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 Cover by Oliver B. WilliamsISBN: 978-1-58755-066-9 (c) 2010
Forlorn and alone, Joe Axelrod was lost—his big rig truck hinged within a dead-end at the edge of a rural suburban development. Searching for meaning in his life, his ruminations were suddenly interrupted by a UFO—not extraterrestrial, but what he deemed even more preposterous: a wide-eyed slug carried by two bees. The shock of this visage catalyzed an epiphany, and his thoughts converged to strategy. Yet his fortuitous detour into Shangri-La generates multiple effects, changing both his life and the life of the tiny inhabitants only fifty yards from where he had stopped.
The snails and slugs of the mollusk community of WhereWeLive know everything there is to know. All that exists is there, and anything appearing external appears for their benefit. That's how their leader, Gilbert, interprets reality for them—and they are content to follow his direction. Gilbert's daughter, Darcy, had discovered the water level in the central pond decreasing gradually by using the forbidden techniques: experimentation and measurement. She and her odd, sage-like slug companion, Linus, set out to explore an external world, searching for the cause of the dwindling water, and a place for the colony to migrate. More crucial, they discover that events in the world outside of WhereWeLive have profound effects upon their tiny community.
A desperate man staring down a tunnel of disillusionment, or a colony of snails facing decimation—both must act to survive, and ultimately to evolve: the theme of this allegorical tale of change, evolution, and the relative nature of laws for all organisms. Rules and beliefs must change to accommodate survival.
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Oliver B. Williams
Oliver B. Williams' career resembles a web rather than a path. His interests have spanned the spectrum of professional extremes: TV repairman, technical documentation writer, microelectronics engineer and manager, inventor, statistician, flight instructor, Lear Jet charter pilot, market research analyst, Internet entrepreneur, community mental health counselor, college professor, clinical and research psychologist, and fiction writer. A bachelor's degree in physics, a masters in counseling psychology and statistics, and a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Clinical Psychology, he claims one constant thread in what would appear as a morass of career dissonance: writing. Technical, research, essays, non-fiction, fiction—he has never abandoned his love of writing—explaining, entertaining, motivating.
"Life contains too many challenges, so many things to learn and experience. And it's too short. How one could settle on a job for thirty years, then retire?—I don't know. I enjoy everything I do; I've enjoyed everything I've done. I've finished what I've started, and I have no regrets."
"First and foremost in my life, I'm a father and a husband. I'm happily married for over seventeen years, and I have four wonderful and intelligent children. I grew up in three African-American urban ghettos: Los Angeles, Detroit, and Omaha. I attribute my multiple interests, careers, education, and social/race experiences with providing me a unique perspective and coping style which helped me survive in a dichotomous and sometimes irrational world. I've sought to pass on my experiences to my children, and hopefully entertain—maybe enlighten—a few readers with the same.”
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