The Second Sun

​The plot of The Second Sun is an allegory for the financial inequality between the older and younger generations. There’s an island paradise where there’s elders living a second life after retiring from their human forms, and live amongst their chosen few, who also live for thousands of years in relative peace. However, only those welcome can actually approach the island and survive. Everyone else on earth is made to endure a game of thrones type world, except I omitted much of the overt cruelty you find in that series. I also forgo the notions of racism and sexism. l wanted to adopt the spirit of Tolkien, but expand that virtue of “anyone, no matter how small, can achieve great things,” to every kind of human so it feels to be an adventure for everyone! I was diagnosed with Tourette’s when I was 27, and so it’s developed my understanding of the theft of agency and being marginalized for something I cannot control. It’s also structured similarly to game of thrones, in that the first three chapters are different parts of the world with different characters, and you learn how they are related as the story progresses.

The Second Sun is, above all things, an adventure made animate by hundreds of distinct characters across half a world, written to confess through prose and tale our tendencies poisoned by Dickensian bleakness, and to wholly ameliorate that cynicism by the light and courage of those who live and labor for a just peace.