Lost Frequencies is a forthcoming Sci-Fi Fantasy Release from Caitlin Lynagh. I asked Caitlin to provide a guest post introducing her ideas and inspiration for the book.
Lost Frequencies is the first book in The Soul Prophecies series and is set on the ancient, planet of Iyeeka, many light years from Earth and millions of years before the dawn of mankind. Iyeeka encounters many issues which humanity struggle with today. The story follows Zerren, Ehi, Ahrl and ten other characters as they travel across their dying world to the home of a time-travelling scientist in the search for answers to their problems. Iyeeka is not the place it used to be, changing weather patterns, natural disasters and increasing global temperatures have destroyed entire continents and left the last two continents barely habitable. Water shortages have left the southern regions completely desolate and their fleeing refugees have pushed the northern regions to their limits. Millions have perished over the last few centuries and some Iyeekans have turned to violence in order to survive.
Iyeekans are not a violent species by nature; they lived peacefully for many millennia, choosing to work together from early in their evolution. Their continents are bigger than the continents of Earth, but their oceans are toxic and their lands were filled with many fearsome creatures. The Iyeekans built fences to keep the creatures out of the mainland and confined to the coastal regions. They lived by simple principles and recognised that it was better to work together towards a common goal rather than fight or kill. If an Iyeekan committed a crime they were punished, usually by banishment from their districts or sent out to work in sanitation which meant going to the coast for a period of time. It was rare.
Iyeekans lived in districts near to a supply of freshwater, similar to a village or town on Earth. Every Iyeekan family had a home and the same sized plot of land on which to grow food and bury their dead. They didn’t have a currency and hoarding supplies in any form was frowned upon – those who did were seen to be mentally deranged. All Iyeekans developed some kind of profession or skill and anything that they made or produced would be put into large warehouses where Iyeekans from their district could come and take what they needed and leave what they didn’t need. In this way supplies were shared without the need for trade, money or wars. Since there was plenty of land and all Iyeekans worked together, there was little travel between districts.
Iyeekans lived longer than humans and families were important to them. Younger generations would look after older generations and families would nurse sick relatives back to health. To be married, or ‘unified’ in Iyeekan terms, was a major decision and not one that was taken lightly. They settled with one partner for life, they couldn’t divorce so they chose their partners carefully. Bringing new life into the world for Iyeekans was seen as a great responsibility and honour so having children carried the same amount of importance and care. As a parent it was your duty to care and teach your child how to be a good Iyeekan.
This complacent lifestyle however, became a major downfall of Iyeekan society. Life was so simple and relatively easy for so long that there was no motivation or desire to change, which meant that their technological advances happened at a much slower pace in comparison to Earth. Iyeekans didn’t need to learn anything new and were not as curious as humans. They channelled all their waste into their already toxic oceans which unknowingly increased their toxicity and changed the atmosphere. The changes were gradual and happened over many centuries, and once they realised the error of their ways, it was already too late.
The last of their kind were finally finished off due to bad luck and events outside of their control. Maybe it could have been avoided had their technology been more advanced but during the final, difficult centuries, not many Iyeekans were interested in technology or space travel. Had Iyeekans known about the damage they were causing to their planet earlier, they would have undoubtedly changed their ways and tried preventing their problems.
In this sense Lost Frequencies is a book about having knowledge and foresight. There may be many problems we have here on Earth but having knowledge is our power. Being curious is one of humans’ greatest traits; it could potentially destroy humankind but it could also save us. We have knowledge of a problem here now, so we can fix it.
But we must act on that knowledge…
About Caitlin Lynagh
CAITLIN (27) was born in Cardiff and graduated from Keele University with a BSc in Biology and Geology. Caitlin won a Young Writers’ Award with Outlet Publishing in 2013 and her first two books in The Soul Prophecies series, Anomaly and Lost Frequencies – collectively Another Path, have gained much praise, as well as attention from the science community, trending on Reddit/r/Science for a while. Caitlin now lives in Cumbria, UK, works part-time in a bookshop in Sedbergh and helped organise the Sedbergh Book Town Festival in 2018. She runs several popular blogs, sketches, paints, makes bookish art and enjoys travelling. Caitlin once spent six weeks in the Amazon rainforest studying primates.
Lost Frequencies is released Nov 19th 2019 and is available to pre-order now on eBook and Paperback. You can follow Caitlin Lynagh on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.
You know, you’d think that fiction characters, particularly those that have adopted children, would learn to be more open about things. Every time I get a side conversation being held between parents I automatically think that something is going to go wrong – and unfortunately that’s normally the main plot point of the novel, just as it is here.
The process of figuring out who you are is both exciting and terrifying. For me, that process mostly happened during my four years of college and came to a perfect head when my anxiety, my bisexuality, and my androgyny all kicked in at once. These things opened new worlds for me to look into. I searched for hours online and read articles about people who had similar experiences to me with anxiety, sexuality, or gender. These searches often brought both positive and negative results, but either way, I learned a lot about myself and how the world tends to perceive people like me.
I started writing my first gay love story (The Unseasonal Warm Front) in April of 2018. It was based off a short story I had written in high school, but my short story did not have a happy ending. It was not a love story, but a classic “gay guy falls for a straight guy” story. That was not the story I wanted to put out into the world. So, I read a lot of LGBTQAI+ young adult fiction, and I found a terrible thing: there were so few happy endings.
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How dumb can one girl be? It’s clearly obvious which side she’s going to pick. Oh boo hoo, your boy toy isn’t from the same place. Oh no! You might war with your parents for forever! Get over it! Choose based on what you see, not what people tell you. She’s all about being strong and kicking people in the balls (literally and figuratively) and then she’s just bowled over by good old Killian because he smells good.
This novel was very, very slow and I considered giving up on it about half way through. Min and Noah are like two magnets that kept changing polarities. Oh, and then when the perspectives started changing I started feeling very irritated. Just stick with a side guys! Noah, please get over yourself, I get that you might have anxiety, but I don’t think you’re really convincing me with your character consistency.
I didn’t feel convinced that Felix was 13. I felt that maybe he was a bit younger? I feel like by 13 I was a bit more put together, but maybe that’s because I’m a girl and we develop slightly faster than boys. I loved his relationships with his friends! And I liked how the novel was a mix of past and present tense – initially I felt a bit hesitant of it, but in the end it made sense.
I expected something more like 
The premise of this novel is interesting. When children get to the age of 10 or so, they lose their ability to feel things. So then at high school they are taught society’s rules and norms for how to behave. Somehow people’s brains have switched off the pathways to being empathetic for others. It’s a cool idea! I’m not sure how biologically possible it is at this point though.
Normally I would be irritated by a novel trying to cram too much importance into a single day. I thought to myself at the beginning of this one that I didn’t have much tolerance for the interspersed chapters from Natasha and Daniel, as well as the other randoms they happen to run into! But it grew on me, and in the end I was satisfied. I kept wanting to know the next coincidence to happen.
I was offered this book to review, and I was attracted to it because the author writes and researches near-death experiences (NDEs). Cool! I thought to myself. I’ll get some interesting insights from this book of essays. The earlier essays were entertaining and informative, and I enjoyed reading them. As I went through them however I enjoyed them less. Perhaps I just don’t relate well to an aging man with prostate problems?