The Stuff of Stars

by David Litwack

Overview

If the Seekers fail this time, they risk not a stoning, but losing themselves in the twilight of a never-ending dream.

• GOLD MEDAL: Feathered Quill Book Award - 2017 - Science Fiction/Fantasy
• SILVER MEDAL: Readers' Favorite Book Awards - 2016 - Young Adult Sci-Fi
• WINNER: Pinnacle Book Achievement Award - Summer 2016 - Best Science Fiction
• WINNER: Awesome Indies Approved

"But what are we without dreams?"

Against all odds, Orah and Nathaniel have found the keep and revealed the truth about the darkness, initiating what they hoped would be a new age of enlightenment. But the people were more set in their ways than anticipated, and a faction of vicars whispered in their ears, urging a return to traditional ways.

Desperate to keep their movement alive, Orah and Nathaniel cross the ocean to seek the living descendants of the keepmasters' kin. Those they find on the distant shore are both more and less advanced than expected.

The seekers become caught between the two sides, and face the challenge of bringing them together to make a better world. The prize: a chance to bring home miracles and a more promising future for their people. The cost of failure: unimaginable.

"In this YA sci-fi sequel, Litwack pushes his characters into new physical, mental, and emotional realms as they encounter an unusual, tech-based society. A grand, revelatory saga that continues to unfold." Kirkus Reviews

EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESENTS the multiple award-winning second book in the extraordinary "The Seekers" series of dystopian sci-fi adventures, from the author of such award-winning greats as The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky, Along the Watchtower, and The Time That's Given.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781622534265
Publisher:	Evolved Publishing
Publication date:	09/02/2023
Series:	Seekers Series , #2
Edition description:	2nd Second Softcover ed.
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.53(d)

About the Author

AUTHOR: The urge to write first struck David at age sixteen when working on a newsletter at a youth encampment in the woods of northern Maine. It may have been the wild night when lightning flashed at sunset, followed by the northern lights rippling after dark, or maybe it was the newsletter's editor, a girl with eyes the color of the ocean, but he was inspired to write about the blurry line between reality and the fantastic. Using two fingers and lots of white-out, he religiously typed five pages a day throughout college and well into his twenties. Then life intervened. When he found time again to daydream, the urge to write returned. David now lives in the Great Northwest and anywhere else that catches his fancy. He no longer limits himself to five pages a day, and is thankful every keystroke for the invention of the word processor.

EDITOR: Lane Diamond has over 190 published books to his editing credit, including many multiple award-winners, across many genres and styles - with more to come.

ASSISTANT EDITOR: John Anthony Allen

Editorial Reviews

"The Stuff of Stars is the second book in David Litwacks The Seekers series, and it's as unique, unpredictable and well-written as the first book. ... These are not light books; the mood is dark in this well-rendered and somewhat dour fantasy world, and yet I never once wanted to put the book down. The story kept me highly engaged and the prose was a delight to read. The overriding theme is the conflict between those who see technology as a god and those who see it as a demon. The author shows that the truth is in neither of the extremes." ~ Awesome Indies Reviews

From the Publisher

★ 2017-03-04
In this YA sci-fi sequel, Litwack (The Light of Reason, 2016, etc.) pushes his characters into new physical, mental, and emotional realms as they encounter an unusual, tech-based society. A thousand years ago, society crumbled into the Darkness. Now, the Temple of Light and its vicars guide the survivors with a stern hand, wielding miracles with dimly understood technology from a secret cache called the keep. Orah and her husband, Nathaniel, have washed ashore in a strange land after sailing from the village of Little Pond. They hope to locate the creators of the keep's wonders, but instead, they're greeted by children. Kara, the oldest, is merely 16, and she takes the couple to a decrepit village that's repaired haphazardly by robots. It also contains devices that can generate a cooked meal from nothing—in seconds. It's all presided over by the mentor, an elderly man who controls his wheelchair with his mind. He says that the village is full of children and failing machines because the dreamers—the adults who maintained the technology—left three years ago. They "ascended" into a mountain fortress, and everyone in the village hopes for their return. To understand the mentor's tale better, Orah and Nathaniel visit with "the people of the earth," who live off the land nearby. Their leaders, Annabel and Caleb, are committed to living without machines and claim that the dreamers' hope is a dangerous one. In this second volume of The Seekers series, Litwack continues his enthralling tour of a future crippled by hubris and spiritual negligence. Readers will find it heartbreaking when the village children play with inert black devices—smartphones—that used to "let us speak to each other from far away and showed us the way if we were lost." Throughout, the author explores the area between a soulful grounding in the physical world and the scholarly itch that makes one ask, "Why would we be given a universe so vast and wonderful unless our minds were meant to grow to encompass it all?" The astonishing truth about the dreamers is revealed in careful, dramatic stages. The protagonists' courage—and Litwack's magisterial plotting—will spur readers on to the next installment. A grand, revelatory saga that continues to unfold.

Kirkus Reviews