Following on from the critically acclaimed LiGa™, this new novel reveals more about the secretive organisation behind the life-extending technology of LiGa. Along with LiGa’s newest recruits, we are transported from New York on an eventful voyage across the high seas and beyond the Light Veil to the colourful and wonderful world of Pera, an almost-mythical place on the other side of reality. On the way we meet the pirate Patron and her ship the Flying Fish, the only one that can sail through the Light Veil; Orion (Imm.), the Hunter, respected by some and feared by others; and Shadow, the formidable soul of Pera.
There are light trees in Pera that eat sunlight and bear fruit which, in turn, lights up and energises (literally) the whole community. There are light birds that glitter in the night because they have eaten the seed of the lightberry. The House of Light and Dark, which is the domain of the Sun and her brother, Twilight, welcomes all creatures living in Pera. But in the midst of all the glitter, laughter and the songs, it must be remembered that the lightberry is poisonous to the non-Pera born, and the Land is afraid when the Sun retreats, for it is then that Twilight walks the streets…
the Dark shall do what Light cannot has been available in popular eBook formats since the 10th April.
As in fellow lawyer Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Sanem Ozdural combines elements of science fiction and fantasy to provide a setting in which to consider the limitations of the power of the state, in her new novel, the Dark shall do what Light cannot.
DARTFORD, KENT – 10 April 2015 – Elsewhen Press, an independent UK publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction, is delighted to announce the publication of a new novel, the Dark shall do what Light cannot, by author and international lawyer Sanem Ozdural. Following the success of LiGa™, her critically acclaimed debut, the latest novel reveals more about the secretive organisation behind the life-extending technology of LiGa. Along with LiGa’s newest recruits, we are transported from New York on an eventful voyage across the high seas and beyond the Light Veil to the colourful and wonderful world of Pera, an almost-mythical place on the other side of reality. On the way we meet the pirate Patron and her ship the Flying Fish, the only one that can sail through the Light Veil; Orion (Imm.), the Hunter, respected by some and feared by others; and Shadow, the formidable soul of Pera.
Artwork: Alison Buck
There are light trees in Pera that eat sunlight and bear fruit which, in turn, lights up and energises (literally) the whole community. There are light birds that glitter in the night because they have eaten the seed of the lightberry. The House of Light and Dark, which is the domain of the Sun and her brother, Twilight, welcomes all creatures living in Pera. But in the midst of all the glitter, laughter and the songs, it must be remembered that the lightberry is poisonous to the non-Pera born, and the Land is afraid when the Sun retreats, for it is then that Twilight walks the streets…
As a prosecutor, Sanem has confronted some of the worst aspects of humanity. As a novelist she enables us to consider questions that we might otherwise choose to avoid. We live in a world of Light and Dark, Day and Night, Good and Evil. How do we deal with evil? Despite its power and resources, the state with all its laws and police is neither omnipotent nor omnipresent. It is not always enough.
In Pera, as in our world, there is deceit and cruelty. There are people who would harm defenceless children, and those who would jeopardise the health and wealth of their communities for personal gain. What happens, though, when the Sun is not able to shine her light into the repulsive crevices of humanity? When, with all the goodwill in the world, we cannot keep the children safe, or the forests intact. What happens when the rivers are polluted irreversibly, and we can hear the land groan: barren and toxic? And the people have lost their savings, their homes and their communities… Then… the Dark shall do what Light cannot.
Pera is fictional, a place where we can see the effect of novel attempts to deal with rights and responsibilities. But Pera is also real; it is the old name of historic Istanbul and means ‘the other side’.
the Dark shall do what Light cannot is published today by Elsewhen Press in a digital edition in all popular eBook formats. It will be published in a paperback edition in the summer.
Notes for Editors
About Sanem Ozdural
Sanem Ozdural was born in Ankara, Turkey in the 70s, and spent her childhood from age seven onwards in England. Happy days at a quintessentially British boarding school in Surrey helped forge her character and tastes, not to mention lasting friendships. Making her way to the U.S. she studied economics at Princeton University. After graduating from Boston University School of Law, she moved to New Orleans where she practiced as a prosecutor and civil litigator, and spent seven wonderful years living in the French Quarter.
In 2004 she migrated from New Orleans via Washington, D.C., reaching New York City in 2006, where she lived and practiced law until 2013. She is now teaching business law at Koç University in Istanbul. Sanem was an avid bridge player until the tenth round of revisions to her debut novel, LiGa™ which was published by Elsewhen Press in 2012. She is now thoroughly enjoying an indefinite bridge sabbatical, and has been imagining all sorts of stories that feature absolutely no bridge or chess.
Describing the episodic nature of the story where each new world is presented as a separate chapter akin to a short story, he says that several of the new worlds that Douglas has envisioned are “a pleasure to discover”. He equates the reader’s role with that of the story’s mission controllers as observers, while commending the dispassionate narrative style and passiveness of voice as a deft accomplishment. He goes on to say it is a book of the “mind rather than the heart, one that enquires rather than arouses. In showing us alien forms, Thompson illuminates human assumptions and limitations whilst offering fresh perspectives on our lives.”
On her blog Vicky Thinks, Victoria Hooper has just reviewed Entanglement by Douglas Thompson. She says she “found most of the stories fun and interesting, with a good mix of tense, thoughtful, dreamy, funny and absurd” and goes on to say that the “technology aspects are written well and not bogged down with too much explanation, and the science and more fantastical elements mix very naturally”.
Vicky liked the idea of the book and the way it is written as a series of short stories, each relating to one of the planets being explored, linked together through the technology and events on Earth. She says that it “asks some fascinating questions about dream and reality, intelligence, and how humans view their world.” She concludes by saying “As ‘philosophical science fiction’, I think it works very well.”
In the REviews section of the website of the Sein und Werden literary magazine, Mat Joiner has written about Entanglement by Douglas Thompson. After outlining the structure of the book and noting that it “can be read as either an episodic novel, or a collection of short stories, but needs to be followed in chronological order” he highlights some of the worlds that are visited by the explorers.
“Thompson doesn’t waste time on technobabble” he says, “like Ursula Le Guin (who he pays homage to by using the term “Ansible”) he’s more interested in humans than machinery.” Of those humans he says, “Thompson doesn’t give us stock heroes, just flawed men and women who drift into meaningless affairs, doubt their own actions, make mistakes that will be their undoing. He gives us recognisable human beings.” He adds that there’s “plenty of a good old fashioned sense of wonder here too. None of Entanglement’s travellers lack curiosity, even though it might result in transformation or death.” But, he says, the book “argues that in meeting the alien, we meet ourselves; that to ask questions is better than presenting glib solutions. If anything, it’s a novel that pleads the case for cautious optimism.”
He concludes by saying “It’s a thoughtful, ambivalent, compassionate novel. I wish there were more science fiction like it.”
Charles Packer reviewed Entanglement by Douglas Thompson on the sci-fi online website, describing it as “shot through with dry wit”. Remarking that any reader of Douglas’ previous work will be prepared for a multi-layered experience, he says “each story illuminates as much about the human condition in all its glory and hubris as it does the varied and imaginative alien environments.” He goes on to say that this book “represents as much a philosophical discussion on the human condition as it does enthralling science fiction.” He concludes that it is “well worth picking up.”
Cover image original artwork by Hannah B. Farrell, background photo by Bart_J/ shutterstock.com
On Risingshadow.net, Seregil of Rhiminee reviews Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the inconvenience) by Ira Nayman, which he describes as “one of the funniest sci-fi books I’ve ever read”. He enjoyed the fact that the book is full of “clever inventions” citing especially the sentient furniture, and says “it’s been a long time since I’ve read anything as good and inventive as this”. He also says that the “newsflashes from Alternate Reality News Service are simply hilarious”. He’s sure all fans of science fiction books, films and franchises will enjoy reading this as it has an “amazing amount of references to popular culture”. After the inevitable comparison with Douglas Adams, Seregil says “in my opinion Ira Nayman has a slightly more sarcastic sense of humour” which is closer to Stephen Fry’s. He concludes by recommending it to readers, saying Ira’s book is “pure entertainment from start to finish”.
Over on The Horror Zine, Ian Hunter has reviewed Entanglement by Douglas Thompson. He describes it as “a novel that will live inside the mind of the reader long after the back cover has been closed”. Although Entanglement is categorised by us and Douglas as philosophical science fiction, Ian says it deserves a review in The Horror Zine because “there is much to be horrified about within the 336 pages”. He goes on to say that apart from the “effortlessly engaging writing style that sucks the reader into the plot like a black hole lined with teeth” – (lovely image there Ian!) – and the “thoughtful, intelligent plotting” there is “a rich seam of horror” running through the various encounters between the human explorers and the aliens they discover.
Ros Jackson reviewed Entanglement by Douglas Thompson on Warpcore SF. She says there’s “something very Golden Age” about it, capturing “that sense of wide-eyed wonder and endless possibilities”. As the astronauts (or, in the terminology of the story, duplinauts) make first contact on a variety of new worlds the aliens are “breathtakingly weird”, and the stories are a “philosophical examination” of different ways of life. She is concerned that many of the astronauts meet “creatively horrible fates”. However she says “all of the strangeness makes sense by the end” and she concludes by describing the tone of the story as one of “bizarreness, wonder, and occasional viciousness”.
Our final postcard from the future comes from Professor Saul Deveraux himself, inventor of the Retro-Temporal acceleration technology being deployed at Geneva’s ‘Even Larger Hadron Collider’ to send messages back in time…
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I hope you’ve enjoyed the previous nine messages over the last nine months. The same time as the gestation of a human child, perhaps not coincidentally. You see, the Retro-Temporal Postcard Program is very much my baby, my lifetime’s work, albeit so well assisted by thousands of other dedicated scientists, the world over. I thank them all.
Will you people of the early twenty-first century believe that these messages are real? –That we in the 23rd century, really have mastered such incredible technology as to be able to send information back in time to you? As I write, there is no evidence in any of our libraries or history annals that these attempts were successful. But I confidently expect to go to the same data sources tomorrow and find that history has updated itself. Of course it will. But will I know? This paper I write on would have to disappear into thin air, in order for me not to know, and that seems unlikely. So history is going to change and we’re going to see it change, almost instantly before our eyes. How extraordinary. That has never happened before in the history of our planet. Or has it? You see the irony? Continue reading “Postcard From The Future #10”
Sanem Ozdural was born in Ankara, Turkey in the 70s, and spent her childhood from age seven onwards in England. Happy days at a quintessentially British boarding school in Surrey helped forge her character and tastes, not to mention lasting friendships. Making her way to the U.S. she studied economics at Princeton University. After graduating from Boston University School of Law, she moved to New Orleans where she practiced as a prosecutor and civil litigator, and spent seven wonderful years living in the French Quarter.
