The Last Walk Out: A Tribal Space Opera by David Helton (
literary agency profile), a journalist and documentary scriptwriter, is his standalone post-apocalyptic science fiction drama novel, set in a future a thousand years after a viral catastrophe wiped out much of Earth's population, leading humanity to flee to the rest of the solar system, leaving only a few naturally immune survivors behind, whose descendants are apparently being watched as some sort of nature entertainment programme, as one of the elders on the reservation leaves the settlement on a potentially society-changing adventure, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.
This was apparently originally published in 2014 by White Glove, according to the author's literary agency profile, but that seems to be a self-pub imprint which left no trace, and the Venture frontmatter copyright date is for 2017, possibly indicating a rewrite, so this is effectively one of their original publications by an established author, who has previously had one novel out from Simon & Schuster.
Currently free @
Amazon (available to Canadians & in the UK and pretty much everywhere else Amazon sells worldwide, since this is being done via their KDP Select exclusive-or-else program)
Description
The catastrophic Abunga virus has wiped out everyone on Earth except for a few scattered souls with natural immunity.
Other humans escaped this Apocalypse by fleeing to other parts of the Solar System, populating and exploiting its moons and planets.
A thousand years on, those now living on these distant outposts still can't return but secretly confine and observe the survivors as a combination of social experiment and nostalgic entertainment.
Their former home is now a ‘holopark’, a new Eden, a Heaven on Earth. It’s a chance for the human race to start all over again.
There, Gibbous Moon, a 70-year-old tribal story-teller and seer, is leaving his settlement on a solitary Last Walk Out.
Except that he is not alone. Reluctantly he has to accept animal company in the shape of a determined dog he names Yellow.
And then his daughter-in-law Paintbrush and her baby Skyman suddenly appear after their clan is brutally massacred by rivals on the reservation.
Could it be possible that this small renegade band could now form an unlikely alliance, the basis of a real New Beginning?