I first met author Tim Weed at a Historical Novel Society conference. Subsequently, I had the opportunity to read Will Poole’s Island, Tim’s first historical novel, and to ask him about world building for a series on Inside Historical Fiction.
Tim Weed’s new novel – The Afterlife Project – is an amazing story. I’ve given it A+ for creativity, characters, pacing, and significance. But it’s not historical fiction. The Afterlife Project speculates on our future as a planet and the question of the survival of humanity itself. The story is so engaging and imaginative you won’t be able to put it down.
Told in two timelines – yes, even in the future you can have two timelines – The Afterlife Project features microbiologist Nicholas Hindman in a future ten millennium from now and a woman in 2068AD who is one of four surviving members of the Centauri project interstellar travel team who sent Nicholas into the future. Stay with me now – Nick’s life in that future world is fascinating while the team who remains in 2068 race to find a woman they can send into that same future to help populate a new society.
Are you hooked yet?
When speaking about historical fiction, Tim wrote that “it’s at once a dream we have to enter and an oblique reflection of ourselves. In my experience, this kind of mind-altering immersion is harder to find in contemporary novels.” I’m sure Tim would say the same about creating the future world of this important new novel.
Here’s Tim on the inspiration of the novel, which came to him in an unusual way: “I’d lucked into a job as a traveling lecturer for National Geographic Expeditions, and found myself aboard a small-ship cruise through Tierra del Fuego.” … “there were some brilliant passengers aboard that ship: in particular a young paleo-climatologist from Princeton and an astrophysicist who was the director of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory.” Apparently, Tim asked “the astrophysicist for his opinion on the plausibility of one-way time travel into the deep future.” The discussions prompted by that question were instrumental to shaping The Afterlife Project.
Tim has fashioned a story that is gripping, heartbreaking, and unforgettable. Highly recommended.
The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed
Separated by ten thousand years, a team of scientists and their test subject must work together to save the human species―before it’s too late . . .
With humanity facing imminent extinction, Centauri Project scientists use technology originally designed for interstellar travel to send a test subject ten millennia into Earth’s future. Marooned in an uninhabited wilderness, microbiologist Nicholas Hindman searches for evidence of remnant populations. He has a protocol to follow and is determined to do so to the bitter end―though he knows he’s probably searching in vain, stranded on an empty planet silently orbiting the sun.
Meanwhile, back in 2068 AD, a devastating hyperpandemic has quelled all talk of interstellar travel and thrown the future of humanity into grave doubt. Four surviving members of the Centauri team board a vintage solar-powered sailing yacht for a harrowing journey in search of a second test subject. Their destination is a small volcanic island north of Sicily rumored to harbor that rarest of creatures: a woman capable of getting pregnant, thereby ensuring this generation of Homo sapiens isn’t the last. But first they must make it halfway across the post-apocalyptic globe, risking heatwaves, oceanic megastorms, murderous gangs, deranged cult leaders, a volcanic eruption, and the dangerous microbes that continue to circulate through the planet’s atmosphere.
A finalist for the Prism Prize for Climate Literature, The Afterlife Project encompasses a desperate quest for the key to the future of humanity, an impossible love story, and a search for meaning across the inconceivable vastness of geological time.
Tim serves on the core faculty of the Newport MFA in Creative Writing and is the co-founder of the Cuba Writers Program. A former featured expert for National Geographic Expeditions, he spent the first part of his career directing international educational programs throughout Latin America and in Spain, Portugal, Australia, Iceland, and other locations around the globe.
