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January 12, 2025 – New Novel Turns Science Fiction Heavenward
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Approved Author Bios
100-word Bio
Dan Whicker’s first novel, Planet of Eden, was born during Dan’s 28-year career in the fields of communications and marketing. It is the dialogue in the novel that he enjoys the most: “I want the characters to tell the story. That’s what makes my writing so different.” Dan’s intellectual interests are vast, but his affinity for science fiction keeps him exploring that genre. “I challenge the status quo in sci-fi,” he says. “Speculative fiction that is truly great should be truly speculative. The whole story should make us think in new and better ways. That’s where the magic happens.”
500-word Bio
Planet of Eden is Dan Whicker’s first novel, but writing has been a major part of his 30-year career in communications and marketing. In fact, being a professional communicator has made Dan a pro at creating believable dialogue.
“I’ve had to write in many voices over the years,” Dan says, “it made sense that I should be able to bring fictional people to life just like I did for real people by giving them words to say.”
From advertising copy to speech and script writing to online content creation, Dan spent years wordsmithing for a variety of businesses, organizations, industries, fields, and audiences. All the while, he developed a love for writing and knew it was time to apply his skills to the world of fictional storytelling.
Dan reveals that “Planet of Eden actually began as a film script.” The earliest version of the story was like a movie playing in his head. “I think it’s like that for a lot of authors,” he says. “Many of us can see the story being played out in our minds. Then, we have to figure out how to draw that story out, whether through the visual arts or the written word. Once I put pen to paper and fingers to the keyboard, the story took off and I knew it had to become a novel.”
As the story grew, Dan then realized that one novel would not contain it, so he planned for a series and kept at it.
“It took years to write Eden,” he admits. “In between, I had all the usual life stuff—family, work, education, and I had to leave room for my own care—but I kept at it, learning how to become a better writer in the process.”
It is the dialogue in the novel that Dan enjoys the most. As he explains it: “I want the characters to tell the story. That’s what makes my writing so different. I want the reader to be absorbed into the story, vicariously exploring and unraveling mysteries as if being right there in the middle of the action.”
Though he loves fiction, Dan also likes to write about subjects as diverse as modern culture, philosophy, metaphysics, religion, health, leadership, and relationships. With degrees in business and theology, his varied interests have helped him as a communicator and storyteller.
“It helps to be well-rounded,” he notes, “especially in fiction writing. To become that, you write about a lot of different things. Fortunately, my career in communications provided outlets for me to cover many, many subjects in my writing.”
Today, that shows in Dan’s deep and thought-provoking blog posts and articles.
“If nothing else, I’ll get you thinking” he says. “If I can get you to think deeply and differently, I’ll consider my writing career successful.”
When Dan is not behind a computer, he is honing his singing voice and teaching himself to play the guitar. Often, you can find him doing something outdoors in Tennessee where he lives with his two sons.
Planet of Eden: Book Synopsis
Growing up as an orphan and bouncing between foster homes, Jay Harrison always hoped that someday he would find the perfect family. Now at age twenty-two, working at a youth ranch while trying to figure out his future as an adult, he has all but given up on the idea. That is, until his routine camping trip turns into an alien abduction that puts him face-to-face with a family from another world.
Travel to the planet that we call Earth has been banned since recorded time. For the peaceful Ah-Ahey people of the distant, Eden-like planet Hourou, it is intergalactic law. For their rebellious kin, the Dah-Ahey, however, such rules were made to be broken.
When some Dah-Ahey rebels steal a spacecraft and crash it on the forbidden planet of Earth, a family of Ah-Ahey explorers must also violate the travel ban to capture the rogue interlopers and recover the wrecked ship before the inhabitants discover them. When the mission goes awry and six Earth people are accidentally and very publicly captured along with the Dah-Ahey thieves, two planets inhabited with contradictory people are suddenly thrown into chaos as each contends with the existence of its opposite.
Twenty-two-year-old loner Jay Harrison, young married couple April and Paul Theele, university professor Ellis Minister, medical student Yori Shimizu, and government official Perry Carlson must learn to trust each other and their alien hosts when they are reluctantly taken to the Utopian planet of Hourou. There, amidst an archetypal paradise, they experience living among a near perfect race of humans who seem to have remained isolated from all evils…or have they?
On Earth, Laura Turgis is tasked with investigating the world’s first bona fide alien abduction while society unravels around her. With their long-held beliefs about extraterrestrial life shattered, how will her people react to her discovery that the aliens are coming back again…to retrieve one of their own who was left behind?
“PLANET OF EDEN will awaken the part of you that is seeking what was once lost and encourage you to find it again. It is a novel to experience through the eyes of its characters as they lead you through an adventure of self-discovery on an idyllic world. We all crave Eden. It was hardwired into us. If you knew where it was, would you go? This is your invitation to join me in the search.” –Author Dan Whicker
Short Book Description
Snatched up accidently by benevolent alien beings, six people from diverse backgrounds must learn to trust each other and their hosts when they are reluctantly taken to a distant planet that has remained isolated from all evils…or has it?
Novels by Dan Whicker
Title: Planet of Eden
Published on: May 7, 2024
Publisher: TALIA SEK
ISBN Info: Softcover: 979-8-9899359-0-1, Hardcover: 979-8-9899359-1-8, E-book ASIN: B0CVFDRK5M
Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure, Religious Fiction
Q & A with Dan About Planet of Eden
Who will enjoy reading Planet of Eden?
I wrote Planet of Eden to appeal to a wide audience. I like to say that it’s sci-fi, but not hardcore sci-fi. You don’t have to be a science fiction fan to enjoy it, but fans of that genre won’t be disappointed either.
Eden is very different, so it’s hard to compare to other books. Instead, I point to the Avatar movies since many people have seen them. Avatar is sci-fi, but it is also a story of adventure, exploration, deep ideas about life, the struggle between good and evil, and even romance. What makes the movies so good is that there is something in them everyone can relate to–even though they’re sci-fi films. That’s how it is with Planet of Eden.
Are their any other similarities to Avatar? Was the movie an inspiration for your book?
No. Don’t get me wrong. Planet of Eden is a very different story. I’m just describing the relational aspects. It’s interesting, though, that I was writing Eden at the same time James Cameron was developing his Avatar. He’s a bit older than me, but I’m guessing we may have been inspired by some of the same things. When I saw Avatar for the first time, one part that really blew me away was the scene where the Pandoran jungle lit up at night. I said, “No way! He’s got glowing plants!” Well, it happens that glow-in-the-dark stuff fascinated me growing up, so I put some glowing plants in Planet of Eden, too. It was fun to see a visual representation that was similar to what I had written in my manuscript years earlier. Go, James!
So what did inspire you to write Planet of Eden?
I suppose I was tired of watching sci-fi movies and reading books that presupposed a purely naturalistic explanation for life. Planet of Eden is for readers who appreciate alternative worldviews in speculative fiction. Can God show up in sci-fi? Why not? I asked myself, “What if there is other intelligent life in the universe, but what if that life was actually created by God? Why must evolution be used to explain everything?”
What’s interesting is that some of the earliest science fiction presupposed just that. Check out some really old books or movies and that’s what you will find. Sort of makes you wonder what changed.
How deep does the book go into religious concepts?
The theme is evident, but my intent was not to be “preachy.” The foundation–or presupposition–is that God exists. From there, we just dive into a really interesting story. You certainly don’t have to be a “religious person” to enjoy reading Eden. My Christian readers will notice the implications peppered throughout. Others will appreciate that I didn’t take that too far. I make no apologies for my worldview. Every artist puts some of himself or herself into their art. It’s expected. For those who are undecided about the big questions of life, I hope Planet of Eden will expose them to an alternative view.
Speaking of exposure, another obvious theme in Planet of Eden is body acceptance. The characters from Earth must learn to accept naked aliens with flawless human bodies. Will readers be surprised by the nudity in the book?
It goes both ways; the natives of Hourou must also accept Earth aliens who come to their perfect world with a sense of shame and perversion about their bodies.
That’s true. So, as an author, how do you handle that dynamic?
[Laughs] Very carefully! The first thing I’ll say regarding this subject is that the nudity in Planet of Eden is not there to titillate, but to educate. The inhabitants of the planet Hourou exist in a natural and very pure environment. Because their culture hasn’t been corrupted by perverted views of sexually and the human body, it’s quite normal for them to live their lives uncovered. This is completely out of the norm for most citizens of Earth. Like the six people who were accidently taken to the alien home world, readers will explore a near-perfect society that challenges what we all usually accept as “normal.”
Now, it’s not without difficulty that our heroes live and interact with the Hourou natives. The Earthers represent us—with all our misperceptions, insecurities, hang-ups, and fears. It surely doesn’t help that the people of Hourou have flawless bodies. But being around them doesn’t just remind our heroes of their own physical imperfections. More importantly, it reminds them of their moral imperfections.
It sounds like a nod to what happened in the biblical Eden.
It is, yes, from the first book of the Bible, Genesis: “Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame” [Genesis 2:25]. Hourou is the “Planet of Eden.” It’s the closest that human beings can get to the perfection that existed in the Garden of Eden that was once on Earth. Imagine what it must have been like to live in that garden—a perfect place made for perfect people. Hourou could never match it. The universe has been tainted. Somehow, though, corruption took longer to reach that place. The people there maintained innocence much longer and then strove to hold onto it. For them, then, there is no need to cover a shame that does not exist.
You handle it quite well in your descriptions and dialogue.
Thanks. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to treat it as natural for the aliens, but it was also important for me to show the uneasiness of the Earthers. It’s an extra layer of tension tossed onto an already impossible situation…no pun intended.
It probably helps to add some humor into it, too.
Sure. I did that in the book, too, but not at the expense of treating the subject with respect. There must be a reconciliation between nudity, social acceptability, and religion. I want readers to think about where their own worldviews fit into that as they experience it through the eyes of the characters. For those who have not read Planet of Eden yet, I say do not let the idea of “naked aliens” throw you for a loop. It’s not what you think.
There is more of this interview to come! Check back!
