The books shown on the left are by Alden Globe. Click on the cover to order.

This interview was conducted by Diana Coyle on March 25, 2025.

Today I’m interviewing author Alden Globe.

Diana Coyle: Before asking you any questions I have regarding your book, “Daughter of Mars,” can you please tell us a little about yourself?

Alden Globe:  Thank you Diana. I’ve spent my career working in information technology and software, working to speed access to critical information used by front-line staff including pilots, call center staff, sales teams, and IT professionals. This is applied knowledge management using technology to improve performance. 

I’m a value engineer with BMC Software. I work across industries helping large business customers justify investment in technologies that deliver digital business transformation. I work from home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Diana Coyle: Can you please provide a brief synopsis of “Daughter of Mars” to familiarize our readers with your book?

Alden Globe:  As you accurately described in your review Diana, Daughter of Mars is an attempt to use fiction to raise public awareness of the growing threat of fake pharmaceuticals containing illicit opioids. 

Kickass value engineer Rave Maps finds her usual approach to solving business problems is inadequate in the face of this growing disaster. The death of her young nephew motivates her to learn more. In order to interdict the global drug supply chain, Rave falls back on military skills she thought she’d left in the past. 

When violence doesn’t work, she has one opportunity to try again as the danger flows away from Earth to the surface of Mars where humanity’s first mining outpost and tourism spa are under construction. Reaching Mars gives Rave a chance to connect with her Digital Twin AI, who retreated to an old NASA Mars rover years earlier, hoping to avoid the reach of conflicted, warring, 21st Century humans.

Diana Coyle: Please explain to our readers a little background behind your personal tragedy that influenced you in writing this series? 

Alden Globe:  My beautiful 21-year old daughter Madeline was a senior at University of Colorado in Boulder in August 2017.  Maddy had just returned from a semester abroad in Aix-en-Provence. Seeking to relieve anxiety as the new school year began Madz purchased a $5 Xanax from a fellow student. That pill was a fake, it contained toxic amounts of fentanyl, heroin, and alprazolam. Maddy died asleep in her bed. 

The ensuing police investigation, Grand Jury, and court proceedings took two years to complete. In 2017, fake pharmaceuticals containing illicit fentanyl were a new and misunderstood threat. Today, a poisoning like Maddy’s is referred to as the “One Pill Kill.” 

Over time, I came to realize that we do not ever get over grief, but we can learn to move forward with it. The best way to help yourself is to help others. For that reason, my wife Susan and I have been outspoken on fentanyl, sharing Maddy’s story at local high schools, with the media, and with both houses of the Colorado legislature, seeking to introduce meaningful legislation to help push back against this darkness. Maps Private Value thrillers helped me come to grips with loss while – hopefully – helping others. I was hoping to educate readers on the difference between overdose and poisoning. Few adults understand the distinction. This was a powerful motivation for writing Daughter of Mars. 

While researching the book, I was fascinated to learn about the “Old China Trade,” New England’s 19th century trade business, purchasing goods from Canton and paying with opium grown in Turkey. 

As a former resident of Marblehead, having grown up surrounded by sea-captain homes built with the profits of that illegal drug trade, I wanted to see if I could draw a steel thread from the American Revolution of 1776 to the One Pill Kill. The result is the 200-year timeline of events you see in the Forward.   

Proceeds from the books support the endowment for Maddy’s Garden of Light at the Yampa River Botanic Park in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. 

Diana Coyle: What led you to write the Maps Private Value as a series set in the future?

Alden Globe:  When people ask me what I do and I answer I’m a value engineer, they often seem puzzled, have never heard of that. The role is specific to software industry business sales. In 2021, I realized this may an opportunity to work on writing something to raise the profile of the discipline of value engineering. 

I thought at the same time I might try and raise the profile of Women in Technology via an all-female team of kickass value engineers, and finally, to try to employ the questioning VE mindset to address three global issues: AI, climate change, and fentanyl. 

Diana Coyle: Where do you look upon for inspiration for each book you write?

Alden Globe:  The inspiration for all three books is ripped from current-day news headlines. 

I was concerned about AI and looking for ways to use it in 2022 to gain a better understanding. By writing about it in Daughter of the Cloud, I found I was able to think through ways to partner with the technology. 

I thought it’d be a clever pun to create a human Digital Twin for Rave Maps. In industry, the term “digital twin” refers to a digital representation of a physical item, such as a machine, containing dimensions, materials, parts lists, and product designs in digital form – an electronic Bill of Materials. 

When I read the alarming UN IPCC Summary Report on climate change in 2023, I knew this would anchor Daughter of the Storm. I quoted from the report in the Introduction. VEs are storytellers and problem solvers. Using communication tools to popularize findings from a complex scientific report seemed an especially good challenge for Rave and her team to take on. 

Writing the first two books helped develop the characters, and positive reader feedback gave me the confidence to use that material to try and write meaningfully about fentanyl in Daughter of Mars. I set the story a bit in the future, thinking this drug problem will continue to grow worse. 

Right now, over 100,000 Americans die each year from this scourge.

You are correct Diana in pointing out 2029 is a bit too soon for mining operations to begin on Mars. I didnt’ want to put the date so far out Rave would be too old to get there. 2045 would probably be a more technically accurate date to choose, just between us astronauts. 

You remind me that the last TV show I watched together with Maddy was the excellent, speculative, multi-episode documentary put together by National Geographic called Mars. 

Diana Coyle: Since this is book 3 of a 4 book series, when can readers look forward to the last book of the series being released?

Alden Globe:  So glad you asked! The series is only three books. At the end of 2024, I combined the first three manuscripts into one collected volume entitled Value Never Sleeps. 

There may be more Rave Maps adventures in the future. I’m taking a break from the novels right now to focus on a Rave Maps screenplay. That story will probably look at Rave’s young life growing up on a ranch, and being in the military. This would explain the origins of her work ethic and skills enabling her to succeed later in life as a consultant.

Diana Coyle: What did you find to be the most difficult part about writing this book?

Alden Globe:  By far the hardest part of writing these books (and any book) is trying to understand who is the audience for these stories? Are these travel books? Technology books? Fiction in service of a cause? 

I suspect the audience for Rave’s adventures consists of mostly female readers, probably over 25 years of age, who enjoy thrillers and fiction placing strong female characters in difficult situations to see how they meet and overcome challenges. 

Like most writers, I “write what I know.” The books are based on real scenarios and problem-solving approaches I’ve encountered in life.

Diana Coyle: It was quite obvious how much research you put into writing this book. How long did it take you, from start to finish, to write book 3? 

Alden Globe:  Book three took ten months to write. All three stories are short at about 30,000 words. I chose that length thinking today’s readers are short on time. There are too many competing forces clamoring for our attention. People have less time for reading and I was trying to respect that.

Diana Coyle: When you did research to write this story, did you do actual traveling to other countries to make it as authentic as you did?

Alden Globe:  Yes. I’m glad you asked about that. I have visited every location in the books. The only exceptions are Shanghai, and Mars. Not yet anyway. 

Diana Coyle: To wrap up our interview, is there anything you would like to add that you would love your readers to know?

Alden Globe:  First, I want readers to know how much I appreciate their interest in the stories and characters. The positive feedback has been very gratifying. 

I’m an independently published author, and like all independent authors, we very much appreciate readers who take time to post reviews of books you enjoyed.

The themes in all three books are very real. AI, climate change, and fentanyl are global forces shaping our world. Hopefully your awareness is raised by these stories and this helps inform your thinking as our universe continues to unfold into the future. Below are a few links to more information on these topics.

Diana Coyle: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me.

Alden Globe:  Thank you Diana, it’s been a pleasure.

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