The time has come to talk of beta readers for LANTERN (and other things).
The manuscript is a serious, ambitious work of hard/literary science fiction. It’s about a family, a space elevator company, artificial gravity, the search for alien intelligence, and what happens when one of humanity’s oldest questions gets answered in the worst possible way. I’ve spoken about the work I’ve been doing previously, but here’s the first time I can confidently say that the novel is ready for readers.
The current draft is around 127,000 words. That’s long, but not wildly so for the kind of book this is. I’ve spent a lot of time revising, tightening the structure, and making sure the story is ready for critique. The first draft was closer to 175K words, so it should be clear I’ve put a lot of work in already, but it is not perfect. That’s the point of beta readers.
I can provide the manuscript as a PDF or ebook file, whichever you prefer. I’ll give readers eight weeks before I start gently poking for feedback.
What I’m looking for
- Readers who enjoy science fiction with big ideas, family conflict, corporate power struggles, and philosophical stakes.
- Readers who are willing to tell me honestly where they were confused, bored, excited, skeptical, moved, or impatient.
- Readers who can give thoughtful big-picture feedback on how the book works as a story.
You do not need to be a scientist. You do not need to be a professional writer. You just need to be willing to read carefully and tell me how the book landed for you.
I’m not looking for line edits at this stage. I’m mostly interested in the big reader-experience questions:
- Did the story hold your attention?
- Did the major turns land?
- Were the characters compelling?
- Where did the book feel slow?
- Where did the science feel confusing?
- What did you think the book was really about?
If you help me out, you’ll have my gratitude, and I’ll include warm acknowledgements when the book is published.
If you’re interested, raise your hand in the comments or message me directly through whatever means you have. I’ll follow up with details.
And, as teaser/preview, here is the first chapter for your consideration. If you dig this much, you might like seeing where the story goes . . .
