The Exodus Sequence: A Collection of Connected Short Stories

Exodus Sequence

by Susannah J. Bell

This is an alternate cover edition for B00Q6ZW7X6

Three prison cages, two impossible romances and several fights to the death. Two ships at sea, one in space and a space station. A dreamscape, a death scape and an e-scape. A secret agent, a hidden operative and a hidden power. Many mentions of Atlantis, the Golden Queen and someone who will not accept the name Miranda.

Immortality is the theme that runs throughout the sequence and there are reflections of emotions, images and dreams in every story. There are shields and fields. There is a Last Exit. There is a hunter in a nightmare wire prison, an invisible field around Mars, a magician imprisoned in ice, a drug that pulls apart time and space and an exodus from Earth millions of years ago that can still be witnessed in the future by characters in multiple dimensions.

In this, the first collection of Exodus stories, mysteries about the First Race sweep from the past into the future and their drive towards – or away from – the Last Exit.

***This collection includes the previously unpublished short story DROWNED.

313 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2015

About the author

Susannah J. Bell is a writer of science fiction and other strange and surreal works. She was born in London but grew up in South Africa, escaping when she was twenty to be a writer. Not able to find much success in London, she dreamed of living in other parts of the world: the Scottish Highlands, New York, Mars, but never got much further than travel guides. Nowadays, she would like to live in a tower in a forest and dreams of travelling to the fantastical worlds of her imagination. Her writing has taken her from the familiar landscapes of Mars and Io and Titan, to worlds far beyond ours, even to the edge of the galaxy. She has explored other dimensions, realms, and space beyond. Within her writing, she explores different styles, voices and concepts, always returning to the theme that fascinates her the most: immortality. She has published several series such as The Fleet Quintet and The Exodus Sequence, and is working on a new series of novels, as well as a large literary work, more Exodus Sequence stories, and biographical short stories. She hopes one day to complete the fifth Fleet novel. She loves the sound of falling water, is passionate about trees, and is happiest when writing. She still lives in London.

Reviews

[Susannah Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why write yet another Atlantis-themed tale? Because I don’t like any of the ideas that are out there. I don’t dislike them – but they never seem to stretch back far enough. The time scale is always too small. Ten thousand years gets bandied about a lot. I tend to think along the lines of ten million. It’s a vast story but not one I can see all at once. It’s like there is an enormous painting the size of a wall in front of me, with thousands of scenes spread across it, with thousands of connections. But most of the scenes are hidden. What my short stories do is zoom in on the scenes that are visible and focus on them closely. Then they pull out and zoom in on another scene, though there is no linear time sequence. It’s as if the story can only be revealed to me in tiny portions and from different points on the time line.
The Exodus stories will cover a very long period of time by the time I have reached the end of three volumes. It never occurred to me to turn this idea into a novel as too much detail would have been lost and the outlet for creative experimentation destroyed. It’s the experimental side that I enjoy the most. Not only do different characters require different genres, their personalities are also exposed through the style of writing itself. I always get far inside the heads of my characters and to express the different ways of thinking was an exciting challenge.
This first volume opens the mystery of Atlantis. It introduces a number of different “aliens” – or, at least, people who don’t quite look like us or die the way we do. All four main characters appear, sometimes more than once, though it isn’t obvious yet who they are. There is also a character that acts as a catalyst that will appear many times and several peripheral characters that may – or not may not – return. The lack of prediction of where the stories might take these characters is part of the immense fun I’ve had in creating them. Even I find myself surprised by events!