I had the great fortune once of attending a discussion with Tom Stoppard, my favorite playwright. In conversation with his biographer, Hermione Lee, there were several points I was thrilled to hear the virtuoso expound upon, not least of which was a principled articulation of what art can and cannot do... At least if it wishes to remain art... A discussion for another day, perhaps. 

 

The major encouragement, however, came when Stoppard explained he never planned his writing out. Ever. When penning The Real Inspector Hound, he placed a dead body on the stage, not knowing what he was going to do with it. There it stayed for an entire thirty-two pages while the show plowed forward, not because he had a reason for it to remain unused, but because the moment hadn't presented itself yet when the dead body was meant to come into the story. 

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I was thrilled, for that is the only way I know how to write. 

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2028 follows three protagonists as the whole of humanity is conscripted into a galactic battle where existence itself is at stake. Terrence Barnes, New Yorker, rolls with the punches no matter where in the universe he finds himself. Annie Rhodes Jr. - descendent of Traxton Rhodes of Delirium Tremens fame - is one of a handful out of billions of humans who escapes the forced draft, fighting for a sense of normalcy against a war that simply won't leave her alone. And Henly Bancroft, bête noire of the Bancroft line, determined to survive if only so he can beat his Pulitzer-winning sister to publish the definitive account of the galactic war effort.