Gardeners of Consciousness

When the stars go silent, only the storytellers remain.
In the sacred valley of Áísínai'pi, 147-year-old Aidan O:nenhkwe gathers thirteen enhanced children around an ancient fire to share the most important story ever told-how humanity survived its darkest hour and became something the universe had never seen before.
A century ago, alien forces brought Earth to the brink of extinction. What began as mysterious disappearances escalated into a global catastrophe that shattered every assumption about human civilization. From the ashes of the old world, something unprecedented emerged: a society built on cooperation rather than competition, abundance rather than scarcity, wisdom rather than power.
But survival was only the beginning.
As Aidan weaves together tales he witnessed of sacrifice and hope, of warriors like Kaiya who chose love over fear, and scientists like Dr. Aris Thorne who unlocked the secrets of life itself, the children learn they are inheritors of humanity's greatest transformation. Enhanced, long-lived, and scattered across dozens of star systems, they carry within them the responsibility of becoming gardeners of consciousness itself.
Blending Indigenous futurism with hard science fiction, Gardeners of Consciousness is an epic tale of cultural resilience, chosen family, and the understanding that awareness is the universe's most precious gift. It's a story about what we become when we choose to tend rather than take, to nurture rather than dominate.
Some flowers bloom only after the forest burns. This is humanity's bloom.
A multigenerational saga in the tradition of Octavia Butler and N.K. Jemisin.

Alexander Addams is a Taino writer who lives in Montreal, where he works as a storyteller exploring the intersection of Indigenous wisdom and speculative futures. "Gardeners of Consciousness" is his debut novel, born from a decade of carrying these stories and a belief that the universe needs more hope than fear. When not writing, he can be found contemplating the petroglyphs that inspired this tale and wondering what stories the stars might tell.
"I am Indigenous first, all the rest follows."