(Photograph courtesy of Roberta Degnore and Digital Fabulists, and used with permission.)
Author, psychologist and professor Roberta Degnore is having fun–and taking her readers on a mind-bending journey–with her new science-fiction novel, Invisible Soft Return.
As she melds together mythology, history and quantum physics in her Lambda Literary Award-nominated work, Roberta poses the question: what is reality? And then–she offers multiple answers through her protagonist, Evet, who lives in the twenty-third century.
In Evet’s world, sexuality can be chosen through technology, people or animals can live forever through holograms, and most people much prefer sense-simulation experiences to finding out what’s going on outside their living spaces. Evet is a talented creator of state-of-the-art simulated-reality experiences–whose work has failed to bring her the professional recognition she cravesAs the book starts. At the start of the book, Evet is accused of a murder she doesn’t remember committing. Have her programs actually killed her beloved…?
Grilled by a seductive but insistent female inquisitor, Evet tries to escape through both time and space. As she leaps through her present and the past, readers explore her previous lives: through Sophia, a talented thirteenth-century goldsmith; ancient Egyptian mythology; and the technology that allows Evet to explore other time periods and places.
Roberta, who will be reading from Invisible Soft Return at San Gabriel Valley Pride 2014’s Authors’ Forum this Saturday, talked about her background, some of the real-life history behind her dreamlike and compelling novel, and her advice to fellow writers.
San Gabriel Valley Pride Festival 2014, themed “Reflections of Pride”, is a free event, running 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 20th, with everyone invited. The Authors’ Forum will be located in a tent onsite at Memorial Park, in Pasadena. There will be author readings throughout the day, as well as other events including a classic car show, Big Draw L.A., the HIStory and HERitage Village, and ongoing entertainment at the Levitt Pavilion.
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