The Brightest Town in the Realm
So I went and did a thing! – I published my first book (over on Amazon – https://amzn.eu/d/0eh7NpMo )
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The story takes place in the Parallax Lands, a world where the sky is unusually clear by nature, where towns are ranked by how brightly they shine at night, and where a hill observatory in a place called Lumbridge once helped spark a seventy-year dispute over the shape of the world and the distance of the stars. That dispute was settled. The stars remained. The towns kept growing brighter anyway.
This book is not a parable about light pollution in our own world, though readers may hear an echo. It is a story about a man who cares about something most people have stopped looking at, and about what happens when he stops arguing and starts inviting. There are no villains. The Mayor believes in safety and prosperity. The council follows procedure. The bakers and the Fire Jugglers believe in celebration. Professor Finch believes in the night sky. The conflict is not between good and evil but between different kinds of attention and between the urge to convince and the courage to invite.
The Comet of the Long Return is real in its world. So is the choice to dim the lights. So is the possibility that a town that has learned to love brightness might, for one night, make room for darkness.
When Finch learns that the Comet of the Long Return will pass overhead in six months a sight not seen in generations—he knows that unless something changes, Lumbridge will be too bright to see it. He has data. He has a jar full of darkness. He has the council’s permission to submit his findings in triplicate. What he doesn’t have is anyone who will choose to look up.
But the comet is coming. And in a town that has learned to love the light, one astronomer, one lamplighter, and one child who has never seen the Milky Way are about to discover that the most important thing you can do is invite people to see and then leave the choice to them.
*A story about what we notice, what we preserve, and what we’re willing to turn off so that we can look up.*
