Hero Complex

by Sean O'Hara

A SCREWBALL ACTION COMEDY ROMANCE DARK FANTASY! WITH ROBOTS AND WIZARDS AND MAYBE VAMPIRES IF WE REALLY NEED TO PANDER!

In a stunning debut that has been described as, "Philip K. Dick meets The Gilmore Girls" and "an action rollercoaster full of mind-shattering ideas," Sean O'Hara delivers an emotional powerhouse that's sure to be one of the best remembered fantasy novels of the -- hey, stop skimming! Look, we all know the first paragraph in a publisher's synopsis is a load of laudatory drivel that's designed to make every crappy novel sound like Tolstoy, but you know, someone worked really hard on this drivel. This is more than just boilerplate. You have no idea how many hours it took to get a critic drunk enough to compare this book to Philip K. Dick. And you're going to skim to the plot synopsis?

Fine. That's the way you feel. This is the story of Erik Schumacher, an Ordinary Teenage Boy™ who's drafted into his high school's drama club after all the guys in the club mysteriously quit. He has no acting experience, but he has the two traits the girls in the club are looking for--namely he's a guy and he has a really cute butt. And what guy wouldn't want to be in a club with a dozen beautiful girls?

But strange things are afoot in the drama club, and Erik soon realizes that the fate of the world rests in his --

Wait, really? This sounds like an incredibly stupid anime full of squeaky-voiced girls with preposterously colored hair, and you have absolutely no desire to watch it, but you're trying to get with this cute girl who's really into it, so you sit there all night, watching episode after episode, and the whole time you want to poke your eyes out, but you don't dare say anything that might offend the girl, but when the show's finally over she just kicks you out without so much as a peck on the cheek. What's up with that? You go to the trouble of springing for pizza and beer, you'd think first base would be in the offing, but not even a kiss, come on, how is that fair? It's freakin' ridiculous, I'm telling you--

The publisher would like to apologize for the fault in the synopsis. Those responsible have been fired. Also, we are currently looking for a copywriter. All applicants are welcome. No experience necessary. We accept trained monkeys. We'll even consider an untrained one. Disgraced former Fox News anchors. Anyone. Please apply.

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 28, 2014

About the author

Sean O’Hara was born in Stuttgart, West Germany during the last years of the Cold War. Both his parents served in the US Army, though his mother took an honorable discharge after his birth. His family moved to Fort Clayton, Panama in 1982, and they were still there when World War III broke out two years later. His mother, still a reservist, returned to active service during the Soviet-Cuban invasion of Panama, and died during the Battle of Darien. His father was reported missing in action after the fall of the Canal Zone, and none of the surviving Soviet records list him as a prisoner of war.

Sean himself escaped to Colombia thanks to Ruth Lyle, the Panamanian wife of his neighbor who smuggled him across the border. Sean spent the next several years in a refugee camp before being repatriated to the US at the end of the war. After a rigorous three year course in the Eugene V. Debs Education Center for the Rehabilitation of Politically Suspect Children, he entered Victor Berger High School in New Leningrad, Wisconsin where he excelled in Political Theory and Neo-Hegelian Historical Analysis. After fulfilling his three years of National Service, Sean enrolled at Emma Goldman University in Chicago where he took a bachelor’s degree in Political Doctrine with a minor in Collectivist History.