SANDPOINT — Author Nick Plastino may have grown up in Whidbey Island, Wash., but he spent much of his summer vacation time in a family cabin at Bottle Bay on property originally purchased by his great-great-grandfather, Vern Gage. After completing college in Seattle, Plastino returned to the area and has been a Sandpoint resident for about three years now. He works for The Grooming Network, a local firm.

"Crossing the Long Bridge feels more like coming home than taking the ferry to Whidbey Island now," he said.

In 2014, he became a published author with his first book, "Dawn of Modern Man."

It is a science fiction novel that depicts a future far different from the present. However, his protagonist, Parker Candlefish, is a character with much the same motivations as most people today: maintaining independence in the face of a dehumanizing society while struggling to survive.

Plastino wrote the novel with the intention of adding two more to make a trilogy. He said he has a solid outline for the remaining books but has a lot of work ahead of him.

He majored in business at the University of Washington, but said he wished he had taken more English courses. He was about 19 when he read "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger and had an epiphany of sorts.

"There’s something about it that got me to really understand what literature is. I felt like I understood in the way he wrote his characters how powerful literature could be."

Plastino's second transformative experience in terms of literature was reading Orwell's "1984." He was traveling with a study group that visited 10 countries, including Japan, Mexico, Egypt and Spain at the time.

“A year later, I read '1984' while I was doing a study abroad program. I realized I wanted to be a writer at some point," he said, adding that he subsequently made several tries at writing when the words refused to flow. However, it was a significant bump in the road that finally jump-started Plastino's writing career.

"I ended up getting diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2011 (healthy now). This got my priorities in line very fast. I began work on 'Dawn of Modern Man' the same day I left the hospital from my first round of chemo," he said. "I had a job doing proofing and editing in the financial industry and was able to work from wherever, so that summer of '12, I worked on my book at the family cabin."

He said the concept behind the book was rooted in contemporary culture.

"It's all based around what it would be like to get paid to play video games," he said. Even so, the book seems to offer a more complex view, taking on such gritty issues as reproductive ethics and the nature of being human.

"Dawn of Modern Man" is available at the Corner Bookstore in Sandpoint, and at various online venues, including CreateSpace and Amazon.com.

Information: www.dawnofmodernman.com