Minimum Safe Distance

1st Place, Literary Fiction category, International Firebird Book Awards, Q3 2025 ================================= They Came. They Didn't Invade. We Did the Rest. A hard sci-fi exploration of transhumanism, sentience, and the biological traps that shape collective failure — perfect for fans of Delta-V, The Expanse, and Don't Look Up. ================================= First contact was nothing like we imagined. Can the aliens save Earth? Should they? With the Earth teetering on recovery from humanity's 21st century mistakes, two highly advanced aliens observing from the Moon are suddenly on opposite sides of an ethical battle over a dire cosmic threat. As governments seek to destroy them, the aliens wrestle and scheme, entangling all of humanity as they influence and empower specific humans to achieve their contrary objectives. Among them are a brilliant AI expert who has channeled her autism in the service of science, and a violent, anti-secular zealot who hates everything she stands for. Drawn into the conflict, Laurence and Matt must reach minimum safe distance from human nature itself – their own, the rest of humanity's, and of the former-human, techno-demon 'monstas'. Chased into the ruins of the US, they struggle to distill the meaning of personhood, discover the value of their own lives, and in so doing decide the fate of the solar system. -------------- "...what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species." -- Kirkus Reviews