Arcadia

In September 2245, the artificial intelligence known as Janice Quant dropped 100,000 colonists and their supplies in the subtropical zone of the planet they named Arcadia.

One of the colonist groups was the Chen-Jasic group, composed of thirty one American suburbanites and thirty-one Chinese peasants. They formed an alliance, then solidified it into a family, acting in the best interests of the group.

The Chen-Jasic family would play a critical role in the first hundred and fifty years of the Arcadia colony.

This is their story.

THE STUNNING SEQUEL TO QUANT

AN INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND

This is the sequel to QUANT?

Yes, ARCADIA is the sequel to QUANT. At the end of QUANT, Janice Quant, the computer entity, drops off colonists and their supplies on twenty-four planets. One of those planets is Arcadia. This is the story of that colony, and picks up when they are dropped on the planet.

The main characters in ARCADIA are the Chen-Jasic group?

Yes, the minor characters in QUANT were the suburbanites from the Carolina administrative region. At the end of QUANT, they formed an alliance with the Chen family, a group of poor peasant farmers from the Chingqing administrative region in southwest China. That group becomes the major characters in ARCADIA.

Is Janice Quant in ARCADIA?

Yes, although she is not a major part of the action on the planet Arcadia. She is off about her own affairs, but we follow along with those in ARCADIA.

You organized this book a little differently than your other novels.

ARCADIA is organized as four novellas, each of which covers a critical period in the story of Arcadia colony. The first one is obvious - the establishment of the colony. The novellas are separated by long periods, usually fifty years. In between the novellas, we get interludes into what Janice Quant is up to.

What's next for the COLONY series?

Next is Galactic Survey. The colonies were all dropped off on widely separated planets, and Janice Quant didn't tell anyone where they were. So when hyperspace travel is developed, allowing interstellar trade and travel, there is nowhere to go, because no one knows where the other human planets are. So they have to go out and look.

You step on some cultural norms in ARCADIA.

Of course. There's no reason to think that all of human culture's developed phobias and practices will survive transplant to very different conditions. Among others here: some of the couples, married and bearing children, are absurdly young by today's standards; the colonists have a relaxed attitude toward nudity, because initially clothes are expensive to make, to wash, and to maintain, and the colony location is a tropical paradise; and the average age of the population is absurdly young - fifteen or so - so people begin working early. There are no people here going to school until 25, and only then ...