Jes' Webbin' It: Mai Shangri-La

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Mai Shangri-La - the Blurb

Reuben James Runquist is finally facing facts; at eighty, he's stuck with a retirement condo in an environment that is decidedly "Mai" ("Not" in Thai) Shangri-La. Global sea levels have risen seven meters, plagues have killed hundreds of millions, and worldwide transportation and commercial infrastructures have collapsed. Reuben is reduced to s subsistence existence in the high-tech but questionably secure "Panic Room" of his barricaded condo in Pattaya.

Reuben needs to escape if he's going to truly live out his "golden years" in relative peace and security. By now, though, the Thai central plain is awash in a new inland sea, and Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Lee is ratcheting up the pressure to acquire rights to Reuben's new virtual reality game/novel "StimSim". Reuben's always been his own man, but what are his options? How can he escape global warming AND the clutches of a man who won't take no for an answer?

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Who IS Robert J. Rubis?

I'm a Canadian expatriate teacher (Teacher-Librarian, to be exact) and writer who has called Bangkok, Thailand, home for the past 22 years. I taught for 10 years in B.C., Canada before taking a left turn in my life's journey - to Tripoli, Libya. After spending a year in the former "jewel of the Mediterranean", I moved to Thailand, which I immediately recognized as my new "home". I've lived and worked here ever since.

I've been writing all my life, but until a few years ago, I focussed most of my work on supporting and furthering my career as a Teacher-Librarian. Somewhere along the way, though, I developed a mild cynicism about the impact my work was having on the world around me. I was competent at my job and took my responsibilities to the students in my charge seriously, but it no longer seemed to be enough. At the same time, I was beginning to have serious misgivings about Man's stewardship of the planet, and when Katrina devastated New Orleans, I saw this as a convergence of my changing interests and emerging "itch" to write for a wider audience.

"Mai Shangri-La" is the result. It's on one level an environmental cautionary tale, on another a journey of self-discovery (a "coming-of-age" novel, if you will, of an 80-year old man) and finally, another take on the star-crossed lover's story. Most of all, though, "Mai Shangri-La" is the "setting to page" of many of the philosophical musings that I've tinkered with more much of my life. Reuben James's story is largely autobiographical at its core, although set 25 years in the future. his values are largely (although never completely) mine, his "Dreamories" are rooted in my memories, and his approach to life at 80 is what I hope mine might be when I reach his age.

Writing "Mai Shangri-La" has been an increbibly rewarding experience for me, and, I hope, the beginning of a new career that might continue beyond the "mandatory retirement age" looming faster every year.

Jes' Webbin' It

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Mai Shangri-La - the Blurb

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Who IS Robert J. Rubis?

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