As most of you know, I’ve been in the process of completing Noon 2 The Resurgence, which is the sequel to Noon The Rise to Power. Well, I’m happy to say it’s done and off to the editor for a final tightening up.
I had planned to take some time off, hang with my musician friends for a change but Nooooo! I had just finished dotting the final i and crossing the final t when a crowd of imaginary characters gathered outside the doorstep of my imagination.
Apparently word had gotten out that I felt I hadn’t finished telling the story of Micah Sabbathiel, one of the main characters of an earlier novel, The Messiah Complex. I was barely considering it when two other characters from that novel, Chief Detective Angelo Pastafanni and Lieutenant Walter Richardson showed up. Angelo looked healthier and slimmer than when I last saw him but poor Walter has been stricken by some neuro-muscular disease that has left him seriously limited.
Two new villainous characters have arrived and both have won a part. The first is a powerful black man named Caiaphas Jones and the other is nick-named Baloonhead (don’t ever let him hear you call him that!) Not quite sure of the size of their parts. For example, in the Messiah Complex, Angelo was supposed to track down Sabbathiel. In the conclusion, it turned out to be Richardson.
Hadn’t seen that coming.
The working title for the novel is SABBATHIEL.
Sometimes friends ask me to make them a character in my book. I usually refuse because I don’t want to limit the character to avoid making a friend look bad.
I have made exceptions.
A good buddy of mine, Jimmy Sullivan asked if he could be in Noon The Rise to Power. I said yes because Jimmy is a remarkable character and as a writer, he understood the risks.
Jimmy in real life is a slim, wiry guy with a soft voice and easy manner. This makes him deceptively dangerous because he is fearless, hangs out with former navy SEALS and is one of those guys who can rip out your still beating heart and show it to you before you die.
In Noon I changed Jimmy Sullivan’s name to Oloki Sullivan but kept nearly everything else. Like Jimmy, Oloki wears a Boston Red Sox cap, is wiry, intelligent and deceptively dangerous.
Oloki may have started off as Jimmy but somewhere along the road they parted company. In the beginning you’re led to believe that Oloki is a regular guy in troubled times. But as the story unfolds, Oloki reveals a single-minded zealotry that permits him to rationalize acts of violence that the real Jimmy would never consider.
The Noon series is set in a not-to-distance future where New York and the rest of the USA is ruled by a ruthless consortium of multinational business firms. The plot was to have a genius scientist gather a specialized group to expel the corporate overlords and return the government to the people.
To make things right again.
Yay me and my heady idealism.
My characters however were not so ideological and not so subtly reminded me that all revolutions are birthed in blood.
In Noon The Rise to Power, class warfare deteriorates into actual physical battle. Tens of thousands are killed by a masked vigilante group led by a brilliant sociopath known only as Madalone. Amid the horror a homeless teenage boy falls in love with a homeless teenage girl unaware she is being pursued by an organization of sexual predators. A video hustler is challenged to a high-stakes game called Electrocutioner only to discover too late that the loser is electrocuted. An associate called the I-Man displays abilities disturbingly beyond what human beings are capable of. A captured government agent defiantly challenges his pretty, blond captor to ‘do her worst’ unaware that this young geneticist has every intention of releasing him from his physical prison and placing him in a psychological hell of unimaginable horror.
Noon 2 The Resurgence picks up right where Noon The Rise to Power left off. Now in power, Noon institutes Marshall Law and makes trade agreements with a powerful Asian Alliance of nations known as ‘The Gang of Four’. The I-Man’s origin is revealed. Oloki is ordered to poison legal recreational drugs ‘for the greater good”. And as the federal government prepares to invade New York, the Scarecrows reunite. What follows is a climax that left me unsure as to who the actual heroes are.
Noon The Rise to Power has become very popular with seven 5 star-reviews, a number of glowing e-mails and not one single dislike. It will undoubtedly become more popular with the release of Noon 2 The Resurgence next month. So why not get in on the action now and download Noon The Rise to Power for only $2.99 ($16.95 for the paperback so this is one hell of a deal) and find out what happens to Oloki Sullivan, the Doctor, the I-Man and the others. It even comes with a 30 day money-back guarantee (Sorry USA residents only.) It’s perfect summer reading!
Here’s the link:
