Generation Mars
LightNews LightNews
banner
douglas.generationmars.space
Generation Mars
@douglas.generationmars.space
130 followers 87 following 1K posts
Generation Mars is a series of children’s books that follows the first generation of space-faring kids. It's hard science fiction scaled for kids.

https://generationmars.space/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P5P3986
Posts Replies Media Videos
douglas.generationmars.space
I was listening to I’ll Take You There, by the Staple Singers, and I had a vision of kids floating in zero gravity, laughing and bouncing around.

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity
The crew of STS-45 is already training for its March 1992 mission, including stints on the KC-135 zero-gravity-simulating aircraft. Shown with an inflatable globe are, clockwise from the top, C. Michael Foale, mission specialist; Dirk Frimout, payload specialist; Brian Duffy, pilot; Charles R. (Rick) Chappell, backup payload specialist; Charles F. Bolden, mission commander; Byron K. Lichtenberg, payload specialist; and Kathryn D. Sullivan, payload commander. NASA/JSC Public domain
December 18, 2025 at 4:27 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Maybe my use of Sly and the Family Stone’s I Want To Take You Higher was a bit on the nose for a launch song.

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity
A closeup of the drive plume as Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket called “PREFIRE and Ice,” lifts off from Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand at 3:15 p.m. NZST Wednesday, June 5, 2024. NASA/Rocket Lab public domain
December 17, 2025 at 7:10 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Kids love trains. There are no trains on Mars, but kids there love them all the more for this. Cas and Ori, the sisters in my books, are past this stage of childhood, but they remember.

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity #trains
A picture of two toy trains: Thomas and James.
December 17, 2025 at 12:28 AM
douglas.generationmars.space
Do you get frisson? More specifically, do some pieces of music make the hair on your neck stand up?

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity
Picture of skin with goosebumps. Image has been altered to display the words "it's just a song". photographer: Ildar Sagdejev license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
December 16, 2025 at 12:13 AM
douglas.generationmars.space
My oldest also likes Radiohead, though she would probably think Creep is basic.

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity
The author in a different and wilder period of life. This is too embarrassing to describe further.
December 14, 2025 at 6:43 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
My oldest went through a Riot Grrrl phase. That phrasing sounds dismissive. I don’t mean it that way at all.

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity #riotgrrrl
Flyer written by Kathleen Hanna in 1989.
December 13, 2025 at 5:31 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Thanks, Gabino!

My latest book, Food: Generation Mars, Book Four, came out December 1st. It's ostensibly Middle Grade/YA. But I dunno man, I think it's an epic for all ages.

www.amazon.com/Food-Generat...
Composite image of a writer at his laptop. Around him swirl Earth, Mars, the Moon, and the five books of the Generation Mars series. The latest book, Food, is featured.
December 12, 2025 at 11:09 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Excerpt:
“The Country Roads stood upright on the pad, engine bells down, nose up, like all rockets since the beginning of the rocket age...

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity
An illustration of a very ungainly spaceship taking off. Illustration by Luis Peres for Food: Generation Mars, Book Four
December 12, 2025 at 4:25 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Do you remember the first time we see the Discovery One in 2001? It eases slowly onto the screen, as a melancholy orchestral piece plays (Adagio from Gayane, by Aram Ilyich Khachaturian).

🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity #cello
Victorian woman standing with cello public domain
December 11, 2025 at 11:47 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
“Music filled the Country Roads. It was what used to be called surf music, with echo-y jangling guitars and voices in harmony singing about cars and waves.”
-- from Food: Generation Mars, Book Four
🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity
Closeup of a Woody vehicle with surfboards on top. Image from Wikimedia Commons, by Damian Gadal. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
December 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Many years ago, I went to Bolivia to help a friend with some field research. We stayed on a remote ranch in the Gran Chaco, an arid grassland in the southern part of the country.
🧵

#GenMarsFoodMusic
#scifi #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity
An image of an acoustic phin instrument. public domain
December 9, 2025 at 12:25 AM
douglas.generationmars.space
Food: Generation Mars, Book Four has landed!

www.amazon.com/Food-Generat...

(begin🧵)

#scifi #kidlit #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #ya #yascifi #writingcommunity #booksky 🪐📚💙
An author types at on a laptop over a background of stars. Floating around him we see Mars and Earth and the Moon. Spiraling above that we see the cover of each book of the Generation Mars series culminating in a larger image of the cover of Food: Generation Mars, Book Four.
December 1, 2025 at 2:57 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
There's still one more day to grab these free ebooks. Check 'em out!

lyndiallison.com/freereads
December 1, 2025 at 1:29 AM
douglas.generationmars.space
Coming Monday: the next installment of the Generation Mars saga.

Food: Generation Mars, Book Four.

When a misaligned AI makes Earth unreachable, families on the Moon must make a hard choice...

#scifi #kidlit #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #ya #yascifi #booksky 🪐📚💙
Small images of the covers of four Generation Mars books are in a column on the left. A larger image of the cover of the new Generation Mars book is on the right. The words "Available December 1st" appear below.
November 30, 2025 at 12:36 AM
douglas.generationmars.space
Thanks, Gabino!

Book Four of my Generation Mars series comes out Monday (Kindle version currently available for preorder). To celebrate, I'm making the third book available for free on Kindle through Monday.

a.co/d/ahDT8bV
November 28, 2025 at 4:16 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Free on Kindle!

Four authors, five books!

Nov 27 - Dec 1, 2025

Grabbing Book Three of Generation Mars free is a great way to prepare for the release of Book Four on December 1st.

lyndiallison.com/freereads

#freekindlebooks #freereads #mglit #mgbooks #yabooks #yascififantasy #scifi
November 27, 2025 at 12:49 AM
douglas.generationmars.space
Holy smokes, guys! This thing comes out in a week! 😬
The Kindle preorder is up right now! 😮
Time's getting away from me. 😕
But I am excited! 😆

#amwriting #scifi #childrensbooks #kidlit #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #yabooks #yascifi #booksky 🪐📚💙
The cover of the next Generation Mars book, showing a spaceship against a green and orange background. The words "Coming December 1st, 2025" and "Food: Generation Mars, Book Four" are superimposed.
November 24, 2025 at 10:19 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Thanks, Gabino, for the #FridayReads thread!

I just revealed the cover and release date of my next book:
The cover of the next Generation Mars book, showing a spaceship against a green and orange background. The words "Coming December 1st, 2025" and "Food: Generation Mars, Book Four" are superimposed.
November 7, 2025 at 5:54 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Cover reveal and release date announcement for the next Generation Mars book!

#amwriting #scifi #childrensbooks #kidlit #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #booksky 🪐📚💙
The cover of the next Generation Mars book, showing a spaceship against a green and orange background. The words "Coming December 1st, 2025" and "Food: Generation Mars, Book Four" are superimposed.
November 7, 2025 at 5:09 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Proofreading my next book. Oof!

#amwriting #scifi #childrensbooks #kidlit #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #booksky #writingcommunity
An image of the pages of a book. A great number are dog-eared.
October 12, 2025 at 3:59 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
This is it: the final chapter of Part One and the final installment of my teaser for Food: Generation Mars, Book Four. Parents doing all they can for their kids. All. They. Can.

douglasdmeredith.substack.com/p/chapter-17

(1/4)
An illustration of hunger riots in Milan, spring 1917, by Max Karl Tilke. Public domain. The image has been modified to show the Generation Mars logo on one of the flags.
September 27, 2025 at 4:34 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
Thanks, Gabino! The last chapter of my teaser for Food: Generation Mars, Book Four comes out tomorrow. Here's a link to the Table of Contents.

douglasdmeredith.substack.com/p/table-of-c...
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, blasts off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida at 10:19 a.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. The words "Chapter 17, Book Four Teaser, Available September 27th, 2025" overlay. credit: NASA/Kevin Davis & Kevin O'Conner copyright: Public domain
September 26, 2025 at 5:54 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
The exciting final chapter of Part One, and the conclusion of my teaser for Food: Generation Mars, Book Four, comes out Saturday, 9/27.

douglasdmeredith.substack.com/p/table-of-c...

#amwriting #scifi #childrensbooks #kidlit #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #freeread
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, blasts off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida at 10:19 a.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. The words "Chapter 17, Book Four Teaser, Available September 27th, 2025" overlay. credit: NASA/Kevin Davis & Kevin O'Conner copyright: Public domain
September 24, 2025 at 9:10 PM
douglas.generationmars.space
QTP with an album you'd rate a perfect 10/10 🎶
Cover of the album Live Through This, by Hole
September 4, 2025 at 5:48 AM
douglas.generationmars.space
Chapter 8 of my teaser for Food: Generation Mars, Book Four is up. I think something bad is about to happen in the commissary.

douglasdmeredith.substack.com/p/chapter-8

#amwriting #scifi #childrensbooks #kidlit #middlegradebooks #mglit #middlegradescifi #middlegradeseries #booksky #freeread
Self portrait of Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola module of the International Space Station observing the Earth below during Expedition 24. Image has been modified to show the Generation Mars logo rather than Earth. The words "Chapter 8, Book Four Teaser" overlay. public domain
August 24, 2025 at 4:36 PM