C.N. James's Blog

The Armageddon Factor is finally available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords!
You can read the first three chapters for free on my website: http://thearmageddonfactor.tenterhook...

Enjoy!

The Armageddon Factor will be released Thursday, August 1, 2013!

You can get your copy at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Createspace.

Believing they have found proof of God, religious radicals, with surprising support from the US population, have taken over the US government, ending democracy and rewriting the Constitution. These radicals, called Armageddonists, believe that it is their calling to fulfill biblical prophecy and usher in the Battle of Armageddon. Anyone who protests is arrested and forced to convert. Those who fail to convert are put to death.
Meanwhile, while protesting the closing of the last university, two college students, Seth White and Jace Davis, are arrested and falsely accused of murder. Knowing they will soon be executed, they make a daring escape. But they soon find that not only are they being hunted, but they also have acquired supernatural abilities that they can’t explain—abilities that may help them prevent Armageddon.

I love literature that bends, distorts, twists, or otherwise rips reality apart. But ultimately, I just love great writing. And even though what I write normally has some kind of paranormal or science fiction element to it, one of my biggest, if not the biggest influence on my writing is TC Boyle.
Since I play and record music, my desk is cluttered with speakers, a mixer, and a digital audio workstation. But despite the lack of space, I have two books that I always find room for: a pocket dictionary, and a collection of TC Boyle short stories. For reasons I’m not sure I can fully articulate, I find his work inspiring and motivational. His stories are infused with humor, wit, and social commentary in such a way that I can’t help but fall in love with his work.
In some ways, his use of humor is reminiscent of science fiction author Philip K. Dick, another favorite of mine. It’s subtle, but oh so very clever; expected, but not obvious.
I find myself referring to TC Boyle quite regularly. Whenever I feel slightly unmotivated, I’ll pick up the short stories and start reading them. And every time I do, I find myself swimming in new ideas. Just to be clear, I’m not taking his ideas and running with them, but rather I find certain lines or certain descriptions a source of something new for me in the same way a breathtaking landscape can stimulate or inspire a visual artist.
I’ve even gone as far as typing down a paragraph or two that he’s written and then analyzing every element of it that I can think of from basic mechanical devices to characterization, plot, and description.
That’s not to say that I agree with everything TC Boyle does. For example, he tends to overuse his vast vocabulary. Even though I enjoy learning new words, and get excited whenever I come across one, sometimes he uses them to such a degree that I end up reading more dictionary than I do story. I feel that great writing should send you to the dictionary on occasion, but every once in a while TC Boyle goes on a word rampage. And sometimes, his descriptions though usually concise, clever, and well constructed, come off as too heavily loaded, to a point that you are so busy picturing this thing he is describing that it takes you out of the story. But, to his credit, this only happens on rare occasion.
Besides his short stories, I have also studied, read, and adored his novels: A Friend of the Earth and The Tortilla Curtain. A Friend of the Earth I find especially interesting. In my mind, it’s sci-fi. It’s set a hundred years or so in the future where the Earth is feeling the effects of long term global warming. What I love most about the story though isn’t’ the sci-fi backdrop; it’s the characters. The sci-fi elements only serve to make the characters all the more intriguing.
I first heard of TC Boyle while taking a graduate class on literary analysis. In that class, we read a short story of his called, The Hitman. From what I understand, it is probably his most famous short story, and rightfully so. It contains all the elements that I love about TC Boyle: his hyperbolic humor, his wit, his overall writing style, and creates a character that you paradoxically hate and love all at the same time.

In high school, none of my English classes required me to read 1984. We did read Animal Farm my senior year and I secretly loved it, but never once did I consider picking up anything that wasn’t assigned unless it was about rock n’ roll or some Star Was adventure. The truth of the matter was that I loved English class, but the thought to read this stuff outside of class never once crossed my mind. And I made it all the way to the end of my undergraduate degree before this changed.
I think it was my birthday, and my younger sister gave me a brand new copy of 1984 by George Orwell. She told me I’d love it. I didn’t believe her. (But I never told her that). To be honest, despite my love for Animal Farm, at the time I didn’t have time to read it. (I was finishing up my music degree and practicing 5 to 6 hours a day on top of class work). But once I graduated and was looking for someplace to give me money for doing things, I picked the book up, and that’s when everything changed. There were no tests, no time in which to have it finished. It was just me and the most brilliant book ever written. My sister was right; I did love it. To this day, it is the only book I’ve read more than 3 times!
This was far better than those Star Wars adventures; this had real, believable characters, a bizarre oppressive government, and a perfectly pitched prose style. It was everything I loved about science fiction and everything I loved about English class all in one place.
So because of the power of Orwell, I began to read—really read, everything I could. From there I read Dune, Frankenstein, The Martian Chronicles, Dracula, and Of Mice and Men, to name a few.
So 1984 was more than just a great book to me; it was my gateway drug. It’s the reason I write and teach writing today. It’s the reason I went back to school for a Master’s Degree in English. And for me, it’s the ultimate template for what great writing should be.

The United States is no longer a democracy. Taken over by an extremist religious group, universities, grade schools, businesses, and shops are being shut down in preparation for what they believe is the end of the world. Every US citizen is being recruited by this new government to fight what they are calling “The Battle of Armageddon.” Anyone who protests is sent to prison and ultimately, to their death.
Seth and Jace, two college students, were protesting the closing of the last university when they were erroneously arrested for the murder of the daughter of a man known as “The Healer”— a man who appears to be able to perform miracles with a simple touch, and the reason why so many were willing to let an extremist government takeover, since they assume his abilities are proof of God.
Seth and Jace escape with the help of another prisoner, Sanjana. On the night of their escape, they are exposed to a strange light in the sky, after which they discover that they too can do what The Healer can do and more.
Now on the run, Seth, Jace, and Sanjana try to discover answers to the mystery of the light, why they have special abilities, and whether or not they can save anyone from the Battle of Armageddon.

It was the future: 1999, back when the 2000s promised flying cars, silver jumpsuits, Y2K, and Jeston’s-like fare. For me, however, I was being introduced to the past. It was then that I went to hear a man named Ray Bradbury speak. At the time, I hadn’t read any of his work, but I sort of recognized the name. I thought it might be interesting to go and see a famous author give a talk, and I had to attend at least one public speaking engagement as a requirement for a theater and film class I was taking at the time, so I went.
I didn’t know what to expect. I thought he’d talk about books, and tell us to stay in school, and all sorts of fluffy nonsense that I’d heard other speakers ramble on about at these sorts of things. But I was in for quite a surprise. Back then, I didn’t know much about Ray Bradbury. I didn’t know how old he was, if there would be many people there to hear him, none of that sort of thing.
When I arrived at the concert venue, home of our local orchestra, and part of the university, the place was fairly full. The balcony section was empty, but everything else had filled up, which was respectable for this part of the world. I sat alone. Behind me sat my high school biology teacher, chatting away with some friends of hers. I’m not sure if she recognized me, I hadn’t been to her class since 10th grade which had ended for me some seven years prior. She knew who he was, and to hear her talk, I was about to witness a living legend. (So I was eavesdropping.)
Then the lights were lowered just slightly. A man took the podium and introduced Mr. Bradbury. Applause. A standing ovation. Then everyone quieted down. To my utter astonishment, he was rolled out into the center of the stage in a wheel chair—not something I was expecting of a living legend. His hair was full, but very white, he looked old, but jubilant, and there was something of joy about him.
He started speaking, talking about what I sort of expected: his career as a writer. At the time, I was a music major and could relate to the struggles that he experienced getting noticed early on. I was captivated as he told the stories about how he first got published, and how his wife’s parents thought she was making a mistake marrying an unproven writer.
Then he told a story of how the Martian Chronicles came to be, and then the impetus for many of his books, including Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Illustrated Man. It was fascinating. You could see the twinkle in his eye as related details of each story. He was a master story teller even from a wheel chair with a microphone in his hand. There was something infectious about how he spoke. His stories were full of humor, wit, and relatable details that made each story come to life. The audience was captivated, and I felt like he was somehow talking only to me. As if this was a private conversation.
As the evening went on, he switched topics away from stories and writing, and instead talked about a moment in time that he felt was pivotal to his generation. A historical moment that he said was the greatest moment of his life, and the most significant event to take place in the last several hundred, possibly thousand, years of human history.
The date was July 20, 1969. He talked about how the Apollo 11 moon landing was unlike anything he had witnessed before or since. Just to know that when everyone works together, that such amazing feats can be accomplished blew him away. He had this wonderfully positive view of the human race. It was as if the horrors of nuclear weapons, the Cold War, and World War 2 were swept away by this unifying event. It demonstrated what we are capable of. It humbled us, and inspired us all.
This is what I remember from Ray Bradbury.
I was born long after the moon landing, so for me, it had become matter-of-fact. His speech made me rethink the significance of that event. His ideas excited me like nothing had in a long time. And for reasons I still can’t quite articulate, what he said made me want to write. I had never written anything before that day, and it would be another five years before I would try it, but the things he said will stay with me forever. Every time I write, on some level on consciousness, I think of Ray Bradbury.

Today’s most advanced robots can barely walk or fold towels, but the Androlibras can do all that with ease, not to mention fill in for you at work. Welcome to the future of robotics.