Excerpt from The Rescue read at Paging Columbus on March 6, 2014
The way we balance ethical concepts when we make decisions fascinates me. As humans, we choose whether to mold the environment to our own purposes or to adapt ourselves to aspects of the environment we cannot--or will not--change. We have many reasons to accept our environment as it is, including political, economic, social, and ecological rationales. But what will we sacrifice to protect our way of life? What are we willing to give up to protect our planet? These questions are polarizing. Despite their importance, they can stop the conversation in its tracks. I believe we can better understand the relationship and tension between these types of concepts by moving them into another world with somewhat different rules and, perhaps, different morality.
My in-progress novel, The Rescue, uses supernatural elements to sharply contrast the difficult choice between the very human need for companionship and the planet-saving promise of a naturally occurring clean energy source. The story revolves around two women with very different outlooks on life, especially life after death. Leonora Arden is a sensitive who communicates frequently with ghosts, especially those connected to the items she has collected in her antique store, The Rescue. Denise Valmer is an environmental engineer who finds evidence of these ghosts but believes she has discovered free-floating energy clouds that can be converted into a clean-burning source of electricity. Though the characters understand the world around them in different ways, they must choose between protecting the planet and exercising simple human compassion.
The way we balance ethical concepts when we make decisions fascinates me. As humans, we choose whether to mold the environment to our own purposes or to adapt ourselves to aspects of the environment we cannot--or will not--change. We have many reasons to accept our environment as it is, including political, economic, social, and ecological rationales. But what will we sacrifice to protect our way of life? What are we willing to give up to protect our planet? These questions are polarizing. Despite their importance, they can stop the conversation in its tracks. I believe we can better understand the relationship and tension between these types of concepts by moving them into another world with somewhat different rules and, perhaps, different morality.
My in-progress novel, The Rescue, uses supernatural elements to sharply contrast the difficult choice between the very human need for companionship and the planet-saving promise of a naturally occurring clean energy source. The story revolves around two women with very different outlooks on life, especially life after death. Leonora Arden is a sensitive who communicates frequently with ghosts, especially those connected to the items she has collected in her antique store, The Rescue. Denise Valmer is an environmental engineer who finds evidence of these ghosts but believes she has discovered free-floating energy clouds that can be converted into a clean-burning source of electricity. Though the characters understand the world around them in different ways, they must choose between protecting the planet and exercising simple human compassion.
