The Lazarus Hand

Despite staying up late last night, my body decided that 6:30 in the morning was the best time for me to get up on a Saturday. Related to this, my mind decided to write a story in dream form while I was sleeping which I feel led to the early release from slumber.

This gem of a future novel, which is tentatively titled The Lazarus Hand, is being told in first person by a snarky teenager the summer before she goes off to college. I blame Jim Butcher before sleep a little for Mallie and her unfortunate circumstances. Still, I think some of you will be excited. It is a fresh young adult project after so long of avoiding the genre.

Instead of working on my team's competition proposal for the Dream It, Design It, Develop It contest at ESU, I am writing out chapter one this morning. I have a feeling that I might be shaking up the Zombie Warhols for this one. We might meet today if I have time. I still have two assignments that are due today. One's done. One's partially done, but it's a group project so I can't do it all anyway. Waiting to hear from my teammate about noon to wrap things up.

Believe it or not, I've not even had a cup of coffee yet.

Here's a short (unedited) sample of what I've managed thus far: 

Waking up before noon, the day after the semester ended, seemed like a shitty way to start my last days of freedom before college and true adulthood. That is just what happens when your adoptive parents are Satan Incarnate and Mistress Hades who thought work built character and resumes at the same time. My groggy brain did not appreciate a wake-up call of nine in the morning after I kept a Call of Duty session going until about three.

 Missing an interview might mean that Uncle Mark's farm awaited me for yet another summer. Among those joyous chores would involve shoveling horse manure and repairing his barn. I didn't mind taking care of his horses, Lucifer, Peanut, Margot, Silver Tequila, and Callais, that much until Peanut had one of her moments where she tried to live up to Lucifer's name. Ever been bit by a horse? On the shoulder? Repeatedly?  Follow that up with the perennial favorite of an equine kicking manure in your general direction and you've got the genteel actions of a pissed-off Peanut.

I do not know for the life of me why I thought working for a funeral home sounded like less work. Maybe on some egotistical level, I thought it would be a great conversation starter when I moved to Tulsa. Like most people who have never been in a funeral home, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. (c) 2014

This is an urban fantasy and it's not a recap of my experiences at work by any stretch of the imagination. (That would not be legal.) Obviously, I will be drawing on elements of "what usually happens..." without going into unnecessary details or specific cases. The funeral home is more of a catalyst setting for certain things to happen. The title is a bit of a clue.

I don't necessarily seeing Mallie as being an immediately lovable character, but she has some issues to work through besides what life throws at her. She's not exactly a sweet person. At the same time, if young adult novels are mostly following the hero's journey, the protagonist should not be hero material at the start of it. He or she has to find ways to become that person.

Thanks for any comments, thoughts, well-wishes, etc.

Have a great weekend!

Review of The Colony: Book 1, The Rebellion

The Colony: Book 1, Rebellion, written by J. Tomas,  is told by Aine, a sixteen year old boy living in a place known as the Colony. Readers will realize quickly that the would-be utopia that is the Colony is more of a drug-controlled prison that is reminiscent both of the classic dystopian novel, 1984, as well as the vaults from video games Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. Aine's rebellion against this oppressive society starts when he accidentally drops a pill so that he is unable to take it and has a dream for the first time in his entire life. That romantic dream focuses on his best friend, another boy named Kyer, not his Other (intended life-mate), a girl named Brin. From that moment forward, Aine's belief in everything that the Colony has forced him to be starts to unravel. He ultimately decides to find a way to change both his and Kyer's fates. 

Before I give too much plot away in this review, I just want to say that I really enjoyed Rebellion. I could not put it down once I started.  The writing is engaging and the book is very quick-paced. Aine's view of the other characters give them a sense of veracity, however, some are equally surreal in their unwillingness to break free of all the restrictions and all of the pills that keep them falsely numb or content. The consequences of restricting people's freedoms is clearly one of the cautions in this dystopian tale, but I appreciated that even with all the planning from the Overseer and the Council, the restrictions failed. I still have many questions and I am dying to see how Tomas answers them in The Colony: Book 2.

Definitely give this book a try if you're fan of dystopian young adult literature. Rebellion is out now on Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, and on QueerTeen Press's website in both e-book and print formats.