Celebrate Black Speculative Fiction Month: Meet Author Alan D Jones

Everything has a cost, the universe is resolved in this.  And so it is too with our very own lives; for each action a price; for each decision, a consequence; for each path, a toll.  Even for the very air we breathe, a star had to die to produce the elements and complex molecules needed carry on the chain of life.

Every aspect of our lives carries a price. Seeking an education costs leisure time. Not pursuing an education costs one future opportunities. Having children will costs resources. Not having children will carry the expense of not knowing what could have been and will with certainty break a chain which had remained unbroken since the dawn of creation.

          Thus, it is from this perspective that I have written Sacrifices.  Yes, it is an adventure story, but it is also a study in properties of sacrifice. Here we define sacrifice as the act of one yielding for the sake of another. To offer up a piece of your existence back to the universe to reflect back that which was freely given. In my book Sacrifices, each of the central characters are faced with the choice to offer up their own unique sacrifice for the sake of the others. In some cases the sacrifices are overt, while others remain hidden for years or are never revealed.  And yet each cause has an effect.  The lives of these four sisters mirror the evolution of the civil rights struggle, but their story shares commonness with any tale of sacrifice.  Ageless and descended from melding of angels and humans each of these ladies could have easily opted to live lives of opulence and ease.  But in the end each chose to heed the spirit within despite the cost. And while these instances are often transformative for the beneficiary, they are always so for the one offering the sacrifice.

But you need not look to works of fiction to find such heroes. The one who endures the job he or she knows is killing their body and spirit for the sake of their loved ones is heroic.  And so are the countless number of mothers who have sacrificed their own happiness, for the well being of their children. And even the writer who shares a bit of themselves within every word they write. They too have a place in this ageless story.  Be mindful too, that sacrifice does not always reference a taking on things.  In fact, it can be argued that the more typical sacrifice is that of self denial, be it leaving a little in the pot for someone else or something as simple as turning away from temptation.  In the end, sacrifice is really about taking your place in line when called.

          And so it is, and every shall be until time is no more, when the properties of light and mass are merely a memory of the eternal, as our spirits look back at this very moment and smile.

Alan has an MBA from Georgia State University's Robinson School of Business. Currently, he works as an Oracle Business Software consultant. His latest work is Sacrifices and is the prequel to Alan's 2009 To Wrestle with Darkness. Visit him: http://alandjones.com