Loveoid
by JL Morin
Cygnus 1st Place Sci-fi Award Winner; eLit Silver Medalist 2022; Book Excellence Award Finalist; ScreenCraft Semifinalist (top 12% of submissions); Fish shortlist (top 4% of submissions); Global Thriller Book Awards for High Stakes and Lab Lit Novels shortlist
Prose Writing Competition ‘Second Rounder‘
Listen to the beginning
An American euthanasist and an Egyptian astrological farmer delve into the evolution of the collective soul, as an extremophile virus targets a select few.
Cli-Fi at its best, where the twisted scientific changes of our present-day lives catalyze love in parallel universes. Loveoid grapples with the dilemmas of the latest generation of humankind ⎯ that the loving don’t survive. In the present-day novel Loveoid, Olivia unravels a virus that only harms the corporate upper crust. In combat with media, governments and corporations, as love-lacking predators on top kill off life on earth, Olivia finds love, and comes to question her own ideals. The impossibly mixed match encounters life-threatening obstacles, as Khalid elicits her darkest fears, yet lights the way with astrological farming, ancient holistic remedies and spiritualism. Will love allow them to stay human?
Loveoid
by JL Morin
Genre: eco-fiction, cli-fi, literary fiction,
speculative fiction, sci-fi, romance
Hard cover, case laminate: $15.80; ISBN: 978-1-941861-83-7; March 16, 2022
Paperback: $11.95; ISBN: 978-1-941861-54-7
eBook: $9.99; ISBN: 978-1-947386-29-7
Audiobook: $2.99; ISBN: 978-1-947386-01-3
December 6, 2020; Pages: 278
Praise for Loveoid
“Loveoid is a wildly unique and immensely realized science fiction thriller set in a dystopian present in which overpopulation is decimating the Earth and its natural resources at a rapid rate. Additionally, the world of the story is incredibly deep, filled with dense detail and nuance that give the impression of a very realized universe.”
⎯ScreenCraft
“With a new, scary virus as the backdrop, Olivia and Khalid navigate love, cures, and a different world. A timely novel with an interesting message about love and nature”
“About time some serious writers and artists took on the biggest issue of our time⎯⎯maybe all time. This novel shows that engagement fully underway!”
⎯Bill McKibben, Founder 350.org
“The smart choice to set this eco-thriller in the present brings home the tenebrous climate prognostications we usually reserve for another year.”
“I take heart from JL Morin’s authorial intuition: true love is what eventually will separate man from vegetable.”
⎯A. Bergsten, author, The Rift
“As overpopulation grows, natural resources are depleted, species go extinct, and the polar ice caps continue to melt. People now check into euthanasia hotels to escape a hopeless future…. The story’s premise is interesting.”
“This is a short, interesting read bordering on eco-fiction that would make for a fascinating movie”
⎯Denver Public Library
“In Loveoid, J.L. Morin spins a tale of awakening and vision, a tale that has hopefulness in it but does not overdo the optimism. Morin writes with both passion and great intelligence, at ease with complex philosophical ideas. She is not afraid to tackle head-on the most pressing and dire issues of today, and she does so with focus, storytelling verve, and an admirable clarity.”
“Loveoid is a rare and most accurate reflection of contemporary LGBTI people: I both love and find highly enlightening JL Morin’s particular reference to the Navajo culture—it reminds me of the recent apology of Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau for suppressing the ‘two-spirit Canadian Indigenous peoples’ values and beliefs’. Many ancient cultures accepted non-binary people, and it is important to be constantly reminded of this, given the current confusion, deliberate misunderstandings and hatred around this subject. Also, focusing on love (rather than sex, which is primarily linked to reproduction) is the perfect romantic, humane and noble premise.”
—Dimitris Politis, author, LGBTI rights champion
“Loveoid is one of the most incredibly meaningful books I’ve read in recent times. Author J.L. Morin, very cleverly discusses so many topics in one story. We, being in a pandemic situation right now, can relate to the story so much. After reading this book, my faith in love is restored since I, too, believe that love is the cure for many ailments in this world.”
—Madhuri Palaji, author and book reviewer, The Clipped Nightingale
“Loveoid, the new novel from JL Morin, aims to change the evolutionary trajectory of life on Earth by putting power into the hands of those who love rather than those who prey…. The often poetic narrative looks at life on a grand scale while also magnifying a story of unlikely lovers…. Most intriguing and satisfying are Morin’s blending of Nature on Earth—light, shadow, sea turtle, snake, extinct species,and sandstorm—with self and ponderance. The author lifts the gaze of humans to what exists outside our walls and windows and establishes how these things shape and inspire us. Breathing life into ancient wisdom, Loveoid demonstrates how we might fit in with Nature, or get back to it. How we might preserve it before it’s too late.”
—Mary Woodbury, eco-literature curator, Dragonfly.eco
“The author is quite obviously a talented writer with a flowering imagination….I loved the thought that the act of loving could cure. ‘Love heals all wounds.’ ”
—Tattooed Bibliophile
News
ScreenCraft Names Short Story Semifinalists: Semifinalists have been announced for the 2017 ScreenCraft Short Story Contest, representing the top 12 percent of submissions received —MovieBytes
On the ‘New and Noteworthy’ shelf —NewPages
Quotes
” ‘Animals don’t love,’ she said. ‘Is that what you think? Let me do the thinking.'”
*
“If money’s not a problem, it will be.”
*
He rolled his eyes. “They told me who you were with these last few months. What’s next, Olivia, a saber-toothed tiger?”
*
The dilemma ebbed from every chain of life, the loving perished, while predators stalked the food chain, chain of command, blockchain…
*
“They might want to put him out of his misery. Euthanasia is legal here, as is assisted suicide.”
As secretary to the director, she actually felt for Luther, with a kind of love that wouldn’t let her do the obvious.
*
Olivia nodded doubtfully, unsure she’d even want to go on living inside a giant mind with galaxies for neurons. She found it highly unlikely that she’d gravitated toward any particular constellation happening to brand the sky when she’d ‘manifested on the material plane’. If she could make such an impression on the universe, she would have done it already in the lab.
*
ON GLOBALIZATION AND TERRORISM
“We’re in World War III…Chéri.”
“You realized? With three eyes closed! Laisse tomber. You’re safe here. I’m not a terrorist. I don’t even like globalization.”
*
“We also didn’t agree with your linking overpopulation to a rise in homosexuality,” said a willowy scientist.
“Well, it would champion homosexuals as a cure for overpopulation, but why get hung up on sex? The more interesting issue is love. For man to use people and worship things is robotic. No surprise that nature would force him to re-connect with his roots.”
“You say ‘his’.”
“When you bring in a female case, I’ll add ‘her’.”
Of course, there were plenty of female cases, just none running the top corporations and getting the red-carpet treatment.
The discussion proceeded with pre-ordained circularity. The scientists exchanged glances. One muttered, “Love as a survival skill!”
About the Author
JL Morin grew up in inner-city Detroit. She proffered moral support while her parents sacrificed all to a failed system. Wondering what the Japanese were doing right, she decamped to Tokyo. Her debut Japan novel, Sazzae, won an eLit Gold Medal, and a Living Now Book Award. Her second novel, Travelling Light, was a USA Best Book Awards finalist, and her third, Trading Dreams, became ‘Occupy’s first bestselling novel’. Her climate fiction novel, Nature’s Confession, won first place in the Dante Rossetti Book Awards; a Readers’ Favorite Book Award; a LitPick 5-Star Review Award; and an excerpt received an Honorable Mention in the Eco-Fiction Story Contest, published in the Winds of Change anthology of eco-fiction. Her second cli-fi novel, Loveoid, is a Cygnus Sci-fi 1st place winner, among others.
Her cli-fi novels are on course syllabi at many universities. Ivy League professors have facilitated discussions with JL Morin’s writing, and it is discussed in textbooks, such as Science Fiction and Climate Change: A Sociological Approach, by Andrew Milner, and J. R. Burgmann, 2020, published by Oxford University Press.
Her most recent work, Tuck-a-tuck Dragon, is a diverse rhyming children’s book illustrated by children throughout their childhood from the ages of 2–21.
JL Morin’s writing draws on a breadth of experience. She traded derivatives in New York while studying nights for her MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business; worked for the Federal Reserve Bank posted to the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center; presented the news as a TV broadcaster; and she is adjunct faculty at Boston University. Morin’s fiction has appeared in The Harvard Advocate and Harvard Yisei, and her articles and translations in The Huffington Post, Library Journal, The Detroit News, European Daily, Livonia Observer Eccentric Newspapers, The Harvard Crimson, and Agence France Presse while she worked in their Middle East Headquarters.
