New release: Godspeed, Carry My Bullet (Post 1 of 2)
I'm excited to announce the release of my first full-length novel: Godspeed, Carry My Bullet. This is the first of two posts I plan to do for the release, the first discussing the idea behind the book itself. The second post will focus on the decision to self-publish and what that process looked like.
This book has been a long time coming. The idea for the story goes back to around 2008, so it stewed for a while even before I began writing it. Once I completed it, it sat on the shelf during which time I not only completed a short novel that will serve as the next entry in the Driver series, but I also started the sequel to this book.
The whole thing is based on an inside joke between a few co-workers of mine in which an embellished version of ourselves were characters in a somewhat Dystopian United States. There were political, or perhaps apolitical overtones to it, and I told them I'd write a story about it.
The premise was that despite the animosity between our political parties, the politicians at the top of the heap are really the same people regardless of their party affiliation. They are all wealthy, they often lie, they all make promises they can't keep, and in some cases they're members of the same fraternal organizations.
To us, it seemed that creating division was a clever, sneaky way to maintain control. With everyone at each others' throats about this issue or that, not much gets done. We're distracted. Changes from one administration to the next are often superficial. Regardless of party, the government continues to get bigger, the national debt continues to increase, and so forth. The concept seemed relevant to me, so I ran with it.
Enter "Godspeed, Carry My Bullet." It's sort of an alternate history where the economic recession of 2008 gets so bad that the U.S. experiences economic collapse. The government soon follows, leaving two illegitimate governments in its place. Fast forward five years, and we have a variety of characters painted against this backdrop: a nomadic survivalist, a preacher turned vigilante, a single mother, an undercover operative fighting to restore Constitutional government, and an angry would-be assassin. Their struggles fuel the page-turning adventure that ensues.
In all, I think it's a timely commentary given our current political climate. The two governments featured in the novel aren't meant to be reflections of the Republican and Democratic parties; they are instead meant to serve as an allegory for our two-party system. I of course took artistic license in timelines and how a collapse of this nature could happen, but the "how" isn't important to the story, nor is it the central focus.
If you choose to read, thank you! I would appreciate an honest, constructive review here on GoodReads and/or your eBook vendor of choice.
This book has been a long time coming. The idea for the story goes back to around 2008, so it stewed for a while even before I began writing it. Once I completed it, it sat on the shelf during which time I not only completed a short novel that will serve as the next entry in the Driver series, but I also started the sequel to this book.
The whole thing is based on an inside joke between a few co-workers of mine in which an embellished version of ourselves were characters in a somewhat Dystopian United States. There were political, or perhaps apolitical overtones to it, and I told them I'd write a story about it.
The premise was that despite the animosity between our political parties, the politicians at the top of the heap are really the same people regardless of their party affiliation. They are all wealthy, they often lie, they all make promises they can't keep, and in some cases they're members of the same fraternal organizations.
To us, it seemed that creating division was a clever, sneaky way to maintain control. With everyone at each others' throats about this issue or that, not much gets done. We're distracted. Changes from one administration to the next are often superficial. Regardless of party, the government continues to get bigger, the national debt continues to increase, and so forth. The concept seemed relevant to me, so I ran with it.
Enter "Godspeed, Carry My Bullet." It's sort of an alternate history where the economic recession of 2008 gets so bad that the U.S. experiences economic collapse. The government soon follows, leaving two illegitimate governments in its place. Fast forward five years, and we have a variety of characters painted against this backdrop: a nomadic survivalist, a preacher turned vigilante, a single mother, an undercover operative fighting to restore Constitutional government, and an angry would-be assassin. Their struggles fuel the page-turning adventure that ensues.
In all, I think it's a timely commentary given our current political climate. The two governments featured in the novel aren't meant to be reflections of the Republican and Democratic parties; they are instead meant to serve as an allegory for our two-party system. I of course took artistic license in timelines and how a collapse of this nature could happen, but the "how" isn't important to the story, nor is it the central focus.
If you choose to read, thank you! I would appreciate an honest, constructive review here on GoodReads and/or your eBook vendor of choice.
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