The Conversationalist — Clay Gilbert

A new story from the universe of Annah and the CHILDREN OF EVOHE. Meet RYNN HANDEL and NORTHROP WYNN. Theirs is a boy meets girl story, when you get right down to it, with a few differences. North Wynn is a young man with a brain like a computer, thanks to a unique condition called thalamic hypercognition, which has also put him on the fast track to life in a wheelchair at less than thirty years of age. Rynn Handel is a young woman with a brain that is, at least in part, a computer: she is the cyborg offspring of Project Prometheus, the Earth government's attempt to create new life by blending human tissue and DNA with cybernetic technology. But although she's a miracle, Rynn's creator, Dr. Mark Handel, left part of the job unfinished, and now Rynn is heading to the Edge of the universe, to a planet where the native species, the Rycosians, are known for making the best cyborg bodies anywhere. North's circumstances are different. He's gone on the run to protect his family back on Earth from whomever is behind the assassination of his best friend, Connor Reynolds, who just happens to be the recently-deceased head of Earth's planetary government. He thinks his loved ones and the friends he still has will be safer if he leaves them behind. But who knows who's decided to follow him in his attempt to escape? Finding themselves on two different ships sharing the same forty-day journey to the planet Holdfast, from which they both intend to travel to the Edgeworld called Mercy Prime -- for what begin as distinctly different reasons -- Rynn and North are brought together by the common bonds of difference, loneliness, and the distance between them. And the shortest distance between any two people, they learn together, is a conversation. Author Clay Gilbert describes Rynn and North's story as “The Fault in Our Star Wars”, blending the modern sensibilities, dark humor and quirky romance of John Green with the space adventure and interstellar intrigue of a George Lucas movie, mixed with a mild seasoning of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and combining these ingredients with characters you will not easily forget. Get ready for a new journey, to a place you've never been before, with people you won't want to leave behind.