Allegories from Sapphira Olson link future and past with imagination reaching out beyond the horizon

DARTFORD, U.K. - Jan. 18, 2019 - PRLog -- Elsewhen Press, an independent UK publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction, is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of Parables by Sapphira Olson. Parables is a profound and ambitious undertaking by the author of the bestselling book Humans (An Assortment of Minor Defects). Personal tragedy has shaped Sapphira's philosophy and approach, and underscores this unique genre-defying crossover between science fiction, philosophy, theology and humanism.

Parables is a collection of stories intended to help illuminate the meaning of one's life to the reader. As Sapphira says in the introduction: "As humans we are propelled forward by our emotions and our subconscious, however much we like to think the rational part of us is the captain of our ship. It is to that emotional core of you that I offer up these parables. They are an imaginary fictional space into which I invite you to step. … imagined possibilities full of truth, excitement and discovery."

Sapphira Olson's first public recognition came as one of the protagonists in An Android Awakes, published in 2015. In 2018, Fictional Alignment by author Mike French recounted the tragic events that led to the Altostratus disaster and Sapphira's subsequent abduction by zealots, acting on behalf of the self-styled Bureau for Fictional Alignment, as a direct result of the success of her book Humans (An Assortment of Minor Defects). As the increasingly bizarre sequence of incidents staged by her abductors played out, she met, fell in love with, and eventually married the explorer Umberto Amundsen. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the whole experience caused Sapphira to re-assess the meaning of existence, so she, and Umberto, withdrew from public life for a few years. The result is Parables, her first new work since her father's death.

The arresting cover of Parables was designed by Umberto Amundsen, as were the many illustrations within the book.

Parables will be available on all popular eBook platforms from 22 February 2019.  The paperback edition will be available at Easter (22 April 2019).

Notes for Editors
About Sapphira Olson
Sapphira Zhanna Olson is the author of the bestselling novel Humans (An Assortment of Minor Defects). Born in Bryansk, Russia, Sapphira is half Russian and half American, her father being born in Minnesota. Tragedy struck early in her life with the death of her twin sister when she was only six weeks old and then again with the tragic loss of her father in the Altostratus disaster.
  After the global success of Humans, Sapphira withdrew from public life for a number of years and Parables is her first work since then. When not writing, she spends her time scuba diving and exploring, with her husband, the cold wastelands of Antarctica.

Readers first met Sapphira in the 2015 ground-breaking An Android Awakes collaboration between author Mike French and artist Karl Brown.  In that book, a satire set in the fashionably-predicted future where Artificial Intelligence has replaced humans as the source of culture, Android Writer PD121928 attempts to have a novel published but is only allowed 42 rejected submissions before being terminated.  In 2018, in Mike French's Fictional Alignment, we discovered that Sapphira, who had been in love with the android writer, wrote Humans (An Arrangement of Minor Defects) based on the stories PD121928 told her on the night they first met.  Published by the Altostratus publishing house in 2283, and marketed as the first work of fiction by a human for over a hundred years, Humans was a bestseller.  As a result, a handful of zealot androids massacred the Senate and formed a new regime fuelled with a passion to eradicate the evil of fiction from android society.  Unable to remove the impact of Sapphira's novel, they kidnapped Sapphira and forced her to work with an oddball team travelling back in time to enact the events of the stories in her book – thus ensuring that they were historical records rather than fiction: the ultimate implementation of fake news.

Visit bit.ly/Parables-Olson

About Mike French
Mike French was the owner and senior editor of the prestigious literary magazine The View From Here during its life from 2007 to 2014.  His debut novel in 2011 was nominated for a Galaxy National Book Award.  Since then he has had five novels published by Elsewhen Press.  Born in Cornwall in 1967, Mike spent his childhood flipping between England and Scotland with a few years in between in Singapore. Mike is married with three children. He currently lives in Luton in the UK and when not writing, watches Formula 1, eats Ben & Jerry's Phish Food and listens to Gorillaz.

About Elsewhen Press
Elsewhen Press is an independent publisher of Speculative Fiction.  Based in the UK, in the South East of England, Elsewhen Press publishes titles in English in digital and print editions, adopting a digital-first policy for most titles.  Elsewhen Press is an imprint of Alnpete Limited.

Contact details:
Elsewhen Press contact:  Al Murray
Information about Elsewhen Press, authors and titles can be obtained online from https://elsewhen.press
Interviews with authors can be arranged through Elsewhen Press, contact Al Murray.
Elsewhen Press titles are available from good retailers, for more details visit our website, as above.
This and other press releases from Elsewhen Press can be obtained as pdf files from our website or can be viewed in our PRLog Pressroom.