Worlds

Kera McLain is back-on Mars, battling harassment, homophobia and life-threatening natural disasters with the daring and street-smarts she relied on to escape a conformist world and live in Earth orbit as the lesbian heroine of George Morrison's first novel, Out From It All (www.outfromitall.com). In this sequel, Morrison and Louisville artist John Welsh show how Kera stands up to patriarchy and uncaring bureaucracy to tenaciously hold onto the spot she's been given on the first Mars journey, then discovers spiritual dimensions to an interplanetary life made possible by secular technology. In a desperate bid to save a mission seemingly doomed, Kera chooses to uncharacteristically break the rules, shocking her colleagues, but earning herself the status of space heroine. Soon, another planet beckons as Mars once did and Kera sets out to explore and establish a life on Earth-a place she'd always considered an alien world.