamond. But your basic American wouldn’t know it was a diamond if Onyesonwu didn’t name it as such. It isn’t cut the way we cut diamonds for rings and necklaces and so on. It’s smooth, polished and milky.
That’s this novel. The legendary Donald Maass is somewhere in the background of this work and has done the author the wonderful favor of letting her own voice and style shine out. Okorafor doesn’t write like other fantasy writers, and that’s great.
What I mean is, there are some recognizable tropes, but she breaks a lot of literary conventions. Those conventions tie down cookie-cutter, Nordic-mythology fantasists. They don’t hold down Okorafor.
I enjoyed this story from the first page to the last. It took a minute to adjust to the voice but Onyesonwu’s voice comes through clear and bright and strong. The story twists and turns but, at the same time, drives straight at a beautiful, tragic ending that left me in tears. This is a masterpiece and I hope it leaves a stamp on the genre of epic fantasy. The genre needs this kick right in the pants.
I also have to tell you, the events described in here are pretty uncomfortable. There’s violence against women including sexual violence. It’s there for a reason and that reason isn’t just exploitation or drama. There’s slavery and not to play some stale narrative about breaking bonds. There’s an indictment of post-slavery culture. I read about the Nuru town where Nurus were learning to get along without their slaves only because slave labor had provided them comfortable lives, peace and prosperity, reading in my nice house in the suburbs in a country whose economic position in the world depends entirely on the slavery we ostensibly ended in the 19th century.
Truthfully, some of these elements are present in many epic fantasies. In this one, though, they’re a little closer to home or seem that way.
My advice, read it anyway. Anything worth doing is going to involve a little pain. Okorafor faced her pain to write this thing. Her character, Onyesonwu, seems to want all of us to take a good, long look at ours.
This isn’t some simple plea for diversity for its own sake. It’s more complicated than that. It’s more to do with, who gets to tell stories? Who decides? And who profits from the telling? When I wrote For Love of Their Children, I wanted to be inclusive. I was tired of stories about white guys with swords fighting dragons (or orcs or whatever) in rune-bound frozen countries. To get more than that, I had to write it. But in writing a story in part about black Africans, I managed inclusion but not representation. Because it was me doing the writing, with all my associated baggage. I profit from sales of the story, and black Africans had no part in shaping how they wanted to be represented.
Nnedi still gets referred to as an outsider author, but truly very little about this work justifies that status. For pork’s sake, her editor is Maass. It hardly gets more insider than that – or than Martin working on the screen adaptation. Indeed, Okorafor is an insider to the material she’s written. She’s speculating about the future and about magic, but the people – well, she knows them. She IS them.
I’m autistic and increasingly open about that. I see a lot of autism inclusion in modern narratives… but very little autism representation. How many autistic characters on the shows you watch and in the books you read were actually created by, acted by, autistic people? When I wrote For Love of Their Children, I went deliberately out of my lane and did the best I could. When I wrote Finding Life on Mars, a story about neurodivergent characters relating to their neurotypical parents, I was in it.
I can relate to the representation problem because I see these unrealistic, sappy, Mary-Sue autistic characters all the time. I imagine how it might be to be gay, or trans, or black or Hispanic in America and maybe you like the epic fantasy genre, but when you see yourself, it’s through this lens of how straight, white, cis guys see you.
So, this novel to me is five stars. It’s unusual in a genre that’s become staid and predictable. It’s about something. You could read it for fun, but it’s more than frivolous entertainment. And it’s both a challenge and an opportunity for most American fantasy readers to get outside our bubbles for a second.
Here’s a video version of this review.
https://www.facebook.com/JasonDiasaut...
Also, you can find more like this at JasonDiasAuthor.com.
It’s a question, if you were wondering. As in, “Who fears death? I don’t.”
How to sum up this story? The Okeke women, as part of their ritual of adulthood, are given a small stone to keep under their tongues. In Onyesonwu’s village, that stone is a diamond. But your basic American wouldn’t know it was a diamond if Onyesonwu didn’t name it as such. It isn’t cut the way we cut diamonds for rings and necklaces and so on. It’s smooth, polished and milky.
That’s this novel. The legendary Donald Maass is somewhere in the background of this work and has done the author the wonderful favor of letting her own voice and style shine out. Okorafor doesn’t write like other fantasy writers, and that’s great.
What I mean is, there are some recognizable tropes, but she breaks a lot of literary conventions. Those conventions tie down cookie-cutter, Nordic-mythology fantasists. They don’t hold down Okorafor.
I enjoyed this story from the first page to the last. It took a minute to adjust to the voice but Onyesonwu’s voice comes through clear and bright and strong. The story twists and turns but, at the same time, drives straight at a beautiful, tragic ending that left me in tears. This is a masterpiece and I hope it leaves a stamp on the genre of epic fantasy. The genre needs this kick right in the pants.
I also have to tell you, the events described in here are pretty uncomfortable. There’s violence against women including sexual violence. It’s there for a reason and that reason isn’t just exploitation or drama. There’s slavery and not to play some stale narrative about breaking bonds. There’s an indictment of post-slavery culture. I read about the Nuru town where Nurus were learning to get along without their slaves only because slave labor had provided them comfortable lives, peace and prosperity, reading in my nice house in the suburbs in a country whose economic position in the world depends entirely on the slavery we ostensibly ended in the 19th century.
Truthfully, some of these elements are present in many epic fantasies. In this one, though, they’re a little closer to home or seem that way.
My advice, read it anyway. Anything worth doing is going to involve a little pain. Okorafor faced her pain to write this thing. Her character, Onyesonwu, seems to want all of us to take a good, long look at ours.
This isn’t some simple plea for diversity for its own sake. It’s more complicated than that. It’s more to do with, who gets to tell stories? Who decides? And who profits from the telling? When I wrote For Love of Their Children, I wanted to be inclusive. I was tired of stories about white guys with swords fighting dragons (or orcs or whatever) in rune-bound frozen countries. To get more than that, I had to write it. But in writing a story in part about black Africans, I managed inclusion but not representation. Because it was me doing the writing, with all my associated baggage. I profit from sales of the story, and black Africans had no part in shaping how they wanted to be represented.
Nnedi still gets referred to as an outsider author, but truly very little about this work justifies that status. For pork’s sake, her editor is Maass. It hardly gets more insider than that – or than Martin working on the screen adaptation. Indeed, Okorafor is an insider to the material she’s written. She’s speculating about the future and about magic, but the people – well, she knows them. She IS them.
I’m autistic and increasingly open about that. I see a lot of autism inclusion in modern narratives… but very little autism representation. How many autistic characters on the shows you watch and in the books you read were actually created by, acted by, autistic people? When I wrote For Love of Their Children, I went deliberately out of my lane and did the best I could. When I wrote Finding Life on Mars, a story about neurodivergent characters relating to their neurotypical parents, I was in it.
I can relate to the representation problem because I see these unrealistic, sappy, Mary-Sue autistic characters all the time. I imagine how it might be to be gay, or trans, or black or Hispanic in America and maybe you like the epic fantasy genre, but when you see yourself, it’s through this lens of how straight, white, cis guys see you.
So, this novel to me is five stars. It’s unusual in a genre that’s become staid and predictable. It’s about something. You could read it for fun, but it’s more than frivolous entertainment. And it’s both a challenge and an opportunity for most American fantasy readers to get outside our bubbles for a second.
Here’s a video version of this review.
https://www.facebook.com/JasonDiasaut...
Also, you can find more like this at JasonDiasAuthor.com.
December 22, 2018
Carrie Vaughn's Bannerless
I usually want to wait a day or two after reading something to meditate on it and let it settle. I was so at home in Bannerless, though, that this seems unnecessary.
Maybe the reason I love this book so much is that Vaughn manages to do what I’m trying to do in my own writing. This book is clearly genre-fiction, even if it lives in a newish genre (post-apocalyptic fic) and is a genre-bender (it definitively blends in murder mystery, edging up against cozy because there are no forensics and only the mildest of violence). While inhabiting these genres, though, the world is really a main character as much as the people in it; here is plot taking a backseat to story, and worldbuilding as much more than just setting.
And the novel rises above all of that into the sphere of literary writing. In some ways, it’s a coming-of-age story. The main struggles appear external – solve the mystery – but are really internal to the protagonist (a strong but relatably human woman).
All this is bound up together with a ribbon of wistfulness. A sadness over what has passed on, on the loss of an age. This wistful air is not present in all the zombie and cannibal movies set after the end of this age; those tales are rageful and cynical. This is something else, something past nostalgia, a yearning that people get over their selves to become good.
The story is nothing at all to do with Lord of the Rings. But how I feel reading it is how I feel reading about Arwyn electing to stay in the world as a mortal woman because love is worth it. It’s how I feel reading about the mirthful Tom Bombadil receding from the world because his age has ended. It’s a sadness contained in the prose so much more than in the events of the story; elegant writing that conveys a feeling without ever mentioning it. While the writing seems so clear and concise and unobtrusive, nevertheless this is poetry.
Of all the new books I’ve read this year, this one is my favorite, and likely to enter my annual reading rotation.
Here's an audio version:
https://youtu.be/cnAwPer3dbM
And visit me over at jasondiasauthor.com.
Maybe the reason I love this book so much is that Vaughn manages to do what I’m trying to do in my own writing. This book is clearly genre-fiction, even if it lives in a newish genre (post-apocalyptic fic) and is a genre-bender (it definitively blends in murder mystery, edging up against cozy because there are no forensics and only the mildest of violence). While inhabiting these genres, though, the world is really a main character as much as the people in it; here is plot taking a backseat to story, and worldbuilding as much more than just setting.
And the novel rises above all of that into the sphere of literary writing. In some ways, it’s a coming-of-age story. The main struggles appear external – solve the mystery – but are really internal to the protagonist (a strong but relatably human woman).
All this is bound up together with a ribbon of wistfulness. A sadness over what has passed on, on the loss of an age. This wistful air is not present in all the zombie and cannibal movies set after the end of this age; those tales are rageful and cynical. This is something else, something past nostalgia, a yearning that people get over their selves to become good.
The story is nothing at all to do with Lord of the Rings. But how I feel reading it is how I feel reading about Arwyn electing to stay in the world as a mortal woman because love is worth it. It’s how I feel reading about the mirthful Tom Bombadil receding from the world because his age has ended. It’s a sadness contained in the prose so much more than in the events of the story; elegant writing that conveys a feeling without ever mentioning it. While the writing seems so clear and concise and unobtrusive, nevertheless this is poetry.
Of all the new books I’ve read this year, this one is my favorite, and likely to enter my annual reading rotation.
Here's an audio version:
https://youtu.be/cnAwPer3dbM
And visit me over at jasondiasauthor.com.
December 18, 2018
Matryoshka Blues goes too far - and I love it
Shawn Harper's debut novel is a real barn-burner. The key to comedy is going too far. Remember when Bill Maher called himself a house slave, but he didn’t say slave? He used another word, and had to apologize to the world. Remember when Kathy Griffin had to disappear for holding up a severed dummy head? They went too far. Comedians are supposed to. Unlike dancers, they’re supposed to tread on your toes.
This book does that from start to finish. Goes too far, that is. It doesn’t drop N bombs or threaten to assassinate the president. You know what, forget about all that for now. I mean, it goes too far in narrative asides to the reader. Like half the story is the narrator talking to the camera. That should be a ridiculous distraction and detractor but it isn't: everyone can find a way to relate to the narrative character, even if you might not end up liking him that much. He's just like us.
Imagine if Shawn Spencer from Psych merged with The Rock from any given movie in a freak transporter accident. Well, not The Scorpion king. Something else. Whatever. And imagine the resulting being had all of the worst traits of each: out of shape, no impulse control, forgetful, sarcastic. You’d basically get Matryoshka Blues.
I mean, it’s told in the vein of a basic hard-boiled-detective plot, only the detective isn’t that hard boiled. Kinda soft in the middle, on the downslope of his tough-guy years but gutting through it. He talks at the camera constantly, a never-ending stream of self-referential jokes. If you liked Psych or Deadpool or even Spiderman, this is for you.
The story includes some important diversity narratives. I like that in a novel. They don't cloud things up, they're just another natural part of life. Harper shows here you can write gritty detective fiction and not be a total ass about trans people, people of color, or women.
So you've got some great violence, some fast cars, belly-laughs, self-conscious masculinity.
Comedy is hard. I rarely if ever laugh reading a book (Calvin and Hobbes doesn't count; it's a comic). I laughed reading this one. Well done, Shawn Harper.
Video version:
https://www.facebook.com/JasonDiasaut...
My website: JasonDiasAuthor.com
This book does that from start to finish. Goes too far, that is. It doesn’t drop N bombs or threaten to assassinate the president. You know what, forget about all that for now. I mean, it goes too far in narrative asides to the reader. Like half the story is the narrator talking to the camera. That should be a ridiculous distraction and detractor but it isn't: everyone can find a way to relate to the narrative character, even if you might not end up liking him that much. He's just like us.
Imagine if Shawn Spencer from Psych merged with The Rock from any given movie in a freak transporter accident. Well, not The Scorpion king. Something else. Whatever. And imagine the resulting being had all of the worst traits of each: out of shape, no impulse control, forgetful, sarcastic. You’d basically get Matryoshka Blues.
I mean, it’s told in the vein of a basic hard-boiled-detective plot, only the detective isn’t that hard boiled. Kinda soft in the middle, on the downslope of his tough-guy years but gutting through it. He talks at the camera constantly, a never-ending stream of self-referential jokes. If you liked Psych or Deadpool or even Spiderman, this is for you.
The story includes some important diversity narratives. I like that in a novel. They don't cloud things up, they're just another natural part of life. Harper shows here you can write gritty detective fiction and not be a total ass about trans people, people of color, or women.
So you've got some great violence, some fast cars, belly-laughs, self-conscious masculinity.
Comedy is hard. I rarely if ever laugh reading a book (Calvin and Hobbes doesn't count; it's a comic). I laughed reading this one. Well done, Shawn Harper.
Video version:
https://www.facebook.com/JasonDiasaut...
My website: JasonDiasAuthor.com
December 16, 2018
Bury the Lead (Windwalker)
Here's a video review of Cassondra Windwalker's Bury the Lead.
https://www.facebook.com/JasonDiasaut...
https://www.facebook.com/JasonDiasaut...
December 15, 2018
Reading from Finding Life on Mars
https://www.facebook.com/JasonDiasaut...
I don't even know if this link will do anything. Maybe you can comment if it does or not?
Anyway, this is a Facebook Live reading from Finding Life on Mars, part of Madeleine's story from the last days of Earth.
I don't even know if this link will do anything. Maybe you can comment if it does or not?
Anyway, this is a Facebook Live reading from Finding Life on Mars, part of Madeleine's story from the last days of Earth.
December 13, 2018
Excerpt from Finding Life on Mars
"Father, I think I am ill," I said, in my tiny, piping voice.
"Oh?" Merlin said. He set aside the solenoid he was working on and turned his full attention to me. We were in the kitchen and my memory informed me it was identical then and now. "Why do you say so?"
"Look," I said, and extended one hand, palm up. In the center of my palm lay a milk tooth. It had fallen bloodlessly out while I slept. When I awoke, my tongue found a gap in my gums, and I found the tooth on the floor under my sling.
"Oh, you have lost a tooth. How wonderful."
"Then I am not sick?"
"No, baby, the farthest thing from it."
"I am not a baby," I said. "Please explain."
"Well," Merlin said, "it is normal for a child of your age to lose her teeth, slowly, over the course of a few years. New ones are growing in, beneath your gum-line where you cannot see them, and eroding the roots of the old ones. The old ones fall out, new ones grow in. Perfectly natural."
"Why?"
"Well, because if you were born with a full set of adult teeth, your head would be too big to fit through the birth canal. And if your teeth were not replaced with larger ones, your adult jaw would be full of gaps."
"Oh."
If he had left it at that, it would have been better. Maybe a lot would have been different. But he did not.
"Now, where should we put the tooth? On Earth, we used pillows. You would leave a lost tooth under your pillow and the Tooth Fairy would find it, replace it with a few coins. Here we not only have no pillows but no beds. So where should we leave it?"
"What is a fairy?" I asked.
"My goodness, but we need some books to read to you. We never planned for children, you know. Let me see. Fairies are magical creatures that live in the woods and sometimes at the end of nice gardens. Mostly they are there for young girls to find beautiful, but sometimes they are mischievous. They steal or play tricks or cast naughty spells."
"There is no magic," I said.
"Can you be sure?" And Merlin reached behind my head, touched my ear, produced a solenoid. "If so, then how did this get behind your ear?"
"That's a trick," I said. "Not magic. There is no magic."
"You mustn't be so upset over it, baby girl. Magic is just something we talk about to have fun, to explain things we cannot otherwise explain, to wonder at the nature of the universe."
"I'm not a baby and there is no magic."
"Please, just calm down."
But it was too late for that. I started to shout. "You're a liar and there isn't such a thing as magic. You shouldn't lie to your children. Father Christmas is a lie and the Easter Bunny is a lie and God is a lie and the Tooth Fairy is a damned lie."
Merlin sat back, narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms. I knew I had crossed some kind of invisible line and I didn't know what it was, why it was. He didn't say anything, though, and I couldn't stop.
"If there is a God and if there is magic, then bring back my mother. Give her back to me!"
"Oh?" Merlin said. He set aside the solenoid he was working on and turned his full attention to me. We were in the kitchen and my memory informed me it was identical then and now. "Why do you say so?"
"Look," I said, and extended one hand, palm up. In the center of my palm lay a milk tooth. It had fallen bloodlessly out while I slept. When I awoke, my tongue found a gap in my gums, and I found the tooth on the floor under my sling.
"Oh, you have lost a tooth. How wonderful."
"Then I am not sick?"
"No, baby, the farthest thing from it."
"I am not a baby," I said. "Please explain."
"Well," Merlin said, "it is normal for a child of your age to lose her teeth, slowly, over the course of a few years. New ones are growing in, beneath your gum-line where you cannot see them, and eroding the roots of the old ones. The old ones fall out, new ones grow in. Perfectly natural."
"Why?"
"Well, because if you were born with a full set of adult teeth, your head would be too big to fit through the birth canal. And if your teeth were not replaced with larger ones, your adult jaw would be full of gaps."
"Oh."
If he had left it at that, it would have been better. Maybe a lot would have been different. But he did not.
"Now, where should we put the tooth? On Earth, we used pillows. You would leave a lost tooth under your pillow and the Tooth Fairy would find it, replace it with a few coins. Here we not only have no pillows but no beds. So where should we leave it?"
"What is a fairy?" I asked.
"My goodness, but we need some books to read to you. We never planned for children, you know. Let me see. Fairies are magical creatures that live in the woods and sometimes at the end of nice gardens. Mostly they are there for young girls to find beautiful, but sometimes they are mischievous. They steal or play tricks or cast naughty spells."
"There is no magic," I said.
"Can you be sure?" And Merlin reached behind my head, touched my ear, produced a solenoid. "If so, then how did this get behind your ear?"
"That's a trick," I said. "Not magic. There is no magic."
"You mustn't be so upset over it, baby girl. Magic is just something we talk about to have fun, to explain things we cannot otherwise explain, to wonder at the nature of the universe."
"I'm not a baby and there is no magic."
"Please, just calm down."
But it was too late for that. I started to shout. "You're a liar and there isn't such a thing as magic. You shouldn't lie to your children. Father Christmas is a lie and the Easter Bunny is a lie and God is a lie and the Tooth Fairy is a damned lie."
Merlin sat back, narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms. I knew I had crossed some kind of invisible line and I didn't know what it was, why it was. He didn't say anything, though, and I couldn't stop.
"If there is a God and if there is magic, then bring back my mother. Give her back to me!"
November 10, 2018
Review of Overlord
The movie starts off lurid and livid and continues in this vein throughout.
The opening sequence sets the stage. Overflying the DDay invasion fleet in the British Channel, our team verbally spar for dominance. Bullets start flying almost right away, grisly, bright things that tear through aircraft aluminum like tissue paper. Ed, our hero, falls from the disintegrating aircraft through an aerial war only J.J.Abrahms could visualize.
The setting then changes to occupied France. You’ve seen it before. In Wonderwoman, maybe in Miracle at Santa Anna. It takes a while to go from the standard but gloriously depicted horrors of war to the supernatural horror elements but when it goes there, it goes pretty hard. There’s not much very unique here. There have been a hundred horror movies set around Hitler’s obsession with occultism. The others mostly don’t rise to this level of cinematography. If anything, it’s a little derivative of WonderWoman.
You’ll notice some unrealism. Most of the bullets fired in this war didn’t leave red chemtrails behind them. The movie really amps up the excitement and the chaos with tracer rounds galore. And we’re dealing with an integrated unit before the Army integrated units, with even a black sergeant commanding white subordinates.
A problem with telling war stories is you end up sacrificing diversity to realism. I faced this struggle writing The Worst of Us a few years ago. A Vietnam War story ought not have any female soldiers in the field. I decided that a supernatural horror story could tolerate some bending of rules, though, and the producers of Overlord seem to have made a similar choice. They didn’t include women, though, only integrating the unit.
My philosophy is, if you don’t draw the line at zombies, then drawing it at integrated units seems a mite racist. Moreover, the weapons fire and most of the scenario require certain work to suspend disbelief, too.
This movie was fun with its own shocking moments, plenty of gore, and enough action to keep you hopping. It’s nothing unique so don’t go in expecting literary fiction.
The opening sequence sets the stage. Overflying the DDay invasion fleet in the British Channel, our team verbally spar for dominance. Bullets start flying almost right away, grisly, bright things that tear through aircraft aluminum like tissue paper. Ed, our hero, falls from the disintegrating aircraft through an aerial war only J.J.Abrahms could visualize.
The setting then changes to occupied France. You’ve seen it before. In Wonderwoman, maybe in Miracle at Santa Anna. It takes a while to go from the standard but gloriously depicted horrors of war to the supernatural horror elements but when it goes there, it goes pretty hard. There’s not much very unique here. There have been a hundred horror movies set around Hitler’s obsession with occultism. The others mostly don’t rise to this level of cinematography. If anything, it’s a little derivative of WonderWoman.
You’ll notice some unrealism. Most of the bullets fired in this war didn’t leave red chemtrails behind them. The movie really amps up the excitement and the chaos with tracer rounds galore. And we’re dealing with an integrated unit before the Army integrated units, with even a black sergeant commanding white subordinates.
A problem with telling war stories is you end up sacrificing diversity to realism. I faced this struggle writing The Worst of Us a few years ago. A Vietnam War story ought not have any female soldiers in the field. I decided that a supernatural horror story could tolerate some bending of rules, though, and the producers of Overlord seem to have made a similar choice. They didn’t include women, though, only integrating the unit.
My philosophy is, if you don’t draw the line at zombies, then drawing it at integrated units seems a mite racist. Moreover, the weapons fire and most of the scenario require certain work to suspend disbelief, too.
This movie was fun with its own shocking moments, plenty of gore, and enough action to keep you hopping. It’s nothing unique so don’t go in expecting literary fiction.
May 15, 2018
Press release for Finding Life on Mars
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5/15/2018
Finding Life on Mars by Colorado Springs psychologist Jason Dias hits the atmosphere!
A neurodivergent novel written by a neurodivergent author.
Finding Life on Mars invites us into the world of Jaye, a young woman born to a failing colony on Mars. This story takes us through her mission of survival, the ongoing existential crisis born of the external and internal threats propelling Jaye’s self-discovery. Survival may depend on solving technical problems, however through Jaye’s struggle to be human we are shown how the gravity of life is dependent on something else entirely.
Finding Life on Mars is the seventh novel written by Jason Dias of Colorado Springs, CO. A clinical psychologist and professor with autism, he welcomes us into science fiction story telling through the neurodivergent lens of cognitive differences such as dyslexia, ADHD and autism.
Jason Dias, PsyD says, “I’m an autistic psychologist. Temple Grandin has thought of herself as an anthropologist on Mars: a perpetual outsider, studying humans less out of interest than out of the need to survive here. Some of us are gifted strange, narrow interests. One young man I worked with designed and built models of drains to watch the water go through. Another was obsessed with tires. Me? I’m fascinated by humans and am constantly stuck in the outsider perspective while seeking the inside view.”
Other promotional material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uie3x...
https://www.amazon.com/Jason-Dias/e/B...
5/15/2018
Finding Life on Mars by Colorado Springs psychologist Jason Dias hits the atmosphere!
A neurodivergent novel written by a neurodivergent author.
Finding Life on Mars invites us into the world of Jaye, a young woman born to a failing colony on Mars. This story takes us through her mission of survival, the ongoing existential crisis born of the external and internal threats propelling Jaye’s self-discovery. Survival may depend on solving technical problems, however through Jaye’s struggle to be human we are shown how the gravity of life is dependent on something else entirely.
Finding Life on Mars is the seventh novel written by Jason Dias of Colorado Springs, CO. A clinical psychologist and professor with autism, he welcomes us into science fiction story telling through the neurodivergent lens of cognitive differences such as dyslexia, ADHD and autism.
Jason Dias, PsyD says, “I’m an autistic psychologist. Temple Grandin has thought of herself as an anthropologist on Mars: a perpetual outsider, studying humans less out of interest than out of the need to survive here. Some of us are gifted strange, narrow interests. One young man I worked with designed and built models of drains to watch the water go through. Another was obsessed with tires. Me? I’m fascinated by humans and am constantly stuck in the outsider perspective while seeking the inside view.”
Other promotional material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uie3x...
https://www.amazon.com/Jason-Dias/e/B...
