''On My Way to Paradise'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by American writer

Dave Wolverton John David Wolverton (May 28, 1957 – January 14, 2022), better known by his pen names Dave Wolverton and David Farland, was an American author, editor, and instructor of online writing workshops and groups. He wrote in several genres but was ...

, published in 1989 by

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...

. It is set in the far future (circa 2300AD) depicting a man, Angelo Osic, who is running from an ever-changing and frightening world of war and politics. The novel was based on a short story with the same title, which was awarded the

L. Ron Hubbard Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author, primarily of science fiction and fantasy stories, who is best known for having founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored '' Dianetic ...

Gold Award at the 1987 Writers of the Future contest.

Plot

Osic is a morphogenic pharmacologist who tended in a booth in a feria in Gatun city,

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

. He is approached by a stranger, the woman Tamara Marian de la Garza, who requires him to regrow her right hand. The bloody stump on the end of her arm, signifying a traumatic amputation. It transpires that she is on the run from powerful political forces, the assassins of which attempt to kill her and Osic. He flees from the Earth with Tamara who is in an incapacitated state. On board the orbital shuttle, he attempts to get employment with a Japanese company, Motoki Corporation, as a Pharmacologist, but his application is rejected. Instead he is offered to fight as a mercenary for Motoki, who are attempting to gain control of the planet Baker, a satellite of the

Delta Pavonis Delta Pavonis, Latinized from δ Pavonis, is a single star in the southern constellation of Pavo. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.56, making it a fourth-magnitude star that is visible to the naked eye from the southern hemisphe ...

system. The story describes Osic's reaction to the intense battle training that takes place on board the starship ''Chaeron'' and his interaction with the mostly South American refugiados, and chimeras, genetically upgraded humans, who are also escaping their uncertain future on Earth. Their arrival on Baker highlights the vast cultural differences between the mercenaries and their Japanese employers, who have trained them to fight a rival Japanese company of settlers, the Yabajin. These differences culminate in rebellion, with the mercenaries (now self described as Conquistadors) seizing the Motoki city, after a bloody battle and then setting out to attack the Yabajin settlement which lay 3,000 kilometers away. across forbidding deserts, encountering the wildlife of Baker.

References

*Wolverton, Dave ''On My Way to Paradise'' (1989) - Originally published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. III

External links

*{{Isfdb title, id=1441 1989 science fiction novels 1989 American novels American science fiction novels Fiction set around Delta Pavonis