My novel CommWealth (no, there’s really no exclamation point in the title) has been accepted for publication by Class Act Books. Publication in eBook format is scheduled for June 2015.

CommWealth describes a society where there’s no legal claim to private property. Any object from your house to the clothes you’re wearing can be demanded by anyone, to be enjoyed for thirty days before anyone else can request it. The main characters are actors in a theatrical troupe who try to adapt to this chaos, but they get investigated by CommWealth authorities and wind up starting a suicidal revolution. This may be slightly dystopian, but it’s not science fiction. I don’t know if you’d call the novel mainstream/literary or not; I confess I’ve never really understood what either of those terms really means to the publishing world. CommWealth also has some hilarious moments–although I know it’s terrible to laugh at your own jokes–but then again this isn’t a “humorous” genre either.

In addition to my Jack Commer science fiction series from Double Dragon Publishing, I have several other non-SF novels, and I’m happy to be able to at least get a start on putting some of them out there.

The image isn’t intended for the book cover; it’s just a painting I did long ago when I was writing the first draft. It shows several of the main characters gathering at the Cup of Fog coffee shop, the main theater stage for the story. CommWealth actually evolved from a ’90’s novel I wrote called Property, but the book is much revised and definitely a modern Mike novel. (It has to be! Allan had a laptop that had all of a 140 MB hard drive back then!)

There is (as there always is) more info on sortmind.com, including the start of a character images page.

Copyright 2014 by Michael D. Smith