Questions from readers about Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix

Is OCP part of a series?

Yes. I intend to have the second book, which I am very excited about, completed in 2015. Unfortunately, I can’t write full-time since I am a full-time pastor, and so things move a little slowly. I also have two other projects in the pipe ahead of Outlander Chronicles: Icarus.

Is OCP your first novel?

No. I first wrote a military/espionage thriller. It is unpublished, but I hope to see it come out in the next couple of years as part of my Falcon series. It is actually book two of that series, and I am presently writing book one.

Is OCP a religious novel?

Let me put my amateur theologian/philosopher hat on to answer that question. All books are religious and all people are religious (even atheists, secularists, and nihilists) whether or not they realize it or admit it. Some believe in hydrogen, some believe in God, some believe in Self, and some believe that I just said the same thing three times. All books espouse a certain way of looking at the world and ultimate issues, because all authors have a certain way of looking at the world. You can’t escape religion, it’s everywhere!

So, yes, OCP is a novel with religious themes, and it contains a character who understands that even the most irreligious among us is helplessly and hopelessly religious. It also contains characters who deny that assertion. And it contains a world of suffering and challenges that must be faced no matter what one believes.

No, the book is not a Sunday School lesson, and if you are looking for a fun action/adventure shoot-em-up that you can enjoy on a weekend to the beach, you’ve found it. But, yes, you might find amidst the action that some of your most deeply held beliefs are gently challenged.

Where do they get their supplies if there is no manufacturing, etc.? Would not everything have run out long before?

Civilization ground to an abrupt halt between June 7, 2036 and February of 2038. Entire populations of infected towns died out in the space of a month, leaving untouched goods on the shelf of every store.

The world population was down to ten million by 2040, and a low of eight million by 2060. There was a flush surplus of unused manufactured goods as a consequence. In most places, the demand was zero.

Sure is a lot of coffee in this tale. (A) Have you got an addiction, Chris, and (B) are you sure it would last that long (eighty years)?

Okay. You caught me. First things first: no, I don’t have an addiction (that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it; now, where did I set my coffee . . . ). I just really, really enjoy my coffee. You need to read this post on my blog for a little background.

Second, no, it probably would not have lasted near that long. I did do research on the shelf life of stuff for this tale, but the coffee, I just produced by fiat. It’s an author’s prerogative. I could not imagine camping and getting up on cold mornings without some java boiling in the pot. But who knows, maybe by 2037 there’s some way of packaging coffee that makes it last forever. One can only hope.

One of the first of Hakim’s accounts of what happened to the West echoed things I read in C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man.  Was that just a coincidence or was that book a source for you?

No, it was not a source, but I am honored you should think that. Most of the philosophy in the tale is what I picked up from reading Francis Schaffer, sitting in Dr. Bill Edgar’s apologetics classes at Westminster, and other reading. It is also the fruit of my own reflection, as I have been informed by those and other sources.