Austin Boyd wanted to go to Mars.
"I was a Navy pilot, and my goal had always been to be an astronaut," the Huntsville author and Inergi CEO says.
He got close several times. He made it to the finals of the astronaut selection process in 1994. He was a semifinalist again in '96 and '98.
His eyes were firmly on the prize of space. Then another prize reminded him of its value.
"I was pulling my wife all around the nation - 14 homes in 20 years, going from duty station to duty station to keep building that astronaut résumé."
His wife, Cindy, wasn't complaining. "She had been following me as a good, loving, faithful Navy wife for all these years."
But on a trip to California to look for a new house for another move, Boyd caught a glimpse of the toll their nomadic life had taken on her.
"We were riding in the car, and it was like her face was melting. She didn't know that she was showing all this pain, and she didn't want to show it because she wanted to be supportive. But I realized I was killing my wife by hauling her around the country."
Mission or marriage? Boyd left the Navy, abandoning his dream of becoming an astronaut.
But the longing for space wouldn't abandon him. Since he couldn't go to Mars physically, he let his imagination take him there.
"I decided to write a story about a Navy pilot who really did become an astronaut and did all the things that I'd always dreamed of, which was going to Mars. And as I wrote about that, it became a cathartic process for me. I expressed through him and through his story all the problems of the astronaut selection process and the problems that you have in your family."
"The Evidence," the first title in his "Mars Hill Classified" trilogy, was published by NavPress in 2006. "The Proof" followed the same year and was nominated for Christian publishing's Christy Award. "The Return" wrapped up the saga in 2007.
The novels are techno-thrillers about terrorist-fueled chaos on Earth and mysterious images from Mars and the possibility of alien life. They're filled with excitement, adventure and lots of explosions, but they don't ignore emotions. When editors told him the novels would never sell to women, Boyd accepted the challenge of attracting a female fan base.
"I brought in the relationship between the astronaut and his wife, which was modeled in some elements, not all, on the relationship between my wife and me."
Boyd's characters, John and Amy Wells, work to maintain their marriage through repeated separations, most significantly his journey to Mars. While Mars is on no one's real-world schedule anytime soon, Boyd notes that balancing personal and professional obligations is a familiar conflict.
"Which comes first, your mission or your marriage? For some people their mission is 'I'm going to be in charge of a company' or 'I'm going to start a small business and that pulls me away from my wife.' "
John and Amy's relationship, "how they come back together again and continue to knit a relationship together in the midst of all that separation," is Boyd's way of saying thank you to his wife for "21 years of running around in the Navy with all the wars and absences and four children."
Although John goes on the exciting mission to Mars, Boyd sees Amy as the heart of the book, the character people tell him they connect to. Maybe she's why 85% of his fans are women.
Boyd's next novel, set for release from Zondervan in summer 2011, promises to attract even more female readers.
"It's a bioethics series. It's not about bioethics, but bioethics is the inspiration for each book."
The first novel deals with reproductive issues and the choices and dilemmas modern science offers.
"It's about a young woman who makes a decision to sell her eggs in order to raise money for her father's cancer medicine and to pay the mortgage on their soon-to-be-defunct farm."
Other planned topics include growing human transplant organs in animals and mechanical and chemical methods of human enhancement.
"It's like a Pandora's box has been open in the world of biotechnology, and we are being overtaken by it so fast that a lot of people have not considered the implications of some of these biotechnology activities."
Contact Ann Marie Martin at firstname.lastname@example.org or 256-532-4440.