When Ethiopians mount a relief mission to save the starving masses in London, they arrive only to set in motion the seeds of revolution for an enslaved Bangladeshi population. In my novel, Nocturn: The Ethiopian Orthodox (78,000 words), a crew of thirty-nine set out from Ethiopia for England on a hybrid steam and sailing vessel. The unlikely crew includes a palsied ship's captain, a Down Syndrome engineer, and Hakim, a 10-year-old boy with strange healing powers. After spawning a revolution in London, they are exiled across the Atlantic and plunged into the ashes of American society. It is a profoundly cross-cultural work. The heroes are characters who would never have succeeded in modern society but have distinct advantages in a postindustrial world. H Nocturn: The Ethiopian Orthodox is the first in The Nocturn trilogy (the first two books are written). The novel will appeal to lovers of books like The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell and Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.