Woman's Perogative

I changed my mind. I am going to subject y'all to the latest revision of the synopsis. After all, I was up until after 11pm working on it, and I started back in on it first thing this morning. Can't do all that hard work and not let everyone see it, right?

So here is the latest incarnation, better known as version 5.

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Synopsis: Nature of Destruction
B.E. Sanderson
Genre: Commercial Fiction
91,000 words

Under Yellowstone sits a volcano 2400 times worse than Mount Saint Helens. every 600,000 years it awakens—spewing pumice for thousands of miles, darkening the skies with ash, causing death and destruction worldwide—and it’s overdue. This time the caldera waited an extra 40,000 years.

The wait is almost over.

Seismologist Dr. Mykaela Hughes has proof the eruption is nearing, but the politicians overseeing the park choose to ignore her warnings. When Old Faithful explodes in a torrent of boiling water, they have no longer have a choice. Even though Myke knows no one can stop a volcano, she’s got the plans to control the eruption. She can save millions from its path of destruction, but only at the cost of the nation’s most beloved national park. Thousands of acres of nature mean nothing when millions of lives are at stake.

Losing her father to the forces of nature pushed Myke to pour everything she was into building Hughes Geologic Services. After all her work monitoring the megavolcano under Yellowstone, she doesn’t need anyone telling her the data is correct. After devoting her life to the potential control of nature, she doesn’t need a consensus to know her theories are sound. She just needs everyone to get out of her way.

Yellowstone’s head ranger Grayson Douglas has spent years ensuring his park’s safety and he doesn’t suspect danger could be growing under his feet. He does suspect a certain fiery scientist is bent on using Yellowstone as her own private way to grab some glory. He’s met her kind before and he won’t let a woman like that near his park again. After the geyser eruption proves Myke’s integrity, though, Gray realizes he’s spent too many years letting the past rule him. His battle against her becomes a fight to help her save America from the threat growing beneath his beautiful park.

As the eco-terrorist known as Fisher, :snip: worships nature almost as much as he hates mankind; as the great-grandson of a land-raping miner, he despises himself almost as much as he hates his money. All that money and all that hate only have one purpose—stopping Myke Hughes and her plans to destroy Yellowstone.

With hundreds of tourists dead, the politicians have no choice but to consent to Myke’s controlled eruption. Even as her plans become real, though, her every move is blocked before she evens knows she’s going to make it and all her hard work threatens to fall apart. It doesn’t take a scientist to know who’s behind it all.

Knowing who the culprit is and catching him are two different things.

When Fisher’s identity becomes public, it doesn’t stop his plot, and as he becomes a fugitive from justice, his minions carry out his sabotage and destruction for him. With every inch drilled closer to the lava, thousands of Fisher’s sacrificial lambs fill the park, hoping guilt and fear will halt the project. Despite what Fisher and his minions think, though, a bigger portion of the populous is at stake. Many may die if Myke’s plan succeeds; more will die if it doesn’t.

:snipped out the ending again - sorry:

ETA: I forgot to mention, in case you didn't notice, I changed the title of Caldera to Nature of Destruction, and I shifted the genre from Literary Thriller to Commercial Fiction. There was some question as to whether it was thrilling enough to be called a thriller and the whole literary thing was just confusing some people. Hopefully these changes will help put Caldera in a more saleable light. (And it will always be Caldera to me, so I'll probably keep referring to it here as such.)