Meet Jeff Pages and PLIGHT OF THE TIVINEL

Meet Jeff Pages and PLIGHT OF THE TIVINEL

Hi Jeff, thanks for stopping by.  Please tell us about your latest release.  What is the story about?

This is the fifth book in the sci-fi/fantasy series I began a decade ago. A race of people, the Tivinel, one of the first sentient species in the known universe, were decimated in an apocalypse on their home world millions of years ago, with the survivors now scattered about the cosmos in secret enclaves. One of them, Tristan, has discovered a way to go back in time to prevent that from happening, but in restoring his people he’ll also wipe out all the other civilizations that later arose, including those on Earth.

Who is the main character?

Joel Morison, eighteen years old and newly-married, is the principal point-of-view character, although he doesn’t come into the story until the beginning of Part Two. Part One, set eighty years earlier, introduces several of the other characters, including Joel’s grandfather Cory, the ghost-like being Pedro and the conniving Jameed.

What inspired this tale?  How did the story come to you?

It began with a collection of loose ends from my previous novel, Cry of the Bunyips. Part One continues on directly from the epilogue of that book, laying the foundations for what is to follow. Part Two moves forward eighty years in a sins-of-the-grandparents scenario, with the protagonist Joel Morison coming to grips with the singleton trait he inherited from his grandfather, a trait he must use to save the universe from Tristan.

Did you have to research for this novel and if so, why?

Several chapters in Part Two are set in France as Joel and his wife begin walking the Paths of Saint James for their honeymoon. This was inspired by the book A Parallel Path, written by my Spanish friend Marco Peel who helped me with the setting and likely crunch point for these chapters.

With the space settings, I’ve tried to be as astronomically accurate as I can, aside from my fictitious subspace and the fractal crystals used to access it. The polarity of the crystals, though, is based on real-life optical isomers that I learnt about in first year chemistry at university.

Joel is also described as having Asperger’s syndrome, otherwise known as High Functioning Autism, and I read much of the on-line literature on this condition, particularly the writings of Dr Tony Attwood.

If you did research, what do you think surprised you most to learn and why?

In researching Joel’s Asperger’s syndrome, I came to suspect that I might also have that condition.

 Do you relate to your character?  Is your protagonist anything like you personally?

Yes, there’s a lot of me in Joel, or a lot of Joel in me, I’m not sure which.

If yes, then how?

His embarrassing naivety with social customs, ineptitude at sports, love of the outdoors, his fragility but grim determination (I get the latter from my father), his goofy sense of humor and his hatred of shoes.

What made you write this character; what made them important to you or made you want to tell their story?

Joel first appeared in my previous novel in the series, Cry of the Bunyips, initially just as one of the children taking part in a bushwalk where a hero character goes missing, but something seemed to click and before I knew it, he’d suddenly taken over the role of my principal point of view character, with the story following his trials and tribulations through to the end.

One of my goals in the new book was to go forward five years to Joel’s marriage and honeymoon walk across Europe where he becomes ensnared in Tristan’s plot. A lot of Joel’s innermost weaknesses and fears are exposed along the way, and although he ultimately triumphs in his own inept way, it takes a heavy toll on him.

Is there anything specific you want readers to know about this piece of work?

While the earlier books certainly set the stage and introduce many of the characters, this book should be readable as a stand-alone novel, with sufficient back-story revealed for it to hopefully make sense.

If there’s a theme to this story, it’s about fulfilling one’s destiny and doing what’s right rather than what’s easy, although the definition of right has a nasty habit of becoming more and more blurry the closer you look. Aside from that, it’s a rip-roaring adventure across space and time with twists and turns galore.

Now it's time to meet one of the characters from your story.  Who are you?  What is your name?

Joel Morison.

Are you a fictional or historical character?

Purely fictional, but I try not to let that bother me too much.

What should we know about you?

I’m eighteen years old, newly married and walking barefoot along the Paths of Saint James in France on my honeymoon with the absolutely awesome Loraine. Just before the wedding, my friend and mentor Peter Thorpe, who knew my grandfather at school and university, broke the news that I was a singlet, err, single-ton (I can’t even say it, let alone control it), meaning I can sometimes turn the flow of time back on itself, creating a short-lived alternative reality, what they call a time cusp. 

Tell us about your story: When and where is your tale set?

The year is 2071 and my part begins at my home in Coolum Beach, Queensland. After the wedding we fly to France for our honeymoon where we’re doing a pilgrimage along the Paths of Saint James to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, but things go wrong and I end up trapped three million light years away on the mining world of Ignus in the Triangulum galaxy.

What is your personal goal? I mean, what do you ultimately want?

All I want is to return home to my wife, preferably alive and still married to her, but as the story unfolds that seems more and more unlikely.

What is standing in your way? What conflict(s) do you face?

Tristan, the blonde-headed man who’d been stalking us since we arrived in France, is plotting to create the mother of all time cusps but needs my singlet, grr, singleton ability to succeed. First he tries to train me to control it by almost starving me to death, but I escape only to be enslaved on Ignus where a volcano-worshiping death cult is “recycling” people.

After turning the tables on them with help from a ghost, I instigate the greatest financial sting in the galaxy’s history but then have to drown myself to save the universe.

That’s only the curtain-raiser, though, for the real challenge lies in the distant past, where I have to change the future to stop the future being changed. No wonder I’m losing my mind! 

How do I get a copy of your book?  What is the title title for this piece?

Plight of the Tivinel

Is it available now or when can we except to see it released?

It’s available now through Zeus Publications and Amazon.  

Thank you for taking the time to visit with us.  You can connect with Jeff Pages at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeff.pages.96

Blog: http://plightofthetivinel.wordpress.com and the series’ website http://www.barefoottimes.net