Drawing from his experience in the classroom, Texas A&M lecturer Ted Boone’s independently published novel follows two teenagers in their quest to save the inhabitants on a planet called Langford’s Leap.
In this post-apocalyptic story, Maxine lives in a colony on Langford’s Leap that is struggling to recover from a technological dark age. Above Maxine’s planet, Ceres is the only remaining inhabitant on a space station. Ceres has a vast knowledge of technology in the station but no idea that there is a whole world beneath her. When the two accidentally contact each other, they have to do everything they can to prevent history from repeating itself and completely wiping out the colony.
As a lecturer for the Department of Information and Operations Management in Mays Business School, Boone’s job revolves around technology. He said he is constantly pondering scenarios that could arise in the future.
“I thought that it would be really interesting if somebody in the future had some technology but did not understand it because of some communication breakdown,” Boone said. “How would we approach a computer or an automobile if we were 50 or 100 years in the future and didn’t have any idea how they worked? This particular book deals with computer networking, viruses, vulnerabilities… and because I teach some of those concepts in my class, I have some insights on where the story could go.”
Boone started “Langford’s Leap” 10 years ago as a part of the international writing event National Novel Writing Month, which tasks participants with writing 50,000 words during the month of November in hopes of creating a short novel.
According to Bryan’s Municipal liaison of NaNoWriMo, Summer Wilson, Boone is part of a rare group that ends up publishing a novel after the event.
“The vast majority of participants just enjoy the writing exercise,” Wilson said. “We have about 25 percent that reach the goal of 50,000 words and those tend to be the people that eat, sleep, write. ‘Langford’s Leap’ is a great book and is very compelling. He made science fiction something that is accessible to people that are science idiots.”
Ted Boone’s wife, Marisa Biondi, Class of 2018, has a Ph.D. in psychological and brain sciences and said Boone’s novel makes her question the human spirit.
“I read a beta version about five years ago, and the novel was amazing,” Biondi said. “One of the things that really stuck out to me about the story is that it left me with the question, ‘what does it mean to be human?’ And as someone who studied psychology and now has a doctorate in psychology, that was really interesting to me.”
Boone said his novel was influenced by the characteristics of people he has met in Aggieland.
“During some of the editing process, I was inspired by how the students approached comradery, honesty and the general culture here,” Boone said. “That certainly had some influence on how I was characterizing some of the characters in the book.”
“Langford’s Leap” can be purchased on Amazon, and an audio book is also being produced.
