By Beth Bruno

The Outcast Trilogy by Patricia Bernard

Patricia Bernard left Melbourne, Australia, to begin her great trek and spent the next twenty-five years working and traveling everywhere in the world. She worked at many different types of jobs, and with a wealth of experience to draw upon, decided to turn to full-time writing. Her first children's book, published in 1981, was turned into a play, talking book, board game and computer game. Since then, Patricia has written seventeen books of adult and children's fiction. When she is not writing or performing in schools, she continues to travel the world.

"Outcast," says Patricia, "the first title in the trilogy, is science fiction, but it is actually about racism. Having four brown kids and having lived in New York and England where racism is an art form (on all sides), I was pleased to find so little of it in Australia. But I thought I'd write a book about it's good to be different. I'm pleased to say that the trilogy is very popular in the schools in Australia."

Excerpt from "OUTCAST":

Panic clutched at his stomach. He had never been on his own in the dark. Not even when hunting the one-horned ground hog. So to contemplate walking alone among the mist-filled gravel pits with a firebrand to light the narrow track and then, if he did not slide into a stony grave, to face an unfriendly cluster, was frightening indeed.

The cluster will surely be the same as everyone else. They will treat him like a monster; they will be frightened and say that a mega throwback is bad luck. But it is because he is different that Fish finds real friendship for the first time in his life. Friendship that makes him strong, strong enough to follow his own path, whatever the cost...

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In "Punisher," the second book of the trilogy, Fish, Branch and Weed journey deep into the Southern Zone in pursuit of the Wilderness gypsies who have stolen Ari from the Eastern Zone. They know that Thorn went in pursuit and has not been heard of since.

Captured by feuding Southern Zoners the tree Outcasts become entertainers to buy their freedom – and Thorn's. But so much time has passed, the Wilderness Circus is no longer in the Southern Zone. The Outcasts must cross unknown lands and endure incredible hardships as they follow the Circus far to the east, closer and closer to the Wilderness Mountains...

The landscape is unforgiving, and capture by the Wilderness Circus seems to signal the end of the road for the Outcasts and for Ari, if she is still alive...

For more information about this science fiction trilogy, see reviews by readers on amazon.com. One of them wrote, "This would have to be the best book I have ever read. It is an Australian Author who wrote it. The story had an interesting story line, along with interesting, well described characters, each having a different personality. The story went all over the known world with the characters, and because there's a map, you can follow them as they go. This book, The Outcast, is the first of THE OUTCAST TRILOGY. It definitely gives you an idea of what the other two books will be like, and makes you want to read them! An excellent book to read over and over again!"

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