In Critical Habitat, humanity is ruled by a mysterious force and two people hold the key to ending the reign of oppression, fear, and deception. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

Modern concerns with the environment and corporate greed, honestly. I’d seen the working class suffer for years and considered how the powerful make decisions that often don’t prove to be for the greater good. The human condition is supremely flawed. Having grown up with some incredible action-adventure and sci-fi movies and television–from Buck Rogers and Star Wars to Battlestar Galactica, as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ writings, specifically John Carter and the Tarzan of the Apes books–I used pieces of them as masterworks that I could pay homage as I recreated storyworlds and Critical Habitat’s narrative into something new. It had to be fun but meaningful, as well as thought-provoking. It was a fun and super-challenging process.

Did you plan the tone and direction of the novel before writing, or did it come out organically as you were writing?

I meant to, but it was recalibrated so many times through drafts, that it would be overstating it as “organic.” The tone and direction became clear, eventually. I wanted to throw my computer more than once.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

As the story crystalized, the overarching theme never wavered. Simply, “Love and family correct a path of self-annihilation.”

Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?

I’m happy to report yes! The follow-up to Critical Habitat should come out in 2025, it’s currently in its final editing stages. As the power vacuum grows, the cast of characters struggle as the stakes rise. Book 2 is deeper and darker than Book 1, taking the fantastical, sci-fi, dystopian, and action-adventure mash-up storyline to the next level. It’s the most challenging work I’ve ever done. I’m excited to share it with Critical Habitat fans, and those who have yet to discover this take on multi-genre action-adventure. I really can’t wait.

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What does it mean to be a rebel, a hero, or the destroyer of habitat and civilization? As a devastated world recovers from war and plight, an unlikely heroine emerges and attempts to rescue distressed rebels from the government’s corruption controlling the rationed food supply and from a rogue general trying to steal the only known honeybees.

And Earth itself fights back.

Following the Great Uprising of the Millennium, the remaining human population in the Third Continent’s forty-four districts—starved and weakened—are dependent on the Authority. The new power structure that emerged after the war rules by fear and tyranny, confiscating property, and feeding the masses poisoned food.

Yet out of the rubble, rebellious clans who dream of a better future emerge, able to grow their own food because of their secret weapon—the last remaining nest of honeybees. Now a war wages between the rebels and the Authority. X and Y, children of the rebellion, have the key to the rebellion’s success: a download that can bring down the Authority once and for all.

Power hungry and corrupt, the Authority’s General Speer is intent on finding the download, along with the rebels’ bees and food stocks. And he will stop at nothing until he rules all the districts.

The fate of humanity hangs in the balance as X and Y join forces with an unlikely heroine and their allies in a race against time. But in a futurist world where survival is paramount and everyone has an agenda, who can they trust?