My newly published novel Karpa
Talesman – just out a week ago (March 2024) – is the winner of the Prophecy
Creek Award for Speculative Fiction. Speculative fiction, sometimes called a
“super genre” is a literary approach to storytelling that makes use of the
themes and devises of the sci-fi, fantasy and even fairytale genres to tell a
deeper story about life in troubling times.
The seeds of Karpa Talesman were planted in an experience of serious illness, a complex surgery, and the hallucinatory dreams planted by the anesthesia needed for the surgery addressing two types of life-threatening cancer.
The idea for the book blossomed during
my recovery, while I split my time between freelance newspaper work and
following the fictional trails where these dreams led me. Years of writing, and
deep revisions, followed.
Here's the short take on the book that resulted:
Planet Earth appears to be running out of the dimension
of time itself. Children go to school in the morning, but in the blink of an
eye the day is over, and they are lining up to take the bus home. Scientist
Sheena Drey takes her daughter to the park, but darkness arrives before they
can find their favorite tree. Convinced
that the multiverse contains infinite worlds similar to Earth, scientists of
the Dream Project send gifted “dreamers” to search for a universe where the
solution to the problem can be found. Sheena is shocked to learn that her
husband, Copper, a self-described 'dreamer,' has volunteered for the project
and is lying in an induced coma-like state in the project's lab.
Where Copper's dreams take him, the planet where he no longer knows himself, and his inward – and outward – journey to find his way back to the world – and the family – he left behind is my novel's through-story. Copper's journey, experienced by the dream-self known as Karpa Talesman, becomes an exploration of primitive and advanced civilizations that provide the wisdom and the clues that will ultimately enable Earth to save itself.
"Karpa Talesman" received advance praise from novelist Patry Francis,
author of The Orphans of Race
Point” and All the Children
are Home: “Whether he’s writing a historical as he did with Suosso’s
Lane, or veering into science fiction as he does with in his bold new
novel, Bob Knox has a unique ability to tap into the zeitgeist of the time, to
show us not only who we are, but who we might become. I loved this book for its
prescience and originality, the sheer fun of playing with language, but most of
all for the compassion and wisdom that floods a dark world with light."
