Dweller

by Duncan Pile

Tyler is a dweller – he inhabits another person’s body while the host mind takes a vacation in the virtual reality pleasure palace of the Nexus. It’s a nasty job. Only the rich can afford the services of a dweller, and only the desperate take it on, enduring pain in the host’s place. Chemotherapy, cold turkey, you name it – Tyler has gone through it on behalf of his clients. Tyler wakes up in the body of his latest host – a meth addict and alcoholic – and joins his friend Mani for a blowout before the gruelling work of dwelling begins. They are arrested after a bar brawl and thrown into a cell, where they are interrogated by Morrow Quinn, his ultimate boss. On the way home from the station, Tyler and Mani are attacked by a gunman. Mani overpowers him, and under duress their assailant reveals that Morrow Quinn has put a hit out on them. Tyler decides to hole up with a friend of his – a hacker called Whisper, while they try to figure out what the hell is going on. Whisper thinks the answers lie in the Nexus – Quinn’s VR environment – and helps them hack the most sophisticated digital network in the world. Pursued in VR and in real life, they must find a way to stay alive and reach the fabled Hub, where all their questions might be answered.

264 pages, Paperback

Published March 31, 2020

About the author

Duncan Pile was born in 1975 in Cheltenham, and spent most of his childhood in Manchester, where he attended the Manchester Grammar School for boys. His early creative interests were in classical music, a passion he pursued at degree level at the University of Nottingham (1993-1996). After graduating, Duncan moved to Hong Kong and spent the next two years travelling around SE Asia, Australia, The Arabian Gulf and Africa, engaged in humanitarian work.

Duncan returned from his travels with his health depleted by malaria and the onset of Crohn's disease; a condition he suffered with in his mid-twenties until he underwent a major operation, which greatly improved his situation. Since then he has studied in the U.S.A for a year and trained as a Life Coach, something he practices to this day with private clients.

Duncan has always had a love of writing, and in recent years this has taken over from music as the main focus of his creative gifts. He writes in the Orange Tree pub in Nottingham most weekends, and during what remains of his spare time. Since childhood Duncan has had a passion for fantasy fiction, and so it's only right that his first series is in that genre. Nature Mage was awarded Debut of the Month by Lovereading4kids in February 2012, and since that time, Duncan has been visiting schools, talking with young people about his books and about creative writing in general. The very successful Nature's Servant was released in January 2013, Nature's Peril was completed in 2014 and Nature's Master in 2016.

He welcomes all readers to get in touch through the Nature Mage Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Nature-Mage-...