Aelwyd: Home

Book excerpt: In the late 21st century, ten Founding Families fulfilled a nearly century-long plan to escape the dying Earth and travel to the Andromeda galaxy to establish a new society on the planet they named New Eden. One of those first settlers, Kammie Gunther, is finding it particularly hard to adapt. Born on a space station, having never before breathed fresh air, seen a horizon, or felt wind and rain on her face, Kammie finds everything unsettling. It doesn’t help that when she awoke from cryostasis she discovered her mother had remarried and she now has a younger step-brother. As she faces a new life, on a new world, with a new family, Kammie wonders if she will ever find a place in the universe that feels like home. Aelwyd, a short story, is a work in the open-source, multi-author Paradisi Chronicles and is a good introduction to Louisa Locke’s Caelestis trilogy (Between Mountain and Sea, Under Two Moons, Through Ddaera’s Touch.)