My novel Admirable Pursuit is for older readers--teens and up. I actually started it well before Comet Jack but finished it after. When I heard (via @ChuckWendig on twitter) that Strange Chemistry, the YA arm of Angry Robot, was running an Open Door, calling for unagented, unpublished, completed YA SF novels, naturally I jumped.
I had to jump. I heard about it with just four days left in the 2-week submission window (which ends today, April 30th).
As part of the submission process, Strange Chemistry asked for a one-sentence summary of the book. Admirable Pursuit is almost twice as long as Comet Jack. It is told through multiple points of view using short, punchy, action-filled chapters, with an interwoven twisty-turny plot set on two planets and a starship, against a backdrop of ultra-capitalist distopia/utopia (depends on your tax bracket). So, yeah, I couldn't imagine boiling it down to one sentence.
The elevator pitch might be: Indiana Jones meets Dune by way of Blade Runner... for teens!
Those of you pulling for me will be encouraged to know that's not what I put in the submission. After much hemming, hawing, and eyebrow pulling, here's how I boiled it down:
Admirable Pursuit in one sentence:
Wendy Veritage, the teenage heir to her Family's fortune, runs away to carve her own path in a future world of haves and have-nots, and ends up in the middle of a battle for humanity's future on a far away planet where a mysterious power allows people to experience their full potential.
Does that sound like something you might be interested in?
Strange Chemistry will let me know.
