Drabble Wednesday: Revelations

After an absence last week due to illness, Drabble Wednesday returns with something different.  Three tales, three worlds, one story...

Exiled

I am banished from the safety of the village on the wail of a funeral dirge. A song for the walking dead, to cast their way across the scorched earth and endless night outside our walls. I hear the last notes muffled by the clang of the gates as they close behind me.

I am now outcast. A wanderer in the shadow of death.

I resist the urge to turn and beg for my life. They will not listen. So I walk across the eternal desert into the perpetual black night.

Only to find...

A door. And another world beyond.

~*~

Automation

Dim artificial light and a faint electronic hum filled empty metal corridors. Quiet, still, the space station functioned with precision and efficiency. Its only life on the upper ring, the ever present sentience of its AI. On the lower rings however...

Movement on corridor D, Block A. Another detainee ready for release.

The disembodied voice triggered an automated program and a door slid open. A human figure hesitantly stepped on to the station from a virtual simulation cell.

Hello, prisoner 4589. Your sentence aboard internment station Delta 9 has been served. You will now be reprocessed back into Earth society.

~*~

Home

I still remember that day in my dreams. The steel walls, a sickly sweet smell, harsh lights, walking up on the table after they restored my memories.

My release day. Before they sent me home.

Back to Earth.

I am still an exile. I miss the lie of their prison.

They said I served my sentence.

They were wrong.

Earth is the true prison. With its grey conformity, it’s lack of independent thought.

They think simulated hardship will cure our radical beliefs. It only makes them stronger.

I join another protest group tonight. I will reoffend.

I will go home.

© A. F. Stewart 2017 All Rights Reserved

Book Spotlight: Timesnatched: Pole Star

Today I present another book spotlight, this time for the Young Adult time travel novel, Timesnatched: Pole Star by B.D. Boyle. Pole Star is book one, in the Timesnatched series, soon to be followed by book two, Southern Cross. Enjoy this look at the first book in the series...

Timesnatched: Pole Star by B.D. Boyle

Three teens are flung twenty years into the future where time coins and bohrium bracelets can mean the difference between life and death. Thrown together in a dystopian New York City, an American farm boy, English school girl and teen scientist will have to quickly unite and join the Coalition of Liberty. The girl’s quiet life along Wigan’s Pier is behind her and she is now faced with trusting the daring young American and the geek kid who can almost invent something from nothing. The boys will either save them all from this strange turn of events or they’ll plunge them even deeper into a frightening world of oppressive dictators, rebel forces and teenagers who are kidnapped for their future talents.

Excerpt:

Why is Grandpa doing this? Why is he meddling with things he knows nothing about? Questions bombarded Nicolas Wycliffe as he stared at the gold coin in the palm of his hand.

Nicolas lifted his eyes to the golden red glare of the London night sky. In the minutes he had been standing there, the shrill scream of bombs hurling toward the earth had overpowered the drone of the Nazi bombers. The ground under his feet shuddered and he quickly slipped the coin into the safety of his coat pocket. He saw a sign on the street corner and sprinted for the stairway of the London Underground. His long legs took him to the subterranean tube that wound under London proper. Vast numbers of people crouched in the semi-darkness, seeking shelter from the Blitz that was showering London with fire and exploding bombs. The firestorm above was sucking the city of its precious oxygen; but down there, in the depths of the Underground, Nicolas Wycliffe found relative safety—at least for now.

After raking his fingers through his unruly cowlick, Nicolas attempted to wipe from his thick glasses the black soot of the war zone above. He glanced around at the poor souls who cowered nearby and then sank to the floor, his back to the stone wall. This was the night he had read about in history books, the night his grandfather had told him about so often that Nicolas could have recited the tales by heart. “It was a scene from the bowels of hell, to be sure.” His grandfather described the fateful night of December 29, 1940. “I was with my cousin and childhood friend, Molly McGruder. We were running through the streets of London, half expecting a bomb to land on us at any moment.” The old man often paused and reflected at that point in the story. His eyes looked up as if watching the scene on a giant screen. “Molly stumbled and fell; I reached out to help her when the brick wall of a building fell on her, throwing me ten yards away into a pile of rubble. I ran to her, but I knew it was too late. My dear friend and cousin was gone from my life.”

Nicolas sighed. Here he was in London on that horrific night in 1940, trying to find his grandfather who had taken one of two prototypes of the time coin he had invented just two months before. Nicolas himself had not even had a chance to test the little machine properly before he discovered the missing coin. From journal entries he knew exactly where his grandfather was headed. And, thanks to the history books, he knew when. A quick Internet search revealed the GPS coordinates of the warehouse that had fallen and he drove to the location for the time jump.

There was a momentary hush in the Underground. All eyes turned to the ceiling. Nothing. Nicolas jumped up to take advantage of the lull. When he emerged on the surface once again, he glanced at the map he had saved on his cellphone and took off running. In minutes, he was on Shoe Lane. Firemen were training a fire hose on a burning book factory amidst the penetrating heat. People were shouting and the ever-present pungent odor of smoke billowed high into the sky. Nicolas searched the alleyways and down every sidewalk. Coughing, he ran until his lungs were bursting. He leaned over, hands on his knees, to take a rest and then he saw them—two young teenagers walking rapidly hand-in-hand. One was unmistakably the teen version of Nicolas’ grandfather, for he had seen his boyhood pictures many times. The other was a girl in school uniform with curly, red hair. Her pretty freckled face was etched with fear. She must be Molly McGruder, Grandpa’s cousin, thought Nicolas. He stood in the smoky shadows observing the pair when from around the corner a tall, lanky older gentleman rapidly approached the couple.

“Grandpa, no!” shouted Nicolas.

The grandfather ignored the warning and in an instant embraced the two teens.  They struggled to get out of the old man’s grasp when suddenly a large portion of the tall, brick building broke free from the roof structure. Nicolas watched in horror as the massive wall descended toward the helpless trio below. At that instant, a firebomb lit up the street like a giant flare and there was no mistaking what happened next—the three victims disappeared into thin air just as the bricks landed in a massive pile on the street. Nicolas pursed his lips, reached into his pocket for the gold coin, and whispered, “Oh, Grandpa, what in the world have you done?”

Timesnatched: Pole Star is available at Amazon

Author Bio:

Searching for fast-paced adventure stories with uplifting plots and wholesome characters left B.D. Boyle frustrated and ready to try her hand at it. That’s how “Timesnatched” came to be.”  Writing clean, teen fiction has become a passion for Barbara Dillree Boyle who traveled all over the world for twenty years with her husband in the U.S. Air Force. “Raising eight children in four different countries was a fast-paced adventure in and of itself,” says Boyle. She and her husband reside in a high mountain valley in the Idaho Rockies.

For more on the author and her books:

Amazon Profile

Website

Interview With Author Robert Ford

Today we are joined by writer and filmmaker Robert Ford, who stops by for an interview:

 

 Interview With Robert Ford

1- Why don’t you begin by sharing a little about yourself.

Hello. My name is Robert Ford. I live in London and divide my time between writing and working in film and television on the editorial side of things. Currently in training for the Graeco-Roman wrestling, Rio 2016.

2- You’ve written your first novel, The King of Spain.  Can you tell us a bit about it?

The King of Spain is set in an old people’s home, in the future. It’s a dark comedy about the people who work there and the adventures they have. It’s quite silly but very serious and hugely entertaining. Of course.

3- What inspired you to write this particular story?

The King of Spain came about through a collision of elements, of thoughts and concerns. There were a set of personal strands that I wanted to explore and a set that were more global. It sound obvious, but the more I thought about things, the more I came to realize that these two tracts were absolutely interrelated, and it was from that starting point that everything else flowed.

4- You’ve written several screenplays, as well as the book.  What is the biggest difference you’ve found between writing a screenplay and a novel?

I loved the freedom that a novel affords you. You don’t have to think about the physical or financial constraints of making the final film. About casting or time pressures or any of those things. It felt liberating, not least in the respect that I could suddenly use language in a much more sophisticated manner - my screenplays were probably over cooked in terms of stage directions etc. At the same time I tried to remember that with a screenplay you can conjure a scene, and introduce characters with very few words. There is an economy inherent in their form and at their best this allows the reader to flex their imagination, which is a real strength.

5- You’ve also worked in film and had your directorial debut with Sexy Pig, broadcast on the BBC HD channel.  What was that experience like?

It was great, especially as the film was shot for no money and with no resources. Felt like we achieved a great deal with not much.

6- What is a typical day of writing like for you?

Unfortunately I rarely get to write during the day. More often I’ll write at night, when the rest of the world is sleeping.

7- What’s your greatest challenge when it comes to writing?

Finding time. Ideas come to me easily. I write slowly but I get there in the end. The biggest issue I have is finding time after work to write, especially now that I have a daughter. And I’m not someone who does well off no sleep, although I’ve had to adapt. My greatest wish is that one day someone will pay me to write. During the day.

8- Who are your writing inspirations?

Lewis Carol, Hubert Selby Jnr, Hunter S Thompson, Charles Dickens, Graham Greene, Roald Dahl, Haruki Marukami.

9- What’s next for you?

Once all the 4p royalties are in from the book I plan to buy a boat. Well, a rubber dinghy anyway. Yachts are so, like, last year. The dingy is a classic design and cheaper to run. My wife has offered to row us across the Irish Sea so we may hole up in Dublin for a while. TBC.

Author Bio:

After graduating from Reading University in 2003, Robert Ford briefly worked as a journalist in India before turning to the world of film editing, where he has been employed ever since. As well as prose, he has written several screenplays, and his directorial debut Sexy Pig was broadcast on the BBC HD channel last year.

He now lives and works in north-west London, roaming the streets in search of inspiration, drinking too much coffee and not writing as much as he should.

The King of Spain

When unworldly 22-year-old Sam is offered the chance to swap life in his regulation bungalow for a job at a countryside retirement home, he drops everything and heads to the rolling fields of Sussex. But things at the eerie Edge Hill are far from what he imagined.

The residents are easily over 100 years old, but due to rigorous cosmetic upkeep they look like they are in their twenties. The strange ‘handlers’ who work in the facility seem to have everything under control – until a geriatric stampede sets off a mind-blowing sequence of events that threatens to alter his life for ever.

In this sensational debut novel set in the not-too-distant future, Robert Ford has created a universe of his own in order to brilliantly illuminate the one – and the age – we all share…

 

The King of Spain:

http://apostrophebooks.com/kingofspain/

 

An Intense Literary Apocalyptic Novel: A Review of Since Tomorrow

My Book Review of Since Tomorrow by Morgan Nyberg:

Since Tomorrow by Morgan Nyberg is an unsettling novel, in the way only a powerful, well-crafted book can be, using its words to twist into your mind and make you think. It’s the type of book that resonates right into the back of your mind and curls around your soul.

The book is set in a post-apocalyptic future, where excess and dissipation have finally caught up with the world and where society has self-destructed. The novel unfolds within the city of Vancouver, Canada, where a small population survives, eking out a meagre existence by farming and scavenging.
This is a magnificent book that lays out an exquisitely formed vision of a broken world that has lost the trappings of civilisation as we know it, but none of its emotional underpinning. In this new society we still find people trying to form communities, people trying to take advantage, some who have given up, and some who want to make it better. No punches are pulled here in the pages; characters die, both victories and tragedies happen and life goes on despite everything. The author gives you characters you can love and hate, all living in an amazingly realistic future world.

In so many ways this book just works effortlessly, giving the reader different levels of enjoyment or reflection in its words. I highly recommend this book; it is worth your time to read it.
 
 
Since Tomorrow is available at:
Amazon