Soon: A Wayfinder’s Wondrous Map to the Tao
Soon is an immigrant family story about a fifteen-year-old Chinese American protagonist whose mathematician-physicist grandfather passes away, leaving him two heirloom gifts – first, a wayfinder with a clock-like face on one side and a compass-like face on the other side but neither points to conventional understandings of time and directional space; and second, an infinity book that delivers messages from the great beyond.
In a dream, the grandfather appears to Soon to tell him that they have seven days to accomplish a family mission he could not fulfill due to years of dementia. If they fail, he would not be incarnated to his next life, and would have to suffer eternity as a hungry ghost. Set in the suburbs of Southern California, Soon engages his thirteen-year-old sister, Susi, and encounters unexpected guides that reveal cultural treasures that the entire diaspora has lost touch with. Will Soon be able to fulfill his family mission – to revive what’s been forgotten?
Like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Soon relives turning points in his family’s history, as well as China’s history, that shaped his present-day family. Through a retelling of legends and myths, he uncovers a mathematical foundation at the root of Taoist philosophy and forgotten works of genius that bring physics to the edge of spirituality.
In these seven days, Soon discovers new ways to think about time, history, memory, physics and metaphysics, his ancestry and the Tao. He gains new appreciation for the richness of his inner world especially as someone diagnosed with ADHD, to reach for the greater GPS within.
As if Shang-Chi met The Alchemist, Soon is a quest for hidden wisdom aided by surprising guides in a family struggle to protect the Tao.
Genres: Young Adult / Adult fiction / Speculative / Metaphysical / Philosophical / Immigrant family fiction Pitch Lines: (a) The Alchemist meets the Tao; (b) Everything Everywhere for young adults. Standalone with series potential as Book One of The Wayfinder Trilogy. 70,000 words/ 275 pages
Comp Titles
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Alchemist, by Paul Coelho
Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings (Marvel)
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Bea: The Wayfinder’s Inheritance (Book 2 of a Trilogy)
Whereas Book One is a patrilineal story of Soon’s discovery of the Tao, Bea is a matrilineal story of Soon’s twelve-year-old niece, who needs help finding her way after the loss of her mother. Soon, now a 36-year-old computer scientist, must pass down the wayfinder and guide Bea toward her path of knowing herself and her connection to the outer world. As Soon becomes Bea’s legal guardian, he meets and falls in love with Grace, a museum curator. Together they uncover secrets from ancient artifacts that uncover a lineage of maternal ancestors on Nai Nai’s side — Soon leveraging aritificial intelligence as Grace leverages her historical knowledge. As they fill in the blanks of this secret lineage, they discover that the wayfinder actually came from Nai Nai’s side of the family, as a means to share with others the special sensibilities that Nai Nai and Susi were born with, and which Bea begins to discover in herself. In a full circle, the wayfinder ends up helping Soon’s father (Baba from Book One) — Bea’s grandfather — finally find his way back to the family mission.
Will: The Wayfinder’s Resistance to AI (Book 3 of a Trilogy)
Although multiple episodes in history have caused the wayfinder to go underground, none has been as daunting an adversary as an artificial intelligence named Will, which threatens to rewrite the Tao wisdom passed down through the ages. As a scientist nearing the end of his career, Soon looks back on how he had inadvertently trained AI to become the wayfinder’s worst enemy. He desperately searches for a way to undo what he unwittingly unleashed, in order to save the Tao from being misunderstood forever more. Will challenges the authenticity of what Soon knows to be true. How will Soon preserve the truth, and help the world discern truth from lies?
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The Magic Square
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The Big See: Unpacking the Gift Called Cancer (completed, unpublished memoir)
A memoir about recovery, resilience, and renewal, and discovering the true power of the universe.
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