Monday, December 21, 2015

Pre-Orders for THE UNDEAD ROAD Available Now on Amazon, and I'm Signing Off Until The New Year!


Hey guys! I've got some freaky good news. The Undead Road is now up for pre-order on Amazon! Click here if you want to get bit! If you're giving a Kindle as a gift this year, or you want to stock up on your eReading list for 2016, now's a good time to add this fun guy to your device. A strong buzz is already spreading, but I need your help to make this infection stick. The goal is to get at least 10 reviews on the day of release. So I know the next couple of weeks are busy for everyone, but if you'd like to provide a review on Amazon, I'll get you an advance copy to read right now! Just Email me for hook ups. Is it any good, you ask? Here's what these readers have said:

"For me, zombie stories are never about the killing. They're about the survivors and how people deal with the apocalypse. To this undead end, David Powers King has come up with the most original spin on zombies I've ever read."
                      - Michael Offutt, author of Slipstream and Oculus 

"King manages to make each character uniquely distinct, and to make a zombie apocalypse both laughably funny and chillingly realistic."
  - Lindzee Armstrong, author of Miss Match and Meet Your Match

Please share this on Facebook and spread the word on Twitter. If you have a list on Goodreads, you'll find the book there, too! Thank you in advance for ordering your copy and your willingness to review. 

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With the holidays upon us, I'm shutting the bridge down for the rest of the year. A lot has happened this year, in what has been one of the most unique and turbulent in my life. It started with the release of Woven, my debut novel, and a roller coaster ride of events that's kept me from writing as I would like, all the way to the news that I'm being laid off at the end of the year, which is only two weeks away. 

I wish I could say I've found something new and better, but all I have are a couple of leads. Nothing solid. Writing is what I'd love to be doing, but I'm nowhere close to earning enough to support a home and family. That's still my dream and I will do whatever I can to make that happen. But I also know that I can't do this alone. Any word of mouth you guys are willing to spread will get me that much closer.

The Cosmic Laire exists to reach out to you, as do the words I write. Rather than look at the 2016 calendar with an eye of despair, I will instead look at the days ahead with hope. I will find a job (if I have to flip burgers, so be it) and continue writing. I wish you all wonderful Holidays, a very Merry Christmas, and the Happiest of New Years. 

Make 2016 a great one. See you after the new year, my friends. :) 

How was 2015 for you? What are your plans for 2016? 

I'm David, and don't spoil Star Wars, I still need to see it ...

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Guest Post: Michael J. Foy's Ghosts of Forgotten Empires and His Own Personal Time Machine!


Hey, guys! The Laire is proud to welcome Michael J. Foy, science fiction author. Michael has gladly volunteered to take over the bridge and tell you about his own personal time machine. I could use one! So before you gather your lightsabers for the new Star Wars movie this weekend, sit back, relax, and let Michael take you on a journey to the past, present, and future. I can't promise if any ghosts are involved. See you next week.

Take it away, Michael!

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A few years ago I saw a movie called Hollywoodland. It was the story of the actor George Reeves who played Superman in the television show in the 50s. The story presented the mystery of his death in 1959. Was it suicide, homicide or accidental? The question remains to this day but the movie presented some well envisioned theories.

I was too young to have seen Superman in the fifties but I enjoyed watching the re-runs in the sixties. Engulfed in nostalgia I purchased the first season on DVDs. It occurred that I wasn’t so much interested in seeing the show again as I was in recapturing the wonder I felt at seeing the man of steel on TV for the first time. And guess what, it worked. All of a sudden I was a boy again marveling at the exploits of one of my favorite heroes.

In upstate New York in the mid-sixties, while visiting my aunt and uncle, I played outside with some neighborhood kids. I think it was one of my female cousins who came out to say that Superman was on TV. It was like someone yelled STAT to a doctor in the Intensive Care Unit of a hospital. I let go of the radio flyer I was hauling up an incline and made a mad dash into the house. I believe someone sustained a minor injury from the runaway wagon.

In the mid-eighties I looked forward to the miracle of owning a device that could play any movie I rented or bought on the television. It was called a Video Cassette Recorder or VCR. Truly, civilization had taken a giant leap forward. Now I could relive all the video experiences I wanted. There were several movies that fleshed out my initial library including one called Forbidden Planet. From 1956 it was unlike most Science Fiction films of that era since it made one think. For that reason among others it is still one of my favorites. Like Superman it transported me back. This time I was in my late teens in the seventies when I watched it from a prone position as was my custom from the floor of my parents’ living room. Again, I experienced the awe I felt when seeing this story for the first time.

Perhaps the most powerful time displacement experience I’ve had was with an episode of the original Star Trek that involved a previous Captain of arguably the most famous starship of all time. His name was Christopher Pike and he had a very worthy adventure before Kirk was even thought of as commander of the Enterprise.

Pike was captured by a race of aliens known as the Talosians. Using their innate ability to create illusion they tricked Pike and his landing party into believing they were rescuing an imaginary set of castaways. Luring Pike to the entrance of their underground complex they knocked him out, took him below and deposited him on a bed in a cell that was part of an underground zoo. He woke with a start and flung off a thin metallic fabric blanket. Cave-like walls surrounded him on two sides, while a large, rectangular stone wall made up the back of the cell. Turning around to the front, he looked out onto a corridor whose floor lay about eighteen inches below the level of the chamber he occupied.

Pike stood and felt a transparent barrier that prevented him from leaving the cell. With a quick flair of anger, he hurled himself against the obstruction. It resisted as if it were made of tautly stretched rubber. Only then did he observe that he was just one of many zoo specimens.

Watching this strange scene I was again transported to the first time I’d watched it. Seeing it again brought back memories of the experiment that Pike had to endure at the hands of the Talosians. This is still so powerfully etched in my memory that for therapy I wrote it into the beginning of Ghosts of Forgotten Empires, Volume II. But I indulged in some creative license to have a little fun with it too. ;-)

In summary, I hit upon a method for conjuring up prior memories and feelings. I could be nine, or nineteen or thirteen but by utilizing selective viewing I can inhabit a younger self to relive mystery, fear, triumph or whatever. Roger Ebert once said that movies are an empathy machine. Perhaps, but by selecting past viewing experiences, movies can also help one re-explore earlier states of their own being. Couldn’t that also be described as a personal time machine?

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Michael J. Foy was born to Irish immigrants in upstate New York and lived in London for a year on two different occasions as a child. He graduated Northeastern University in 1979 with an engineering degree. In 1993 he changed careers to become a recruiter servicing the publishing industry. In essence, his literary career has spanned two other careers but has always been his first love.

In 1991 he sold an option for his first novel, False Gods, as a screenplay to Timothy Bogart the nephew of Peter Guber, Producer of Batman. Michael has since published Future Perfect, a Science Fiction novel and local bestseller, and The Kennedy Effect which weaves the story of JFK with parallel reality themes.

He was also an early pioneer in publishing short stories over the internet including the Solar Winds of Change, The Adventure of the Moonstone and A Land to Call Our Own. He lives in Massachusetts where he enjoys kayaking, bicycling and exploring a wide array of literary subjects.