Help Giona Create A New LGBT-Themed Sci-fi Saga

My name is Giona Ghimenti and I am an aspiring Italian writer.

I was born thirty years ago in a family of master glassmakers, painters, watchmakers, cooks, and potters. I grew up unable to create with my hands, surrounded by material art. I crouched a bit in the books, a bit on video games and a little I lost myself in green and blue temples that surround my country of origin, Marina di Pisa (in Tuscany). Over time I understood that my real road was also a road of creation. And that in a certain sense my hands also had their way. Only the material that I could mold was impalpable. It was made up only of words. But with those words, I understood that I could shape entire worlds, civilizations, existences. That I was able to play in order to make them play or to give them colour, taste, touch. That growing awareness pushed me to believe it all the way, creating the Eterna. The Eterna, what gives the name to the whole saga that I would like to tell you.

Eterna is the title of the science fiction saga that I have been writing for some years. It is a saga in which the classic space opera setting, reinforced with elements of likelihood typical of hard science fiction, becomes functional to a basic message.

The saga is, in fact, set in an apparently multicultural society. A society where dozens of sentient species coexist without racism, without homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, without gender inequality. However, society hides an ancient clash between two factions. The clash between the dominant moral and philosophical order (represented by the Taoterna) and a new type of diversity (represented by the Keros), symbol of the clash between absolutism and relativism. The Taoterna impose a unique vision of the world, violating freedom and proclaiming itself as the sole bearer of truth, order, and security. They point to new types of diversity such as abnormalities, abominations, criminalize them and hunt them down. The Keros try to survive the this by promoting new forms of enhancement of diversity. The Taoterna hunt the Keros, guilty of being different, of being born with capacities that, not understood, frighten the status quo.

Every saga has a beginning. And "Eterna, the Founder’s Ship" is the beginning of this journey.

A journey that starts in the Yapan Galaxy, in whose remote boundaries the life of Xenyo, and his two best friends, Eval and Matt, are about to turn into an incredible adventure.

Xenyo is a young thanasim, fatherless. The mother, Lhoopa, is a secularist and a progressive, hated and threatened by the Taoterna. With an indolent and backward character, Xenyo lives a comfortable and monotonous life in the capital of the peaceful planet Glythoon, in the company of his best friends Matt (a human) and Eval (a sankaku). However, Xenyo hides an obsession: a nightmare that torments him for years, with the recurring and mysterious name "Shael" and the phrase "the Eterna awaits you".

One afternoon he overhears a conversation with his mother and discovers an escape plan involving him, Matt and Eval: their lives are endangered by the Taoterna. That night his sleep is tormented by a new nightmare in which everything is destroyed in a flash of light of an absolute white colour and a voice urges him to escape.

The next day a brutal attack devastates Glythoon. Xenyo flees with Eval and Matt. They barely reach the spaceport where Lhoopa awaits them in the company of the mysterious Krex (an Espeonian) who, with her, plans the escape the day before.

Fleeing from Glythoon, Xenyo and his friends will not leave their lives behind, but they will discover something that goes far beyond their imagination, becoming part of a chessboard whose old game is about to come to an end.

I started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to finance the editing of the first novel with a professional Italian writer and (if we exceed the first target) to finance the translation in English. The goal is to be able to propose to some Italian publishers (and maybe foreign) a manuscript of quality and edited in detail, hoping to be able to publish with them. I believe very much in the value and importance of the study and care of what is written. I want my novel to of good quality. And to do this I think that a writer alone does not have all the tools to improve how to write, but that serves the support of a good editor and a good publishing house behind them. And I really hope I can count on your support to be able to succeed in this venture and give you something new and beautiful to read!

You can support me here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1040357310/eterna-la-nave-del-fondatore

But also on Eterna Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eternalanavedelfondatore/