RUBBERMAN'S EXODUS IS OUT!!!

At the time of this writing, just the paperback, but hardcover and kindle are being processed by team Bezos at we speak. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981396054/

This is readable on its own, but nicely caps off the Rubberman Series. It's a biggie, at nearly 300 pages.

I recently was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, (yeah, on top of my 20-years-plus of paraplegia, yaaay!) so my concentration is kind of a mess these days. Thankfully, Exodus was in late editing when the MS hit hard. It's nice to finish off the series the way I wanted, but it does likely mean it's my last novel. I have plans to eventually redesign all my covers, and maybe do new editions of my older stuff with a bit of re-writing. But that's later.

133 years. Time is up.

Lead Engineer Tara and her partner Sasha face the coming end of the facility generator. For generations It has served thousands of people who have been hiding underground from the ravages of the war, and the lingering Enemy above.

Up and down the Grand Elevator, though the entire facility, every resident's life will be shaken when the generator sparks its last amp. The Great Actual, the anarchistic Citizens, and all of the regressed sub-societies in between will have to face the unknowns of the surface.

Old fears will pale against new circumstances beyond their imagination, and new attention brings judgment upon all.

So the initial intent was for Tara and Sasha (sweeties 4 ever!) to be the main focus of the book for most of it, but the events were so big that other parties had to have focus for notable chunks, most notably Messenger, who's the fella in charge of running the Grand Elevator that connects the different sections of the 40-story deep bomb shelter.

Other characters get their moment in the sun, from Lenth of Rubberman's Cage, and Leena of Rubberman's Citizens. This story affects every resident of the facility. Other per-established characters play important roles too, many of which (and some new ones) are named after real-life (and/or FB) friends. I gave them every chance to object to how I was having them behave!

It's launch day, and many things are nuts... but I'll get some nice excerpts posted here soon...

Eeeeheeheee... so many new things brought up that I think will surprise my long-time readers...

And they held each other. Fresh excerpt from WIP Rubberman's Exodus

Fresh scene, barely edited, so proceed with caution. Tara and Sasha are among hundreds of others in what equates to an internment camp built out of a repurposed fish processing facility. They recently had a very bad time in a bombed-out ruin, which was not helped by Sasha's agoraphobia.

Book progress is at 92k words. The ending is in sight, but it's got a fair chunk to go yet! Oh, and here's the current cover I have. The final will probably look a lot like this.

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“How ya doin'?” Tara said, putting an arm around Sasha's shoulders for a squeeze.

“Oh. You know. Spectacularly.” She grabbed Tara's hand and gave is a squeeze. “Same as the rest of us. Grateful to our kind hostess, and looking forward to trying to sleep in a room with a couple hundred other people again. With this stink. Oh, and there's that little wet spot outside looking at me.”

“Wet spot?” Tara glanced out towards the direction of the ocean. “Uh, yeah. That's... that's something all right. Hey. We gonna talk about what we saw in those ruins?”

Sasha's gaze shifted into a distant nowhere. “Can... can we not?”

“Okay.”

Sasha wrapped herself into Tara, burying her face into her shoulder, and squeezing at tight as she could. “Tell me that's not the world,” she mumbled into Tara weakly.

“Well... yes, we're told that place is like one in two places like that, and the vast majority of the world isn't... that.”

“No good,” Sasha said, squeezing desperately, even tighter. “Tell me that didn't exist.”

Tara nuzzled into the hair near Sasha's ear. “I don't know what you're talking about, Sash. We're home. We're in our room on our own bed. The generator's doing fine, and we even have the day off. I'm going to keep you in bed all day, and not let go.”

“Never let go,” Sasha whispered.

“Of course not. You're my Sash.” Tara gave an extra bit of squeeze, unsure if it could even be felt against how hard Sasha was squeezing.

“You won't let go because I'm weak?”

“You're my Sash.”

A few moments passed as they held each other, doing their best to ignore their surroundings.

“I hate being weak. I hate that it makes you have to … to deal with me.”

Tara moved back enough to look Sasha in the eye with a stern expression. “You. Are. My. Sash. I know how big it is out there. I know how that's making you feel. I have trouble logically understanding that hugeness out there. You can't help how much it affects you, but you push through. I've never been prouder of how you handled that run to the AirLimb back at home, or how you followed me into those ruins. I've never been so ashamed of myself for bringing you there.”

“Tara, no...”

Tara grabbed Sasha close again, almost forcefully. Hints of sobs struggled to push their way through Tara's voice. “Y-you are my Sash. You're so strong, hon. You're my...”

And they held each other. And others held each other. Some needed comforting, others chose to explore cautiously. Others stared at the sea.

And night eventually came.

And they held each other.

Rubberman's Exodus new sneak peek- Kevin gets memey.

Rubberman's Exodus at 75% first draft completion- here's a snippet written today. Minimal editing on it at this point. This graphic shows a bit of the as-of-yet unreleased map to the facility the Rubberman series is set in.

    At Engineering level, the remaining thirty soldiers moved into the loading bay. A row of empty clothing hooks lined the left wall. Ahead, a barricade of taupe, slightly-damp, steel barrels greeted them, as well as Kevin's face peeking out from a gap near the top.

    “Nice outfits,” Kevin said. “Are you fellas here to tell us when Tara and Sasha are getting back? It's been a lot longer than we were expecting. We were told you might be coming, though.”
The lead soldier answered back, “We're here to ensure that facility operations are secure, in interests of public safety. Please remove the barricade.”

    Kevin looked to the side, to someone unseen behind the barricade, and said quietly. “He's here for safety. Yup. Kinda how I saw it.” Kevin turned back to the soldiers with a smile. “Yeah, no thank you, we've been maintaining this facility for a long time, and things are secure here. I'm guessing it was one of your friends that cut our connection to the Grand Elevator. That's not safe. Also, I don't feel like moving these barrels again, they're heavy cuz they're filled with water. Water from the cooling pool. The one where we keep the depleted uranium, so, you know, handle at your own risk. I'm a professional.”
    Kevin flipped down his Rubberman suit's mask, completing his hazard suit. “So, you can leave, see ya!” Kevin's now-masked face disappeared from the gap, immediately replaced with a box to seal the gap.

    The soldiers didn't need to know that the vast majority of the water it the cooling pool was entirely harmless. The pool was now a bit lower than it technically should be, but the risk was low, especially for what was hoped to be a short duration.
    “Yeah, okay, now what?” Kevin said to a nearby Engineer, suited up as he was, as were the nearest twenty Engineers.

    At that moment, a 'foomp' sound came from the other side of the barricade, and a canister barged through the box in the gap. The canister rested on the middle of the room and started belching out smoke.
    Kevin looked at the smoke canister, and said “Son of a crap-sniffer!” He taped the filter on his mask, and pointed vigorously at the gap in the barricade, and yelled, “Am I a joke to you?!”

An interview with a Rubberman.

Sillier and shorter than the Lenth interview. A Rubberman is supposed to convey some degree of respect- even fear, to his Subjects.. this video does not portray that. :)

I got interviewed about an interview.

I didn't realize how odd that is until I typed the title of this post. Have you seen my "interview with Lenth"?

If you missed it, (I very recently posted it on this blog,) here it is:

And Tabitha Ormiston-Smith thinks it's a peachy idea, so she wanted to interview me about it! Here it is:

http://topcatsalley.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/book-trailer-as-entertainment.html

Now if only the book in question was a book of interviews with interviewers interviewing interviewers.

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BuffaloBuffaloBuffalo.

Oh, and another vid is coming very soon....

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Rubberman's Cage - Lenth's Interview video

Hey folks! With my next book, Rubberman's Cage coming up fast, I made a video while I waited on the editors.. it's an interview of Rubberman Cage's main character, Lenth.

It was written in an FB chat by me as Lenth, and Tabitha Ormiston-Smith asking 'Lenth' questions. One draft, ad-libbed script. She couldn't make it to the video shoot, as she's in Australia, and I'm in Vancouver, so in the video, it's only her words that make an appearance. I get to star as Lenth.. and I'm told I can kind of act!

The vid reveals a lot about the book's concept, and the life Lenth has been leading up until that point, (roughly a third through the book) He lived in a small area with his 'Brothers', supervised by a silent 'Rubberman', and this has been his normal life from birth... and then one of his Brothers became dead! And then disappeared overnight...

 ANYWAY, so check it out. The camera stinks, but I managed to salvage an interesting final production, I think.... gimmie feedback, SVP!

 http://youtu.be/qQC-0yzjs5w

The Newest of the Old Ones

I'm now writing two books at once. I'm a hypocrite. I've spoken against (typed against) writing two novels at once, but in my defence, the case I was hardest on was a friend who was writing like three books at once, which took place one after the other, giving rise to potential linearity confusion.

My two projects MIGHT take place in the same world, (I'm not decided on that... they're so far apart in any timeline that there's no reason to link them, and no reason to expressly separate them,) but they can't confuse each other. I think. I hope.

I'm not writing to any target, I have no aims whatsoever of finishing a new book for VCON this year, so I'm kind of taking it lazy.

Project one is the one I've previously mentioned, I think... a modern urban mystery/comedy about a man (The Serial Bleeder) who leaves artistic graffiti using his own blood, the gypsy who supports his mostly harmless aims, and the office cog who gets wrapped up with them.

The other is a scifi/fantasy with a very blurry line between the two. It takes place in the far flung post-apocalyptic future, which has been ravaged by (among other things) a virus that managed to kill off all of humanity, except for the redheads.

Now, do I mean, THIS kind of redhead?

Or THAT kind? Given my track record, I suppose you suspect more Jessica-like results. In fact, I think my worldwide redhead survivors will run the gamut. Maybe in opposing camps.

The protagonist is a non-redhead character I've written about before, although the perspective of time has changed them, as experience will do. The tentative title is "The newest of the Old Ones", but I'm not 100% married to that.

Excerpts from both projects may make it to the blog in the near future.