He applied the “Page 69 Test” to The Burning Skies, the sequel to his acclaimed debut novel The Mirrored Heavens, and reported the following:Claire Haskell is a woman with a problem--she's a bioengineered weapon on the run from her own creators, and is trying to save the president of the United States from the mysterious terrorist group Autumn Rain. Page 69 is the moment where the president's bodyguards bring her to the room where they're trying to rendezvous with the president himself: a chamber in the city of New London at the "northern" end of the Europa Platform, a gigantic space station that's also the site of the secret conference between the superpowers. (See my website for some cool maps!)Read an excerpt to The Burning Skies, and learn more about the author and his work at the official website of David J. Williams.
This room is particularly significant for Claire because she's seen it in visions--she has a limited form of prescience that allows her a partial view on future (one reason why she's so dangerous), but due to factors she doesn't fully understand, she isn't able to see beyond it. So in a sense page 69 is a threshold beyond which Claire (and us) are into terra incognita: the president and Autumn Rain are on a collision course, and she's the one who's going to hold the balance of power in that contest. The future of the United States hangs in the offing, and the Rain could be inside the room already...
Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.
--Marshal Zeringue
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