Local author and illustrator Graeme Bennett has been on a roll recently, publishing three new books this summer, and nearly a dozen since last year.
But these aren’t hastily thrown together titles, he says. They’ve been in development for years and, in a few cases, even decades.
The most research-intensive titles, claims Bennett, are the forward-looking science-fiction novels HELIX, HAVEN, and HELIOS. These books, he explains, are based on what he calls “at least semi-plausible” scientific theories in the style of Michael Crichton or Arthur C. Clarke, albeit written for a non-technical audience in a style Bennett calls “social science fiction,” focused primarily on the human and social impacts of the technologies, rather than the tech itself.
Despite this emphasis on the social angle, the author’s background as an award-winning tech journalist and editor, former Microsoft employee and “Innovator in Residence” at four public libraries in Delta and the Lower Mainland since 2014 lends these titles a degree of leading-edge tech–inspired realism that ensure the themes are rendered rich in both insight and detail.
“I probably won’t get rich writing this kind of stuff,” admits Bennett, “but these are the kind of books I always wanted to read.”
Bennett will be signing books and telling stories about the characters and events of HELIX, HAVEN, HELIOS, and his other novels at Black Bond Books Ladner Village (5052 48th Ave. Ladner) on Sunday, Sept. 15 from noon to 3 p.m.
