Higgins World
Higgins World is the story of three groups of humans stranded on an earthlike planet. The NeoUtopians paid to settle the planet. The Humanos Verdaderos Mining Corporation was planning on mining the asteroid belt around the planet’s star. The crew of the Galactic Consortium transport were just doing their job but ended up grounded by an asteroid destroying the transport ship. The crew and the mining company were sure GC was coming to rescue them. A couple hundred years pass with no rescue. You then mix in psychic powers developed by children born on the planet and you have a story worth telling. Each group deals with survival differently. It is clear they need to cooperate, but change is hard.
How this story came about
Surviving Higgins World began as a joint project with my son, Charlie. I raised my children to be readers, just as I was. Books were just part of our lives. As the five of them grew, one regular summer excursion was a biweekly trip to the Austin Public Library. We would load up the 12-passenger van and head to our first stop, the library. Each child could get five books. They would range from fantasy and science fiction to non-fiction to simple, mostly picture books for the two youngest. We would then head to a pizza chain that said children under 8 could eat free at their lunch time pizza buffet. After several visits, the manager approached me with a compliment for my children’s behavior, but we were not really welcome anymore. He could not afford the way they cleaned out the salad bar. I was a bit taken aback but understood. They loved fresh vegetables, and yes, they ate all they took. Since school started in just a few days, it was not a great loss.
In their teen years, my sons, David and Charlie, read some of the same books I did, science fiction and fantasy. One summer after he graduated from high school, Charlie and I read the same series of fantasy books and both of us were a bit disgusted with the premise of the author. The magical ability of the witches in this world was only available to women who were virgins. As a result, the men who wanted the power they had over the governing of the land began a war and raped every woman they could find.
Charlie was in his late teens and sexually active by his own admission. (As a mom, I often got entirely more information about my son’s life than I wanted.) He found the main line of the story stupid and written by a man who did not understand about the physical mechanics of sex or woman’s bodies. We talked about it, and he suggested we write a book where having a satisfying first sexual experience would trigger the magic. Thus in 2001 began what I called Sarita of Sparkle.
As we cowrote, I discovered while his poetry and narrative were lyrical, his dialog was stilted and dissonant. We agreed that he would do descriptions and narratives, and I would write the dialog. He went on with his life, serving three years in the US Navy as a machinist, then working as a roadie for traveling musicians. We tossed the story and writing back and forth but I was in graduate school, and he was suffering from a long-ago diagnosis. Charlie was bipolar. Because the VA was overloaded at the time, and his work was all contract, he did not have medical insurance. The help he needed did not come and in May 2009, he hung himself in the backyard of our home.
The loss of my son caused me to put the book away. In 2018, a group of friends began gathering at Sententia Vera in Dripping Springs to support each other as Emerging Writers. I read to them some of what Charlie and I had done, and they encouraged me to finish the story.
I reviewed what we had written and began redoing it. I was no longer teaching part time at Texas State and then, Covid. The quarantine gave me an excuse to stay in my office and write. I managed to do over 150,000 words in the first draft. I knew it was not great writing so as a birthday present, my children paid for a developmental editor to help me out. He read parts, gave advice, and I edited it down to about 90,000. He said it needed to be smaller if I was going to sell it. I argued that I would be skeptical of an agent who considered a first novel from an 80-year-old woman. I went with self-publication on Amazon.
Several friends bought copies of Surviving Higgins World: Change is the Only Option. The comments were, it was a good story, but hard to read. It had far too many named people in it. I believed in the story, so I wrote book two, Surviving Higgins World: Change or Chaos? After help from a good friend who edited the book, it too is self-published on Amazon.
So far, hardly anyone has bothered to read it, but those who have had the same reaction. In fact, my good friend said she loved the story but would have never finished it if it had not been my book.
So, while both books are available to you through this web page, the books are being rewritten. I will slowly publish the new copy here for your reading, I hope, pleasure.
Above Sulfur Creek
In the center of Austin, Texas, you will find Lady Bird Lake, formed by a dam on the Colorado River. About halfway along it, west of the freeway, it is joined by Barton Creek. Barton Creek rises west of town in Hays County among the hills where it has cut deep canyons. It is joined out near the county line by a small, seasonal creek which we call Sulfur Creek. (The county has a different name on the map, but they have never smelled the spring water seeping out of the banks into pools.)
On a hill above the confluence of Sulfur and Barton, we built our home more than 50-years ago. Over the years we raised five children, cut a bunch of cedar trees, and enjoyed Texas country living. As a reporter for our weekly newspaper, I did a column of general observation on nature, raising children, and other personal reflections. I will share some of those with you here.
Patricia K. Gibson
I am an Army Brat who attended 14 schools in 13 years but finally graduated from high school in Littleton, Colorado. This marks one for life.
I am a late bloomer. I attended the University of Wyoming for three years but received my bachelor’s degree in secondary education from the University of Northern Colorado in 1966. My MSIS (Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies) was a specialization in Career and Technical Education and was earned at Texas State in 2001. My doctorate was awarded in 2014 from North Central University in online education. I made it before I turned 65 but missed out on being the oldest one in my class. A gentleman from Africa got his doctorate just before his 85th birthday. I’ll bow to that accomplishment.
In my spare time, I have been a school bus driver, a newspaper reporter and editor, a web master, worked in a print shop doing typesetting and graphic design, written computer training manuals, and raised five children. I have always been a reader with a book or magazine or newspaper close at hand. My favorite genre is Science Fiction and Fantasy. I follow the Liaden Universe faithfully, have read all the books about Pern. I have read all of Lee and Miller, miss Anne McCaffery, and puzzle over how Isaac Asimov would deal with AI. While I have spent many years writing peer reviewed academic articles, retirement allowed me to finish the first volume of the science fiction series I started with my son. The story kept growing and book two is now available. Stay tuned, a humbled writer is working on a massive revision of all four books, plus a new origins volume.