The University of Mars by Michael D. Smith   A novel by Michael D. Smith
Published June 2024

eBook (223 pages)
Amazon (ASIN B0D67CW5GK)
Barnes and Noble (BN ID 2940179953357)
Books2Read (ISBN 9798227321541)
and other online retailers

trade paperback (210 pages)
Amazon (ISBN 9798327623859)

mass market paperback (361 pages)
lulu.com (ISBN 9781304293312)
Amazon (ISBN 9781304293312)

Background  |  Excerpt (Chapters 1-3 in PDF format)

cover art by Michael D. Smith

Eighteen-year-old Zeke Venan seeks comrades dedicated to the further evolution of humanity.

Eighteen-year-old Zeke longs to find a mythic university dedicated to the further evolution of the human race. He also seeks sanctuary from the decaying society of 2065, by which time the world has been conquered by the stagnant new religion of Carnationism. Zeke emigrates to Sydney, Australia to work in a Carnationist bookstore in an underground shopping center, and falls in love with Tansley, who owns a candle shop in the mall. After Tansley recovers from a serious car accident, Zeke convinces her to sell her store and accompany him to the wasteland of West Texas, recently devastated by war and polluted with nerve gas toxins, to enroll in a crackpot university in the ruined city of San Angelo. But Tansley quickly pegs this fraudulent University of Mars as a mockery of their dreams, and they both begin to wonder whether aliens have infiltrated the school to research their own psychological flaws.