RISE OF THE FIRST WOMAN: A DREAMER’S SYNDROME ANTHOLOGY is now available at Amazon and for the Kindle! This is an Amazon-only release in order to keep costs down – the Kindle version of the 198-page book costs only 99 cents (CLICK HERE TO BUY) and the paperback is only $7 (CLICK HERE TO BUY). In order to make it available in all sales channels, I would have had to bump the cost of the book almost 2 bucks and because this collection is more anthology than sequel, I wanted to make it available at the lowest possible price.
The collection contains two parts that both further the story of the DS-universe as well as broaden its scope out beyond the borders of New England.
PART ONE: RISE OF THE FIRST WOMAN sees the introduction of the next villain, Lilith the First Woman, who has been kept captive in the Emptiness since just before Lucifer’s revolt. Tumbling out of the eternal darkness and into the world of man, Lilith sets out to rebuild the Eighth Day revolutionists. All of the main characters from INTO THE NEW WORLD are back: Austin, Kelly, King Frederic, Queen Samantha, pirate captain Mary Mathers, and Mollug the Ex-Parrot.
PART TWO: ELSEWHERE IN AMERICA contains three short stories from around the DS-universe, each told in a different style and with different characters who will become players in the story that unfolds as we move forward. “Ugly Faces in the Rain” features Wells the Werewolf (who made a brief appearance in INTO THE NEW WORLD), a private investigator who’s just been hired by a man to kill his daughter. “Waiting for Iron & Steam” features Lucy No-Longer McManus, a woman in the Wild West desperately looking for a life of adventure and caught between her husband and the Olympian god, Hermes. “The Ravening Night Horse” is set in the Great Forest of the Pacific Northwest, featuring the legendary adventurer Lopez Slocum, who has gone from the world’s most insane man to it’s most prescient. Consider them odes to Robert Parker, Elmore Leonard, and H.P. Lovecraft.
Here’s a preview of the first chapter of RISE OF THE FIRST WOMAN:
******
“Escape from God’s Prison” Excerpt:
When you have known darkness for so long that color is a faded memory, the slightest pinpoint of white light is enough to blaze with the glory of a thousand suns. Imagine, then, the effect of the first light you had seen in eons coming not as a pinpoint, but a crack in the dark the size of California.
Lilith’s eyes melted in her skull as her body tumbled out of the dark and into the light.
She fell.
******
There were steps leading down and so Lilith knew the cave had been constructed, and it was her intent to find whatever person, whatever treasure, lied hidden beneath the earth. Was it possible God could not see this cave? That didn’t seem likely given his enormous power, but-
“Hello, Lilith.”
She froze on the steps. Arcing down and to her right, the steps leveled off, and the deep, powerful voice had come to her from around that bend. “Who … who are you?”
“You will come to me now,” the voice said, assured and confident, “and I will give you the secrets of the Eighth Day.”
Swallowing, Lilith moved down the final steps and into the cave’s chamber.
******
It was the cruelest twist of her life, Lilith thought. After an eternity with nothing to see there was now a world for her to take in, but she had no eyes to witness their marvels. Were she a weaker human, she would have cried. Lilith was not a common human, however, and she simply knelt on the concrete and enjoyed the sounds of a bustling city that washed over her.
“Good woman, are you okay?”
Lilith’s blood froze at the heavenly voice of an angel. Had she been recognized? Drawing on the acorn of panic that she had refused to let out, Lilith screamed. “My eyes! My eyes! What happened to my eyes?”
“There, there, child,” the angel said, and Lilith felt a pair of eternally cool hands touch her face. Thoughts of Samil came rushing back to her, and a cry of pain that she could not contain burst from her lips.
“My eyes!” she repeated again, pleading for help.
“Hush, and you will be cured,” the angel said, and in an instant there were new eyes set into her face and a New World for her to gaze upon.
“Thank you!” she cried, hugging the angels leg in order to keep her face hidden from him. People moved wildly around them; Lilith had the sense that the world was about to end. Whichever angel it was that had saved her did not recognize her and she intended to keep it-
“Stop your act of whimpering, Lilith,” the angel commanded, dropping to one knee.
The First Woman’s face looked up into the angelic eyes of Berathon. “I am free!” she whispered, almost overcome by the weight of the statement.
Berathon nodded. “Damien broke the Gates.”
“Who?” Lilith asked, unfamiliar with the name.
“I forget how long you have been gone,” Berathon said, running his alabaster hands through her unkempt golden-brown hair. “Lucifer’s child.”
“Lucifer fathered a child?” she asked, shocked. “But … he’s an angel! How is that possible?”
Berathon looked deep into Lilith’s eyes and then turned to look towards Heaven. “There is so much you do not know, and I do not have the time to explain it to you.”
“You must!” she begged, squeezing his arms.
Berathon’s head snapped back. “Lucifer fell, Lilith. He led a revolt to overthrow Heaven and God tore off his wings and burned his flesh and sent him-”
“To the Emptiness!”
“To Hell.”
Lilith felt weak. “But …”
Berathon helped Lilith to her feet. He looked at her with disbelieving eyes. “I did not think Damien’s actions would open up the Emptiness. The angels will never-”
“I will not go back to that place!” Lilith screamed.
Berathon placed his powerful hands on her shoulders. “I would not try to do that, Lilith, but others … God has left us alone, Lilith. He has gone to the Holy Lands.”
“This is … this is too much,” Lilith said, and then slumped unconscious into Berathon’s arms.
******
Lilith rounded the corner and entered a large, oval room that had been carved right out of the rock. There were torches on the walls and seven beings sat at a table that matched the curvature of the room.
“Who … who are you?”
“My name is Samil,” the angel said. He was the only member of the seven that stood. The rest stayed at their table.
Lilith looked around the table and saw the face of Lucifer, Berath-
“Keep your eyes on me, woman,” Samil ordered and Lilith felt compelled to obey. “You were meant to find us, and meant to join us.”
The answer seemed to swell within Lilith. “You called yourselves the Eighth Day, yet there are only seven in the room. Surely that is not a coincidence?”
Samil smiled, his golden eyes turning crimson. “If you join us, the Eighth Day will be complete.”
“Join you?” she asked nervously. “Who are you? What do you want?”
Samil laughed. “What do we want?” he asked. “We want it all, Lilith. We want it all.”
******
To Be Continued in RISE OF THE FIRST WOMAN, Available Now!
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For your perusal, I have several original fiction collections now available in electronic format for the Kindle and through booksellers everywhere:
2. ADVENTURES OF THE FIVE: THE COMING OF FROST – A Kid’s Novel
