JEDDAH: Saudi writer Fahad Fatani, known professionally as F J Fatani, has signed a three-book agreement with SLKY World, an independent publisher based in Orlando in the US, for his debut science fiction trilogy 'Something About Mars.'

The deal was negotiated directly with SLKY World publisher Mariana De' Carli, who discovered the project after Fatani pitched it live at the Riyadh Writers Conference in February this year.

The first installment is scheduled for release in 2027, with screen adaptation described as a potential pathway.

'The trilogy explores a post-monetary, post-apocalyptic Earth and humanity's gradual migration beyond it into a shared, interplanetary existence shaped by a new type of corporate colonization, cultural significance, and evolving definitions of self-identity in a context where it no longer matters,' an official release said.

'We were searching for science fiction that felt expansive not just in scale, but in perspective,' De' Carli said in a statement.

'Fahad's story doesn't belong to one place.

It imagines a future in which many worlds, histories, and philosophies intersect.'

The work's central question — what replaces society's oldest systems when they collapse — is explored through an everyman protagonist navigating a world where, as De' Carli describes it, 'being highly skilled is very dangerous.

The originality of the story is very compelling, especially as we start to speculate on the new space race happening in real life now,' she added.

The deal arrives at a moment of growing institutional interest in literature from the Gulf.

Fatani, the founder of happyeveryday.today and a 'Happiness Mentor,' is candid about the barriers he faced, and careful not to generalize beyond his own experience.

'For me the barrier was awareness on different levels,' he told Arab News in an exclusive interview.

'Writing sci-fi with the purpose of publishing internationally has always been on my mind, yet I had no idea how to pursue it, or if it was worth pursuing to begin with.'

What changed, he explains, was community, specifically, the Writers in Riyadh group and the conference that brought him into a room with publishers for the first time.

'Meeting the Riyadh Writers and attending the Writers Conference was instrumental in giving me the know-how and support needed to see it as possible,' Fatani said.

The deal reflects something broader than one author's breakthrough: A publishing industry increasingly hungry for science fiction that draws on perspectives, philosophies, and imaginative traditions outside the genre's familiar centers of gravity.

'A part of me believes wholeheartedly that there is nothing stopping someone from Saudi Arabia or the Gulf writing the next Star Wars or LOTR,' Fatani said.

'I know, and have seen, many in the region with such unique imaginations, but I think many of those same people might think that they don’t have ‘what it takes’ to create imaginative worlds and universes.'

His own trilogy, by his account, emerged organically from a lifelong love of the genre rather than from any deliberate mission to plant a flag.

'It was definitely more organic for me,' he said of his decision to write in English for a global audience.

As a proud Saudi, I would gladly represent my country or the region, but at the same time my focus is to write speculative fiction out of the love I have of the genre, with the goal of reaching as many fans of sci-fi as possible, no matter where they live,' he added.

'Something About Mars' is set against 'a richly imagined cosmic backdrop' with themes of interplanetary migration and corporate power reimagined at cosmic scale.

'Creating a story I enjoy, where I get as surprised as my protagonist, comes with a unique form of joy,' he said while discussing his creative process.

'This type of joy is fulfilling, entertaining, and a lot of times keeps me at the edge of my seat.'

Founded on a commitment to 'diverse, boundary-pushing storytelling,' SLKY World has been looking toward the region as a source of new voices and intellectual property.

De' Carli told Arab News they are working with 'world-class experts who have been involved in bestselling book launches previously,' with the US identified as a priority market.

Screen adaptation, De' Carli indicates, is not a distant prospect but something international partners are already treating as viable alongside the trilogy's publication schedule.

'We've believed in it so much that we've signed on to the full three books,' she said, 'which is a sign of confidence that it will be a commercially successful franchise.'

SLKY World's sci-fi acquisitions are being led by De' Carli's brother, Carlos Gabriel De' Carli, whose background in gaming and collectables informs his approach to the genre's commercial possibilities.

'This will not be our only sci-fi release coming out in the near future,' she said.

She is frank about the structural realities that have historically made that difficult.

'There are historical challenges, including stereotyping and barriers to access, stemming from the fact that the larger publishing houses were centered outside the region.'

At the Riyadh conference, she observed that the Meet the Publishers segment sold out, and was packed with local writers 'keen to understand the different pathways possible for them.

The overwhelming feedback was that global publishing was difficult to access for anyone, but there were even greater barriers for storytellers from the region due to the distance to the traditional publishing epicenters.'

She also pushes back on assumptions about the uniformity of writing emerging from Saudi Arabia.

The submissions SLKY World received were, she noted, strikingly varied.

"None of the manuscripts had the same voice.

Locally based authors can and do write about topics ranging from female rage to sports-focused motivational nonfiction," she said.

"The idea that there is just one type of storytelling doesn't correspond with what we saw".