Lift: The Rise of Mathe-Lingua-Musica

With Earth on the brink of total annihilation, can a new universal language unite the world enough to save it?

It’s 2489 and the world’s governing mathematicians have calculated that society’s struggles with rampant war and homicide have put humanity on a crash-course with extinction. With an estimated fifteen months left until humankind’s total annihilation, the World Council of Mathematicians (WCM) determine the only way out of the crisis is to create the optimum language for humans, creating common understanding across all cultures and allowing them to work together for their joint salvation.

The WCM and Charles De Costa, a brilliant mathematics student, must rely on LIFT, a scientific breakthrough that allows them to enlist the aid of the greatest minds in history, to create this new world language based on mathematics, linguistics, and music. Can the great minds of the past help lead humanity to a better future? Can this new language be created in time? Or will society’s continued evil and miscommunication lead the world to an inevitable end?

Ray Anderson is a hiker and the author of the AWOL Thrillernovel series, which includes The Trail (2015), Sierra (2016), and The Divide (2020). Anderson has done a radio column on hiking. He has also written columns for the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) newsletter and contributed to the local news site, Patch.com, for Hingham, Massachusetts. Anderson lives with his wife, Nancy, near Boston.