Perfect World was launched on Sunday by Wellington poet and climate fiction writer Tim Jones. A massive thanks to Tim for his kind and insightful words. Also a big thanks to everyone else who helped out – Amber and Gina on drinks, Al on sales and Kate as general host. And where would we be without the readers who attended and bought copies of the book. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it.
Here is the text of Tim’s introduction, followed by the text of my speech.
Tim’s Speech:
“Kia ora koutou, and welcome to the launch of “Perfect World”! I’m Tim Jones, and I’m a writer and editor based here in Wellington.
I’ve known Andy for a few years now, and he kindly asked me to assess the manuscripts of all three volumes of The Assumptors trilogy, so I have been privileged to follow the voyage of the Domina Penelope from its construction stages to its conclusion.
They say hell is other people, and in this trilogy, hell can still be other people even if you’re all searching for heaven. I think Andy does a great job weaving together the outer space aspects of this voyage with the inner conflicts – each, at times, threatening to tear the mission apart.
As developments outside this giant generation starship put the voyage in greater and greater peril, its cargo of politicians, theologians, and hard-working crew members come under increasing pressure – and all the while, factions inside the ship are much more focused on bringing each other down and seizing power than they are on finding peace, safety and a good home for everyone on board.
How fortunate we are that the real world is nothing like that!!
You can read Perfect World and the two preceding volumes for an exciting space adventure, you can read it for the sharp light it shines on contemporary political madness, and you can read it for the characters.
No-one in these books is without their flaws – some characters remain prisoners to those flaws, while others rise above them.
There’s Bee, the straight arrow at the helm of the ship, who is determined to do her job despite all the political machinations that seek to throw her off course; Jarvis, the haystack-haired, bloviating politician who is an all-too-familiar mixture of bluster, cunning, and desperation; mysterious Ness, who pulls strings from the shadows.
Father Chadwick is a decent man way out of his depth, Sister Jean a rock of competence and determination. Perhaps the most intriguing character is Frimp, Chadwick’s former deputy, whose simmering resentments war against the better angels of his nature.
Is this a ship of fools? Maybe. But they carry humanity’s slim hope for survival, so as a reader, I spent my time hoping they would succeed, occasionally chuckling at the real-world parallels which are present without being overstated, and shaking my head at the bottomless capacities of this ill-assorted crew for self-sabotage (and sometimes just plain sabotage).
It’s a wild ride. You’ll be surprised, you’ll be entertained, and in this concluding volume, you’ll see both disaster and the tantalising hope of success come ever closer. As for the ending – well, that would be telling. But I will say that Andy lands the ending.
I hope you read this book, I hope you enjoy it, and now it’s time to hear from the author.“
Andy’s Speech:
A big thank to you all for coming today. I really appreciate it, especially those of you who may not be big fans of science fiction. My job in the next few minutes is to change that. To convince you why you should read sci-fi.
When I first started writing Brightest Star, the first book, in 2021, I never envisioned the story would stretch to three books or take five years to complete. In fact, if I had, I’d probably have had second thoughts and written something else. To live with some of these characters for so long – particularly Frimp and Ness, not to mention Jarvis – would drive a man to drink. Nevertheless, here we are and even now – in 2026 – I’m still not sure the series is actually finished. There are threads that could carry on… into maybe a 4th or a 5th book. Sci-Fi’s like that – it seems to breed series – just look at franchises such as Star Wars, Star Trek or the Dune books.
So, what’s Perfect World all about? For those of you who haven’t read any of the three books, the story – in a nutshell – is this. Earth is wasted. Decades of misuse by its dominant species – us – have ruined it. So to escape oblivion, a powerful missionary organisation launches a generational ship to the stars. Their mission – to find planet B, a new Earth. And since Perfect World is the last book in the series, let’s hope they find it.
Writing a book requires lots of help. And there are heaps of people I have to thank. All of you for coming today. The people too, today, who’ve helped with the launch – Tim for giving an introduction and launching the book, Amber and Gina doing a sterling job with the drinks, Al for selling books, Rodney for lending us the EFTPOS machine and, of course, Kate for acting as a marvellous host. Then all the people who helped make the book – Tim for assessing the manuscript, Linda for editing it, plus all the various book groups – Al, Rodney, Anne, Jill, Roger, Peter, Hamish, Kristeene, Miriam and others – for critiquing individual chapters. And finally Kate again for all your support, advice and motivation. Thank you everyone – thank you, thank you.
While here, I thought I might also briefly address the spider in the room. Yes, spiders have a point of view too. Because honestly, how many people here fear sci-fi with a vengeance? In a library they won’t go anywhere near the sci-fi shelves and so that’s where all the cobwebs are.
So — just imagine this. You’re a passenger on the Titanic – 114 years ago – and a time traveller from this room arrives bearing all the popular books of today. Richard Osman, Colleen Hoover, Liane Moriarty, Lee Childs, Alan Gray – cosy mystery, crime, romance, and action drama. Imagine all those Edwardian passengers trying to read a book with txting, mobile phones, WestPac rescue helicopters, TikTok and online dating. “I’m not reading all this hokum pokum,” the unsinkable Molly Brown would have hollered as she sat at Capt. John Smith’s table. Even Fred Fleet, the lookout, would not have been distracted from his job of keeping watch. Ironic really, to think that if any of those people – any of them – had gone to see the movie first, then they probably wouldn’t have hit the iceberg at all!
So, science fiction isn’t any different from other genres. It’s the book our great-great-grandchildren will read. It has characters, plot, setting, drama and conflict – all the ingredients readers want. The only difference is it contains a little science – a little speculation – that isn’t yet fact. Science fiction acts as both a warning and inspiration – it shows us bad things that might be coming and how we can get ready, just as it imagines new ideas and how they may change our world.
Science fiction isn’t a new genre either. There was science-fiction in the days of the Titanic. Books by writers such as HG Wells, who wrote The Time Machine – hasn’t yet happened yet – War of the Worlds – hasn’t yet happened yet – but also The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Shape of Things To Come – which in ways have come true.
As a little experiment, I asked AI – itself a speculative new technology – how many science fiction writers are or were historians. It listed a whole slew of people I’d never heard of, but then included writers with a historic focus – people like Margaret Atwood, Issac Asimov and – once again – HG Wells. “Those who cannot remember the past” said George Santayana, later paraphrased by Winston Churchill, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
One thing I’ve learned from writing science fiction is that you cannot “write what you know”. I haven’t been up in space – I haven’t been to the stars – and when it comes to devising complex science, the orbital mechanics of a spaceship looping around planets, I am no expert. Those real experts out there will always pick holes in everything I create. So the focus has to be – not on getting every itsy bitsy detail correct – but on making the story sound as plausible as possible. If the average reader believes it, that’s what matters.
With this in mind, though, here are some sci-fi conundrums for you to think about:-
When Capt. Kirk and his party beam down to an unknown planet, how is it the crew wearing red shirts are always the ones to get zapped? A warning to Crusaders fans – don’t enrol with Star Fleet.
In Alien, notice how the cat, Jonesy, has its food bowl placed on the top of the breakfast table with all the other crew’s food. Is this hygienic? Would any of your households allow your cat to eat on the kitchen bench? No wonder the good ship Nostradamus was infested with a man-eating alien. Although if Jonesy hadn’t been so well fed – and had caught and eaten the juvenile alien, the movie could have been a lot shorter.
Last of all, Mork and Mindy. How did Mork, a being from another planet, have such attitude? Such moves? Because – and I didn’t know this – Mork first appeared not in Mork & Mindy, but in an episode of Happy Days – remember that? He tried to abduct Richie to another planet but was foiled by — the Fonz.