While working full time as a graphic designer, he began to write speculative fiction in his spare time and, since then, has had stories published in Interzone and Clarkesworld.
Ester applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Ganymedan, and reported the following:
From page 69:Visit R.T. Ester's website.The guide was saying something about the protein manufacturer that owned most of the factory buildings. Minutes elapsed while he prattled parrot-like in V-Dot’s ear. They zipped past water towers and power plants, past new housing developments erected shoddily over what had been public parks, past storage facilities, shops with heavy foot traffic in and out of them, hospital buildings, train stations with long lines of passengers waiting to board.This is a passage from page 69 of the paperback copy of The Ganymedan, and I would say it paints a good picture of the wider work, but only in broad strokes. On its own, it maybe gives the impression that the story's antagonist might be a protein manufacturer, which at least sounds like something the actual antagonist may have controlled through an investment company. The lift car in a spoke and the mention of a 'beamcar' will probably drive away anyone in the science fiction aisle by accident, so I think it succeeds as well.
They passed between a row of spokes reaching like monoliths toward the hub. The guide waved back at children inside a lift car going up a spoke. A beamcar overtook them. Then another. V-Dot began to plot his escape from this one.
In a way, The Ganymedan is about people plotting their escape from all kinds of vehicles. V-Dot has his own method, and the contrast between how he goes about it and how other characters he encounters find their own escape is something I tried to explore here and there.
Writers Read: R.T. Ester.
--Marshal Zeringue
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