​In The Dabare Snake Launcher, I got to introduce very real and complicated characters who honor the people I’ve known with the grit and drive to fight to live well despite hostile environments. But first, let me tell you about the science: a hardbound 2013 collection of articles from the International Academy of Aeronautics got me started. I skipped to the section in the back of the book with all the reasons why a space elevator is impossible.
 
They weren’t wrong.
 
But if you give me science fiction’s traditional single cheat, in this case, a tether of carbon nano fiber in truly industrial lengths, all the other problems were solvable with money, power, and hard work. People would need to sacrifice and sweat blood. We'd need deals. We'd need peace.
 
We would need not just one hero, but a host of them.
 
I drew on my background in corporate consulting, my military engineering expertise, and my childhood in Cameroon, West Africa to build the novel’s ensemble cast. They all, especially the villains, consider themselves the true hero of the tale.
 
One of the first characters you’ll meet is Fabrice Tchami. He’s a longtime corporate vice president in charge of human resources at the very wealthy, very powerful multi-national TCG. He’s shifted to western styles of address ages ago and has not only flipped his name order to have his family name last, he introduces himself as “Chummy” using the common mispronunciation of his family name. But Chummy never forgot his roots, and before the end of the first chapter, he’s used his position to give the Sadous (his extended family back home in West Africa) a sweet no-bid contract deal. It shouldn’t have mattered that much, but Chummy isn’t magic. He may have a reputation for always picking the most perfect people for the job, but this time he might’ve made a big mistake.
 
Ethan Schmidt-Li, the corporate asshole running the elevator construction project isn’t hiring more companies to get space debris cleared out of the way of the future tether line. So the family in West Africa with that no-bid contract needs to deliver.
 
But they’ve got troubles of their own.
 
The Sadou family is from a mix of tribal linages and has a lot of new money problems. They’ve got two superstars in the youngest generation: the superior manager Sadou Maurie and the engineering genius Sadou-Tchami Pascaline. Maurie and Pascaline have been the family’s fixers since their teens and have only gotten better. But the family treats Pascaline as a black sheep and she keeps trying to break free to make her own way, and Maurie, well…
 
Maurie's going to show you a few things about what it can be like to live in West Africa. High fever illnesses are dangerously common in places without a strong winter. You can see some interesting things in fever dreams. Locally, living with long-term and debilitating but not contagious disease is something of an art form. When not everything is understood, a back brain can lean on myth to fill in the missing gaps. Or, quite possibly, maybe in chapter one that really was the sometimes benevolent and more often terrible water snake queen Mami-Wata involving herself in the affairs of the descendants.
 
Whatever is real or not real for Maurie, everyone else needs her to hold it together, and they need Pascaline to forgive the family who rejected her or this dabare of a spaceport will be the wrong sort of dabare.
 
The word dabare from Fulani in current and historic usage varies significantly depending on which part of the Fulani diaspora is providing the definition and how recently the recording entity has conquered or been conquered by that powerful tribe. Within The Dabare Snake Launcher, you will find it redefined before each section. The first definition shown is this one:
 
dabare
\ da-ba-RAY \
an engineering construction made with repurposed parts and extreme technical know-how, which either works flawlessly or not at all
origin: West African Fulani
Definition from The Cassini-Sadou Dictionary, 3rd ed.
 
Dabare can be dangerous. The Sadous, TCG, and Earth all must pray that whether it’s magic, engineering, or both, The Dabare Snake Launcher is the successful kind of dabare.
 
With full appreciation for the irony that many readers are going to us dabare to tease me in their reviews about whether I’ve presented them with good or bad dabare of a novel, I respectfully submit a few quotes which might entice you to read at least that first chapter:
 
“You guys should all be on the lookout for Joelle Presby’s solo Baen novel THE DABARE SNAKE LAUNCHER. It is… remarkable. Just truly, truly remarkable." —David Weber
 
“Joelle Presby has a knack for engaging characters and plots that skillfully walk the line between science and storytelling.” —Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

“The Dabare Snake Launcher takes you on a journey of possibilities, an Africa foremost in groundbreaking technology and not focused on deprivation and poverty. Joelle’s writing is nuanced . . . There’s family drama . . . romance . . . and laugh-out-loud humour. Writing is vivid and the characters fascinating.”—Hannah Onoguwe

Thank you,
Joelle Presby


P.S. A significant crew of supporters helped turn my beginning manuscript into a novel you can hold in your hands. As always, any errors in this novel are my responsibility. Hannah Onoguwe, who generously provided one of the very first reviews, had her name spelled wrong on the print copy. Mea culpa. Her name is Hannah Onoguwe. You can find her work in the Time Worn Literary Journal among other places.