Cover of The Monster

First off, the news that a lot of people have been waiting for. Another Exodus book will be out on Saturday. Not Empires at War, my most popular series. No, this one will be Exodus: Machine War: Book 5: The Code. It will be the end of that side series, though some of the characters will be appearing in the next Empires at War books. And several of those books will be released within the next three months.

Now, on to The Monster. I wrote this book seven years ago, when I was looking for something different that might attract the attention of a publisher. Then, in August of last year, I looked it over, thinking to self-publish. I read it over at DragonCon, and really liked what I read. Since I hadn’t looked at it in over five years, it was like reading a new work by someone else. I decided to send it to an agent I had met at DragonCon the year before. She looked it over, and didn’t like it. I then realized that this book would be unlikely to find a home with any publisher. It was just too different. Fair enough. I could publish it myself, though I still waited a while to do so.

Originally titled Soulless. That title fits, as anyone who reads this novel will agree with. The only problem was there were at least a dozen books with that title, and as I learned with The Hunger, it is best to avoid that kind of confusion. So I started plugging names into Amazon, starting with The Monster, and found there were few to none with that name. It also seemed to fit, so there you have it.

I classified The Monster as science fiction horror, because it has elements of both. Teleportation, nanotech, genetic engineering, replication, mind control, and a plot to take over the world by a scientist who was changed somehow by the process he developed. The terror of people who knew they were being controlled and weren’t able to do anything about it. It would be rated R if it were a movie, so this one is not for the kids, or the squeamish. Still, I think it is an interesting tale, and it is being released on Kindle Unlimited, so those with a membership can read it for free (or at least for whatever percentage of their membership fee goes toward my book. Remember, there is no such thing as free). I hope people who read my other work will give it a chance. Or that even the horror crowd will try it. It can be found on Amazon.US here, and Amazon.UK here.