THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997 TAG: 9702080113
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 95 lines
NAVY PETTY OFFICER David Niall Wilson let his imagination probe light years through intergalactic space and sold the resulting book manuscript as a Star Trek Voyager novel.
Wilson's ``Chrysalis'' will be released in March but probably will be available in local bookstores by mid-February. It's the 12th in the paperback series that details the adventures of Capt. Kathryn Janeway and her crew aboard the starship Voyager.
Based on previous sales of the popular series, Pocket Books expects to sell about 200,000 copies, said Wilson, who got a $15,000 advance on anticipated royalties of $20,000 for the book's first year in print.
``It's kind of humbling, as big as Star Trek is, considering how far back in history . . . Star Trek is so big,'' says Wilson.
His tale of a Star Fleet encounter with an alien life form on the fringes of the galaxy is also being looked at as a possible Star Trek television episode.
The 37-year-old first-class surface warfare specialist has been writing in his spare time for about 10 years. Though he'd already tasted literary success with the publication of a collection of short stories and a first novel, his writing career got a rocket-powered boost when the Star Trek publisher picked up his outer space odyssey.
Trekkies will be familiar with most of the characters in ``Chrysalis,'' but the setting will be alien.
Dragged from their home quadrant by forces beyond their control, Janeway and her crew are running low on food supplies when a large green and blue world snaps into focus on video sensors. For the Star Fleet crew, it is a poignant reminder of the time and space they have put between themselves and Earth.
But the lush gardens that abound on the planet Uryytha are sinister, for the colorful blossoms that grow there plunge the crew one by one into deep comas. Those unaffected search for a cure for the malady of the flowers, but their efforts are seen by the planet's inhabitants as desecration. The alien race worships within the gardens where their ancestors, turned to inscribed stone pillars, await the time some 10,000 years in the future when a cataclysmic earthquake will release them in the form of huge butter-flies.
Wilson says that ``Chrysalis'' can be read on more than one level. Most obviously, of course, it's an adventure of the sort that Star Trek fans have come to expect. But discerning readers will find even deeper meaning in the parallel the scenario draws with Christianity.
Just as faithful followers of Christ believe that they will be reborn in him, so the aliens of this planet believe that they will live again, explains Wilson.
``This makes the characters think about their religious background - their belief, faith,'' he says.
Wilson knows the main characters of his novel well, for he's been a Star Trek fan for years.
``I know how they'll think and react in almost any situation I put them in,'' he says.
Wilson has been writing seriously since he sold his first poem in 1986, but reading had always been his joy.
``All I did as a child was read,'' he says of his youth in Illinois. ``I was restricted and spent a lot of time in my imagination.'' He wrote, too, and dreamed of becoming a writer.
By the time he was 16, Wilson had determined to make the church his life, but at 19, he joined the Navy instead. He moved to Norfolk in 1986.
It took Wilson four months to write ``Chrysalis.'' Last spring, an editor at Pocket Books gave him the green light for his idea. After the writing was done in September, it was months more before Paramount Pictures, which owns Star Trek rights, gave its nod.
``It's just like the TV series, but books are more adventurous, while TV is more character-oriented,'' says Wilson. ``Books are expanded TV shows.''
Once ``Chrysalis'' had been accepted for publication, he quickly sold the first book of his vampire trilogy, ``To Sift Through Bitter Ash.'' And there's been renewed interest in a first novel, ``This Is My Blood,'' that had waited three years with a Canadian publisher to see print before the contract expired. Now, another publisher is talking with Wilson's agent about the manuscript, which Wilson considers his finest work.
``There is more of me in that book than anything I've written,'' he says.
Wilson says the novel, like much of his other writing, ``answers lots of questions I had in life about religion.'' For example, he says, ``if Christ died for our sins, and if that was set to God's original play, we can't blame the people involved.''
Wilson now has a total of seven book sales to his credit, some of them still in progress.
He lives in Colonial Place with his wife, JoAnne McCracken-Wilson, and their 2- and 3-year-old children.
``Chrysalis'' is more than just an adventure in space for its creator, because, for Wilson, the line between life and literature is a fine one:
``Are we really part of a best seller and just don't know it?'' he asks.
Wilson will sign copies of ``Chrysalis'' March 1 from noon to 2 p.m. at Bargain Books Wards Corner. The novel sells for $5.99.
Wilson's Internet address is http://www.sff.net/people/ dniall.wilson ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
David Niall Wilson, left, used the knowledge gained as a long-time
Star Trek fan to write his novel "Chrysalis."
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW