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Excerpt: AFTERMATH

9/21/2017

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No one offered the deviant breakfast, and luckily he’d had the insight to stay quiet about it. Ken and Jack had both fallen into foul moods, grumbling and snapping over every little annoyance.

“What the hell is taking so long?”

“The eggs are too dry.”

“Do you have to eat so goddamn loud?”

Everyone should have taken that as a cue to tread carefully, but it wasn’t enough to keep the beady-eyed Info-Corp and the white-clad nurse from getting into it again over the spiritual implications of society’s fall.

The rest of the group watched anxiously while the two went back and forth.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” the nurse said numerous times, only to be pulled back into the debate by another snide remark.

“It’s idiots like you who get in the way of everything good in this world! You probably jumped for joy when everything went to hell!”

“Who’s the idiot?” the nurse scoffed.

Info-Corp crossed her arms with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Only one of us is going to hell, I’ll say that much!”

“Whatever,” the nurse said with a show of indifference.

“Why won’t you take an ounce of responsibility for what you’ve done?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Info-Corp stood. “I have half a mind—”

Ken cut her off mid-sentence with gunfire to the ceiling. The deafening blast echoed through the cavernous space while bits of plaster and dust sprinkled down from the scarred dome, causing everyone to stop what he or she was doing and turn to see what the enraged police associate would do next.

Ken surveyed the mass of surprised, horrified people, just as stunned at what he’d done. He holstered the gun, took a few deep breaths, and then straightened his jacket. In an obvious attempt to redirect everyone from his explosive display, he said, “Time for a bathroom run. Who needs to go?”

At first, no one was willing to step forward, choosing instead to look among one another to see if anyone else would volunteer. Safety in numbers. George weighed the risk of grouping off with a loose cannon against showing weakness against a man who’d clearly let his limited power go to his head. Someone there needed to offer a show of strength, even if the move was a dangerous one.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he gave a nod, but he failed to disguise the fear in his voice when he said, “I could use a pit stop.”

With his company as a buffer, and with looks of relief washing over their weary faces, both the Mart school associates joined him.

“Anyone else?”

No one else responded.

“Grab a light if you want to see where you’re going beyond the tunnel,” he said specifically to George. “The northern shuttle garage is a big one, and I’m not going to hold your hand through the dark while you pick a corner to piss in.” With a newfound huff of annoyance, Ken started for the south pedestrian tunnel.

George and the two others followed.

The sound of rain became prominent once they entered the tunnel. A drop of water leaking through the cracked ceiling landed on George’s forehead, serving as a sobering reminder of a future without social order. No structure meant limited sustainability, which in turn meant even their claim on the Food-Mart ensured only a finite supply of food and water. Even more, without the deviants’ cheap labor and their constant work on the ever-crumbling infrastructure, the fierce weather would destroy the integrity of their underground world sooner rather than later.

If they wanted to survive, they would need to find a new approach to their way of living. They would need to start from scratch. With so few of them, the prospect was daunting. Who among them had carpentry skills? George sure as hell didn’t. Did any of them know even the basics of farming, canning, or animal husbandry? Would their self-appointed leaders guide them to their demise before they even had a chance to gain a new foothold, or would the Food-Mart collapse in on them, a refuge turned tomb of cement and dust, before they could regroup?

Aftermath is available in Kindle and trade
 paperback.

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Excerpt: AFTERMATH

8/7/2017

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THE RAINFALL had increased at least twofold, the sound of it like an army barreling overhead, threatening to break through and send a deadly flood of water, mud, and bodies from above. The tunnels had never felt so threatening before, but now George couldn’t get through quickly enough. The walls seemed narrower than he’d remembered, the ceiling lower. Might the pressure set against them by the unforgiving elements have caused the passage to begin to cave? Would the walls bow in before they burst, or would they just crumble and collapse without warning?

The sound of Maggie’s cries fell in time with the beating rain, filling George with a deep sadness. The poor girl was sure to starve—or freeze—to death on her own. There was no question. Neither Ken nor Jack deserved the badges and guns of their station. They were a disgrace not only to Police-Corp but to the whole of humanity. Forget fighting that deviant; he wanted one good shot at both of those pathetic excuses for men.

With the rain and its echo against the hard cement walls, it was difficult to discern how close she was, and the farther he went, the tenser his body grew. He couldn’t stop the mental picture of the ceiling giving way, trapping him, perhaps badly injured, within the confines of the fallen slabs. Perhaps he wouldn’t even have an inch to move. Maybe he’d drown in a sea of mud. What would that feel like, earthy sludge filling his lungs? Would he struggle long? Would he lose all sense of time and space, destined to spend his final moments suspended in the ruins?

The mental image stopped him for a moment. His lungs grew heavy, the air feeling thin and stagnant. A wave of lightheadedness sent him staggering to a wall, and he leaned against it to keep from collapsing. His heart raced. Pins and needles tingled through his hands and feet. He pushed forward, certain each step would be his last.

Breathe … just breathe….

Should he turn around instead of pushing forward? Maggie’s sobs captured his attention. She needed him to reach her. No one else would. One step after the last, his numbing feet staggered over one another. He couldn’t give up. Not now. As if in response to his determination, the rain pummeled even harder. Joining in the effort, his heart hammered against his chest in rhythm with the heavy beat. Cold air seized his lungs.

Just breathe….

He let out a sigh of relief when his light washed over Maggie’s huddled body.

Maggie turned, blocking the light with an arm. “Go away!”

“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“I’m not going back!”

He knelt down when he reached her. “There isn’t anywhere else to go right now. It won’t be forever. I’ll figure something out.”

“No, I don’t want to go.”

“It’s better than roaming these halls on your own, don’t you think?”

She shook her head. “I don’t like the policeman.”

“I don’t like him much either.”

“I remember now where I saw him before. I don’t think he should have been made one of the police. You should have picked someone else.”

“Picked someone else?”

She nodded. “To be one of the new policemen. You’d be much better at it than him. They should vote you to take his place.”

“I don’t think it works that way. We can’t just vote any person to suddenly become a police associate.”

“Why not? You did it with him.”

George looked down the hall to ensure no one else had followed then leaned in close and spoke in a hushed voice. “He wasn’t always a police associate?”

She shook her head.

“What was he before?”

She followed his lead and whispered, “He was the plumber Repair-Mart sent when the toilet broke. Mommy said he broke more than he fixed, and she didn’t want to pay. He got real mad and yelled at her until she gave him her credit card.”

“You sure about that?”

She nodded. “Why did you make him one of the Food-Mart police?”

His thoughts became muddled, the shock of having not assumed the obvious hitting him like a heavy blow to the head. “I don’t think anyone did.”

“So how’d he get all that police stuff?”

Feeling weak, he sat down beside her and took a few seconds to catch his breath. “That’s a very good question.” Both possible answers looped again and again through his mind: Either he’d come across a dead police associate whose uniform was a decent fit or he’d killed someone for it. Neither diminished the fact that the man was a fraud, a liar, and no more suited to carry a gun and handcuffs than anyone else there.

And what about Jack? Was he a fake, too?

What did that mean for the group? They deserved to know the truth, but would anyone believe him if he said anything? Maybe Maggie had the right idea after all. Moving aimlessly through the district was a dangerous strategy, but was it any worse than living under the rule of a man who’d claimed authority that wasn’t his to take? How long could the rest of them possibly last under his tyranny?
Did he really want to find out?

Maggie’s safety was now his biggest immediate concern, but he wouldn’t likely be able to live with himself if he didn’t at least try to help the rest of the group. He also needed to consider how he would feed the two of them after they’d abandoned the stockpile. They could try returning to the district housing and breaking into other apartments, but there was no guarantee they’d be successful in bypassing the well-locked doors. Even if they did manage to break in, there was no telling whether they’d find any nonperishable goods for their effort.

They would need to go back, stay long enough to dethrone the impostor police associates, grab what they could carry, and then leave the district in search of a deviant camp. It would be a gamble, but it was time to play the odds.

Although his pulse continued to race, his lungs began to relax and the pins and needles in his extremities started to abate. Why the air suddenly became breathable again was beyond him, but he was grateful nonetheless.

He turned to Maggie. “I have a plan, but I need you to trust me.”
​
About Aftermath: Beyond World-Mart

When all seems lost, when all the world has crumbled away, what will rise in its place?

In this highly anticipated conclusion to the World-Mart trilogy, George once again travels beyond the district in search of possible surviving family. What he finds along the way, however, changes everything he thought he’d known about the world—and the end of the world—as he knows it.

Travel alongside George, back through the deviant shanty-towns and beyond, to a place he’d nearly forgotten—and to another he never could have imagined existed.
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A Privatized World

4/8/2016

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Your house has caught fire. You and your family are able to escape intact, but you hadn't been able to afford fire insurance (or, perhaps, even just the deductible for the fire truck's arrival), so all you can do now is stand outside and watch the place--everything you own, everything you've built for yourself--burn to the ground. No one is coming to help you salvage what remains.

But you will be turned into an example, a selling point for all those like you who are currently uninsured or too poor to pay the extra when their times of need actually come.

Your neighbor's home was just broken into, the woman you've known for years brutally murdered. The motive is suspiciously unclear. Her police insurance--also your police insurance--carrier's rival company sends a representative to your door, letting you know how unsuccessful your current provider was in keeping this woman safe, making promises that only end up coming across as threats--will you be next? You know at this point that the break-in was staged by none other than the rival insurance company. Business has been slow, and they're looking to scare a few people into switching over to their company.

Outbreaks of deadly, antibiotic-resistance diseases have been reported in all of the less expensive elementary schools--which are ridiculously pricey in their own right. Your son will be attending kindergarten this year, and you can't afford any of the higher-priced schools. Do you take a chance on the only school you can afford, knowing you might be putting your child in mortal danger?

What choice do you have? All of these services have become fully privatized, and there are no programs to help offset the costs. Either you have the money or you don't.

And if you go into criminal debt over any of these costs, you will suffer the consequences: a debtors prison sentence to work off what you owe. You'll probably lose your job  while you're away, which means you'll probably also lose your home. It's against the law to be homeless, though--against the law to be a non-contributing member of society. Against the law to be in need. So, of course, back to prison you'll probably go.

There's been a lot of buzz lately about privatization versus socialism. Both have their merits and flaws, but rhetoric has trumped the realities behind both. Privatization means increased corporate power. If you have a decent amount of capital to your name, this absolutely works in your favor. Social democracy means higher taxes but more money put into social services (such as those I described above). If you belong to the middle or lower classes, your survival depends on many of these services remaining in the public sector.

With the upcoming election drawing ever nearer, these are issues we need to have some serious dialogues about. We cannot ignore their importance. So let's bring up these issues to friends, family, and peers. Let's argue the pros and cons. Let's think about what's important to us as a nation and take a stance. Let's do it without resorting to low blows, name calling, or rhetorical memes. Let's discuss these important issues like adults, and if need be, let's talk about what changes need to be made to our system.

Then, let's work together to fight for those changes.

I wrote The Private Sector as my way of contributing to the dialogue. It's the perfect conversation starter. Read it. Share it with your friends and family. Talk about the issues and how they relate to the current state of the nation. It is our responsibility as Americans to be involved in the directions our country takes. Let's be involved together.

Let's think. Let's talk. Let's bring the American dream back within the reach of all its citizens. We can make a difference. You can make a difference.
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The Private Sector is currently available on Kindle here.
Click here for Paperback.
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Kate Morgan: THE REDEEMERS

2/6/2016

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It's Women in Horror Month, and today I have a guest who's relatively new to horror: Kate Morgan. I asked her if she could tell me a little about what inspired her book The Redeemers, and this is what she had to say:

One spring day, after four years of merry hell, I walked out of the convent. You’ve seen that angry red guy from the movie Inside Out? That was me, minus the flaming hair.
 
Fast-forward a few years. The anger is tamped down and gaining focus. I say to myself, What’s the good of going through awful personal experiences if I can’t turn them into fiction?
 
I wanted revenge against the mind games, the manipulation, the thought retraining, and I didn’t want to write nonfiction. Since I’ve been a horror fan from the age of five, the path opened clear and easy before me: A dystopian horror novel in which the bad guys were batshit insane descendants of Catholic monks convinced they had a direct line to God Himself.
 
And The Redeemers were born.
 
Did I say easy? Hahahahahahaha! I rewrote this book five times front to back. Annie, the main character, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t angry enough, didn’t have enough of a reason to uproot her entire life for revenge.
 
I didn’t uproot my entire life for revenge. I got over it and created a life I never could have had in the convent: Husband, children, cats, my own garden. Never wearing black again. Nobody reading my mail and listening in on my phone calls. The little things. But this was fiction and Annie darn well better not get over it. And then I read the most perfect piece of writing advice ever, from the amazing Donald Maass: Think of the worst thing that can happen to your character. Now do it to them.
 
You know that evil grin the Grinch gets when he has his wonderful/awful idea? The Grinch’s grin spread over my face at that moment. Minus the green hair curlicues unrolling.
 
With the addition of one plot element, the whole book changed. Annie changed from a depressed average broad into a juggernaut of fear-fueled hate and revenge. I discovered new ways to torment her and she discovered new reserves of strength. I gave her a smidgen of hope or a brief respite from her personal hell only to ruin her life multiple times. It was glorious.
 
What? I’m a horror writer. We aren’t nice. You want nice, I can recommend several sweet cozy mysteries. You want nightmare fuel? You’ve come to the right place.
 
Speaking of nightmare fuel, I was a Cradle Catholic, which means I grew up with stories of God being tortured with whips and fists and nails until He was a bloody, shredded mess of flesh and bone. The convent encourages you to immerse yourself in His life and death.
 
I also vividly remember the 1980s, when the US and the USSR were playing nuclear chicken with the world. When we went to bed we weren’t always sure we’d wake up the next morning.
 
Combine the three: Cradle Catholicism, the nuclear 80s, and my years of seething anger at the cult experience that was the convent. What did I get? A 300-page cocktail of revenge, fear, terror, betrayal, and torture. Oh, and some good cooking, because you have to have fuel to run from the Redeemers. They are relentless.
 
Eat dessert first, y’all.

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In honor of Women in Horror Month, Dark Recesses Press is having a sale on Kate Morgan’s nightmares.
 
Kate is the alter-ego of Alice Loweecey, who writes the Giulia Driscoll mystery series.
 
Kate and Alice live in Western New York, where they deal with apocalyptic snow by growing a truckload of fruits and veggies in the summer and cooking with them the rest of the year.
 
Visit Kate on Facebook here.
Visit Alice on Facebook here.

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Truth, Justice, and the American Dream

12/31/2015

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Tom and I saw Bernie Sanders speak Monday evening, and I'm more excited than ever to support him in our upcoming caucus. Every single issue that is important to me, every problem I've pointed out in my dystopian books, this man wants to address. I often feel overwhelmed and burdened by all that is unfair and unjust in this world; just thinking about how the extremely wealthy live compared to the poorest of the poor puts a weight on my heart. That a rich person can walk away from crimes the less fortunate would get life in prison for committing makes my stomach turn. That corporate CEOs can make millions while their lowest-level workers struggle to put food on the table despite working full-time disgusts me. Caring about such things can be burdensome and lonely. I can tell you now that, without a doubt, Sanders also carries that burden. He cares. He's the real deal, folks.

If Sanders happens to make his way to your town, I implore you to see him speak. Even if you are a die-hard Republican, see him. You will learn: He doesn't want to create a big government; he doesn't want to take your guns away; he doesn't want to give handouts to the poor.

He does, however, want your children to have a college education without being in debt for the rest of their lives for it. He wants to see that all people, regardless of race, gender, or belief, to have the same opportunities to succeed. He wants to improve infrastructure, creating many good-paying jobs. He wants to see the minimum wage set to a point where no one working full time lives in poverty. He wants prisons reserved for violent offenders. He wants to force corporations out of the government. He wants the rich to be held accountable just as much as the poor (unable to buy their way out of repercussion). He wants the American dream to be within every citizen's grasp, not just the privileged or those who happen to get lucky breaks. He wants the people to stand together for what is fair and right.
 
Take a look at the alternatives:
 
Trump (The Private Sector)

The middle class shrinks to nothing; everything, including police protection, firefighters, and public works, becomes a for-profit business; those who cannot pay all the high prices for services and deductibles flounder. The rich serve the rich. The poor slip into a special kind of hell with no way out. There is no American dream. There is no rising above circumstance. There is no help. It is every man for himself.

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Clinton (World-Mart)
​

Corporate owns all business, all government, all religious institutions, all of humanity. Red tape complicates everything. Compartmentalized job specs make it difficult to get anything meaningful done. The world becomes one giant polo shirt. Everyone becomes a disposable cog in the corporate machine, working for little pay and with no way of improving their lives—because what Corporate says goes. The human spirit extinguishes in a pool of mediocrity, complacency, and apathy. Class warfare leads to catastrophic results. Society self-destructs.
 
This country needs change. Real change. The middle class needs to take back the American dream. I believe it’s possible, but it's not going to be easy. We need someone like Sanders in the Oval Office. We need someone who has had enough of this corporate mess we call America. We need someone whose pockets aren't being lined by the top 1%. We need someone who doesn't rely on hate and fear tactics to gain voter attention. I believe if we stand together, we can keep the nightmares that inspired my dystopian books from coming to pass.

What do you believe?

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Win a Copy of AFTERMATH

11/21/2015

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Between now and December 20, go to Goodreads to enter for a chance to win a copy of my recent release, Aftermath: Beyond World-Mart.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Aftermath by Leigh M. Lane

Aftermath

by Leigh M. Lane

Giveaway ends December 20, 2015.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway
Aftermath picks up right where World-Mart left off, beginning with the end of civilization. Readers who enjoyed World-Mart, Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, Orwell's 1984, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 will enjoy this last installment of the World-Mart trilogy. Thanks for entering--and good luck!
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New and Improved!

4/22/2015

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Every advancing generation will say it: Things just aren’t what they used to be. We all allow that which we knew and loved growing up to color our views on changing times. When we’ve lived is as important as where or how we’ve lived: I’ve no doubt my parents thought about as highly about my teenage clothing choices as I feel about the saggy ass look. I’m sure a similar case can be argued regarding my generation’s Queensrÿche, Metallica, Marilyn Manson, and Tori Amos versus whatever noise the kids these days are calling music. Times change. Tastes change.

One constant I’ve noticed through the years, however, is the slow but steady decline in overall quality in nearly all popular products. I’ve grown to understand that if a product or company alleges something is “new and improved,” there’s no “improved” about it. “Improved” is code for “made with cheaper materials or ingredients, and we hope you won’t notice the change in quality.” Dress up a seedy move with pretty words, and maybe most of the population won’t take notice. Even more, the latest generation won’t notice. They’re already accustomed to a level of quality those of us who know better can only reminisce about.

In the world I’ve built for The Private Sector and World-Mart, “quality” is just a word printed on a label. When corporations control everything, monopolies slowly take hold right under the noses of the masses, and with those covert monopolies come zero quality control. The whole world is new and improved. Complacency allows such changes to take hold.


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The same complacency has anesthetized society as we currently know it, and the problem is nothing new. Things just aren’t what they used to be, and we’ve let that happen. Complacency has placed blinders on all of us. It has allowed words like “new and improved” to go overlooked—or, even worse, taken at face value. It has allowed the American Dream to go dormant, overall quality of life to take a nosedive, and far too many people too caught up in either surviving or one-upping the Jonses to notice.

What does “new and improved” mean to you? What kind of world do you see when you step outside your home, go to work, pick up your kids from school, or go to the supermarket?

What kind of world do you think the children of tomorrow will see?

Is it a world you’d want to grow up in?



The Private Sector is currently available in paperback through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Check back for more vendors and formats.


Click the cover image for more information.
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New Release: THE PRIVATE SECTOR

4/18/2015

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After much anticipation, my loose prequel to World-Mart, The Private Sector, has finally been released. The Private Sector takes place roughly forty years before the beginning of World-Mart, back when corporations are still on the rise toward absolute rule; “deviants” are still “designer children,” society’s answer to the plagues of antibiotic-resistant diseases crippling the world; people still live aboveground; and the effects of climate change have only begun to show.

Imagine, if you will, a tax-free society. Government as we know it is nearly nonexistent. The public services we currently rely upon—police, fire departments, public works, primary and secondary schools—all belong to the private sector.

And none of it comes cheap.

Imagine your house happens to catch on fire. Better have the right insurance and enough money saved up for the co-pay, or your provider will let it burn. How about if someone breaks into your house? Same deal if you want the police to come running.

Just be careful—the provider wars are alive and well, and if you choose the wrong company, someone might just stop by to make an example of you to your neighbors.

I wrote The Private Sector in response to the rhetoric that circulated during the 2012 presidential elections, rhetoric about significant cuts to taxes and government size, rhetoric that took a decent idea and took it to its extreme.

My response: Be careful what you wish for….

About The Private Sector:

The world of corporate greed runs rampant after the government collapses, leaving police, fire, and social services in the hands of the wealthy. Debtor prisons for the lower and middle classes overflow and quarantine camps have filled to capacity, turning the streets into a personal battleground for terrorists fighting against a world headed toward ruin as resources run dry and civilization becomes ruled by The Private Sector.

“A versatile literary maestro, Lane’s characters breathe, her language sings, and her plotting is nothing short of remarkable. You owe it to yourself to give her a read, no matter what kind of fiction you like. You’ll love her work. I promise.” –Trent Zelazny, Nightmare Award-winning author of Fractal Despondency and Butterfly Potion

“In the tradition of 1984, Leigh M. Lane delivers a terrifying vision of the future—a horrific future that may not be so distant after all….” –Lisa Mannetti, Stoker Award-Winning author of The Gentling Box and Deathwatch

About the publisher:

Eldritch Press is a publishing company based out of San Antonio Texas. It is a relatively new, press, but its owner believes in building the company one person and one book at a time, with quality at the heart. Eldritch publishes different genres from fantasy, horror, contemporary women literature to poetry. The owner, Michael Randolph is a horror author and Active member of the Horror Writers Association. He is also a sponsor for the 2015 World Horror Convention.

The Private Sector is available in paperback through Amazon, but will soon be available through multiple retailers.


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Guest Author J. P. Lantern on Dystopian Lit and DUST BOWL

12/30/2013

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Today, guest author J. P. Lantern is here to share about his new release, Dust Bowl, a post-apocalyptic thriller about a future torn apart by war, disease, and social collapse.  J.P. will be awarding a grand prize of a $25 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and one commenter on each stop will receive a digital download of a backlist book, so be sure to leave a comment for your chance to win.
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Since Dust Bowl is a dystopian novel, I asked J. P. if he might offer his thoughts about the importance (political, social, etc.) of dystopian literature and what place it has in the current climate of readers expecting the ever-abused happily-ever-after ending.  Here's what he had to say:

Can a dystopian story have a happy ending?

In some ways, the objective of the dystopian story is to rule out any possibilities for a happy ending as a sort of warning. At the end of 1984, for example, there is no hope or release for Winston Smith, just the promise of death after being driven insane. In many ways, the happy ending for a dystopian tale is closing the book after digesting it fully and walking away, knowing that the lives of the poor saps featured inside that fiction don’t resemble yours very much (or at least, I would hope not). 

But I feel like there’s another reason, outside of inspiring some meta-happily-ever-after, why dystopian tales end up so grim.

I don’t know that there is something more personal about a person than knowing what they are truly scared of. Dystopian literature has always been a model for writers to express their own fears in a way that also tries to inspire change in a society. In that way, dystopian literature is some of the most personal literature that exists, perhaps even more personal than memoirs, because in a dystopian story you are given the complete unloading of an author’s fears for the future (and so, for him or herself). 

I think dystopian literature is important in a societal sense because it puts a face to the fears we have. You know, the things I make up are just a response to what I interpret from the world around me—some of this includes other pieces of art and dystopian literature, but a lot of it is just what I see happening politically, economically, and societally. And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from my time in this world, it’s that my experience is much more ubiquitous than the self-centered part of me would like to think. What I see, others see. What I am afraid of, others are afraid of. The unique portion of being an author is just creating a conceivable canvas for those fears and thoughts and stringing them all together in a linear package for an audience. 

And so, because these dystopian stories are so honest about fears, I think that’s why they often tend to subvert or just do away with the happy ending altogether. Happily-ever-after endings are great, and stories that incorporate them are probably dealing with the other side of the lizard brain—the part that focuses on desire. We really want everything to have a happy ending, but we really are afraid that no happy endings exist. And I think it’s sort of easy for us to fling headfirst into one side of the spectrum or the other and to insist that one kind of ending is more “true” than the other. But they are both true, simultaneously.


So, for myself, I don’t know that I believe very much in “happily ever after” for most stories that I write, but I do believe in “happy as can be, given the circumstances.” I think probably my novel Dust Bowl follows that mold. I didn’t write it consciously thinking about a happy ending or not—I knew the right ending very early into writing the piece, and I just stuck with it. I think it has a sort of uplifting ending, but maybe that’s only because so much of the novel skates around at the bottom of human moral capability—it’s a dystopia, after all, so there’s a lot of suffering and events going horribly wrong.

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I find myself drawn to morally complicated and often self-destructive characters, and so happy endings just aren’t very likely given their emotional skillsets. It would be dishonest, for example, for me to take someone like the alcoholic Clay in my Red Country Trilogy who never learns how to apologize or forgive and create circumstances that allow great things to happen to him. He wouldn’t appreciate them anyway, and I doubt the audience would either. The only time that really works is in works of satire, like Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans.

So in Dust Bowl, the protagonist Ward, a really troubled young man who is drawn into this really violent and inhumane society, has some good things and some bad things happen to him, but they are all second to his association with his problems and his inability to accept life on the terms that it’s presenting. So, by the end of the story, I feel like he’s much closer to being able to do that—which is a happy ending  in my mind.

About the Novel:

With the world ending around him, Ward flounders for purpose and survival. Resources are gone, disease is rampant, and governments have all but dissolved. The only way off the broken planet is with the Order. Obsessed with technology, the Order is a cult that has developed the means for faster-than-light travel. They claim they can populate the galaxy and save humanity.

Ward joins the Order, inspired by sudden and irrational love for a mysterious beauty named Kansas who saves his life. But quickly, he finds out Kansas and the Order want him to kill adults and kidnap children from across the country. With impressionable youth filling their starships, the Order hopes for their tenets to be spread to all future generations of humanity. 

The Order is Ward’s only chance for survival in the wreck the earth has become. Worse than that, those in the Order come to accept him and value his skills for their nightmarish quest across the dystopian landscape of America. But, somewhere inside of him, still, is the strength to strike out on his own and protect whatever good he can find left in the world.



Excerpt:

“Would you be willing to kill a thousand parents so that there might be a thousand million more in the future? Would you orphan a thousand children just so they could foster thousands of their own? That is not a name put to courage. That is not something you don’t understand. That is something very simple to understand, you just don’t have the will to do it yourself. That is a name put to strength. To resolve. That’s what a set is.”

There was a light in the office behind the booth, flickering every so often and casting strange, tentacled shadows into the room. Joe looked at Ward and his face was sagging with fear. Maybe understanding had not quite dawned in the liquored canals of his mind but it showed in his eyes, and Ward felt satisfied for the first time all day.

Joe shook his head. “Why you telling me this?”

“I thought you should know what’s going to happen here.”

“Just what exactly is that gonna be,” asked Joe.  “Or have you told me already?

Ward looked at him for a moment and took his gun out of its holster. He laid it on to the table with his hand resting on it, just in case he needed it. In his imaginings, usually people tried to run.

“Every adult here is going to die. One by one, mostly. Some of this will be done by me.”

The eyes of Joe stayed fixated on the gun on the table.


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About the Author:

J.P. Lantern lives in the Midwestern US, though his heart and probably some essential parts of his liver and pancreas and whatnot live metaphorically in Texas. He writes speculative science fiction short stories, novellas, and novels which he has deemed "rugged," though he would also be fine with "roughhewn" because that is a terrific and wonderfully apt word.

 
Full of adventure and discovery, these stories examine complex people in situations fraught with conflict as they search for truth in increasingly violent and complicated worlds.


To learn more about J. P. Lantern and his writing, visit his website, stop by his Facebook page, or check out his Amazon author page.  Dust Bowl is available in both paperback and Kindle.

Remember, he's giving away a $25 Amazon gift card to one commenter at the end of this tour, as well as a digital copy from his backlist to one commenter at each stop.  For more chances to win, go to Goddess Fish Promotions for links to the other stops in this tour.


13 Comments

NaNo No-No

11/16/2013

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I guess you could say I’ve been in sort of a writing slump.  Even though I did finish another novel earlier this year (The Private Sector, a loose prequel to World-Mart) the thought of starting another felt so daunting.  This past year has provided many hurdles, some of which I never imagined I’d personally face.  I focused on writing short stories, keeping my commitments small, and I had no plans for another novel anytime in the immediate future.
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I’d noticed in a handful of reviews that there were World-Mart readers who wanted to read more about the crumbled society I’d left them with.  While I’d purposely slammed them into a brick wall at the end as a social and political statement, some felt it wasn’t right that I’d left them in the dark where I had.  I hadn’t considered what might happen in the aftermath, and I felt I’d shared what I felt most important.

Recently, one of my sisters read World-Mart and offered similar criticism, adding, “I wish I knew what happened to George.”  That got me thinking.  Was it right of me to leave readers to assume he too would soon die?  What if George’s story didn’t end there?


I’ve never participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) before, and with sound reason.  Some years ago, I’d written 50,000 words in one month, and it was an exhausting experience I hoped never to repeat.  However, the closer it got to November 1, the more World-Mart began to eat at me.  It did need a sequel, I decided, and NaNoWriMo was going to help me along with that.

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Logging 50,000 words by November 30 isn’t my priority.  I’m neither exceptionally young nor exceptionally healthy, and I don’t plan on ignoring those factors.  Still, I’m writing, even if it’s 500-1000 words per day.  I’m holding to my own personal goal: write this book, and in a timely manner that fits my limitations.  I’m currently at 19,100, and the month is half over.  Still, NanoWriMo has given me the kick in the pants I needed to tackle this new project.

The author "stats" dashboard is a great resource.  It keeps up not only on your word count but also estimates the average word could you'll need in order to reach 50,000 words by November 30.  Even more, if you've been straggling (like I have) it will estimate the date on which you'll reach that goal at your given pace.  That alone is a surprisingly effective incentive to add at least a little progress each day, even if 50,000 words by the 30th s a bit beyond your current reach.  It's definitely helped me.

So, World-Mart fans, the aftermath is coming, and I’m writing it with you in mind.  It’s not going to be finished in a month, but hopefully it will be worth the wait.


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