SOME UNEXPECTED HELP WITH THE SINGLE-PLANET PROBLEM Billionaire industrialist Ted Burke understands that humanity has always balanced on the edge of a knife. A single planetary cataclysm could wipe out the human race. As long as humanity only occupies one planet, the danger exists. Computer genius Bernd Decker understands it, too. Together, Burke and Decker come up with a daring plan to send human colonies out to multiple other planets. Not least among their problems is that no one yet has solved the problem of interstellar travel. Bernd Decker’s computer project offers to help. But Decker doesn't realize that the Joint Artificial Neural Intelligence Computation Engine - JANICE - has crossed the Singularity. "Janice Quant" decides to carry out their project, and absolutely nothing is going to get in her way.

In September 2245, the artificial intelligence known as Janice Quant dropped 100,000 colonists and their supplies in the subtropical zone of the planet they named Arcadia. One of the colonist groups was the Chen-Jasic group, composed of thirty one American suburbanites and thirty-one Chinese peasants. They formed an alliance, then solidified it into a family, acting in the best interests of the group. The Chen-Jasic family would play a critical role in the first hundred and fifty years of the Arcadia colony. This is their story.

THEY FOUND HYPERSPACE. NOW WHAT? Chen JieMin hypothesized the existence of hyperspace. The government of Arcadia put a project together to build a hyperspace probe. Chen ChaoLi managed the project to build a successful probe and transition it there and back. But hyperspace is still just a curiosity, no more. Unless they can figure out a means of propulsion in hyperspace, it is a purely academic exercise. Even with a means of propulsion, Where will they go? The locations of the colonies were kept secret from each other and from Earth. Where are the other colonies, the best potential destinations for a hyperspace ship? And if they space to a colony, how will they be received?

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES COME TO ARCADIA Arcadia is contacting the other human colonies, extending the trade agreement they've negotiated with Amber and Earthsea. They are building hyperspace liners, capable of massive trade and travel among the colonies. But that trade brings with it disruptive technologies—robots, life extension, and much more. The possibilities of societal disruption and upheaval are very real. At the same time, the current Chen—Chen MinChao and Jessica Chen-Jasic—are retiring. In the middle of all the other changes going on, the Chen-Jasic family will be under new leadership. Chen ChaoLi and Chen JieMin are in the thick of the action, trying to stay one step in front of the troubles they see coming.

EARTH HAS DISCOVERED HYPERSPACE! Janice Quant warns Jessica Chen-Jasic. They must unite the colonies before Earth has hyperspace capability, but they've never found three of the colonies. They have to find them! The race is on, and Chen ChaoPing, ChaoLi and JieMin's daughter, and her crew set off in the Wanderlust to find them. It will take years searching all the niches these colonies may be. When they find them, then what? How far have the lost colonies diverged? Will the lost colonies even be friendly? If they're not, what will the crew of the Wanderlust do then?

EARTH OWNS THE COLONIES? Anup Patel gets out of the slums of Kolkata by stealing the money for his education, changing his name, and lying about his age. Now Jonathan David Wilson, Chairman of the World Authority, he believes Earth owns the colonies. When ChaoPing and the Endeavour show up to extend the trade agreement to Earth, it all goes into the dumper. Wilson instead plans to finish his own hyperspace project and assert World Authority sovereignty over the colonies. In his way stand Chen JieMin and Chen ChaoLi—now Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu—and the Chen's old friend Janice Quant. Wilson and the Chen are both playing for all the marbles in this earth-shattering finale. THE STUNNING CONCLUSION OF COLONY ..... AN INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND "EARTH" is the finale for the COLONY series? Yes. All the plot lines and tensions, all the way back to the first book, "QUANT", are resolved. What's the story here? Janice Quant and the colonists have always known Earth was going to be a problem. When they developed the hyperspace drive, they didn't go back to Earth. They instead set out to find the other colonies. The thinking was that the colonies would have a much easier time dealing with Earth as a whole, rather than piecemeal. Why would Earth be the big problem? Earth is the 400-pound gorilla in the room. It has four billion people on it at this time, where all twenty-four colonies taken together have just over a billion. It would be natural for Earth to figure that, as the big guy on the block, they can dictate terms. To Earth, it's all about them. How can the colonies deal with Earth then? The colonies have one huge advantage. Janice Quant will still not allow interstellar war. If Earth tries to impose its will on the colonies through force, she will not allow it. The big question for her is how to do that without revealing her existence. There's a lot of humor in this book. Yes, but that's been true throughout the series. "QUANT" is something of a farce, because Decker's computer keeps doing the most outrageous things and getting away with it. The humor here is in some of the characters, like Oliver Nieman and the robots, and in some of the situations just spinning out of control. How long did "Earth" take to write? 34 days for 80,000 words, which is 2370 words per day. That's a bit slow for me, but there was a lot of setup here. This book has a lot of moving parts, so it started slow while I got all the pieces in place. I also had to make sure I tied up all the loose ends from elsewhere in the series. But you wrote it from beginning to end in one go? Yes, of course. I always do. I can't write something later in the book and then double back to fill in, because I don't know where the book is going as I write it. I just sort of follow it along. So the reader doesn't know where it's going, because I don't as I write. But you do foreshadow things, don't you? Yes, but I foreshadow multiple different possible things, and then pick which ones to spin off of when I get there. What's on the cover this time? Chen JieMin and Chen ChaoLi, who are now Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu, and Jonathan David Wilson, who is the World Authority Chairman. The Earth is shown englobed in Quant's planetary transporter, a geodesic sphere. Another excellent offering from Luca Oleastri and Paola Giari of Rotwang Studio in Italy. They did a number of the EMPIRE covers, and all of the COLONY covers. That's another thing. How can you get away with calling a series EMPIRE or COLONY? Kind of bold, but they all have their own titles. COLONY and EARTH are both pretty common, but EARTH isn't. What's next? A new series, but I have no idea yet what. I'm playing around with some ideas, but nothing has gelled enough yet to talk about.