To Face the Whirlwind

by Olan Thorensen

Step into a world of existential choices. An alien Entity had waited megaanum, millions of years, for sentience to emerge on a planet with an ecosystem vibrant enough to foster the evolution of complexity. Impervious to impatience, dispassionate, deliberate, the Entity’s patience was rewarded with a promising species—humans. When the time was right, the warning was “The tenure of sentience is ephemeral.” The Entity had borne witness to the extinction of civilizations and their species, an outcome that must not be repeated. Not this time. Not with a species of such potential. Yet, it faces familiar apathy, complacency, dereliction, hesitancy, paralysis of will, and aversion to taking decisive action—a common constellation in records it possessed of sentient species headed for civilizational collapse. If governments would not act, what other avenues exist? Thus, it reaches out to a small group with an offer requiring them to choose—either action that might prevent catastrophe or inaction that preserves moral purity and personal safety. Before them lays an uncertain future that might demand they step beyond the safety of theoretical debate into a landscape where moral clarity might dissolve, where every ethical principle might clash with another equally valid claim, where philosophical frameworks threatene to crumble under the weight of real consequences and irreversible choices, and where courage clashes with self-preservation. The future swirls before them like a vortex of possibility and peril. Step forward or step back?

610 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

Olan is a long-time science fiction fan who has jumped into independent publication with all its pitfalls and unknowns. He thinks all colors go together: clash, what clash? A fan of Dilbert, Non Sequitur, Peanuts (even if old strips), and still think the end of The Far Side was a tragedy. Loves fireflies, rain, thunderstorms, is eclectic in music (classical, western, oldies, smattering of all other), and thinks four seasons are better than one. Gardens, plays piano poorly, used to jog until broke hip, now walks (to be honest, his jog was about as fast as his quick walk).

A sampling of favorite movies include Avatar, Master and Commander, The Last Mimsy, Six Days and Seven Nights, Aliens, Jumanji, The Big Short, Trading Places, World War Z, and A Miracle on 34th Street (original). If you can figure out a common theme, let Olan know. :>)

Born in Louisiana, but mainly grew up in a less populated part of Northern California. Played football in high school but did minimum studying so as not to interfere with his reading novels. Ironic is that he studiously avoided learning things like details of grammar and good writing. He knows how ironic that is now.

Worked as a forest firefighter several summers. In his youth, served in the US Special Forces (one year in Vietnam; SOG, running recon patrols in Laos and the DMZ). Attended university before and after the Army. Has a Phd in Genetics, with around 200 science publications as author and co-author on genetics, molecular biology, and bioinformatics, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Worked with people with all the education and no common sense and knows people with little education and a world of smarts.

Retired now in the Blue Ridge country of Virginia and has time to pursue his avocation of writing books – mainly science fiction plus one police/action/character book writing as Kelsey Robicheaux. Thinks it's totally cool someone can read his stories and enjoy them. Loves hearing from readers from all parts of the US and international (his favorite of the latter was from Nepal).

His web page is olanthorensen.com, which has news updates, an occasion blog posting, and downloadable maps (by clicking on them) to help orient readers to the planet Anyar (highly recommended). He’s on Facebook, which also has maps, reader/listener comments, and his responses. He can be emailed at olanthorensen@gmail.com. He reads all emails, though he may not be able to respond to them all. Readers can request to be on a mailing list for news of releases. Advantages of the mail list also include Christmas short stories, new maps, and a coming novella not otherwise available elsewhere.

Reviews

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent sequel to Harbinger -I had both huge expectations (the series debut Harbinger was one of my top novels of 2020) and trepidation as it is a current period alien AI on Earth type of novel and usually am not a huge fan of such - the first one hit all the right notes in late 2020 but that was a special year as one may remember.

This one combines heavy doses of philosophical sf (though done well and to a large extent seen through the eyes of the "everyday" men and women so to speak) with occasional action, political manipulations both here and in China, as well as some amazing alien races' interactions that are as good as anything in recent sf.

The plot is fairly simple - the Object (which clearly has some relation with the stuff on Anyar) awakened to warn humanity of an impending inflection point (or more), where humanity either succeeds and thrives at least for a while or fails and perishes.

The powers to be ignore it for the usual reasons (not my problem for now as I need to be reelected, stay in power, stuff is not iminent so future politicians can deal with it etc), so the Object reaches out to the group of humans that somewhat serendipitously interacted best with it on the Canadian island in the far North in Harbinger and now live their normal lives (albeit under some on and off government supervision) and makes them an offer - be the human deciders of actions the Object may take to help humanity, actions that of course may involve violence, breaking laws etc; a heavy task and the book revolves around the why, the what and the if of it.

The novel is also quite energetic and fast going, and it's really close to a sf thriller despite its heavy dose of abstract and not-so-abstract stuff, while ending at a very good tbc point.

Excellent stuff and highly recommended

[John Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a big O.T. fan so I looked forward to reading this book. As usual there was solid character development, dramatic plot development, and riveting action towards the end. O.T. was a special forces operator early in his career, and a scholar later in life, so he brings a lifetime of experience and knowledge to his writing. I read this book over two days, staying up late into the night on the last day to finish it. I think there was too much philosophy and ethical debate in parts of the book for my taste. But I like how the universe of Harbinger, and this sequel is the same one described in O.T.'s Destiny's Crucible series. As usual the ending was a revelation (especially how the Destiny's Crucible human diaspora came to be) and a cliff hanger.

I hope O.T. does not delay in writing and releasing the planned third book in the series as the first book was written five years ago. He is getting older and I am not sanguine he can continue his high-quality writing output. But who knows? Several series I started never ended because the author died or got ill. I was a big fan of the brilliant Vernor Vinge (I took some computer science classes from him when I attended SDSU where he taught), but as he got older his Parkinson's got the better of him and the quality of his books tailed off after his last Hugo-award winning novel, Rainbows End. I wish O.T. all the best and hope to read his fine writing for many years to come.