Critically acclaimed Author Scott Overton Draws a Picture of a Troubling Future in Indigent Earth
Criticallyacclaimed Author Draws a Picture of a Troubling Future
Willthe rich and powerful abandon the Earth?
Sudbury author ScottOverton has conjured up a compelling adventure story that explores today’ssocial divides taken to the extreme.
The inequality betweenEarth’s rich and poor has grown even larger since the Covid-19 pandemic.Studies proclaim that the world’s eight richest men own as much wealth as thepoorest half of the Earth’s population, and the planet’s two thousand billionairesaccount for more than 60% of the world’s total wealth. Where will it end?
Along with that, we’veall witnessed 2023 as a year of disastrous heat waves, droughts, wildfires, anddevastating floods. Climate change is here with a vengeance. What if it’s toolate to turn things around?
InOverton’s new science fiction novel Indigent Earth, the wealthy“one-percenters” have abandoned our ravaged planet 500 years earlier to go livein space colonies, leaving the survivors on Earth to live in stagnatingcommunities known as Allocations. Now the colonists plan to come back. EarthmanKillian Morningcloud dreams of the colonists’ return, hoping to become one ofthem. Colonist aristocrat and celebrity Natira Celestia is eager to visit Earthand meet the “noble savages” she’s sure must live there. Killian and Natira’scalamitous meeting will shatter their dreams and hurl them into a struggle forsurvival as they pursue the darkest secrets of the rich and powerful.
“It’s an entertaining andgripping adventure story,” says Overton, “but with strong themes ofcolonialism, and economic inequality. The truth is, being on the wrong side ofthe ‘privilege gap’ could happen to any of us in the years to come.”
Are things really so badthat those with the means might actually abandon the Earth? Overtonpoints out that we’ve been polluting our home planet for most of human history,but especially in the past century, when we’ve devastated plant and animalspecies, acidified vast oceans, and turned the very climate against us.
“I don’t want to believethere’s no hope of fixing these problems,” Overton insists. “But too many ofthe world’s most powerful people are still blocking the changes needed becausetheir personal fortunes are threatened. And since billionaires are nowdominating space industries, I don’t think my fictional scenario is implausible.”
Still, he stresses that IndigentEarth is an adventure, not a lecture. “Killian and Natira are about asdifferent as two people can be—both strong-willed with deep convictions, yetforced to work together. So, it was fun to write such a charged relationship.”
A well-known radiomorning host for more than 25 years in Sudbury, Overton has built a secondcareer as an author. His radio-themed debut novel Dead Air wasshortlisted for a Northern Lit Award in 2012, and his science fiction/thrillernovels The Primus Labyrinth, Naïda, and The Dispossession ofDylan Knox have been well-received too, with readers most often comparingthem to the work of Michael Crichton. The writer considered the ‘dean ofCanadian science fiction’, Robert J. Sawyer, said of Overton’s thriller AugmentNation: “Scott Overton is a terrific writer and his vision of tomorrow isboth realistic and frightening. Read this book!”
Indigent Earth and all of Overton’s books are also available onlinein eBook and print (find them at your favorite outlet using these universalbook links: https://books2read.com/IndigentEarth or https://books2read.com/ScottOverton ). If they aren’t in stock at your favorite local store,they can be ordered. Or ask for them at your local library.
MORE INFORMATION
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ScottOverton.author
Twitter @SFtruenorth
Goodreads www.goodreads.com/ScottOverton
To requestadditional review copies or an interview with Scott Overton, please contactMickey Mikkelson at Creative Edge Publicity: mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com /403.464.6925.
We look forward to the coverage!
