What if Mars had once been a warmer world and Martians had walked there ages ago, but then allowed war to bring ruin upon themselves.  And what if the mythical canals of Mars had been the cause of that ruin?  Welcome to my tall-tale of a mysterious, ancient Mars and the unusual adventure of Alex Faraway.  

Alex FARAWAY (And The Last MARTIAN) is a richly-illustrated Sci-Fi-Fantasy about a boy of the near-future who stumbles upon a most fascinating and terrifying mystery one fateful night:  an alien girl who leads Alex into a strange yet beautiful Martian habitat buried deep below the abandoned junkyard near his isolated farmhouse; a habitat designed and built by Alex’s ingenious but missing father, no less; a father who vanished from his life years ago but who Alex is determined to find again.    

The girl, Rainah Onyodee, her guardian robots, and a horde of insect-bots that are hunting them, are all from that same lost Martian world.  Somehow, Rainah has survived to live in Alex’s future time, but now needs his help.  A small favour, really.  She needs to escape the wicked creatures hunting her, and fly back to Mars; because the climate of Mars is going to change very soon.  

The Mars habitat holds the last remnants of Martian life and Rainah must take it with her if her world is ever to survive and flourish again.  For a “Great Change” in the climate of Mars is due very soon, and Rainah needs Alex’s help - fast!  The dark creatures, “The Others”, from her distant past, are closing in on her and the hidden “Mars Biosphere Dome”.  

The cunning cat-sized, robotic “Flies”, brutish grizzly-bear-sized “Spiders”, and a shape-shifting “Dark Man” spy, all known as “The Others”, are plotting to destroy the Mars Biosphere Dome and everyone connected to it.  The Others also want to find and destroy all the remaining Martians before they can awaken from their “Time Tombs” so that they, alone, rule Mars after the cyclical “Great Change” in its orbit and climate occurs again.  And now, Alex Faraway is in their sights too!

The over-arching mystery of the ‘Alex Faraway’ trilogy is that the normal orbit of Mars is disrupted every ten thousand years by the gravitational pull of a mysterious comet-world that passes near it as it flies through our solar system.  When that happens, the people of Mars must retreat to underground hibernation and wait out the devastating 10,000-year ice-age until “Planet X” returns to reset their planet’s orbit to one that is nearer to the sun again.  In Book 1, Planet X is due to return in only a few years to wreak havoc upon Mars but also shift its orbit so that life may have a chance again.  But only if Alex helps Rainah…

As Alex learns more about Rainah’s secrets from Miss Vee, the enigmatic Biosphere gardener and guardian to the Last Martian, the puzzle of his missing father is revealed. But Alex also begins to develop strange Martian-like qualities too, and the ability to control a weird device known as a “Luss” that shifts at will to be either a healing tool or a devastating weapon for battling The Others.  But each time Alex uses the otherworldly weapon, his dormant Martian DNA grows in him as well.  

At the end of book 1, the reader is given a hint that Alex’s growing Martian-ness comes from a very unusual, distant ancestry.     

The ‘Alex FARAWAY’ trilogy is a youthful sci-fi adventure-mystery with suspense, imaginary physics and inventions, time-warped space travel, and weird, wicked robots with their own quirks, humour, and personalities.  

And there is Alex Faraway, himself, who experiences gradual, alien changes in mind and body that slowly transform him into a hybrid being and, in the end, allow him to choose which planet he wants to live on: Earth, Mars, or neither of them at all. Yet, to save both worlds, Alex must grow up and master his strange and powerful abilities to their utmost.  

This an illustrated trilogy that kids aged 12 to 18+ will enjoy because, not only is it a good vs evil journey, it is also a transformative one for Alex as he slowly changes into a very unique being in his own right.  

In this vein, ‘Alex FARAWAY’ is somewhat like the Harry Potter series with a dash of Star Wars, except that the magic is Martian and physics-driven, and the blood-line that Alex has comes from being an “Earthian”.  

As the trilogy progresses and the strange, threatening Planet X world draws nearer to Mars, the mystery of its previous highly evolved inhabitants begins to unfold as well.  It is a final mystery that Alex and Rainah must solve together in order to save both Earth and Mars from the dark-hearted Others.