Books by Allister Thompson
BIRCH AND JAY
Publishing with Latitude 46 in May '25
Birch and Jay is my first young adult novel and the first of the Knowledge Seekers trilogy.
Decades after the world was levelled by the effects of human-made climate change, the scattered remnants of humanity have begun to pull themselves together. Birch and Jay are a young couple living in a small, idyllic community away from the ruins of one of Canada’s great cities.
As a newly graduated Knowledge Seeker, Jay must leave Birch and their community to collect remnants of old wisdom from the dead world. Along the way, he comes across a mysterious elderly woman who offers to travel with him. He will receive more than a travel companion — she offers revelations about their town’s founding as well as knowledge of how to survive in a lawless world.
Birch, seeking adventure, pursues Jay but finds more danger than she ever imagined. Will they find each other in the chaos and brutality of the city and get safely back home to tell the tale?
BUY from the publisher!
Also available everywhere you can buy a book.
"The engaging premise is full of poignant reminders that the greatest challenge humanity faces is itself... An exciting adventure with important messages about caring for our world."
--Kirkus Reviews
"From the moment Jay sets out on his journey, I could feel I was about to experience something incredible. The depth of this novel—with themes of love, hope, and defining one’s purpose—is wrapped in a tale of adventure that will shift your emotions with every turn of the page. Not only is this story necessary, it’s imaginative and devastating in ways that will force you to confront how you live your life."
—Kern Carter, author of Is There a Boy Like Me? and And There Was Us
“Thompson’s novel offers a compelling salutary tale of a future which we would all be much better avoiding. In this future Ontario, a fraught landscape sets the scene for an entertaining tale where teenage angst, wanderlust, and desire play out in a plausibly violent dystopic future. The kind of future that is coming if we, the current inhabitants of Ontario, and much of the rest of the modern world, don’t change our hyper-consumptive ways and start taking the future seriously.”
—Simon Dalby, Professor Emeritus, Wilfrid Laurier University, author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate Disrupted World
Publishing with Latitude 46 in May '25
Birch and Jay is my first young adult novel and the first of the Knowledge Seekers trilogy.
Decades after the world was levelled by the effects of human-made climate change, the scattered remnants of humanity have begun to pull themselves together. Birch and Jay are a young couple living in a small, idyllic community away from the ruins of one of Canada’s great cities.
As a newly graduated Knowledge Seeker, Jay must leave Birch and their community to collect remnants of old wisdom from the dead world. Along the way, he comes across a mysterious elderly woman who offers to travel with him. He will receive more than a travel companion — she offers revelations about their town’s founding as well as knowledge of how to survive in a lawless world.
Birch, seeking adventure, pursues Jay but finds more danger than she ever imagined. Will they find each other in the chaos and brutality of the city and get safely back home to tell the tale?
BUY from the publisher!
Also available everywhere you can buy a book.
"The engaging premise is full of poignant reminders that the greatest challenge humanity faces is itself... An exciting adventure with important messages about caring for our world."
--Kirkus Reviews
"From the moment Jay sets out on his journey, I could feel I was about to experience something incredible. The depth of this novel—with themes of love, hope, and defining one’s purpose—is wrapped in a tale of adventure that will shift your emotions with every turn of the page. Not only is this story necessary, it’s imaginative and devastating in ways that will force you to confront how you live your life."
—Kern Carter, author of Is There a Boy Like Me? and And There Was Us
“Thompson’s novel offers a compelling salutary tale of a future which we would all be much better avoiding. In this future Ontario, a fraught landscape sets the scene for an entertaining tale where teenage angst, wanderlust, and desire play out in a plausibly violent dystopic future. The kind of future that is coming if we, the current inhabitants of Ontario, and much of the rest of the modern world, don’t change our hyper-consumptive ways and start taking the future seriously.”
—Simon Dalby, Professor Emeritus, Wilfrid Laurier University, author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate Disrupted World
THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
The Music of the Spheres is a novel that mixes alternate history with sci-fi, crime fiction and heavy doses of humour, left-wing politics, and psychedelic rock. Influences include Michael Moorcock, J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Daniel Pinkwater, Hawkwind, and Gong.
It’s an alternate 1968 in which recreational drugs aren’t illegal; in fact, giant pharma companies push them as regulated products with full governmental sanction to a class of drugged-out hippies that are nothing but cash cows living in a fake counterculture. Musician Simon Hastings of leading psychedelic band The Spheres discovers the true callous darkness of this arrangement when his band’s singer is poisoned by one of these drugs — and it’s clear the death was a professional hit. Through a dystopian landscape, Hastings determinedly searches for the murderer, with the help of a cast of eccentric psychedelic rock heroes. Hastings gradually becomes aware that true rebellion will require a lot more than just blissing out and making noise.
The Music of the Spheres is both a darkly comedic romp and a loving paean to musical idealism.
BUY!
Also available in ebook form as a free download on the Internet Archive
The Music of the Spheres is a novel that mixes alternate history with sci-fi, crime fiction and heavy doses of humour, left-wing politics, and psychedelic rock. Influences include Michael Moorcock, J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Daniel Pinkwater, Hawkwind, and Gong.
It’s an alternate 1968 in which recreational drugs aren’t illegal; in fact, giant pharma companies push them as regulated products with full governmental sanction to a class of drugged-out hippies that are nothing but cash cows living in a fake counterculture. Musician Simon Hastings of leading psychedelic band The Spheres discovers the true callous darkness of this arrangement when his band’s singer is poisoned by one of these drugs — and it’s clear the death was a professional hit. Through a dystopian landscape, Hastings determinedly searches for the murderer, with the help of a cast of eccentric psychedelic rock heroes. Hastings gradually becomes aware that true rebellion will require a lot more than just blissing out and making noise.
The Music of the Spheres is both a darkly comedic romp and a loving paean to musical idealism.
BUY!
Also available in ebook form as a free download on the Internet Archive
