Ariella Ackerman's Cosmic Quest for the Eight-Sided Heptagon

Ariella Ackerman’s Cosmic Quest for the Eight-Sided Heptagon is a non-erotic tale of an alien species’ (Zaktrams’) desire to learn the sexual mores of other sentient beings as part of their on-going 54,000-year inquiry into the feasibility of returning to asexual reproduction. Three LGBTQIA teenagers from Greenwich, Connecticut become unwilling participants in the Zaktrams’ study. The first half of the novel delves into the three friends’ individual hopes and fears, while at the same time making it clear to the reader their source of strength is group-derived, a gestalt mindset forged of/from mutual respect and love. The second half of the novel follows the Humans’ initial release from bondage, only to fall into the hands of a race of beings (Penambanamsuelans) who possess superior intelligence to both they and the Zaktrams, but whose ‘gift’ of freedom may amount to nothing more than a gilded cage. At the conclusion of the tale, the intrepid trio must decide whether to accept life in their present ‘comfortable-yet-alien’ timeline, or risk all on a return to their former lives on Earth.