Free Planet 3 - REAPER - 2014 cover concept

don't ask me why I'm releasing this visual interpretation of the Free Planet 3 narrative so early. I say 'visual interpretation', as are most covers, but it's not 'really' what REAPER'll be about. I mean it's not set in space, it's not a Space Opera and no invading alien presence is due. At least there's no plan for such yet.

Though I have a really good idea where this third Free Planet novel may go, I haven't started to work on 'Reaper' yet. In fact, I don't intend to for another maybe six months or more as my main focus this season will be the STALKER'S GUIDE TO... novel.

"Why not make the third novel in the Free Planet series take place all on the same day," the day when it all happens. The day Free Planet 4 Real is born.

It's still gonna contain the same narrative elements I'd always intended to include, but I'll cram it all into one day. Dawn to Dusk, eight months after the events in Liberator. Have it a non-stop marathon of intense emotional and physical drama. Wear down the reader as it'll undoubtedly wear down the characters.

This will be the day when the old (Commercialised (Consumerist (Corporate))) world ends and a new one begins. This will be the day when mankind finally begins to see the 'great gift he's been bequeathed' and the thing he nearly ruined with his Quest for Profit/Asset/Conquest.

Custodian: THREE MONTH APPRAISAL excerpt arrives on Goodreads.

the THREE MONTH APPRAISAL excerpt from the Custodian novel has arrived on the book-fan site Goodreads, here it is.

YOUR FUNERAL, BUDDY

Two very bizarre things happen this morning: 

1) You have to clear a human turd off your desk. Not a toy one. Not some practical joke piece of moulded plastic. This is a real human turd. Someone would have had to squat down, right there on your desk before you got in, to lay this length of steaming brown pipe. You can even see where the anus muscle has crimped off the tail of it, begging like a clever puppy, its front-paw in the air. 

2) The email flag pops up cheerily and it's a collection for your funeral. Enough money has already been pledged to buy quite a nice casket. Seriously, that is not right.

Click the above text to continue reading...

Custodian (82,000 words) is nearing final-edit doc-prep completion and should be available within the next couple of weeks in ebook, Kindle and paperback from Amazon and other good online distributors.

The Custodian Libertion presents The Natural Lottery

Every night at exactly seven o'clock local time, the Natural Lottery Show will hack into the GES or Global Evertainment System to deliver the intended message of a Free Planet for all.

"We are gathered here, today, in a secret location known only as Bullingdon Woods to the select members of our new Diversity,” Asalah begins her introduction, “It's nice to see so many who've already adopted the Custodian way, and so many who've shown commitment to such in a future iteration, are all present at this inauguration of the official Campaign for a Free Planet. I'd like you to raise your glasses, beaks, muzzles, funny-shaped back things, your too many arms, your communal living spaces to the cause we've committed our physical and intellectual lives to.”

"You know this is really gonna hurt, don't ya?” one dissenting voice from the back mutters. 

"We are … yes, we will have to make the ultimate sacrifice for our fellow man. But this is something we are all aware of. No negative voices are to be allowed to 'sway our resolve'. We aim that every living person on Planet Earth will hear our message. Like a new record no one likes on first hearing, we will repeat and replay our message of a Free Planet for all the world to hear, until people finally get it. Until the world starts to wake up from its ridiculous monetary nightmare. Until people under.stand.”

"What if it doesn't work?” the voice again, from the quivering underbrush, the one dissenting voice of reason.

And you know what, the more Asalah Al-Faghori thinks about it, the more she becomes concerned that the whole Custodian Liberation is a complete red herring doomed to ultimate and embarrassing failure...

"CUSTODIAN" the first novel of the free planet series is due in ebook, kindle and paperback REAL SOON.

Kevlar Kubitz - gets you from A to B in perfect harmony

One of my favourite features of the Custodian novel are the Kevlar Kubitz that transport corporate drones i.e. You The People, from your CDZ or Corporate Dorm Zone to your offices of The Industry like mosquitos trapped in amber. They have this 'genetic muzak' that plays in your back brain that you can only 'hear later' while you're digesting the odorous tasks of the working day. And they don't always tell the truth. Though it's not like you'll have any discernment anyway, so any old crap story works. THe more lurid and insane the better.

But there are 'scintillas of truth' therein. If you know what you're being told. This particular bit is pulled straight out of the early part of the novel when you're not quite sure what your heroic role is.

P.V.s or Psyche-Vertisements, another ESI ready-to-wear, will push any old marketing to the core of your brain during your daily commute: here's a classic. 

January, 1932. Dusseldorf, Germany. Everyone knows the story about Lord Adolfus Hitler, 'cos you can't unknow a psyche-vertisement until its contractual erosion time has expired'. Heil Hitler, so the story goes, had just given a rousing speech before the Industrial Club in Elberfelder Strasse, just round the corner from where you recently worked in Wupper Strasse in what's still known as Dusseldorf in what once was called Germany. Heil Hitler was leaving the meeting, his protective entourage surrounding him, and he just slipped on something in Elberfelder Strasse, right outside the steps of the Industrial Club.

Died on the spot.
Everybody knows this … it's part of your Industry Education.

When a Kevlar Kubitz arrives in your Corporate Dorm Zone it'll sniff you out, home in on you, chemically. It'll ferret you out of your stinking pit of Evertainment slumber where you're allowed to be who you really wanna be. This is the perfect tactic for a ruthless organism like The Industry who may need to apply Leverage™ later on in your career cycle. You know, when your role as an asset for the Corporation, your paid-for loyalty, is put under 'ethical pressure'.

Free Planet novel - CUSTODIAN - Goodreads hosting Exclusive First Chapter

just as it says on the tin, Goodreads is hosting the Exclusive First Chapter of my new novel Free Planet novel CUSTODIAN on their site.

Here's a teaser moment...

Promptly, she begins her prepared monologue, “I had a dream last night. It was a dream about our little house in the countryside. A cottage with a thatched roof and heavy oak doors. Beams in the lounge, the kitchen and the bedrooms. It was snowing outside. All the foxes and deer brought their families to our house to avoid THE CULL. You could hear the hunt dogs barking in the distance. Getting nearer. On the TV was the story about the foxes and deer arriving because we'd saved one or two of them every year.

“I don't have such a 'little house in the countryside'. I don't have a TV. And these contradictions have helped me … understand … what the events of the next few minutes are going to cause. I realised this dream is about us. Our little Group, The Custodians. You have no idea who we are. Neither so the inveterate profit-mongers we call our superiors, our sponsors. But tonight the Custodians are going to cut the heads of industry free from their enslavement to the dollar, the yuan, the t-bill. We're no longer going to allow the yoke of corporate slavery to polish the necks of mankind. It's going to be a routing of Historical Proportions. Real Freedom for all is going to Sprout. And Flourish.”

She pauses there, and places the transparent hundreds-and-thousands-filled capsule onto her tongue in a proscriptive fashion. She takes the glass of distilled water and sips from it. Swallows, with obvious effort. Looks about nostalgically and makes a frown. Then a smile appears on one side of her mouth. She drains the glass in big loud gulps. Wipes her glistening mouth with the back of her wrist. Takes a deep breath. Sets the glass down out of harm's reach. Waits...