Get my App
Link to Me
Save the badge above and link to www://kennamckinnonauthor.com/
Most Popular Posts
-
A vote: SpaceHive, Space Hive, SPACEHIVE? You'll note there's a new title for my book, and I've chosen SpaceHive. Consultation w...
-
Memorable Characters Writer's Workshop I went to my first writer's workshop last Saturday, put on by the Canadian Authors'... -
It is my pleasure to welcome author Mari Collier to my blog today. We’ll start out with a few questions. If you choose not to a...
-
Inspired and Committed Author Gets the Job Done ASCENDING , a new novella, is on pre-release on Amazon. I'm really excited about ...
-
This book is called The Insanity Machine because in 1978 Kenna McKinnon chatted with another inmate in the old 5C forensic psychiatr... -
Battling Bikers Eileen Schuh, Author The heck with vampires when you can battle bikers! Many teens love reading about the ... -
I've been working on a new anthology containing three novellas, as some of you know. It's a horror anthology and at least one novell...
-
Roy Huff I'm delighted to be interviewing the multitalented and charismatic author, worl d tr aveler, and research scientist ... -
Alan Place, Author We asked Alan to tell us about himself and his books, his inspirations, his proudest moments, how he relaxes, a... -
Eve Gaal It is my pleasure to welcome you to my blog today, Eve. We’ll start out with a few questions. If you choose not to answer an...
Featured on Buck Books
Friday, November 7, 2014
The author who outsold Old Man and the Sea
 |
| From Imajin Books - best selling author Jesse Giles Christiansen |
PROLOGUE
JAKE RAYNER is the only one, other than Samantha
Bryant, who had the vision.
He’ll never forget the first time it happened. He
was out for a walk in the woods by himself, a practice highly discouraged by
the Overseers.
He was always surprised at how little everyone
questioned the rules of the Overseers. Many of them seemed so ridiculous. Then
again, they owed everything to them. There would have been no life here at all,
if not for them.
That afternoon the hazy air was happy and it seemed
to seep into everything. Jake was reckless to allow it to seep into him. His
feet, his legs, his fingers, even his thoughts, were reckless.
I know they’re going to find me. I just know it.
Then they’re going to hook me up to the Recalibration Machine again.
But that day he didn’t care about a single thing. He
was mad with life. Life was mad in his veins. Life was livid in his veins.
Everything spoke to him. The birds’ songs were like
shrilly operas stuck in fortissimo. The creek sneaking along by his side
crackled and popped the way a long-asleep radio wakes up hungry and eager to
play. The wind in the pines moaned softly like a lonely lover.
Then it happened.
He felt dizzy at first, his head so light he thought
it might float away. Something surged inside him that could have been swallowed
lightning, rising, writhing, and climbing up to his head.
The memory came.
Memories were demons; they were even more forbidden
than being all alone; they were not allowed to even start. When they went in
for their weekly screening, any evidence of memories prior to the Anti-Emotion
Movement was immediately erased. It was for their own good. Really. They had to
believe in the Overseers. They gave them everything, and asked for so little in
return. The Overseers picked them up after the Great Fog.
He just stood there and could not stop the memory.
Oh, it was so warm. That swallowed lightning curled up, balled up in his head
and took to nuclear fusion, forming a miniature sun to melt all the work of the
entire Overseers’ brilliant technology.
But what an afternoon it was.
The first flash was of shiny boxes wrapped in fancy
bows under a tree that someone had stuck in a living room. What a bizarre
image. Why would someone put a perfectly good tree in a living room? Perfect
madness. Perfect madness, indeed. And the poor, poor tree.
The tree was wrapped with winking lights, and as he
stood there, letting this memory take root, he could see the pines around him
dressed the same. They were beautiful, and he overflowed with the urge to take
all the pines in the forest, shrink them down, and put them into everyone’s
homes.
Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
He heard footsteps, and the beautiful, horrible,
absurd memory vanished. The memory vanished like the scent of a woman riding
with you on a train—a woman you know you will never see again.
He waited for the Goth Town Police to arrest him.
And he cherished those seconds as the taste of a curious and wild memory
remained for a few seconds on his lips. Those few seconds were more blissful
than the rambunctious air that crept all through the forest that afternoon and
shot rays of perilous hope into everything. In those few seconds, he tried to
chase the echo that was home to that taste. That scent of a woman on a train.
He tried to return to it with the desperation of a legless man waking from a
Boston Marathon dream.
But at least the taste was there when they
handcuffed him.
At least the flicker.
A gray haunt … at least …
DOWNLOAD THE MP3:
DOWNLOAD THE MP3:
Biography
Jesse
Giles Christiansen is an American author who writes compelling literary fiction
that weaves the real with the surreal. He attended Florida State University
where he received his B.A. in English literature. He is the author of Pelican
Bay, an Amazon #1 list bestseller, outselling Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway.
He'll be releasing what is expected to be one of the most unique Christmas
stories in years, Goth Town, on November 6th, 2014. One of Christiansen's
literary goals is to write at least fifty novels, and he always reminds himself
of something that Ray Bradbury once said: "You fail only if you stop
writing."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(Atom)
Thanks so much for having me, Kenna! Love the layout!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jesse, it was fun to do. Your smiling face encouraged me. Good luck with your debut Christmas novella, Goth Town!
DeleteWhat eerie, enticing writing! I look forward to reading Jesse's book. Thanks for featuring it, Kenna.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Judi, Jesse has an old fashioned and winning way with words, his stories are a delight.
Delete