Neal Holtschulte is joining us today to talk about his novel, Crew of Exiles Here’s the publisher’s description:
A bitter transcendent being. A naive gamer with no extra lives. A discarded human shell. The last people left on Earth.
In 2500 A.D. an immortal has ended its own life. Beryl, a misanthropic transcendent being, is accused of assisting in the suicide. Banished to a human body by his peers, Beryl is sentenced to a 1,000-year exile on the depopulated Earth.
If misery is his fate, Beryl would rather suffer it alone. Instead, he’s adopted by Fife, a plucky virtual reality gamer who is eager to go adventuring in the real world.
Fife drags Beryl along to a crashed starship where they meet Nesh, the lone survivor of the crash and an orphan of Beryl’s crime. Beryl’s past hounds his every step and puts his newfound friends in mortal danger. How can they survive the wrath of vengeful transcendent beings?The solution lies in Nesh’s deep-buried memories-but only if Beryl can face his past and rekindle his humanity.
What’s Neal’s favorite bit?
BOOK EXCERPT:
Orange flame eyes blinked awake as wind breathed life into the burning grass around the gantry. Ozone clotted the air with its electric stench. Nesh ran forward, heedless of the ash and fire. They held Beryl like a small child, one arm under his legs, the other arm under his back.
Piggyback would have been more dignified!
Beryl rolled his eyes at his own ridiculous thought. He wondered if one could be genetically cursed with a petty mind as well as an ill-constructed body, or if he had only himself to blame for the former.
MY FAVORITE BIT:
Beryl is a transcendent being who has been exiled to a human body, subject to all the indignities that entails. He’s smelly and itchy. He gets the hiccups. He’s beset by intrusive thoughts. On top of it all, he can’t get over how far he’s fallen from the godlike being he used to be.
To me, that’s the human condition.
Every last one of us is more than the star stuff we are made of. If Einstein hadn’t formulated the theory of relativity, someone else would have. Under the right circumstances it could have been you or me. We are fonts of unimaginable potential. Also, everyone poops.
I can’t point to any particular inspiration for the character of Beryl, but his voice came through my keyboard loud and clear when I was writing Crew of Exiles. My favorite bit is any bit in which Beryl acts petty. He is centuries old, but the reality of bodily maintenance makes him peevish.
But the story isn’t about the misery of the flesh, nor do I personally subscribe to belief in mind/body duality. Beryl’s body is obstacle to be accepted, learned from, perhaps cherished, not overcome. In my opinion, it’s a mistake to think that mind and body can be severed while preserving any semblance of self.
The actual duality (at least to this unenlightened soul) is between mundane and sublime. A human being can love and empathize, can marvel at a sunrise and calculate the kilograms of mass converted to energy in that star. A human can act kindly, create art, and contemplate mortality. We CAN do those things, but unless you are one of the miraculous few who can find grandeur in flu shots and oil changes, the more common experience is tedium and irritation. As a result, we’re all a little less grand and a little more cranky.
Crew of Exiles is about many things. To say it’s about the human condition is broad to the point of meaninglessness, but I’m inclined to say it anyway. It means something to me and perhaps, dear reader, it will mean something to you too.
So, by all means, go out and pursue wonder, awe, and your most luminous self, but know that your quest will be short lived if you neglect hydration for your meat sack.
LINKS:
BIO:
Neal Holtschulte is a computer science instructor and distance runner living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His short fiction has appeared in Amazing Stories Magazine, Ghostlight Horror magazine, and THEMA Literary Journal. His debut novel, Crew of Exiles, is an Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite and won Silver in the 2023 Global Ebook Awards.
