They call themselves The Settlement Bureau. A faceless, soulless organization coercing Americans with threats to expose their improprieties and vulnerabilities. Inhumanely persistent, they’ve secretly driven hundreds of victims into bankruptcy, despair – and several even to suicide.
But when this organization tries to blackmail IT expert Terry Reynolds, they make a serious mistake. Terry is down on his luck. He is penniless, divorced and in a dead-end job. Yet, the abuse of his personal information stirs Terry out of his lethargy and he fights back. He embarks on a digital game of cat-and-mouse with the cold, calculating minds behind The Settlement Bureau – and in doing so, uncovers a sprawling criminal conspiracy.
Under The Cloud is a chillingly plausible new thriller by B.R. Erlank. With a plot ripped straight from the headlines, readers warn this book delivers a “roller coaster ride right up to the final pages.”
Boris Erlank grew up in Southern Africa and Namibia. He has lived and worked in places as diverse as Luanda, Cape Town, Singapore and San Francisco. Boris recently gave up his job as Global Privacy Manager with a Fortune 100 company to focus on writing full-time.
He has an extensive background in IT, data privacy and cybersecurity, and has drawn on that experience to craft his latest novel, “Under the Cloud”.
Boris lives with his family and two dogs in the foothills of Mount Diablo, east of San Francisco. In his spare time, he likes to cycle, hike, sing in a choir, and listen to audiobooks.
Welcome to the tour for genre-blurring novel, LO by Bradford Tatum. Read on for more details!
LO
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Sci-Fi/ Noir Thriller
Publisher: Soft Moon Press
Willoughby, known back on Earth as “the East Hamptons of the Kuiper Belt,” is the first sustainable colony on Mars.
Built by the mysterious geneticist Carlo Yakamura this settlement encourages the rich to live as they please. They can enjoy decadent homes, physically modifiable partners, meals based on their best memories and even boutique children known on Willoughby as Builds.
Designed to impress even at the dullest cocktail parties, the Builds’ proprietary motive genes have been sourced from the DNA of some of the greatest artistic disruptors of the last several centuries. But even among a host of uniquely gifted Builds, Lo is unique. And uniquely unbalanced. So what would be the grisliest of murders back on Earth, is just an inconvenience on Willoughby. That is why Lo is sent to be “seasoned” by a man we come to know only as Cook.
Can Cook’s fatherly hand guide Lo to a deeper understanding of his potential and purpose or is Lo’s innate power destined to destroy all of Willoughby? Is Lo the key to Cook’s creative redemption or is he the cause of Cook’s worst nightmares? And once Cook learns the true purpose of Yakamura’s Willoughby will Lo or Cook find the colony worth saving at all?
LO is a sci-fi noir thriller, painted in more deeper shades of blue than black. It is also a story of fathers and sons, lost to one another through terrible compromises and found again through the limits of love. It is a parable of our possible future, a future that is doomed if we rely only on the digital representation of our present while forgetting the lessons and lore of our analogue past.
Bradford Tatum’s award winning debut novel I Can Only Give You Everything was published in 2010. His second novel, Only the Dead Know Burbank was published by HarperCollins in 2016 and received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. His book Gray Matters has been used as a text book in various college business communication courses.
Bradford began his career as an actor appearing in numerous television shows and movies such as 20th Century Fox’s submarine comedy DOWN PERISCOPE, Disney’s POWDER and HBO’s WESTWORLD.
He was a staff writer for Dick Wolf on the NBC series DEADLINE and has written and directed two award winning independent features. He has won an Alfred P. Sloan grant for his written work as well as sold pitches to various production companies.
Welcome to the tour for Promise of the Visitor, one of three novellas in the Silver Sphere Series by David Gittlin. Read on for more info and a chance to win a $50 Amazon e-gift card!
Promise of the Visitor
(The three volumes in the Silver Sphere Series can be read independently and in any order)
Publication Date: April 14th, 2022
Genre: Science Fiction/ Sci-fi Fantasy
Length: 142 Pages
The police have arrived to investigate a strange report. What happens next?
An unconscious body lies on the kitchen floor. Two Daytona Police deputies are ringing the bell on the front door of the beach house mystery writer Jacob Cassel rents. It’s going to be an interesting morning for Jacob, his super-smart girlfriend, Amy, and Arcon, an AI from the other side of the Milky Way. If they can survive the morning without being thrown in jail, they are expecting a visitor from the planet Aneleya to arrive later in the evening bearing a cornucopia of gifts for the human race. Instead of gifts, the visitor arrives with dire news about a doomsday device threatening the destruction of planet Earth and the entire solar system.
Welcome aboard for this suspenseful interstellar adventure of The Silver Sphere Series!
Excerpt
NO ONE BESIDES ME and Amy knows that inside the golden sphere lives an artificial intelligence originating from the other side of the Milky Way. Said sphere rests on top of a beige granite counter beside a nickel-plated sink in Jeffrey’s ultra-modern kitchen. Except the kitchen belongs to a guy named Jack. I keep thinking “Jeffrey” because that’s the alter ego Jack uses as a front for his real name, Jack Markham. I thought Jeffrey Mortenson was my friend. Instead, he turns out to be an international criminal named Jack.
When I first met the artificial intelligence on a lonely stretch of Daytona Beach one night, it identified itself to me as “Arcon” because its actual name is unpronounceable in English or any other terrestrial tongue. At the time, Arcon was packed by his makers into something resembling a basketball-sized silver sphere. The packaging has changed on multiple occasions with the ridiculous demands of the circumstances we have somehow managed to live through. To be completely transparent, Arcon doesn’t actually have a name. He has an unpronounceable Aneleyan name only because the Aneleyan scientists who created Arcon needed to call him something besides, “it” or “the thing.” Arcon definitely doesn’t like to be referred to as a “thing.”
Arcon has preferences, but as far as I know, he doesn’t have feelings. He may, however, be developing them because his consciousness is evolving. I want to explore feelings and other matters in depth with Arcon when there isn’t a crisis at hand. Currently, we have one looming. I think of Arcon as a “he.” Actually, Arcon is neither male nor female. When we first met, Arcon presented himself to me as a “he” because he didn’t want any sexual tension to complicate our relationship. We only had three days to save the Earth, so there was no time to dither around with anything remotely romantic. Therefore, I’ve become accustomed to calling Arcon a “he,” although he really isn’t.
Speaking of sexual tension, my partner and current flame, Amy Goodwin, just walked back into the room. A white robe covers her lithe body. She’s put her long red hair up in a ponytail. She wears a light mask of makeup and a pair of flat heels. In her simple attire and after our long night of digging Arcon out of a sand dune, Amy still manages to look like a knockout. The ponytail, freckles, and white robe lend her an air of child-like innocence, despite her nearly six-foot-tall frame. I know that Amy can change from an innocent child into a desirable twenty-six-year-old woman in a heartbeat. She never ceases to surprise me. For example, if she wasn’t a brainy aerospace engineer and part-time astronomer, Amy might have had a successful career as a criminal. In the short time we’ve been together, Amy has proven she can think on her feet. She can talk her way out of the stickiest of circumstances. We’ve been through many of them. We’re in one now.
Amy had to take a break to put herself back together after what happened only fifteen minutes ago. Presently, there are two sheriff’s deputies knocking on our front door. Their unexpected arrival so soon after the incident is unnerving, to put it mildly. The man lying unconscious on the marble kitchen floor owns the beach house we’ve been staying in. Whether the house is owned in the name of Jack, Jeffrey, or some shell corporation doesn’t matter. What matters is Jack will surely claim that we broke into his house, or we had an argument, and I attacked him. He’ll say he came back from a business trip, found us in the house, and a struggle ensued. He’ll claim he used the double-barreled Derringer a few feet from his bloodied head for self-defense.
If he goes with the self-defense story, Jack will have to come up with a plausible explanation as to how he wound up conked out on the floor. He had a gun, after all, and we didn’t. In actuality, Jack cracked his head on the marble flooring when he crumbled after Arcon zapped him with an electromagnetic energy bolt. At the time, Jack was in a murderous rage. He wanted to kill Amy, again, after succeeding to do so once before. Jack is as devious a criminal as any. I’m sure he’ll come up with a doozy of a story to cover his tracks. And, since he owns the house, I fear the deputies will believe Jack’s fictional version of the story, assuming he wakes up to tell it.
“Daytona Beach Sheriff’s Deputies,” I hear through the front door. “Coming,” I announce.
Only one thing stood between me and my dream of becoming a creative writer: I couldn’t do two things at once.
Upon retiring from my career in marketing communications, I decided to devote my full attention to writing fiction, thereby solving my multi-tasking challenge.
I began my creative writing journey by enrolling in the online Writers’ Program offered by UCLA. In a series of courses taught by professional writers, I learned how to craft memorable characters, create colorful worlds, and outline suspenseful plots enriched with drama and conflict. Taking one baby step at a time, I managed to bridge the gulf between writing promotional copy in short bursts to rendering full scale novels. As an interim step, I wrote three screenplays.
My three feature length scripts; “Love Will Find You,” “Joshua’s Decision, and “A Prescription for Happiness” have reached the finals or placed in several major screenplay competitions. My first novel, a Science Fantasy, “Three Days to Darkness,” was nominated to the James Kirkwood Prize for creative writing. My publishing company, Entelligent Entertainment, has also published “Scarlet Ambrosia” and my latest novel: “Micromium–Clean Energy from Mars.”
The second thrilling instalment of Adam Simcox’s ‘wildly entertaining’ (Adam Hamdy) THE DYING SQUAD series.
There’s a new serial killer on the streets of Manchester – and only a dead cop can stop them.
Detective Joe Lazarus works for the Dying Squad, solving crimes the living police can’t. When the Generation Killer starts wiping out Manchester’s innocents, Joe and his new partner Bits have mere hours to catch the murderer. A young woman’s life depends on it.
Joe’s former partner Daisy-May has her own problems. Children are going missing in the afterlife, and she’s the only one who seems to care. Her investigation uncovers a conspiracy so vast, it threatens both the living and the dead.
Her predecessor the Duchess can’t help this time; she’s tracked her treacherous sister, Hanna, to Tokyo, where she’s been recruiting the dead. The Duchess must enlist the help of a local detective if she’s to have any choice of stopping her.
Time is running out for the Dying Squad. And if they can’t crack their cases, it’s the living that will pay…
My thoughts: time to crawl through some toxic Gloop once more and hang out with the residents of the Pen. Or not, as this case seems to be taking everyone soil side. Joe Lazarus and his new partner Bits are chasing a murderer, who’s killing grandfathers and their grandchildren in Manchester, Daisy-May’s trying to find out where the children of the Pen are going missing and why, and the Duchess has tracked her homicidal sister to Tokyo.
Of course none of these things is even remotely straightforward or easily resolved and there’s all sorts of chaos and horrors to fight through before even getting an answer, and without a way to communicate with each other, no one knows what’s happening or if their different cases might be connected. Just another day in the afterlife of the Dying Squad.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Tune in Tomorrow [ISBN-13: 978-1786186300, August 23, 2022, Solaris/Rebellion] by Randee Dawn is a curious, calamitous, cockamamie story of a small town girl and the greatest mythic reality show ever. Starr Weatherby came to New York to become… well, a star. But after years of unsuccessful struggling, she’s offered a big role – on a show no one has ever heard of. An over 400-year-old reality TV/docusoap, Tune in Tomorrow is shot beyond the “Veil” by mythical creatures, stars humans – and “streams” out to a fanatical audience of fantastic creatures, who are positive that they are getting a peek into real human lives. And in a way, they are.
But Starr’s transformation from astounded newcomer to fan favorite is hardly smooth: A desperate, devious diva wants her gone; a handsome Lothario’s advances are suspect; her assistant is organizing a strike – and was her predecessor dropped into a bottomless pit? Starr vows to do whatever it takes to keep her dream job, but her struggle to save the show quickly becomes a fight… for her life.
Weaving together a unique combination of pop culture, fantasy and humor, Tune in Tomorrow takes readers on a roller coaster ride behind the scenes to see how the TV sausage gets made. But amid all the wackiness, tough questions arise: What is “reality”? And what might it mean to win a prize that makes you immortal? “Tune in Tomorrow is a book packed with some of the things that make me happiest: TV, divas behaving badly, being torn between two lovers, magical creatures and mangoes. Yes, mangoes,” Dawn says. “It’s a nutty tale of redemption and renewals, and I’m hoping everyone will tune in!” A funny, thrilling and mysterious adventure into the alternate world of reality television, Tune in Tomorrow is perfect for fans of Jasper Fforde, Terry Pratchett, and Christopher Moore.
Maryland-born Randee Dawn is now a Brooklyn-based entertainment journalist who scribbles about the glam world of entertainment by day, then spends her nights crafting wild worlds of fiction. She’s a former editor at The Hollywood Reporterand Soap Opera Digest, and these days covers the wacky world of show business for Variety, The Los Angeles Times, Emmy Magazine and Today.com. Dawn’s obsessive love of all things Law & Order led her to appear in one episode and later co-author The Law & Order SVU: Unofficial Companion. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and online publications; she also dreams up trivia questions for BigBrain Games. Once a month she can be found hosting Rooftop Readings at Ample Hills Creamery in Brooklyn, and when not writing she’s focused on her next travel destination, and hangs out with her wonderful, funny husband and fluffy Westie. She admits she reads way too many books and consumes far too many mangoes.
Question: Tell us what Tune in Tomorrow is all about?
Randee Dawn: There’s the story part of the book, which is about a reality TV show run by mythical creatures, for mythical creatures … but starring humans! They just find our antics as charming and hilarious and intriguing as we do theirs: We make movies and TV shows about castles and dragons and quests and fauns; well, they love hearing about our mundane things like clipping the hedges or embezzlement or adultery or changing light bulbs! But in a bigger sense it’s also about what it might mean to be immortal, and how “reality” might mean different things to different people. And it’s about finding your inner Starr/star!
Q: You typically write non-fiction – what inspired you to write this story and take on a whole new genre?
Dawn: I have always wanted to write a novel. I actually had written several other books about fantasy and fey creatures, but they tended to be very serious – and didn’t sell to publishers. My brilliant agent gently suggested, “Maybe you should try something different.” Humor is tough, and I had no idea if I could write it successfully, if not write it all. But once I dove into Starr’s world and heard her in my head, the silliness came naturally.
Q: Reality TV and soap operas aren’t often considered “prestige” TV – is this a mistaken perception? What are your thoughts on that, as a pop-culture writer?
Dawn: Most all of the entertainment business is goofy and strange. But it is also an endeavor people take seriously – soaps and reality shows are no different. They are their own art form, and require hard work. And, time has shown that people continue to love them!
Q: What do you hope readers will walk away with after reading Tune in Tomorrow?
Dawn: Early on, Starr gives herself a pep talk by recalling a particularly strange improv routine she had to do once: pretend to be a singing mango. It was in that strange circumstance that she was “discovered,” and also where she truly fell in love with acting. So she tells herself throughout the book, whenever she needs an extra dose of courage: Be the mango. Sometimes, being the mango isn’t sufficient to save her, but I hope that amid all the pratfalling and puns and general shenanigans that people come away feeling that they, too, have an inner mango. And all they have to do is tap into it to get that extra push to make their dreams come true.
Q: Out of all the fruits, why a mango?
Dawn: Because it is the most delicious of all, and I am somewhat obsessed. Also, it has a delightful name that’s just fun to say!
Q: How do you get inside your character’s heads during the writing process?
Dawn: I have the whole movie of what my stories are about in my head as I’m writing, and though I don’t think about this consciously, if I need to be in a character’s head, I just start seeing the world through their eyes, as if I’ve put on virtual reality goggles. That really helps. Also, if I do write something that doesn’t seem right for a particular character to do or say, it will just feel wrong. That’s when I know I have to go back and make it true to the person.
Q: How did your background as a national pop-culture journalist influence the way you wrote Tune in Tomorrow?
Dawn: Often, authors are told “write what you know,” which is how we as a society end up with a lot of 20-year-olds writing memoirs. Which is fine! But limiting. When you have no other expertise, you write about yourself. It took me years in the entertainment business, and years removed from covering the soap opera world, to feel ready to use that as my backdrop. And yes, it’s true: Tune in Tomorrow has its roots in soap opera. Because that’s what reality shows are, anyway! Soaps are wonderful ways to tell story, and even if they look like Keeping Up with the Kardashians or Selling Sunset or Grey’s Anatomy today, all of those formats have their roots in the greats, like General Hospital, Days of Our Lives or The Young and the Restless. I wrote what I know!
Q: What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?
Dawn: Be in it for the long haul. Don’t expect that your first draft will be the final draft, or even the thing that you first publish. The first draft is you telling yourself the story – I heard that a long time ago, and it’s incredibly true. After that, it’s about making it into a story that’s ready for the world to read, and that can take a lot longer than you’d expect.
Q: What is next for you? Is there another installment in Tune in Tomorrow, or what can readers expect?
Dawn: A lot depends on how Tune in Tomorrow fares. If it sells well, I’ve got part of a sequel planned that takes place in some of the other TV shows and movies that mythics have been cooking up. But there’s always a chance I’ll go back to a novel I finished during the pandemic lockdown and get it smartened up to show to my agent – about a world where all the superheroes are women.
A book synopsis is fundamentally ridiculous. How can I possibly convey, in only 100 words, the events of the past year and their impact on my perfectly ordered existence?
It is insufficient space to accurately detail how I was blackmailed into demonstrating my flawless algorithm to find a soulmate, despite having no desire for one.
In my former life I avoided trivial human connections. I was alone, accomplished and brilliant.
Unfortunately, that solitary and driven woman no longer exists.
My name is Indiana Dylan and this is the extraordinary account of how I fell in love.
There: 100 words exactly.
My thoughts: I loved this funny, sweet book, I loved Indi and Jack and Lina and Connie and Bruce and Frank and Lina’s family and Peggy and Spider and of course Alan. I did not love Emily. She was a bitch.
Indiana is basically a genius, she’s designed an algorithm that can find anyone’s soulmate. And now she wants to sell it to JaneDoe, a tech company, so she can move on to her next project. Only people don’t do what you want. Cameron, the mean owner and CEO of JaneDoe forces Indi to be a human guinea pig and find her soulmate.
Her new friends Lina and Jack want to help her, Peggy, her brilliant assistant, wants to look after her, Frank and Alan who are basically her neighbours want to help her and look after her. She wants to be left alone.
I loved Indi’s determination, her resilience and her sadness, her life hasn’t been easy and she’s tried to bury it under her tech genius. But she’s lonely. And people need people. Once she starts to let people in, she changes and realises she doesn’t have to be alone anymore.
This was a lovely book, even the sad bits.
Also I’d like Mr & Mrs B to come and cook my Christmas Dinner this year please.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Looking for a collection that has something for every mood? Check out Short Stories for the Long Haul by John T. Buckley! Coming soon!
Short Stories for the Long Haul
Expected Publication Date: August 12th, 2022
Genre: Anthology/ Fantasy/ Sci-Fi/ Crime Fiction & More
A collection of short stories that explore the human condition. Everything from a self absorbed wannabe quarterback who gets his shot, to a woman who marries her dog…
Coming Soon!
About the Author
John T. Buckley is a 47 year old writer from Maine who’s been writing most of his life. He also loves to paint and seeing the world. He studied at University of Southern Maine as well as at SMTC in Cape Elizabeth. Fun fact, John T. Buckley was once the lead singer in a band called Mammyth.
A fast-paced, laugh-a-page graphic novel about friendship, capitalism, and never putting your f***ing phone away!
Katie and Nas are best friends, exes, co-dependents. They share everything, including a tiny room in a North London townhouse belonging to their landlord Jeremy, former host of the hit 90s show ‘Football Lads’.
While Katie bounces from job to job and obsesses about falling behind in life, Nas has bigger things in mind—waiting endlessly for their visa to come through, while working on a seismic art project that will revolutionize politics and society as we know it. Their friend Emma, meanwhile, seems to have it all figured out—job, mortgage, engagement—yet the long hours working for tech giant Arko and endless wedding admin prove equally dread-inducing.
But when Katie’s latest job finds her tutoring the daughter of Arko’s formidable CEO, Michelle, and Emma welcomes the eccentric and enigmatic Alicia to her team at Arko, none of the three women are aware that their lives—and possibly the future of society itself—are about to change forever.
Twelve Percent Dread is a fast-paced, laugh-a-page graphic novel about friendship, capitalism, and never putting your f***ing phone away from Emily McGovern, author of Bloodlust & Bonnets and the hugely popular webcomic My Life As A Background Slytherin.
My thoughts: Bloodlust & Bonnets is still one of my favourite graphic novels of the last few years – it’s very, very funny and we need a sequel please! So I was delighted to be gifted a copy of Twelve Percent Dread to review.
It didn’t disappoint, funny, insightful, intelligent and wry, this is very much a book for right now. With a giant tech firm, its megalomaniac founder poised to try to take over everyone’s lives, while threatening the Prime Minister and barely parenting her teenage daughter, and two young people who have to share a room even though they broke up – rent is not cheap people, just trying to get through life, make enough money to survive, oh and not get deported, this is the satirical read we need!
Katie and Nas are just about surviving, Katie’s addicted to her phone, just lost her job and needs to get a new one – not least because the rent is due. Nas is hoping to stay in the UK (why?) and isn’t allowed to get a job. And now they want to bring down Arko. As things start to spiral out of control, will they be ok?
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son.
Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.
Across the country lives Aubrey’s estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.
But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings—which not everyone will survive . . .
My thoughts: I found the premise of this book very interesting – for two reasons. Firstly the science, which the author notes is as accurate as he could get it thanks to some very clever scientists who advised him, and secondly the way Aubrey and Thom go about getting through the blackout.
The Sun is hugely important, without it we’d all die but it is also a volatile mass of gases and immense heat. Should it fire off a pulse like it does in this book, we’d all be in huge trouble. So much of the developed world relies on electricity. Think about all the ways you use it in a day – your mobile, laptop, tablet, the lights, the kettle, the toaster, all powered by electricity. And that’s before you leave the house!
When the blackout hits, at first, like most, Aubrey has a slight panic. She rushes off to the supermarket and stocks up. Forgetting that her freezer, oven and fridge all need power. But as time goes on, she adjusts. Her neighbours come together to plant vegetables and protect each other. They build a community. They get through it as a group.
Thom, for all his money and tech savvy, immediately heads for the hills. Or his fancy bunker. He’s hired staff and plans to only take his wife and kids. Even Aubrey is an afterthought. He doesn’t think about his loyal assistants or their families. Just himself and his needs. Unsurprisingly this starts to backfire.
People need people. That’s what I took away from this book. You need your neighbours, just as we all did in lockdown over the last two years, you need the people around you. If the only reason they’re with you because you’re paying them – well then they might just decide they’re better off elsewhere.
This is going to be made into a film, not surprising when you realise the author is a well known film writer, and that will be really interesting. While the events are something that everyone sees, in terms of the extreme solar activity, the main plot about Aubrey and Thom isn’t huge in scale, it’s small and about a local phenomenon – community, family.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
If you enjoy your thrillers with a sci-fi edge, you’re going to want to check out Rationality Zero by J.M. Guillen! Now available on Amazon!
Rationality Zero (The Archon Conundrum #1)
Publication Date: April 28th, 2022
Genre: Sci-Fi/ Techno Thriller A living weapon. An attack on the laws of reality. One chance to save the world.
Michael Bishop is a man who never dreams, who never gets ill. He lives his entire life oblivious to the truths hidden from him.
He is a tool in the hand of the most powerful organization on Earth.
Michael’s world transforms when They bring him online- when They activate the mysterious technology buried within his skull.
Then, the lies fall away. He becomes Asset 108. Using intricate technology, he defends humanity from the gibbering, tentacled horrors that haunt our world.
When mysterious renegades fracture the very laws of nature, Asset 108 is put into position. As the world begins to unravel, a cabal of madmen with physics shattering powers hunt 108 and his cadre, driving them into an alternate reality— a realm filled with inhuman horror.
Between otherworldly arachnids, muscled brutes infected with psionic parasites, and depraved cultists, grisly deaths lurk behind Michael’s every choice.
Yet all too soon, things become far, far, worse.
Excerpt
Regular people, folks with normal lives, never dream of how strange their world could quickly become. When things get weird…
That’s where I come in.
Most of the time, things were simple. I lived the perfect life, my days drawn from most men’s fantasies. I didn’t work; I didn’t have to. I got a wire into my account every two weeks. It varied, but the amount surpassed what some people made in six months. Yet I didn’t know where it came from. The sources had vague names like VRS Solutions or Apex Enterprises, throwaway companies that disappeared the next week.
Some might call me spoiled. Yet it got better.
I drove a new sports car. A candy-red thing that got me all kinds of attention. My wardrobe was perfectly tailored to me and quite expansive. My apartment in San Francisco should have run over ten grand a month, yet I never paid a dime of rent. It had a movie room, three separate bedrooms, and a small library, not to mention the personal white room for my Facility gear.
Oh, and… company.
I almost never spent an evening alone. I could have a different enchanting companion every night if I wanted. Or two. Not due to being a sleazy pickup artist, it was simply the way my evenings unfolded. I went to the right clubs, wore the right clothes. Before I knew it, I was dancing with someone like Caprice or her nameless friend. And the night’s enticements had just begun.
As I said, I lived most men’s fantasies.
There were other things though, odd things.
I never got ill. Never.
I never remembered my dreams.
I never worked out, ate whatever I pleased, and remained incredibly fit.
I’ve never done taxes—in any country. A notation on all deposits read: tax paid.
I had no account with any public utility or phone company, yet I owned a phone and used electricity.
I never bought my clothes or books or other diversions. A metallic white board hung on my fridge. Just now, it had “Men in Black” scrawled across it, indicating I wanted the VHS. As soon as I left, I felt certain it’d appear, yet I’d never seen anyone come into my place.
When in torpor, I had no curiosity about any of this. They took care of everything. It was simple. I lived the perfect life.
Until activated.
Once active, I was a tool in the hand of the most powerful organization on Earth. I had access to devices and technology that literally shaped reality as we know it. We accomplished this through the alteration of laws we termed axioms. In actuality, axioms were an analogy for the various laws of physics, some yet to be discovered by mankind.
To Assets such as myself, the axioms of physics were weaponry. They might be bent or altogether broken while on assignment. The awesome technology responsible for that was an absolute requirement for what we did, the bare minimum of what we needed in order to come back alive.
Because dark, inhuman things lurked in the shadows of our world—things most people couldn’t even imagine. Our very reality was under siege by beings older than humanity itself.
JM Guillen was your average, everyday awesome writer just trying to make it in this modern, awful corporate dystopia. He knew he wanted to make wonderful, bizarre things, but how could he afford to make that happen? Every day, he sat about crying and drinking, trying to figure out what he could do.
THEN A RADIOACTIVE METEOR CRASHED INTO HIS BACKYARD! FROM OUTER SPACE!
While examining the fuming interstellar rock, unknowable emanations radiated into the very center of his being. These unearthly energies changed the very depths of him, granting him powers that no man can name, and no god could ever master.
Reeling from the influx of spectral energies, he stumbled back into his home, his eyes open. Now, an entire universe unfolded before him. Now, he saw the way.
HE STARTED HIS OWN EVIL PUBLISHING COMPANY!
Now, JM Guillen begins to meet AWESOME people who supported his INSANE plans. Fiendishly, he scrawls story after story, writing steampunk, dark fantasy and eldritch horror…
ramblingmads 