Local authors Berkeley Johnson and Kristin Johnson will be at Chaucer’s Books, 3321 State St., to do a book signing for “The Last Messenger,” 6 p.m. Thursday, March 23.

The story is set during the Civil War era, when a dying sentient machine touches down on earth and transfers its essence into the human population in preparation to defend the world against an ancient enemy sterilizing planets of all biological life.

The Destroyer has learned of earth and is a generation away from arriving. A teenage chess prodigy named Maddie, her mute but super-humanly strong twin brother Sven, and her biggest chess adversary and burgeoning love interest Benton, along with a grizzled beat cop, form an unlikely group to defend the earth against a machine built to kill suns and solar systems.

Berkeley Johnson is a humorist, poet and writer of short stories for magazines and newspapers. A graduate of UCLA, he lives in Santa Barbara.

Kristin Johnson is a prize-winning/prize-finalist writer, blogger, ghost-writing/creative writing consultant, screenwriter and editor.

A graduate of the former Master of Professional Writing Program from USC, she has published/collaborated on several books and co-produced two short films.

She is a member of the Desert Screenwriters Guild, an officer of the World Game-Changers, a member of the Society of Children’s Books and Illustrators, and Palm Springs Women in Film and Television.