The setting, the mission and even the plot fade into the background as the complexity of human relations move to the fore.  By the time I finished reading I was stunned by how compelling a vision Dresner had created!

As a senior sales rep for TOR for 17 years, I’ve read more than a thousand manuscripts. The Astral Imperative is, by far, the best. My first reaction was that his novel was better than some of the stuff that I sell. Dresner was bringing a component of general fiction into a science fiction story. That’s what made Dune great. His characters were developed and you cared about the people.

The quest is as large as they come: To 'penetrate the mind of God.'The Astral Imperative, Volume I: The Dream – Presented as the first volume in a philosophically focused science-fiction trilogy.

In the year 2037, when the earth has been savaged by violence, the starship Aelita is headed into the void, the first human voyage to Mars, captained by Adam Sietzer, who has notions of bringing the world back together in harmony.

Dresner’s evocative writing is the kind that summons the dream of many an old science-fiction reader eager to recreate the “sense of wonder” upon first exploring the cosmos between the pages of a book. He’s colorfully descriptive: “Dusk on the red planet was most beautiful; the sky turned vermillion, blue, yellow, with an occasional hint of green and violet, the landscape turning to pastel shades of gold and pink. Distant peaks cast long and languid shadows across the rocky terrain, and puffy clouds clung to the mountaintops.

Unlike that of all too many self-published works, Dresner’s writing is clean and well edited. His characters also defy the low expectations of self-published works, rising from the page as real, three-dimensional people.

Excellent read, left me wanting more!

  I found this book to be an excellent read. The sub-plots fit together well, keeping me interested and on my toes. I found it hard to put the book down, as the story always left me wanting to know where the next twist would take me. I just ordered Volume II !

Outstanding Sci-Fi read, highly recommended! Fortunately this book has an intriguing cover image. I had been randomly browsing the Boulder Bookstore recently and came across this gem. I am a fan of both sci-fi and non-fiction science. I also like a good story! Without a doubt, this book had me hooked from the beginning. Perhaps my own selfish desire to explore space one day was taken advantage of; the author puts together a very compelling narrative of modern space exploration, yet includes enough fantasy to make it enjoyable. The cast is phenomenal; without spoiling anything, I must say I became quite emotionally attached to this crew and their Earthbound compatriots, especially in the latter half of the novel.

This novel is a unique experience; like other commentators, I am surprised I had not heard of this elsewhere. Being the first edition, published barely a year ago, the book can hardly be blamed for a few minor typos/grammar errors, notable but nothing that detracted from the experience in total. It was well worth the purchase, indeed I can’t wait to continue the series when the 2nd and 3rd parts arrive at my door later this week!

I presume the author is only getting his feet wet in this genre of writing, as briefly mentioned in the intro. But as a first work, it’s wonderful to see such talent from a new author. I hope to see more by Robert Dresner in the future.

Truly unique and inspiring! Volume II – Once again I am delighted and suprised at the span and depth covered in Dresner’s writing. Strong female characters which are convincingly realized. One of the things that was truly inspiring for me, as an amateur amateur (yes I meant to write that twice…)writer myself was his capacity to make the dialogue interesting and believable. In a lot of sci-fi there is the sense of anticipation that builds before conflict usually manifested by large battle scenes and violence. In Dresner’s second book this same sense of anticipation is provoked by an impending conflict of ideas and manifested in dialogue between the characters. Truly unique and inspiring. Looking forward (with anticipation) to book III!. Truly unique and inspiring. Looking forward (with anticipation) to book III!

Vol. III - ReGenesis - Dresner´s lastest is out of this world! Yuri Popovich sits silently in the lotus position on Mars, his heart registering just one beat a minute, as Robert Dresner’s thought-provoking evolutionary novel ReGenesis opens.

Popovich, the lone survivor of the original mission to Mars, has completely retreated into himself and has sat in his seemingly unconscious state in a cave for 12 years as new settlers come and gawk at him.

In a moment of desperation, Richard, another astronaut who has been stranded on Mars for more than a decade and is feared and ostracized by the other colonists, pleads with the meditating man to help him save the petty, earth-centered colonists from themselves. He doesn’t expect an answer but gets one. Yuri simply states, “I am here.”

Richard is startled. He asks, “What happened to you Yuri? Where did you go? Tell me, please, if you can. I need to know. What did you see?” Yuri’s answer is simple, but sets up the fantastic plot to this concluding book in Dresner’s Astral Imperative trilogy: “God. I saw God.”

The questions of the existence of God and the possibility of another level of consciousness permeate this novel, set in 2053, because our existence on Earth has become so tenuous and our means of escape so limited. Environmental catastrophes, combined with rampant nationalism and runaway technology, have threatened the viability of the human race.

Depending on the character’s point of view (and to some extent the reader’s), Yuri is either a savior or a charlatan.

“Yuri was the one who had to bear witness on our human existence,” Dresner says. “He inhabits different realms and realities. Is he delusional? Do you believe him or don’t you? What happened to Yuri is not out of the realm of human experience. In my travels to India, I met people like that.”

The Yuri of the first two books did not seem a likely character for enlightenment. An astrobiologist by training and a world-renowned poet, he spent much of his time involved in all-too-human entanglements on the ship to Mars and on the red planet’s primitive space station. His conversion to a spiritual state did not occur until a battle between the colonists broke out at the end of the second book. Slowly, Yuri begins to reveal to the other characters just what he has seen during his 12-year sojourn communing with the divine.

“I’ve seen so much; I’ve lived so many lives and still live them. I’ve seen so much violence between beings, between countries, between worlds, between entire solar systems — even galaxies that demand more space to expand at the expense of other galaxies. I’ve seen suns that are jealous of one another’s light.”

Gradually, some of the colonists’ curiosity turns to revulsion as they learn just how radical Yuri’s visions were and just what they may mean for their own existence. Is he a madman or a prophet? It’s a question that has been asked for centuries on Earth. It’s not an easy question for the reader when we hear Yuri get to the base of his creed.

“God is movement. God is evolution.

God is war. God is peace. God is raping and killing children. God is suffering for the sins of other beings in this life and in other lives, and dying for them . … And the greatest sin of all is when we are consigned to see the half of it, when the light of creation is divided into good and evil, and right and wrong, between what is divine and not divine, when we choose sides instead of choosing life when your very lives are at stake.”

For Yuri, the highest purpose of God is simply survival. Nothing truly dies. Our energy must be put into the effort to survive. Of course, for much of the novel, the very continuance of the human race is in doubt.

“Implicit in the movement to destruction is the will to survive,” Dresner says. “So far humanity, by the narrowest sliver, has moved ahead on the evolutionary scale. We always choose to live, even if we aren’t conscious of how we make that choice.”

Dresner’s Earth is still recognizable, with a few tweaks. Nationalism, especially a powerful Russia and China, still dominate the political landscape despite the fact that most of the world’s problems transcend geographic borders. Our worst fears of global warming won’t prepare us for his vision of 2053, where terrible earthquakes and fierce storms have visited the globe. Many parts of the world experience perpetual summer, while Western Europe and the East Coast remain mired in deep winter conditions all the way into May. Things are degrading so quickly that even the man in the moon can see our problems.

“The view of Earth from moon orbit was not as beautiful as it once was because of the smoke bellowing out of Australia and Africa, which clung to passing clouds and turned them gray,” Dresner writes.

Even simple conversations in the future are changing in subtle ways with the emergence of techno-glasses. These eyeglasses act as computer screens as well as communication and recording devices. They make today’s laptops, iPods and Bluetooth headsets seem downright clumsy and obtrusive. The sense that technology will continue to march on, producing everyday gadgets on one hand and potentially destroying the human race on the other, imbues the novel with a sense of fatalism.

“Like it or not, the next evolutionary step will be bio-technology,” Dresner says. “Our physiological beings will be married to tech expertise. That’s what can take us out of the solar system. A lot of the story is predicated on whether we are prepared for that evolution.”

On Earth, the charismatic Fritz Kreiger believes that we are not ready to make the evolutionary leap into space. After reaching prominence during the first manned mission to Mars as an opponent of the program, he disappeared during the following years. The awakening of Yuri, an event that has as many repercussions on Earth as on Mars, forces Krieger out of his anonymous life and back into the forefront of the battle to save mankind.

Krieger visits the man who helped create the powerful Dream Machine that is housed on the Mars colony. The Dream Machine started as a simulated holographic game in the first novel, but has now achieved sentience and has either communed with the divine or been hijacked by an alien intelligence. As Yuri and the Dream Machine set off from Mars to return to Earth tensions build between nations vying for control of the all powerful computer. It is Krieger, one of Dresner’s most balanced and finely drawn characters, that tries to take the lead in the response.

The question of just who Yuri is becomes paramount. In a world that is even more skeptical and cynical than ours it is certainly hard to accept Yuri at his word as he speeds towards Earth with something more powerful than all the bombs on the planet. The Dream Machine contains the power to both destroy and save humanity.

“We don’t have seers. We are such a regimented culture that we are losing our seers,” Dresner says. “Sometimes the greatest transformations of enlightened beings are discovered at the bottom of despair. How do you get to that bottom on Prozac or Ritalin? We are denying humanity the full range of experience. When you have hooded instincts and padded senses, it is easy to get blind.”

Perhaps as readers contemplate some of the technological, ecological and spiritual issues that Dresner raises in ReGenesis, they will begin to see just a little more clearly into the future.

If you're a Baby Boomer who somehow missed the opportunity ... (as I did) to travel to India during the 60’s-70’s in search of self and/or God, you’re in luck. The Karma Conspiracy will take you on a memorable journey via Max Rild, the leading character. I could hardly put the book down once I started. I loved the story and the characters and so will you (that is of course if the concept is your cup of chai)!

as Max, Shunya and Diane search high and low across India for answers to their spiritual doubts. What could be just a procession of gurus, yogis and towns is carried along nicely by the novel’s fast pace, set by brief chapters and jumps from one protagonist to the next.

To match the pace, Dresner deftly employs cliffhangers at the end of many chapters, jumping off to Max in the Himalayas and leaving Shunya in Delhi to fend for his life. The characters’ paths get a bit tangled at times, but the device reveals how the characters’ various travels fit chronologically and thematically. I loved the story and the characters and so will you (that is of course if the concept is your cup of chai)!

These encounters populate much of The Karma Conspiracy ... as Max, Shunya and Diane search high and low across India for answers to their spiritual doubts. What could be just a procession of gurus, yogis and towns is carried along nicely by the novel’s fast pace, set by brief chapters and jumps from one protagonist to the next.

To match the pace, Dresner deftly employs cliffhangers at the end of many chapters, jumping off to Max in the Himalayas and leaving Shunya in Delhi to fend for his life. The characters’ paths get a bit tangled at times, but the device reveals how the characters’ various travels fit chronologically and thematically!

Everyone Agrees Robert Dresner's Sci-fi Novel is Great. Robert Dresner, with his short, tough-guy haircut, Bronx accent and agitated mannerisms seems an unlikely person to write an emotionally resonant and thought-provoking novel. Words flow easily from him in conversation as he anticipates questions and speaks extemporaneously on just about any subject. Words aren’t the problem. It’s just hard to imagine him sitting still long enough to compose much more than a paragraph.

Perhaps even more surprising is that Dresner’s self-published Astral Imperative begins as a simple science fiction narrative about the first manned mission to Mars before revealing itself as an insightful meditation on relationships, heroism and human foibles. Writing in a direct, unadorned prose style, Dresner creates a space ship that is large enough to carry not only his diverse group of astronauts but also the reader’s imagination.

I first met Dresner a few years ago on his day job as one of Boulder’s best house painters. He showed up at my condominium in dungarees and a crisp button-down shirt to advise my wife and me about paint colors and provide an estimate. He was blunt in his vision of eliminating our clashing colors and shook his graying head a few times, asking us if we were sure we wanted to keep the canary yellow in our living room.

He exuded confidence and competence as he paced the four rooms of our home like a caged panther, turning off and on lights, holding up paint swatches to the wall, eyeing the high ceiling of our staircase and explaining just what a pain in the ass it was going to be to get our house painted. He so fully inhabited his role of professional painter that it never occurred to me that he might harbor secret writing ambitions. He was simply “the painter.”

I should have known better. Ever since becoming the head book buyer for the Boulder Book Store in 1997, I have been besieged by writers. Manuscripts have miraculously appeared from locked draws, stapled poetry collections have been pulled out of coat pockets at parties, and bizarre plot summaries have ruined football games at local bars. It’s so bad that I’ve told people that I am a ballet dancer (that always silences them when they view my doughy 5-foot-4 frame) or claimed to be a sports reporter in town to cover the big game. I’ll say anything to avoid the awkwardness of hearing about all of those unpublished books from needy authors.

I let my guard down with Dresner, however, and in a conversation at the end of the painting job I mentioned my position at the bookstore. His eyes lit up, and he told me that he’d written several novels. I tried to change the subject and had almost forgotten the conversation when he showed up at my office a few days later to pick up his check.

“You were the first stranger that I’d asked to read a book of mine in my entire life,” Dresner said to me in a recent interview. “It was very hard for me. I had left the bookstore and was in the alley when I decided to come back in and give the book to you. I knew that I had to do something. People were telling me I had to make it happen.”

The novel that Dresner delivered to me was on 287 manuscript pages bound in a hardback clamshell black binder. It weighed nearly four pounds. He nervously extolled the virtues of the binder that he’d picked up in New York City, rather than of his book, and told me to please return it if I wasn’t going to read the book because each binder cost $40. When he left I noticed that the price tag from Lincoln Stationary was still on the inside cover — $33.95.

After a month and a few guilt-inducing follow-up visits to the bookstore from Robert, I began reading the novel with great trepidation. Gradually my hesitancy disappeared as I became absorbed in his tale and enthralled by his characters.

These characters include the heroic but isolated astronaut, Captain Adam Sietzer, the second-in-charge Russian, Vladimir Sussenko, and crew members from Japan, Germany, China, India and Africa. There are men and women as well as people of differing religions. It is a miniature United Nations hurdling towards Mars.

Dresner’s astronauts are deeply flawed, all of them hiding some psychological weakness. One is probably criminally psychotic. It is fascinating to see how these people react to each other in the confines of a space ship. The Astral Imperative is really an old-fashioned chamber play. The setting, the mission and even the plot fade into the background as the complexity of human relations move to the fore.

Dresner uses a remarkably creative device to help expose the relationships between the astronauts. Also on board the ship is a computer game called “the Dream Machine,” created by the Japanese astronaut, Makoto. The game creates a holographic image of Mars that every member of the crew views and can change. The image of Mars morphs based on the game entries from various crew members. It’s a way for the bored crew to pass the long flight, but also a way to work out the emotions and expectations of their historic mission.

“The Dream Machine came out of thin air,” Dresner said. “I didn’t even have a point of reference for it. As I wrote the book, I created it. I wanted to know if it was possible to get 8 or 12 players and play a SimCity-style game to the max. Instead of just ideas I wanted ideas and emotions. The Dream Machine gives them a physical component. What happens in the game when seven people are angry and three are happy?”

As the novels progresses, the game evolves into something quite unexpected. At first the color of the planet changes based on the moods of the astronauts, and then structures begin appearing on the surface, someone even hacking into the program and turning the whole thing into a sexist joke that creates a lot of tension between the astronauts. Eventually, the Dream Machine begins exhibiting the traits of a sentient being.

By the time I finished reading I was stunned by how compelling a vision Dresner had created.