Chicago -- Alan Barney has written a sequel to his first science fiction novel, Gliese 4. The sequel, New Nauru, tells the story of the stranded crew of the first human extra-solar mission to the fourth planet orbiting the star Gliese 876, and of the first discovery of extraterrestrial intelligent life.
New Nauru follows the efforts of the human colonists to carry out their mission of exploration and to confront their own personal and interpersonal problems through the eyes of Roger Krebs, an exobiologist, Steven Weinberg, a cryobiologist, and Sarah Popov, head aeronautical engineer. While some of the crew try to unlock the secrets of the bizarre, engineered ecosystem based upon nanotechnology, others search for a source of energy to resupply their incapacitated starship, and others work on reconfiguring it for a return to Earth. Just as the human colony settles into a relatively productive routine on the planet, its builders return from space and give the humans an ultimatum to leave or be eliminated.
New Nauru (c2009, ISBN 978-0-557-08083-
Alan Barney is a retired academic and systems librarian and a life-long science fiction fan. He has degrees in Philosophy and Botany from University of Illinois and Library Science from University of Chicago. His third novel to complete a trilogy is underway.
