Willy Yonkers's Blog
December 31, 2024
2024 audiobooks
Here's a list of the audiobooks I read over the course of 2024. Here are some highlights:
1. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman is amazing as a full cast recording.
2. Saturn Run by John Sanford is a great hard sci-fi story on par with Delta V by Daniel Suarez and The Martian by Andy Weir.
3. I loved Scott Sigler's alien invasion series, Triangles - hope he makes more in that universe. Mia Grant's Parasite trilogy was a good follow-up that kept the gross-out factor high while pushing the reader to empathize with unusual characters.
4. Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky is an awesome end of the world story in the style of Douglas Adams.
5. The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Watt might be the best horror book I've ever read.
6. Robert Charles Wilson was a wonderful discovery this year! The first novel of his, The Chronoliths, was a great introduction.
7. Peter Hamilton's follow-up to Pandora Star and Judas Unchained, the Salvation trilogy should be skipped - it's this weird medieval fantasy inside a thin shell of the Pandora's Star universe.
The 3 DNFs were borrowed from my local library using Libby & were too young-adult in a cliché way than I could handle.
dungeon crawler carl 1-6 by matt dinniman
sea of tranquility by emily st john mandel
skyhunter by marie lu (DNF)
saturn run by john sandford, ctein
the future by naomi alderman
the andromeda evolution by michael chriton, daniel h wilson
miss peregrine's home for peculiar children by ransom riggs
inga by scott medbury
alone out here by riley redgate (DNF)
camp zero by michelle min sterling
want by cindy pon (DNF)
terminal freeze by lincoln child
to sleep in a sea of stars by christopher paolini
aftermath by levar burton
chimera by mia grant
symbiont by mia grant
parasite by mira grant
the wanderers by meg howrey
ancestor by scott sigler
contagious by scott sigler
infected by scott sigler
the affinities by robert charles wilson
the strange by nathan ballinggrud
beacon 23 by hugh howey
burning paradise by robert charles willson
the dreaming void by peter hamilton
immunity index by sue burke
the last house on needless street by catriona watt
last year by robert charles wilson
a memory called empire by arkady martine
the temporal void by peter hamilton
ancillary mercy by ann leckie
the house with good bones by t kingfisher
the chronoliths by robert charles willson
the last year by robert charles willson
armor by john steakley
record of a spaceborn few by becky chalmers
the saints of salvation by peter hamilton
salvation lost by peter hamilton
salvation by peter hamilton
translation state by ann leckie
blind lake by robert charles wilson
a bridge of years by robert charles wilson
vortex by robert charles wilson
axis by robert charles wilson
spin by robert charles wilson
sea of rust by c robert cargill
the galaxy and the ground within by becky chambers
ancillary sword by ann leckie
starship troopers by robert a heinlein
pandora's star by peter f hamilton
ancillary justice by ann leckie
judas unchained by peter f hamilton
absolution by jeff vandermeer
surface detail by iain banks
dies the fire by sm sterling
fugitive telemetry by martha wells
service model by adrian tchaikovsky
nuclear war: a scenario by annie jacobsen
what feasts at night by t kingfisher
the doomed city by arkady strugatsky
1. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman is amazing as a full cast recording.
2. Saturn Run by John Sanford is a great hard sci-fi story on par with Delta V by Daniel Suarez and The Martian by Andy Weir.
3. I loved Scott Sigler's alien invasion series, Triangles - hope he makes more in that universe. Mia Grant's Parasite trilogy was a good follow-up that kept the gross-out factor high while pushing the reader to empathize with unusual characters.
4. Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky is an awesome end of the world story in the style of Douglas Adams.
5. The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Watt might be the best horror book I've ever read.
6. Robert Charles Wilson was a wonderful discovery this year! The first novel of his, The Chronoliths, was a great introduction.
7. Peter Hamilton's follow-up to Pandora Star and Judas Unchained, the Salvation trilogy should be skipped - it's this weird medieval fantasy inside a thin shell of the Pandora's Star universe.
The 3 DNFs were borrowed from my local library using Libby & were too young-adult in a cliché way than I could handle.
dungeon crawler carl 1-6 by matt dinniman
sea of tranquility by emily st john mandel
skyhunter by marie lu (DNF)
saturn run by john sandford, ctein
the future by naomi alderman
the andromeda evolution by michael chriton, daniel h wilson
miss peregrine's home for peculiar children by ransom riggs
inga by scott medbury
alone out here by riley redgate (DNF)
camp zero by michelle min sterling
want by cindy pon (DNF)
terminal freeze by lincoln child
to sleep in a sea of stars by christopher paolini
aftermath by levar burton
chimera by mia grant
symbiont by mia grant
parasite by mira grant
the wanderers by meg howrey
ancestor by scott sigler
contagious by scott sigler
infected by scott sigler
the affinities by robert charles wilson
the strange by nathan ballinggrud
beacon 23 by hugh howey
burning paradise by robert charles willson
the dreaming void by peter hamilton
immunity index by sue burke
the last house on needless street by catriona watt
last year by robert charles wilson
a memory called empire by arkady martine
the temporal void by peter hamilton
ancillary mercy by ann leckie
the house with good bones by t kingfisher
the chronoliths by robert charles willson
the last year by robert charles willson
armor by john steakley
record of a spaceborn few by becky chalmers
the saints of salvation by peter hamilton
salvation lost by peter hamilton
salvation by peter hamilton
translation state by ann leckie
blind lake by robert charles wilson
a bridge of years by robert charles wilson
vortex by robert charles wilson
axis by robert charles wilson
spin by robert charles wilson
sea of rust by c robert cargill
the galaxy and the ground within by becky chambers
ancillary sword by ann leckie
starship troopers by robert a heinlein
pandora's star by peter f hamilton
ancillary justice by ann leckie
judas unchained by peter f hamilton
absolution by jeff vandermeer
surface detail by iain banks
dies the fire by sm sterling
fugitive telemetry by martha wells
service model by adrian tchaikovsky
nuclear war: a scenario by annie jacobsen
what feasts at night by t kingfisher
the doomed city by arkady strugatsky
December 7, 2024
e-book on Amazon!
Hi Tic-Tac-FANS,
I've just submitted the book to the Kindle Direct Publishing site, so it should be available as an e-book within 72 hours. I wasn't planning on doing this but apparently it's a requirement for making an audiobook on Audible.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPTL1RZQ
This version has all pages of the book except for the back cover. The section in the physical book where you let the book go first by flipping the book upside-down and starting there is inserted in the last 101 pages (page 625 of 726) With all the title, publishing info, and preface pages, the real interactive part of the book starts on page 11. There is no DRM so technically you can download and print it if you really want. I think I originally chose to use 4.25" square pages so you can fit 4x on a standard sheet of printer paper and 'only' need 361 sheets... and enough patience to trim them all.
I'll post another comment when the audiobook is available. It will probably be abridged so the chapter / page links match up and it can actually be enjoyed by a blind person. I'll be leaving out the preface and last 100 book-goes-first pages. Hopefully getting page zero to actually be page zero won't require too much shenanigans.
Thanks for your enthusiasm about the book and patience with me as I try to get it into at least some of your hands :)
I've just submitted the book to the Kindle Direct Publishing site, so it should be available as an e-book within 72 hours. I wasn't planning on doing this but apparently it's a requirement for making an audiobook on Audible.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPTL1RZQ
This version has all pages of the book except for the back cover. The section in the physical book where you let the book go first by flipping the book upside-down and starting there is inserted in the last 101 pages (page 625 of 726) With all the title, publishing info, and preface pages, the real interactive part of the book starts on page 11. There is no DRM so technically you can download and print it if you really want. I think I originally chose to use 4.25" square pages so you can fit 4x on a standard sheet of printer paper and 'only' need 361 sheets... and enough patience to trim them all.
I'll post another comment when the audiobook is available. It will probably be abridged so the chapter / page links match up and it can actually be enjoyed by a blind person. I'll be leaving out the preface and last 100 book-goes-first pages. Hopefully getting page zero to actually be page zero won't require too much shenanigans.
Thanks for your enthusiasm about the book and patience with me as I try to get it into at least some of your hands :)
December 9, 2023
6 Tic Tac Tome books available!
Greetings!
Over the past couple months since popular YouTuber, VSauce, created a short video about my puzzle book, the Tic Tac Tome, many people have reached out to me in search of a copy to gift to a loved one for the holiday. I have been in contact with my publisher to try and have a new run of books printed, but alas, no concrete plans have emerged yet.
I have personally searched all the used bookstore links I can think of and tried to respond to as many people as possible to help them find a copy, but it seems to be out of stock everywhere! Luckily my dad had a stash of extras from back when it was first released and he was generous enough to share them with me to get these 6 copies out to some lucky readers.
Due to it's recent popularity, I've decided to make 6 separate auctions with increasingly high buy it now options, which will hopefully deter resellers. Though I am the author / creator of this book, I did not earn any royalties from the original printing and, like many of you out there, am hurting financially. The winner of this auction will receive one of the six books pictured in the group photo. Hopefully this book will make it to someone who will appreciate it's weirdness :)
The auctions for each of the six books are listed below:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921977203
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921980277
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921980792
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921981261
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921982543
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921981757
Over the past couple months since popular YouTuber, VSauce, created a short video about my puzzle book, the Tic Tac Tome, many people have reached out to me in search of a copy to gift to a loved one for the holiday. I have been in contact with my publisher to try and have a new run of books printed, but alas, no concrete plans have emerged yet.
I have personally searched all the used bookstore links I can think of and tried to respond to as many people as possible to help them find a copy, but it seems to be out of stock everywhere! Luckily my dad had a stash of extras from back when it was first released and he was generous enough to share them with me to get these 6 copies out to some lucky readers.
Due to it's recent popularity, I've decided to make 6 separate auctions with increasingly high buy it now options, which will hopefully deter resellers. Though I am the author / creator of this book, I did not earn any royalties from the original printing and, like many of you out there, am hurting financially. The winner of this auction will receive one of the six books pictured in the group photo. Hopefully this book will make it to someone who will appreciate it's weirdness :)
The auctions for each of the six books are listed below:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921977203
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921980277
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921980792
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921981261
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921982543
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325921981757
October 23, 2023
Future works?
This recent Tic-Tac-Tome going viral thing has brought my focus back towards writing, although I'll always seem to have a dozen or so totally random projects going at the same time - scattered across my desk, kitchen table, basement, and garage...
One of them, that's semi-related, but has been pretty much mothballed because it's the kind of thing that can't easily be self-published is a book of 3D mazes that I designed and had a coder friend of mine create a generation algorithm for. I made a fancy mockup and shopped it around Toy Fair but it’s a weird not-quite-book, not-quite-toy so impossible to find a manufacturing partner for ☹
The other book ideas are due to the fact that I’m emailing back and forth with my agent who got the Tic-Tac-Tome published in the first place. I did try to go the more traditional publishing route with Shifter back in 2018 but being a first-time author and not really dedicating myself to writing full time, it’s understandable that they didn’t pick it up. I learned a ton about writing query letters and the whole ecosystem of agents, publishers, reviewers, etc. I worked with a developmental editor when I was getting some sparse feedback from the agents, so I chopped the original, long manuscript into three books – something I had already kind of done in the text as a larger grouping of chapters, but now planned as works that can hopefully stand alone.
Using the original Star Wars trilogy as a sort of base line for what can work as a stand alone work, Shifter is Ellen’s introduction to the world of underground Shift racing. She wants a legit and safe job but racing plays to her strengths. In book 2, Yield, she gets that safe job but it’s not as free of intrigue as she expected. She’s soon dragged back to the racing world, which has expanded world-wide. Some old enemies and allies help frame this expanded league and see how it is linked to her corporate experiences and new political influences. This installment wraps up with Nixie stranded on the wrong side of the DMZ in North Korea as World War 3 begins. Go big or go home authors :)
My original 3-in-1 Shifter manuscript was 123k words, the part relevant to Yield was 41k and book 3, Drift, had 33k. The remaining 49,000 words of Shifter had a lot of supplemental material added to let it stand on its own and bring it up to a respectable 112k words. In Drift, Ellen becomes one of the founding members of a city lost at sea. Hanjin City, her new home, consists of a flotilla of cargo ships, cruise liners, and various fishing and research vessels stuck in the great Pacific garbage patch. Here she is exposed to a new way of living / governance and the merciless responsibility of controlling access to limited resources. Ellen being Nixie, a term from Scandinavian folklore I recently discovered is a type of shape-shifting mermaid trickster, (!!!) gets into serious trouble while tinkering with a McGuffin stolen from a Xiba2 research lab in Seoul. She flees back to the states, leaving a breadcrumb trail of pings back to their mainframe servers to lead the team of brutally violent investigators away from her city.
She’s smuggled across the border between Vancouver and Seattle before making her way, by bus, train, and hitchhiking across a depleted America. International trade has ceased, and in the first days of the war, many anti-satellite missiles turned near earth orbit into a sea of shrapnel. Political connections and technology she developed from book 2 have adopted to darker purposes – Shift technology is weaponized and more of its unusual side-effects exploited. Back in NYC, she reunites with old friends and a new one she made along her journey to take down the corporation and its nefarious backers.
One of the methods that helped me to write this story was to think of it as a video game; notably a racing game. With book 2 I was going to try stealth, spy-craft, and mystery. Three would be a bit of city building / management and maybe real time strategy. Ellen’s story ends with Drift but I do have some loose notes on short stories that continue within this same universe.
One of them, that's semi-related, but has been pretty much mothballed because it's the kind of thing that can't easily be self-published is a book of 3D mazes that I designed and had a coder friend of mine create a generation algorithm for. I made a fancy mockup and shopped it around Toy Fair but it’s a weird not-quite-book, not-quite-toy so impossible to find a manufacturing partner for ☹
The other book ideas are due to the fact that I’m emailing back and forth with my agent who got the Tic-Tac-Tome published in the first place. I did try to go the more traditional publishing route with Shifter back in 2018 but being a first-time author and not really dedicating myself to writing full time, it’s understandable that they didn’t pick it up. I learned a ton about writing query letters and the whole ecosystem of agents, publishers, reviewers, etc. I worked with a developmental editor when I was getting some sparse feedback from the agents, so I chopped the original, long manuscript into three books – something I had already kind of done in the text as a larger grouping of chapters, but now planned as works that can hopefully stand alone.
Using the original Star Wars trilogy as a sort of base line for what can work as a stand alone work, Shifter is Ellen’s introduction to the world of underground Shift racing. She wants a legit and safe job but racing plays to her strengths. In book 2, Yield, she gets that safe job but it’s not as free of intrigue as she expected. She’s soon dragged back to the racing world, which has expanded world-wide. Some old enemies and allies help frame this expanded league and see how it is linked to her corporate experiences and new political influences. This installment wraps up with Nixie stranded on the wrong side of the DMZ in North Korea as World War 3 begins. Go big or go home authors :)
My original 3-in-1 Shifter manuscript was 123k words, the part relevant to Yield was 41k and book 3, Drift, had 33k. The remaining 49,000 words of Shifter had a lot of supplemental material added to let it stand on its own and bring it up to a respectable 112k words. In Drift, Ellen becomes one of the founding members of a city lost at sea. Hanjin City, her new home, consists of a flotilla of cargo ships, cruise liners, and various fishing and research vessels stuck in the great Pacific garbage patch. Here she is exposed to a new way of living / governance and the merciless responsibility of controlling access to limited resources. Ellen being Nixie, a term from Scandinavian folklore I recently discovered is a type of shape-shifting mermaid trickster, (!!!) gets into serious trouble while tinkering with a McGuffin stolen from a Xiba2 research lab in Seoul. She flees back to the states, leaving a breadcrumb trail of pings back to their mainframe servers to lead the team of brutally violent investigators away from her city.
She’s smuggled across the border between Vancouver and Seattle before making her way, by bus, train, and hitchhiking across a depleted America. International trade has ceased, and in the first days of the war, many anti-satellite missiles turned near earth orbit into a sea of shrapnel. Political connections and technology she developed from book 2 have adopted to darker purposes – Shift technology is weaponized and more of its unusual side-effects exploited. Back in NYC, she reunites with old friends and a new one she made along her journey to take down the corporation and its nefarious backers.
One of the methods that helped me to write this story was to think of it as a video game; notably a racing game. With book 2 I was going to try stealth, spy-craft, and mystery. Three would be a bit of city building / management and maybe real time strategy. Ellen’s story ends with Drift but I do have some loose notes on short stories that continue within this same universe.
October 20, 2023
Tic-Tac-Tome
About a month ago a friend messaged me about a TikTok she saw that features my Tic-Tac-Tome puzzle book. I can curmudgeonly say that I've never used that particular video app, but it's also on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/mQuvEHEARZg?si=ooFFB...
The TikTok has 643 thousand likes. (they don't show the view count)
The YouTube has 955 thousand likes from 8.7 MILLION VIEWS!
I've gotten a lot of really skilled and determined people messaging me through Facebook & my website & even LinkedIn about obtaining a copy, but as far as I know, what's out there is out there. I did reach out to Quirk Books via my agent, but it sounds like they sold what they have and don't plan on doing another print run.
BUT...
We could try to pitch it to another publisher. I'm not sure how printing and publishing such a weirdly shaped book works for the traditional publishing world, but maybe they could get some out before Xmas if the stars align & everything goes perfectly. I'm pretty sure I can't self-publish a physical copy via Amazon given what I remember from when I self published my sci-fi novel there a few years back.
Anyway, if you're a fan and want to see the Tic-Tac-Tome back in print, comment, like, subscribe, and don't forget to hit the bell icon to be notified of new stuff ;)
A quick update:
There's a Reddit thread asking where to get the book here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wherecanibuy...
I also have a blog post regarding 2 foreign language editions people might be able to obtain in Europe here:
https://www.willyyonkers.com/post/for...
Lastly, the very first printing of the book was through ThinkGeek, the online retailer and my former employer. That one had a grayscale cover with robot arm on the cover. The second link above has an image if you're having trouble finding the blue and red cover version.
https://youtu.be/mQuvEHEARZg?si=ooFFB...
The TikTok has 643 thousand likes. (they don't show the view count)
The YouTube has 955 thousand likes from 8.7 MILLION VIEWS!
I've gotten a lot of really skilled and determined people messaging me through Facebook & my website & even LinkedIn about obtaining a copy, but as far as I know, what's out there is out there. I did reach out to Quirk Books via my agent, but it sounds like they sold what they have and don't plan on doing another print run.
BUT...
We could try to pitch it to another publisher. I'm not sure how printing and publishing such a weirdly shaped book works for the traditional publishing world, but maybe they could get some out before Xmas if the stars align & everything goes perfectly. I'm pretty sure I can't self-publish a physical copy via Amazon given what I remember from when I self published my sci-fi novel there a few years back.
Anyway, if you're a fan and want to see the Tic-Tac-Tome back in print, comment, like, subscribe, and don't forget to hit the bell icon to be notified of new stuff ;)
A quick update:
There's a Reddit thread asking where to get the book here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wherecanibuy...
I also have a blog post regarding 2 foreign language editions people might be able to obtain in Europe here:
https://www.willyyonkers.com/post/for...
Lastly, the very first printing of the book was through ThinkGeek, the online retailer and my former employer. That one had a grayscale cover with robot arm on the cover. The second link above has an image if you're having trouble finding the blue and red cover version.
September 5, 2019
Some recommendations -
Graphic novels:
- Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
- Blankets - Craig Thompson
- Maus: A Survivor's Tale - Art Speigelman
- Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art - Scott McCloud
Fiction:
- The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
- Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
- The Martian - Andy Weir
- Old Man's War - John Scalzi
- World War Z - Max Brooks
Non-fiction:
- Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond
- Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl
- Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
- Blankets - Craig Thompson
- Maus: A Survivor's Tale - Art Speigelman
- Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art - Scott McCloud
Fiction:
- The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
- Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
- The Martian - Andy Weir
- Old Man's War - John Scalzi
- World War Z - Max Brooks
Non-fiction:
- Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond
- Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl
August 19, 2019
Now listen, Cadet. I've got a job for you...
Push the button! The beautiful shiny button! The jolly candy-like button!
*BOOP*
History wasn't erased, but I did publish my first sci-fi story to Amazon's KDP system. It's available now as a paperback and eBook:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/109...
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
I'm a big fan of the phrase 'Perfect is the enemy of done.' I know it's meant to be 'good' but that implies that the finished product is somehow lacking - most of the time this is not the case. Artists can torture themselves fixing every obscure, tiny detail that hardly anyone will ever notice before ever sharing their work. Sometimes you gotta just rip the bandaid off. The manuscript HAS been proofread and edited, but I'm sure there are still plenty of dumb mistakes to make all the haters feel good about themselves :)
It's 112,000-ish words, 257 pages, has terrible cover art I whipped up by photoshopping some roller skates over xmas lights and a post-apocalyptic cityscape. I even plugged the text into one of those reading grade level calculators for fun. ( 6th grade. 8th is average in the states - I honestly had no idea where I'd fall with about 50% Ellen cursing like a sailor and 50% spouting sudo-science tech jargon. )
Kindle Direct Publishing is pretty great - very user friendly and there are tons of tutorials and walkthroughs online. They even provide a plugin for Microsoft Word that does a good job at getting you started formatting the content before you upload it. Same for Adobe Illustrator regarding cover art. I don't really consider myself a real 'writer' - that whole 10k hours thing about being an expert means I'm good at SolidWorks 3D modeling, making things, design, and Geometry Wars.
*BOOP*
History wasn't erased, but I did publish my first sci-fi story to Amazon's KDP system. It's available now as a paperback and eBook:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/109...
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
I'm a big fan of the phrase 'Perfect is the enemy of done.' I know it's meant to be 'good' but that implies that the finished product is somehow lacking - most of the time this is not the case. Artists can torture themselves fixing every obscure, tiny detail that hardly anyone will ever notice before ever sharing their work. Sometimes you gotta just rip the bandaid off. The manuscript HAS been proofread and edited, but I'm sure there are still plenty of dumb mistakes to make all the haters feel good about themselves :)
It's 112,000-ish words, 257 pages, has terrible cover art I whipped up by photoshopping some roller skates over xmas lights and a post-apocalyptic cityscape. I even plugged the text into one of those reading grade level calculators for fun. ( 6th grade. 8th is average in the states - I honestly had no idea where I'd fall with about 50% Ellen cursing like a sailor and 50% spouting sudo-science tech jargon. )
Kindle Direct Publishing is pretty great - very user friendly and there are tons of tutorials and walkthroughs online. They even provide a plugin for Microsoft Word that does a good job at getting you started formatting the content before you upload it. Same for Adobe Illustrator regarding cover art. I don't really consider myself a real 'writer' - that whole 10k hours thing about being an expert means I'm good at SolidWorks 3D modeling, making things, design, and Geometry Wars.
July 22, 2019
Hello book fans!
I'm just getting started with all this marketing and outreach stuff, so please bear with me. Right now I've got a facebook and unaffiliated webpage via WIX at facebook.com/willyyonkers and willyyonkers.com respectively. Go check 'em out and like the facebook page if you'd like to get updates on what I'm working on.
Right now the only published work I have is the Tic-Tac-Tome, but I'm planning on launching a full-fledged sci-fi novel inspired by some time I spent in NYC around the 2008 financial crisis. I *think* I'm going to go the self-publishing route with Amazon's KDP system, but I'm not a huge fan of e-books, so we'll see how that goes. I'm still getting all my ducks in a row, but the manuscript is copy-edited, layout and formatting are done, and I've made my own (semi-terrible) cover art.
In the novel, SHIFTER, Ellen, a 25 year old, over-educated, under-employed delivery woman, lives in an alternate near future of 2025 New York, a bleak world where only a privileged few see a path to a prosperous future. She gets sucked into the the mob controlled underworld of SHIFT racing in the subway tunnels of NYC quite by accident due to the skill and determination demonstrated on a particularly dangerous delivery run. The miraculous new 'SHIFT' technology allows for flying race pods to pass through solid matter, shifting the atoms of the craft into a state where they do not interact with our world. Using it however, is not without potentially deadly consequences.
The meat of the story follows her rise through the ranks from total rookie to elite pilot, illustrating the ways her life is changed by a tantalizing exposure to enormous wealth and the dangers of the criminal underworld. At the peak of her career, she begins to realize the payoff may not be worth the toll it's taking on her spirit. In a mid-race freak accident she's given the choice of saving herself a total stranger and chooses the latter.
She recovers and hides out from the mob as she tries to figure out how to escape her illicit career. This hiatus allows her to gain perspective and glimpse a chance at a normal, prosperous life, but inevitably she's pulled back into racing. More desperate than ever to escape for good, she creates an elaborate plan to bankrupt and humiliate her mob masters.
Right now the only published work I have is the Tic-Tac-Tome, but I'm planning on launching a full-fledged sci-fi novel inspired by some time I spent in NYC around the 2008 financial crisis. I *think* I'm going to go the self-publishing route with Amazon's KDP system, but I'm not a huge fan of e-books, so we'll see how that goes. I'm still getting all my ducks in a row, but the manuscript is copy-edited, layout and formatting are done, and I've made my own (semi-terrible) cover art.
In the novel, SHIFTER, Ellen, a 25 year old, over-educated, under-employed delivery woman, lives in an alternate near future of 2025 New York, a bleak world where only a privileged few see a path to a prosperous future. She gets sucked into the the mob controlled underworld of SHIFT racing in the subway tunnels of NYC quite by accident due to the skill and determination demonstrated on a particularly dangerous delivery run. The miraculous new 'SHIFT' technology allows for flying race pods to pass through solid matter, shifting the atoms of the craft into a state where they do not interact with our world. Using it however, is not without potentially deadly consequences.
The meat of the story follows her rise through the ranks from total rookie to elite pilot, illustrating the ways her life is changed by a tantalizing exposure to enormous wealth and the dangers of the criminal underworld. At the peak of her career, she begins to realize the payoff may not be worth the toll it's taking on her spirit. In a mid-race freak accident she's given the choice of saving herself a total stranger and chooses the latter.
She recovers and hides out from the mob as she tries to figure out how to escape her illicit career. This hiatus allows her to gain perspective and glimpse a chance at a normal, prosperous life, but inevitably she's pulled back into racing. More desperate than ever to escape for good, she creates an elaborate plan to bankrupt and humiliate her mob masters.
