The Ganymeade Protocol

by Don Elwell

Katie has a problem. As a young woman in an increasingly repressive world, it seems every day more options are closed to her, and surprising changes in her relationship with her girlhood friend Sandy are apt to land both of them in a state reeducation camp. Kate knew she had to do something. Out on the warming waters of the Gulf and Caribbean sails The Fleet, a collection of small boats with its roots in the pirates of the early 19th century. The righteous government of America hates them with a passion. It’s said, in the Fleet, you can be anything you say you are. And out at the docks sits the little sailboat Ganymeade, lovingly built by Kate and her late Father before the cancer had eaten him. Kate has a plan. A plan to escape with Sandy, a plan to be free, and despite the threat of insane governments, religious wackos, and looming natural disasters, a plan to, just maybe, become part of something greater than herself. She calls it the Ganymeade Protocol.

219 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Dr. Don Elwell has been, in his time, actor, director, playwright, college professor, blacksmith, swordsman, innkeeper, restaurateur, bookseller, and, on top of all that, an avid sailor. He is the author of the oddly prophetic "Coyote Trilogy" of plays, the novels "An Alien's Guide to Sears and Roebuck," "The Ganymeade Protocol," and "Zarabeth's World," along with numerous works on history, theatre, and sociology. He currently resides aboard his sailboat "Constellation" in the Chesapeake.

Reviews

[Melanie Rodgers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book started nearly a three hour discussion in our book club. It bounces between the 19th century and the near future, in an entirely too believeable America gone insane and two young women who steal a boat to escape it. They wind up with this fleet of small boats that have founded this kind of floating community in the Caribbean and start a new life. The characters are really strongly drawn, the historical research seems first rate, and the vaguely anarchist floating state fascinated everybody that read it. Anyway, the book is a definite must read in my book, if you'll pardon the repitition. Its available as a download too, through the publisher www.wildshorepress.com