Welcome to BOOK OF THE DAY
Today we are pleased to feature Mark Lingane’s tremendous book,
FUSION
WHAT’S THE BOOK ABOUT?
I think this passage sums it up pretty well…
“We’re at war,” Brad said. “Let me make this clear—we are at war with everyone. The Forty-ninth has been defending our land from constant onslaught—from you and from the east—and we’ve had to endure many twisted deceptions. Why should we suddenly believe you?”
Brad had stepped forward and raised his voice. One of the Chargers prodded him in the back with his rifle barrel.
Brad forced himself to calm down. “What do you want?” he said, but Thomas wasn’t listening.
“It’s going to be the most hideous and ghastly experience you could imagine,” Thomas said, “and we’re all going to die.”
This is the concluding book of the Tesla Evolution, a journey of a boy to a man, who is destined to be a savior.
BACK OF THE BOOK
I am Omega. I am the end. Welcome to the new age.
One boy and a steam-powered bike on a journey to save the world. One girl and a past she cannot escape. Two insane warlords and a prize they cannot understand. One fate will bring them together, and at the center is Sebastian facing his destiny.
When everything is broken, when nothing is worth saving, when disease, defeat and hatred encircle you, it’s time to face the darkness.
Book 4 and the dramatic conclusion of the Tesla Evolution.
HOW DOES THE BOOK START?
Sebastian woke with a start. His face was freezing, and the metal floor was shaking violently. His fingers were curled through the perforations in the metal sheeting, clinging on desperately. He was falling. Sweat formed on his brow with the exertion of hanging on, and the effort of suppressing the urge to vomit caused by the falling sensation.
The traumatic events ran through his mind.
The battle on the dock; Melanie, a spear through her, holding off the waves of infected so he could escape; Andana and his pirates grabbing him, pulling him on board the voidship; Melanie firing into the advancing infected, at the mercy of the ripped-open mouths and blackened teeth …
He lay on the floor and curled his knees up to his chest. Tears rolled down his face. Melanie, the unstoppable death machine, had been stopped. His last friend was dead. He was alone.
MEET SOME OF THE CAST
- Sebastian:
Sebastian explained. “I grew up in a small farming village in my home country of Australia on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The cyborgs came and destroyed everything because Iris told them I was dangerous. I escap—”
“What is ‘Iris’?”
“It stood for something like information something something system,” he muttered unconvincingly. “Iris was the cyborgs’ commander. Cyborgs were part human, part machine. Anyway, I escaped and made my way to the Steam Academy, where they recognized that I was a tesla, and a mad scientist trained me and other teslas. Then there was a big war that went on for years. Everyone died. Then we won. Then a new enemy attacked us. They were making zombies. And it was awful. Then I found out I had to go to New York, so I got on a voidship and it crashed a bit.”
“In terms of military intelligence, that was possibly the most useless explanation possible,” Charlie said. “Maybe you should’ve written it down in a book, or three.”
“Um, maybe I did, and it got eaten by the voidship cat.”
- Memphis
She rubbed her wrist and gave it a shake. She held her hand out to Sebastian.
“Hi, I’m Memphis.”
He looked at her hand, delirium filling his head with bizarre thoughts, and took it in his own. His mother Isabelle had always been specific about how he should treat a lady he was meeting for the first time. If he didn’t show the utmost respect, Isabelle would whack him over the head with one of her ancient romance novels, which always seemed to have a shirtless man on the cover kneeling in front of a skinny woman in frilly clothes.
He knelt down and kissed her hand. “I’m honored to meet you, Memphis.” He wondered if he should take off his shirt.
“Um. Gosh. No one’s ever done that before.”
“I know that was a bit formal, but my mind hasn’t caught up yet with what’s happening.”
They both stood up shakily. Memphis looked up into his eyes, watching him closely as he rose before her. He staggered backward and stretched his back. She noted that he was tall, his shoulders were broad, his strength was apparent, and he was young. He also had a massive sword strapped to his back. She stared at him. You’ll do, she thought.
- Nikola
“I am Nikola Tasman of Australia, former commander of the Steam Academy, the collected military services, the western quadrant, and associated regions and allies. And senior officer on the Pacific seaboard. I come looking for my son.”
- The Peacemaker
“The land is dying,” the Peacemaker said. “I’m failing the people.”
“You’re doing what you have to do. Remember what you’ve built from the ruins of nothing. These people have a home now,” Acacia said.
“But the population’s declining. Is there a point to being leader if there’s no one to lead?”
“You sound like your brother.” She looked down at him, wedged into his utilitarian seat. He was gray-faced and emaciated.
“Please don’t mention my brother to me. He has no interest in people, other than as a means to an end.” His voice resonated with the harmonics of anger.
“You need to address your issues.”
“You know it’s too late for that.”
WHO SAYS WHAT?
List up to five interesting quotes from your characters
“Blasphemer!”
“I’m not. It’s probably the smell from being on the road. And all these vegetables we have to eat,” Sebastian said.
“You don’t know what blasphemy is.”
“There’s a prophecy that a stranger will come from a faraway land to save us all. He will have”—the man glanced quickly at Sebastian—“sort of sandy colored hair, be about six foot tall, and—”
“You’re making this up.”
“No, no, it’s the truth. Yes. The prophecy says that you—the stranger, I mean—will fight against the great armies, overthrow the evil warlords, and set us all free. And bring food. Do you have any food?”
“Good point, Memphis,” he said. “We can’t fit three on the bike. Where are you going to sit, Niels?”
“In this.” Niels whipped off a cover that covered a small vehicle roughly two-thirds his size.
“Do you sit on top of it?”
“No.”
“Do you carry it?”
“No.”
“Do you inflate it?”
“No.”
“Does a horse pull it and you sit on the horse?”
“No. I sit in it.”
Memphis chimed in. “How do you fit in it? It’s smaller than you.”
“It’s deceptive.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Is it bigger on the inside?”
Sebastian pointed at a distant figure moving oddly on top of the great concrete barrier dividing the two warring sides. “Is that someone standing on the wall?”
Memphis and Niels both sighed.
“Is he still there?” Niels said. He lifted the binoculars again and let out a groan. “It’s him.”
“Who?”
“Hoofy,” Memphis said. “He stands up there doing his bad dancing, and singing that stupid ‘Searching for Sovereignty’ song. He’s been doing it for years.”
“Someone should shoot him and put us all out of our misery,” Niels said.
“That’s a bit mean,” Sebastian said.
“You haven’t heard him.”
WHERE DOES THE STORY TAKE PLACE?
Fusion takes place in the remnants of the USA one thousand years after a nuclear war.
They bumped off the bridge onto the mainland, and sped along a wide road that led up toward the hills. Plants had been waging their own war against the concrete, which was splitting apart with vines and erupting trees. The truck slowed to navigate the obstacles, and the team in the back of the truck bounced around as it crawled over the uneven slabs. Most of the buildings they passed had crumbled, leaving little in the way of remains. The greenery was claiming back everything humankind had built.
Sebastian flashed back to his school days, where the teachers told him it had all gone wrong. Civilization had turned on itself. Manmade creations got too smart and rebelled. And then there was the war, where there was only ever going to be one loser—everything.
After the war, in Australia most of the people made the decision to turn their backs on all the high-tech drama that had got them into the mess in the first place. But other people decided they couldn’t live without the tech, and their dependence on technology drove them to become more advanced and less human.
But here in North America, at the heart of the destruction, it was like they hadn’t changed from the day of their nuclear disaster. It had wounded the population so badly they hadn’t wanted to forget, so they lived their empty lives among the ruins of the battles, moving from one day to the next with nothing to look forward to.
Many years ago, one of the boys at school had joked that North America was full of zombies and vampires. The boy had been joking, but still, Sebastian hadn’t expected it to be full of ghosts and ghost towns.
TELL US ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark was first published at the age of eight, when a local newspaper published his review of Disney on Ice. The next time his name was in print was a life time later at the age of fifteen, when a national magazine ran his review of the Commodore 64. It was downhill from there, picking up a weekly column in the Sunday Times which funded a rather noncommittal path through university, studying a wide range of topics from Robotics, Anthropology, Philosophy, Computer Science, and Psychology.
In fact so many subjects were studied he was eligible for graduation at the end of his second year, based purely on attendance.
He finally left and joined the corporate world before realizing work isn’t that much fun, and going back to study. Further writing followed with regular columns for various technology magazines and newspapers around the country. Then as the desire of permanent food and shelter began to bare its teeth, another attempt at the corporate world beckoned as a technical writer, which turned out okay. Shifting from technology companies to resource companies provided the opportunity to travel and live in some desolate and exotic locations where the locals aren’t overly friendly.
FUSION is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
AUTHORS, if you would like to feature your book as BOOK OF THE DAY, and get it noticed by thousands of readers, fellow authors and publishers enrol it in our V.I.P. BOOK CLUB.
You will then be able to feature it as Book of the Day, a forthcoming series on V.I.P Books, and have it reviewed by our patron, Charlie Bray.
It will also be promoted on our Newsflash service.