A Cyberpunk SciFi/Fantasy novel

Available as:
Paperback; 176pp, ISBN:978-1-934516-09-6, $9.99
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-82-9, $4.99 or FREE
Podcast; 2 episodes (of 18; in progress), FREE

Buy directly:
eBook Paperback + eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Smashwords – IndieBound

From the back cover

With a heroic journey that puts Death Noodle through settings, technologies, emotional and philosophical quandaries reminiscent of The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, Inception, The Prestige, Total Recall, The 6th Day, and The Second Untrue Trilogy, Virtual Danger delivers all the fast-paced writing and high-stakes action you’ve come to expect from a book in The Death Noodle Glitterfairy Robot Saga. Will Death Noodle be able to save his friends, protect the Internet, and prevent the collapse of civilization, or is he really ‘just a noodle’, incapable of going solo?

About the Author

Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker.

Teel is happily married to an English teacher and they live together in Phoenix, AZ with a grumpy old cat, a skittish young cat, and thousands of books, both read and to-be-read. Virtual Danger is Teel’s nineteenth book, and there are plenty more trying to work their way into this world through the aperture of Teel’s imagination, hoping to be found and loved by readers like you. Interestingly, none of the others are books in The Death Noodle Glitterfairy Robot Saga—yet.

Follow him on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Goodreads

Why offer free eBooks & podcasts?

eBook

If you can afford to pay $4.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Directly from the author: Download the eBook
• Amazon
• Apple
• Barnes & Noble
• Goodreads
• Smashwords

The FREE eBook edition is currently available in the following formats (updated June 2013):

• PDF, 5×8″ (same as paperback)
• PDF, 8.5×11″
• .epub
• .mobi, for kindle
• .lrf, for Sony Reader (only via Smashwords)
• .pdb, for Palm devices (only via Smashwords)

Podcast Audiobook

• Prologue and Chapter 1 – (Prologue) In which Villain interrupts DNGR’s concert to steal a vital component from Robot, killing Glitterfairy and deactivating Robot in the process. (Chapter 1) In which the dust from Villain’s attack settles, Death Noodle begins the grieving process, and Band Manager takes him to Glitterfairy’s funeral.
• Chapter 2: In which Death Noodle attends Glitterfairy’s funeral, then has to deal with a series of interviews -first with the press and then with a young group of DNGR’s biggest fans- wherein he learns more about Villain and his nefarious plot.

About DNGR, and the DNGR Universe

DNGR is a fictional band which also goes on adventures, solves mysteries, and saves the world (and the universe) from certain doom—in between touring the world and playing their music to sold-out stadiums full of fans. DNGR is composed of the three titular characters of The Death Noodle Glitterfairy Robot Saga: Death Noodle, whose parents are Death (think Grim Reaper) and a noodle, and who has the powers of both, Glitterfairy, a magical, glittery fairy, and Robot, a robot from another world. Robot is, of course, the band’s drummer.

As of May 2013, there is only one book in The Death Noodle Glitterfairy Robot Saga: Virtual Danger, but for some strange reason it is not the first book of the series, but a middle one. It begins hot on the heels of one concluded adventure, and (as these sorts of series usually do) leads directly into another one; from the look of things, each book’s Epilogue is the next book’s Prologue. Teel McClanahan III is the author of the first DNGR book, but you could be the author of another; an earlier book, a sequel, or even a story from an alternate timeline.

Virtual Danger is being released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can do what you want with it, with the characters, the setting, the band, all of it, and the only restriction is that you credit Teel McClanahan III as the creator of the original. Copy the book, share it, re-publish it, translate it, give it away, or even sell it. Better yet, you’re encouraged to create derivative works: Write more books in the series, compose “cover” songs of DNGR’s music, figure out what the characters look like and draw or paint them, perform an interpretive dance dressed as a noodle, or anything else you can think of. Publish them, sell them, give them away; as long as you attribute Teel McClanahan III and Virtual Danger, it’s all fair game.

 
Here’s a list of derivative works created by other people so far:

• DNGR GRRL, a song by Simple Studies
• Virtual Danger, Special Zombie Edition, a version of the Virtual Danger eBook I created where every instance of the word ‘Minion’ has been replaced with a form of the word ‘Zombie’; just to please one of my fans. The Special Zombie Edition eBook is available in the following formats:
  • PDF, 8.5×11″
  • .epub
  • .mobi, for kindle

Okay, so it’s just the one song, and a slight derivative of the original novel, so far… But if you’d like to have your name added to this list, just email teel@modernevil.com with a link to whatever DNGR-inspired thing you’ve created. If you’re a musician or author (or book reviewer!) who would prefer a complimentary copy of the Virtual Danger paperback (instead of the free eBook) you should also email me; I’m glad to send the book out into the world to try to expand the DNGR universe and extend The Death Noodle Glitterfairy Robot Saga.

What I’d really love to see (in addition to the music I’ve already begun hearing) is more books in The Death Noodle Glitterfairy Robot Saga. I know a couple of authors who have given this some thought, but here’s the premise: DNGR (the band / team composed of Death Noodle, Glitterfairy, and Robot) goes on Scooby Doo or Jabberjaw (or insert YA adventure book series) type adventures (and misadventures), solving mysteries, saving the planet/universe/day, and touring the world as famous rock stars. Virtual Danger was written to read like an episode of one of those shows, but one in the middle of the run—I intentionally wrote a middle book of a series where no other books had yet been written, and heavily referenced many of their earlier (not yet written) adventures/books, then set the stage for several new ones down the road. Books I have little/no intention of writing.

Books I’d love you to write.

What happened during the Crystal Unicorn ordeal? How did Death Noodle overcome a harem of angry Yeti during the Ice Tzar Caper? Where did the Invading Hordes of Skeletal Skineaters come from? What’s Glitterfairy’s family like? (She has clurichaun cousins; who else is in her family tree?) The enemy in Virtual Danger is “Villain” and there’s mention of “Nemesis”; who else has DNGR faced off against? How the heck did Band Manager ever get to be DNGR’s band manager?

I don’t know; you tell me!

I’ll soon* make high-res (and web-badge-sized) copies of the DNGR logo available, for branding your own DNGR spin-offs, prequels, sequels, and songs. If you can think of anything else I’ve forgotten to mention, just ask.

*If it’s after Summer 2013 and this message is still here, I missed “soon”—bug me about it.

Sophia (Never Let the Right One Go)

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Emily (Never Let the Right One Go)

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Time, emiT, and Time Again

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More Lost Memories

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Lost and Not Found – Director’s Cut

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Cheating, Death

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Forget What You Can’t Remember

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Dragons’ Truth

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Lost and Not Found

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Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past, Book One: An Introduction to Dodgeball -or- Conception and Induction -or- How to Begin an Apocalypse

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Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past, Book Two: The Twofold Invasion -or- Penetration and Destruction -or- How to Make Love With Twins

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Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past, Book Three: Escape from Exile -or- Confusion and Contraction -or- How to Get Out of Hell

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Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past, Book Four: Explorations of Ridiculous Realities -or- Corporation and Collusion -or- How to Subvert Corporatocracy

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Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past, Book Five: The Bloodless Battles -or- Conscription and Revelation -or- How To Break Into Prison

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Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past, Book Six: Waking To The Truth -or- Explanation and Supplication -or- How To Resolve An Apocalypse

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Never Let the Right One Go is two novels in the same YA/vampire/paranormal/SciFi setting, but with apparently conflicting perspectives on that world as seen through the eyes of two very different teenage girls in their pursuit of love. (Which book should you read first?) It is available now from Modern Evil Press as two eBooks, as two audiobooks, and was available with both novels in a single signed, numbered limited edition (of 50) hardcover book.

SOLD OUT:
Hardback; 450pp, ISBN:978-1-934516-08-9, $35; Limited edition of 50

Available as:
Sophia eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-80-5, $4.99 or FREE
Emily eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-81-2, $4.99 or FREE
Sophia Audiobook; 6hr 16mins, $10.99
Emily Audiobook; 6hr 8mins, $10.99
Sophia Podcast; 27 episodes (complete), FREE
Emily Podcast; 26 episodes (complete), FREE

About the Limited Edition

 
If you wanted to own a particular number of the limited edition, you had twice as many opportunities (or, if you’re a true collector, maybe you needed two copies?) to get the number you wanted.

 
Now that all 50 copies are gone, they’re gone – I will never again publish a flipbook containing both novels of Never Let the Right One Go, and don’t expect to publish either individual novel as hardcover books. Since the series has not been wildly successful, unless there’s future overwhelming demand for it, I don’t expect to put together two paperback versions, one for Sophia and one for Emily … ever. Right now, I expect this 50-copy release will be the only physical edition of Never Let the Right One Go ever produced.

Which book should you read first?

Longer answer: Which book you read first will have a significant impact on how you see the world of Never Let the Right One Go, and how you see the characters, beliefs, and activities of whichever book you read second. Each book is designed to be a complete story, the story of one young woman as her eyes are opened to the world around her, and her life is changed as she steps out of her old comfort zones for the first time, but the paths taken and the end results are wildly different from one another. One of the books is told from the perspective of someone who sees the world as a dystopia, and is structured so as to demonstrate (as in a Euclidean proof) that the world is a dystopia, and the characters and plot are fashioned in the style of dystopian fiction both traditional and popular. The other book is told from the perspective of someone who sees the world as a utopia, and is structured so as to demonstrate that the world is utopian – or at least that everything which makes the world unique from our own has been an improvement both for the society and for the individual.

Based on the feedback of early readers who read both books I can also say that (probably) whichever book you read first you’ll like least, and whichever book you read last you’ll like most. After finishing one, they said they liked it, but after finishing both they preferred the other. Perhaps this is because people are convinced by whatever argument they’ve heard most recently, and each book is built as an argument for its own point of view; by reading the second argument, their perspective on the first is altered – usually reversed. Of course, there are other factors at play, as well. Maybe you can’t stand Nicholas, so reading Emily becomes difficult. Maybe you’re aggressively anti-religion, so Sophia’s Christian background and reliance on faith to get her through tough situations rubs you the wrong way. Maybe the long political and economic discourse in one is too dry, or the awkward and painful sexual situations in the other are outside your comfort zone. There are countless differences between the two books, any one of which may be the thing your opinion hinges upon.

None of these differences, however, puts one book ahead of the other. Both books cover roughly the same time period, the same few months of the same year. Both books introduce and explain the world in the course of the girls’ journeys, without repeating one another. The books are well-enough paralleled that going back and forth between them, one chapter at a time (as you would experience them by subscribing to the Modern Evil Podcast), is a reasonable and viable approach to Never Let the Right One Go, as a duology. (In fact, doing so will reveal even more about the differences and similarities between the girls and their lives – I recommend it for a re-read, rather than a first-read, as some of the story becomes even sweeter when you know what’s coming in both books.) Which book you read first is truly a matter of personal preference, or random chance, rather than any pre-determined order.

My personal preference: I prefer Sophia over Emily, personally. I think it’s the superior book, I think Sophia is the stronger character, and I think hers is the better story. I fundamentally disagree with the politics and basic beliefs of Emily, Nicholas, et al, and had a hard time writing them convincingly. I wrote Sophia (mostly) first, though a significant portion of the world-building I did only appears in Emily. I think starting with Sophia is the way to go, because I think it gives a better overall impression of the duology, though I also want to suggest that you start with Emily, since I want you to like Sophia better.

I know, I know, I’m no help. Sorry…

A Science Fiction novel; half of a two-book series

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-81-2, $4.99 or FREE
Audiobook; 6hr 8mins, $10.99
Podcast; 26 episodes (complete), FREE

SOLD OUT:
Hardback; 450pp, ISBN:978-1-934516-08-9, $35; Limited edition of 50

Buy directly:
eBook Audiobook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Smashwords

About the book

Doing everything she can for the cause comes second only to following her heart as Emily tries to win the affections of a young man whose first priority is saving the world. She follows Nicholas back and forth across the country, into the heart of the nation’s vampire-run Capitol, and beyond. She risks her health, sticks out her neck, sacrifices friendship, and puts her life on the line in the name of love.

Will her efforts be enough? Will she win Nicholas’ heart? Can they save the world? Or will the schemes of the elder vampires put a stop to it all?

(Click here to read the first two chapters of Emily)

Books in this series:

About the Author

Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker.

Teel is happily married to an English teacher and they live together in Phoenix, AZ with a grumpy old cat, a skittish young cat, and thousands of books, both read and to-be-read. Emily and Sophia (Never Let the Right One Go) are his seventeenth and eighteenth books, and there are plenty more trying to work their way into this world through the aperture of Teel’s imagination, hoping to be found and loved by readers like you.

Follow him on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Goodreads

Why offer free eBooks & podcasts?

eBook

If you can afford to pay $4.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Directly from the author: Download the eBook
• Amazon
• Apple
• Barnes & Noble
• Goodreads
• Smashwords
• Indie Aisle

The FREE eBook edition is currently available in the following formats:

• .epub
• .mobi, for kindle

Audiobook

This version is available exclusively as a digital download at this time. The MP3 Audiobook is DRM-free, but considering the free podcast version is still available, your respect in not re-distributing this ZIP file is appreciated: Download the Audiobook

If you cannot afford to pay for the audiobook, please enjoy the podcast version. The following is a list of links to all episodes of Emily (Never Let the Right One Go) on the Modern Evil Podcast:

• Chapter 1 – In which Emily’s day of casual shopping is interrupted by her first glimpse of Nicholas, and her eyes are opened to the invisible layers of oppression and slavery built up around her, while her heart is opened wide, to let Nicholas in.
• Chapter 2 – In which Emily, Nicholas, and Ken are brutally attacked by a vampire.
• Chapter 3 – In which Emily attends Nicholas’ meeting, hoping to spend more time with him, and ends up meeting Terrence, someone whose life has been ravaged by his addiction to vampire blood, and she learns the dangers of using vampire blood as a quick-fix for every human injury.
• Chapter 4 – In which Emily gets to know a real vampire, Justin, for the first time, learning what life is like for the new generation of young vampires, turned after vampire and human cultures had been integrated.
• Chapter 5 – In which Emily learns about how vampires have secretly been manipulating human society for centuries, and how even moderately old vampires had been disenfranchised by the open alliance of vampires and humans.
• Chapter 6 – In which Emily hears how vampires have been taking chief executive positions at most large corporations, making it impossible for humans to compete fairly for corporate leadership roles.
• Chapter 7 – In which Emily sees that even the working-class have been displaced by vampires, taking over work like building construction because their superior strength and speed allows them to create more with less time, effort, and cost.
• Chapter 8 – In which Nicholas finally gives his presentation, charismatically exhorting his audience to opt-out of vampire-assisted healthcare and the “blood tax”.
• Chapter 9 – In which Emily accompanies Nicholas through an entire day of drawing blood from humans at one of the government-run blood centers, then feeding blood to a recovering vampire organ donor at the hospital.
• Chapter 10 – In which Emily convinces her parents to give her control over her own healthcare choices, so she can opt-out, and receives a gift from Nicholas.
• Chapter 11 – In which Emily goes on a road trip with Nicholas and his group, heading to Washington, D.C. for a protest rally at the White House.
• Chapter 12 – In which Emily participates in a protest march around the vampire-run capitol.
• Chapter 13 – In which several speakers at the rally in D.C. explain the global, military, economic, and political problems and rights-infringements instituted by the vampire interventions in human societies.
• Chapter 14 – In which Nicholas and Emily head home from the rally and their conversation takes an odd turn – wherein Nicholas talks Emily into being turned into a vampire.
• Chapter 15 – In which the new school year begins, and Emily finds a more suitable subject for the application of Nicholas’ ideas about standing up for vampires’ inherent right to reproduce.
• Chapter 16 – In which Madison joins Emily at Nicholas’ meeting, Justin agrees to turn her, and they go through the whole thing that night, on camera and before a live audience.
• Chapter 17 – In which Emily tries to see Madison the night after she’d been turned, then finds out Justin has already been arrested and meets Nicholas at the Police Station where Justin is being held.
• Chapter 18 – In which Nicholas finally invites Emily out for coffee -their first date- and discusses the new direction he’d like to focus his efforts for making a real difference in the struggle against the system.
• Chapter 19 – In which Emily avoids calling Austin as long as possible, but ends up asking him out in order to avoid disappointing Nicholas.
• Chapter 20 – In which Austin and Emily go to the movies, and Emily invites him to Nicholas’ meeting the next week.
• Chapter 21 – In which Emily strings Austin along enough to get him to show up to Nicholas’ meeting, where he doesn’t quite fit in until Nicholas convinces him to buy in completely.
• Chapter 22 – In which Austin is weaned from the blood stipend and begins practicing the hunt, to try to open his mind to the true experience of being a vampire.
• Chapter 23 – In which Nicholas, Emily, Ken, and Benjamin attempt to deliver Austin into the care of an older vampire to mentor him but, before reaching their destination, Austin’s hunger drives him over the edge and he begins attacking, eating and mutilating them one by one.
• Chapter 24 – In which emergency responders try to help the survivors as much as they can, hindered by their opt-out status.
• Chapter 25 – In which Nicholas’ group has trouble moving forward without him, and Emily likewise finds her life both interrupted and irrevocably altered by his passing – then she seems to discover a conspiracy working to dissolve the movement Nicholas had put into motion.
• Chapter 26 – In which Emily remains dedicated to the cause until the bitter end.

Which book should you read first?

Longer answer: Which book you read first will have a significant impact on how you see the world of Never Let the Right One Go, and how you see the characters, beliefs, and activities of whichever book you read second. Each book is designed to be a complete story, the story of one young woman as her eyes are opened to the world around her, and her life is changed as she steps out of her old comfort zones for the first time, but the paths taken and the end results are wildly different from one another. One of the books is told from the perspective of someone who sees the world as a dystopia, and is structured so as to demonstrate (as in a Euclidean proof) that the world is a dystopia, and the characters and plot are fashioned in the style of dystopian fiction both traditional and popular. The other book is told from the perspective of someone who sees the world as a utopia, and is structured so as to demonstrate that the world is utopian – or at least that everything which makes the world unique from our own has been an improvement both for the society and for the individual.

Based on the feedback of early readers who read both books I can also say that (probably) whichever book you read first you’ll like least, and whichever book you read last you’ll like most. After finishing one, they said they liked it, but after finishing both they preferred the other. Perhaps this is because people are convinced by whatever argument they’ve heard most recently, and each book is built as an argument for its own point of view; by reading the second argument, their perspective on the first is altered – usually reversed. Of course, there are other factors at play, as well. Maybe you can’t stand Nicholas, so reading Emily becomes difficult. Maybe you’re aggressively anti-religion, so Sophia’s Christian background and reliance on faith to get her through tough situations rubs you the wrong way. Maybe the long political and economic discourse in one is too dry, or the awkward and painful sexual situations in the other are outside your comfort zone. There are countless differences between the two books, any one of which may be the thing your opinion hinges upon.

None of these differences, however, puts one book ahead of the other. Both books cover roughly the same time period, the same few months of the same year. Both books introduce and explain the world in the course of the girls’ journeys, without repeating one another. The books are well-enough paralleled that going back and forth between them, one chapter at a time (as you would experience them by subscribing to the Modern Evil Podcast), is a reasonable and viable approach to Never Let the Right One Go, as a duology. (In fact, doing so will reveal even more about the differences and similarities between the girls and their lives – I recommend it for a re-read, rather than a first-read, as some of the story becomes even sweeter when you know what’s coming in both books.) Which book you read first is truly a matter of personal preference, or random chance, rather than any pre-determined order.

My personal preference: I prefer Sophia over Emily, personally. I think it’s the superior book, I think Sophia is the stronger character, and I think hers is the better story. I fundamentally disagree with the politics and basic beliefs of Emily, Nicholas, et al, and had a hard time writing them convincingly. I wrote Sophia (mostly) first, though a significant portion of the world-building I did only appears in Emily. I think starting with Sophia is the way to go, because I think it gives a better overall impression of the duology, though I also want to suggest that you start with Emily, since I want you to like Sophia better.

I know, I know, I’m no help. Sorry…

Read the first two chapters of Emily:

Tonight I learned that Justin lost his final appeal, and is scheduled to be executed on my 16th birthday, next week. If the doctors’ prognosis for me is right, he’ll live longer than I do. I’ve decided to try to write everything down, to leave a record of what I’ve been through in the last few months, in the hope that someday something more might be done. We did what we could, we fought for what was right, but it wasn’t enough, and we paid the price. We’re all paying the price. If you’re reading this, and vampires are still domesticated, and humans are still enslaved to the blood centers, you’re paying, too.
-Excerpted from the personal account of Emily,
dictated in January 2018

Lying on what she knew would be her death bed, Emily began trying to figure out how she had arrived so suddenly at the end of her life, by documenting her recollections of it in her online journal. Her parents had always encouraged her to examine the facts of a situation, to reason from evidence, and to document everything carefully. As Emily thought back to try to recall how it had all begun, she wondered whether the fickle whims of the heart could ever be so well documented that the last months of her life would make sense; she knew it had all started the first time she had seen Nicholas. Before that day, Emily hadn’t even realized how bad the world had become. She had been blissful in her ignorance. Then Nicholas had opened her eyes to a cause she would end up dying for.

That fine sunny day, Emily had been out shopping with her friends, strolling among the boutique shops downtown, enjoying summer break the best way she knew how. When she came around a corner and saw Nicholas for the first time, his eyes shining bright and fierce with passion as he stood above a small gathering of people, exhorting them about the dangers of collaborating with vampires, Emily felt a jolt of electricity which seemed to shoot right out of his eyes into hers, then straight down her spine, sending tingles all over her body. Her heart pounded in her chest, her breath drew in, and Emily suddenly believed in love at first sight.

“Are you coming, Emily?” asked her friend, Madison.

Emily had stopped in her tracks at the sight of him, and her friends had continued on without her, nearly failing to notice she’d trailed behind. Emily motioned with her hand and muttered something that didn’t quite sound like, “I’ll catch up,” but couldn’t take her eyes off Nicholas. She approached where he was speaking, and began to actually listen to what he had to say.

“They are our natural predators. We call their speed and strength and tenacity supernatural, but it is not that. Vampires were designed by nature to be superior to us in every way; they were designed by evolution to predate humanity. To overpower us. To bend us to their will. To consume our vital fluids, to suck the very life out of us. Humankind likes to think of itself as living at the top of the food chain, and until very recently, the true top of the food chain was well served by maintaining that illusion. Vampires are a hunter so cunning that for thousands of years humanity didn’t even believe they existed. They killed us, they ate us, and they convinced us they were only a bad dream.”

Nicholas’ eyes moved among the gathering crowd, making contact with every pair of eyes on his, and every time Emily felt him looking at her, she felt his eyes pierce straight to the core of her, and she felt herself melt a little more.

“Imagine a wolf so cunning it can live among the sheep, unnoticed. Unnoticed by the sheep, unnoticed by the shepherd, even the loss of life going unnoticed in the final tally. Imagine a serpent so sly it is born in the same nest as the doves it will feast upon. Treated with love by the doves, the serpent becomes sibling to its supper. Imagine the vampire, hidden among us since time immemorial, and imagine the perfect hunter. The perfect predator. The unstoppable force whose existence revolves around stopping ours.”

As Nicholas spoke, Emily began to be able to become aware of features beyond his beautiful eyes, though not far. She noticed the strong line of his jaw, tense with fervor and alive with motion. She noticed the high cheekbones, the thick mane of dark hair surrounding the top of his face, and the way his nostrils flared and his eyebrows furrowed with each wave of intensity across his features.

“Yet here we are, pretending it is within humanity to bend the vampire to its will. Pretending we can stop the unstoppable force of violence and death and cunning that is the vampire. We extort their blood, we mutilate their bodies, we exploit their strength and speed, and we steal all that is natural to them. No longer do vampires hunt humans. No longer do they kill. No longer are they allowed to rule the herd of humanity from behind the scenes, taking what they want and leaving us hurt or dead and wondering what went wrong.”

Emily gradually found her feet carrying her closer to Nicholas, bumping past the couple dozen people gathered in the square, and soon there was nothing between her and the sudden object of her affections but air and a lack of introductions.

“This is a grave injustice we deign to impose upon those clearly our superior in every way! This is a gross reversal, and it speaks as badly of humanity for its imposition as it does of the few vampires who forced the rest to accept this twisted version of reality. We have enslaved vampires with the ready availability of our blood. We have turned them away from their nature by playing to its weakness, by giving freely in abundance what they were made to fight and hunt and scheme and connive to achieve for most of their existence, turning them into little more than addicts beholden to humanity as drug dealer. Truly, humanity has made all vampires suffer a great indignity by putting them in this position. Truly, they have been forced into submission, into a form of slavery to humanity, rather than be allowed to live and survive on their own terms and according to their own natures.”

People came and went from the small group around Emily as they got the gist of what Nicholas was saying, but Emily was falling deeper in love with him and hardly noticed that the world had continued in the periphery of his existence. She had never given much thought to the plight of the vampire before, and was still too young to have begun making blood donations, but every word from Nicholas’ lips sounded golden as it reached her ears; Emily found herself feeling she was part of the problem, one of the living who unjustly enslaved the vampires with her blood.

“Worse than the enslavement of the master hunter to its prey is our own enslavement to the supernatural shortcuts of the vampire. A few short years ago, humanity took responsibility for solving its own problems. Human doctors treated injury and disease with techniques and technologies and traditions of human design. Human engineers designed great machines to accomplish amazing feats of construction and world-shaping. Humans directed their own economies, made peace or war according to their own negotiations, and governed themselves – if not well, then at least democratically. Now all doctors seem to know how to do is pour a little vampire blood on every wound. We hire vampires to snap together vampire-designed buildings and cities. We vote vampires into office and allow vampires to police the world and disband human militaries. In less time than I’ve been alive, humanity has gone from master of its own destiny to a slave of the super-human mind and body.”

Emily took note of Nicholas’ body. He was standing on a small platform, not much bigger than a soap box, but she knew he must be tall. His shoulders felt broad as her eyes caressed them. His arms and legs bulged with the musculature of someone who did real work. His tight pants left nothing to Emily’s imagination but how she would get Nicholas out of them at the first opportunity.

“We have become addicted to the quick fix. Humanity has enslaved itself to the monster in exchange for a few conveniences. It’s like our entire species has developed Attention Deficit Disorder. We’re no longer content to let our bodies heal themselves, we can’t be bothered to give up so much time. It’s gotten out of hand, we’ve completely coddled ourselves. What began with using vampire-enhanced healthcare to take months or years off people’s recovery time, while restoring them to health we hadn’t yet figured out how to rebuild on our own, is now an abomination against our own bodies. Johnson and Johnson have announced they’re discontinuing the entire Band-Aid brand, because we’ve all stopped waiting for even scrapes and bruises to heal; instead we rub a salve on and watch them fade away in seconds. I recently heard that consumers were demanding something even faster than V-Sal, as though mere seconds were too long to wait for minor injuries to be scarlessly healed!”

Emily wondered whether, in his vehement rejection of enslavement to supernatural shortcuts, Nicholas’ body was covered in scars. She imagined being able to explore every inch of his body, turning it into a roadmap to the events of his past in a way she suddenly realized other men’s bodies no longer would be.

“We give over control of our corporations because our attention spans are too short to be able to plan beyond the next fiscal quarter, and in return we’ve been allowed to narrow our view of the future even further. How many of you have plans for your future three months from now? What about next month? Humanity has been blinkered into losing track of its own future. We’ve allowed ourselves to become addicted to being able to live in the moment, confident that someone else is taking care of the long view. Where we’ll end up if we stay this course is not ours to say. Not any more! Humanity’s face is turned down, the changing world out of sight, out of mind, and out of our own control. We’ve become passengers where we should be drivers. We’re distracted by digital wonders and no longer tempered by hard work or suffering. What does it even mean to be human, any longer? We pay our blood tax, and in return we get nothing more than bread and circuses. High speed, high definition, mass produced bread and circuses.”

Emily realized her own life had no meaning, that she had no plans of her own for the future, nothing beyond the day of shopping with her friends and a newfound desire to somehow see Nicholas again. The only event on her calendar was school starting again, but even that schedule had been part of someone else’s plans for her. Her government, keeping track of her future so she could spend her time thinking about what to wear and who to date. Emily wondered what other plans the vampires had for her future.

“If you can’t stand to see a superior creature hobbled and humbled and beholden to what amounts to little more than zookeepers or drug dealers, denying vampires the ability to follow their very natures, please come to our meeting Thursday night and find out how you can help liberate the vampires. If you’re concerned about your future, if you want to be able to make plans for your own life, set your own destiny, and have the chance to free yourself from the yoke of slavery that humanity has thrust upon your shoulders, I implore you to join us, Thursday night. Find out what you can do about the situation, and what it may mean for the future if you don’t act now. We’ll be at the Ravenbrook Community Center after sunset, Thursday. Be there, or know you’ve chosen a life of slavery for yourself and every other person on Earth.”

Nicholas stepped off his small portable platform and began handing out flyers for the meeting. Emily hadn’t even noticed the two other young men who had been handing out flyers to anyone who came within shouting distance of Nicholas, she’d been too absorbed in falling for Nicholas himself. When he turned to Emily to hand her a flyer, she hardly remembered how to speak, the words caught in her throat, and she almost feared she’d lose her chance to make a good first impression.

Nicholas took her hand in his, giving it a firm shake, and said, “I’m Nicholas. I saw you in the crowd. You looked like you really got what I was saying.”

“Emily,” was all she could manage to squeeze out, her mind focused on the feeling of his hand on hers, their first contact.

“I hope to see you Thursday night, Emily. It’s people like you who are the key to making a difference. People who really understand our cause. People who are key influencers of their social networks. You look like you’re an influencer, Emily. Would you describe yourself as an influencer?” Nicholas still held Emily’s hand in his, and all she could do was nod and melt a little more inside. “That’s good, Emily. Will I be seeing you again? I’d really like to see you Thursday night.”

Emily managed another nod, then discovered Nicholas’ hand in hers had been replaced by a flyer, and he had moved on to speak to someone else in the crowd. She stood there, staring at the flyer, trying to make sense of the words while her head was swimming, but after several minutes, she hadn’t got anything from it but what Nicholas had said to her, “I’d really like to see you Thursday night,” and the feeling of his eyes meeting hers, his hand on hers, and the dream of feeling more. When the crowd had dispersed, everyone going back to their shopping or errands, Nicholas and the other two spoke briefly, spent a little while gathering discarded flyers from the ground, and Nicholas returned to the small platform, beginning his speech over from the beginning. Emily stood there, listening to him speaking for a while, rapt.

Around the time he began repeating himself, her friends came up to her, having finally noticed she’d fallen behind without catching up, and broke the spell Nicholas had put on her. As she rejoined her friends, Emily heard his voice fading into the distance, “Vampires were designed by nature to be superior to us in every way; they were designed by evolution to predate humanity. To overpower us. To bend us to their will. To consume our vital fluids, to suck the very life out of us.” Emily couldn’t wait to see him again, to hear his voice again, to feel his skin on hers. She couldn’t concentrate on her shopping at all, any more.

Chapter 2

Of course, I hadn’t realized then how right he was. I’d never really met a vampire before meeting Nicholas. I’m not sure I want to see another, after seeing what they’re really like, deep down. In the months between that first meeting and the attack I thought I’d learned a lot about vampires, but there’s nothing like running for your life from a monster while your friends are murdered and mutilated all around you to change your perspective.
-Excerpted from the personal account of Emily,
dictated in January 2018

 
The night was cold and still, the air slick with moisture on the verge of turning to frost. The moon had set hours earlier, and even with the Milky Way shining in the sky above, there was barely enough light to make each other out as they paused for breath; the darkness was a huge disadvantage for the three humans and their inferior vision. The trees were thick around them, and they’d managed to lose all track of direction as they fled; their six eyes searched the impenetrable darkness all around them for any sign of which way to turn, or at least which way to stay away from.

Nicholas was the first to speak, saying softly, “The vampire is the perfect predator, the perfect hunter, but not for sport. He’s only after the blood. Once he’s had his fill, we should be safe as long as we don’t antagonize him.”

“Don’t antagonize him?” Ken whispered angrily, loudly, “What do you think got us into this position? This is all your fault, you know. I should never have listened to you.”

“We can discuss the merits of one philosophy of vampire culture over another once we’ve survived the evening,” Nicholas whispered in all seriousness, “Now keep still and keep quiet and if he doesn’t come for us in the next half hour or so, we’ll try to find the road, alright?”

Emily gladly clung to Nicholas, half for protection, half just to enjoy the nearness of him. She nodded into his chest and breathed in his scent and tried not to think about the vampire or what would happen when it found them. If she was going to die that night, she wanted her final moments to be in Nicholas’ arms.

Ken didn’t think hiding from the vampire was such a bad idea, but didn’t relish spending his final moments with Nicholas the way Emily did. He whispered, “I’ll be keeping quiet over there,” pointing to the other side of the small clearing and beginning to cross it. Ken’s outstretched arm never had a chance to fall back to his side; the vampire fell, seemingly from the nowhere, right on Ken. Faster than the humans could make out, it dug its fingernails into Ken’s shoulder and tore through flesh and separated bone and tossed Ken’s arm aside. The monster seemed to be bathing in the fountain of blood from Ken’s shoulder, and faster than Emily could even begin screaming, Nicholas had disappeared into the forest.

For a second or two Emily continued screaming, first at the shock of seeing the vampire tearing Ken limb from limb, but more intensely at being abandoned by Nicholas, not even pulled along by her arm. By the time Ken had collapsed and the vampire had become engrossed in the business of gulping down hot blood as though it were water from a hose, Emily’s legs began carrying her away from the grisly scene. She was trying to find Nicholas, to catch up with him, somehow, but she couldn’t see much more than shadows layered upon shadows once she was back in the thick of the forest. Emily couldn’t hear the sounds of Ken dying or the sounds of Nicholas crashing through the forest over the sound of her own blood pumping hard in her ears. She ran and ran and ran, hoping she’d be able to escape certain death at the hands of a half-starved vampire without worrying about the prospect of a near-certain death from exposure or worse if she became too lost in the woods.

After what felt to Emily like a long time running, her legs began to ache and her pace began to slow, the jolt of adrenaline waning and the ominous sounds of the forest waxing in her perception. She gradually came to a stop, leaning against a narrow tree and breathing hard and fast, looking all around her as though the monster might appear from any direction and have his way with her. She looked up and could still see the stars shining brightly through the thick canopy of leaves above her, and was glad she had at least that much to reassure her. Emily stood there, as still and as silent as she could manage in the throes of exhaustion, contemplating the wisdom of calling out for Nicholas.

After several long moments, Emily decided calling out would only put her, and possibly Nicholas, in danger. She decided instead of move on, more slowly, and see whether she could find Nicholas, or the road, or otherwise come up with a better idea than simply standing around waiting for death. Emily thought she’d been running in a straight line, and she tried to continue that way, imagining it would take her farther from her pursuer. A quarter of an hour of walking later, when Emily came across the clearing where Ken’s mutilated, cold, blood-splattered body lay in pieces, her breath caught in her throat. Emily had managed to circle back to where she’d begun.

There was no sign that the vampire was still around. Emily stood as still as she could, nearly frozen with fear, listening to the sounds of the forest. Every rustling leaf and chirping insect seemed sinister to her ears. She couldn’t take her eyes off the gruesome image before her. She couldn’t get her eyes to close, or her head to turn, or her legs to carry her away. She stood still, and she stared, and the night seemed to grow colder around her, and Emily felt the icy chill of the entire tableau of death seeping deep beneath her skin.

Emily’s transfixion was interrupted by a muffled beeping emanating from Ken’s remains. She blinked her eyes as her mind tried to recall the significance of the odd sound coming from the otherwise permanently silent body before her. Then she broke into a run toward the center of the carnage-strewn clearing, falling to her knees beside Ken’s blood-soaked torso. As she tried to force her fingers into the tight front pocket of Ken’s ripped jeans, Emily had a series of troubling thoughts. Her first thought was that she’d rather be getting her hands in Nicholas’ pants. Her eyes wouldn’t let her forget what it would mean for her beloved Nicholas to be in Ken’s place, and she immediately regretted wanting to have her hands on Nicholas’ body instead of Ken’s. Then Emily’s hands, slick and cold with Ken’s blood and twisted in pain as they tried to pry the phone free of his pocket, reminded her she didn’t want to be touching Ken, either. Emily’s imagination began filling her head with visions of Nicholas’ bleeding, broken body laying somewhere in the woods, growing cold, without her by his side; as she finally freed the phone from Ken’s pants, Emily hoped Nicholas’ early lead had kept him safely away from the vampire.

Wiping the blood from the screen, Emily was glad to see that the phone had good signal; she’d considered that the beeping might have been the phone’s way of letting her know it had no signal, rather than an incoming message. She unlocked the phone, relieved Ken hadn’t password-protected it, and nearly dialed 911, barely stopping herself before pressing ‘send’. Emily looked around at the dark woods again, wondering whether the vampire was near. Her finger found the switch to silence the phone. She slowly and carefully retreated back to the deeper shadows of the woods from the dim light of the bloody clearing. Somewhere in her mind, Emily was aware that a vampire’s super-human sight and hearing would mean that no matter how quiet she was and how dark she thought it was, the vampire would have no trouble finding her. As she decided not to make a voice call to 911, not wanting to have to speak and possibly alert the monster to her presence, Emily wasn’t thinking about comparative vampire/human perception limits. She was thinking about Nicholas, and whether he was still alive. She texted the situation to 911, knowing the phone’s GPS would identify her location, and hoped help would find them before the vampire did. The phone buzzed as it received an automated response a few seconds later, acknowledging receipt of her emergency and advising that she should expect to get followup text messages from a real person soon.

Emily took a last look in Ken’s direction, then turned away and began to put some distance between herself and the horror of it. She clutched Ken’s phone in her hand, sorry she’d left her purse behind as they’d first fled the monster, and almost sorry she’d selected pants on the basis of how they made her butt look rather than on the utility of having pockets. Not that she would have used her pockets, had the designer added them to her pants, since she hadn’t known she’d be attacked by a vampire and forget her purse, but that in hindsight she had a new appreciation for having a phone with her at all times. When she felt she had enough distance from Ken’s cooling body, Emily found a large log to lean against and collapsed to the cold ground, letting out a heavy sigh.

Immediately there was a noise from the other side of the log. Emily pulled herself lower, made herself smaller, hoped she was hidden from whatever was there. It moved noisily, was definitely on the other side of the log, and seemed to be heading toward her. All of Emily’s muscles tensed, ready to leap away, to run away, to escape again into the night as soon as it came into sight. Then it spoke, whispering, “Emily?”

Emily recognized Nicholas’ voice. Her whole body relaxed at once, as though suddenly everything were all right. “Nicholas,” she said, her head turning up to see his leaning over the log from the other side.

“That bastard killed Ken,” said Nicholas in a soft voice as he climbed over the log to sit by Emily’s side.

“I know,” she replied, “I managed to get his phone and text 911.” She showed him the phone, still held tightly in her hand, a lifeline to the world. Nicholas didn’t look close enough to see that her death-grip had completely blocked the phone’s signal.

“Are they sending help?”

“I just got the automated response, so far. How long is it supposed to take before they text again?”

“I don’t know,” Nicholas admitted. “Vampires were behind the upgrades, trying to protect their food supply, so I’ve been boycotting the system. Of course, they say it’s better than anything humans could have done for themselves,” he grumbled, “like we can’t take care of ourselves.”

Emily didn’t particularly feel like she was able to take care of herself under the circumstances, but was more aware of the heat of Nicholas’ body next to hers than of any desire to argue the point. After everything they’d been through together and everything she’d seen, Emily couldn’t have been any more convinced that it was a good thing she’d met Nicholas when she had. As she sat with him in the cold and the dark of the forest, hiding from a vampire out for their blood, Emily looked at Nicholas and saw him as her savior; before he’d set her straight, she hadn’t even known she was a slave. As she waited for death to find her, Emily thought it was a good thing that if she couldn’t be entirely free, she’d at least done what she could to fight for freedom.

Emily’s train of thought was interrupted when the vampire appeared, towering over them, looking like he’d been hit with a fire-hose of human blood and grinning like he was having the best night, ever. When he spoke, his voice had an unnatural guttural quality to it, as though the coat of blood all down his throat had altered his voice. His eyes never left Nicholas, but he said, “I’m saving you for last, Emily. I want you to see me eat your little boyfriend here before I take by force what you only pretended to offer me. Sit tight.”

A long second passed, then the vampire was on Nicholas in a flash, chomping on his throat messily while apparently trying to tear his arm off. Emily was close enough to be able to struggle against the monster devouring the object of her affections, but it was like beating her fists against a statue; he didn’t budge. She screamed at him to stop, beat on him, even tried to bite him or pry him away from Nicholas, but all to no avail. When Nicholas’ left arm came free of his body, the vampire switched to the other side of his neck and at the same time began pulling at the right arm.

Suddenly Emily was thrown backward, away from the vampire eating and mutilating Nicholas, flying twenty feet through the air and hitting the forest floor hard – the air was knocked out of her and she lay stunned for a long while, missing what happened next. An emergency responder, after getting Emily to a safe distance, had plunged a steel-reinforced wooden stake into the vampire’s heart, through his back.

The vampire released his grip on Nicholas and began flailing violently with super-human speed and strength, trying to reach the stake in its back, but within a second it had collapsed to the ground, unable to save itself. With its heart pierced, the monster’s body went into a sort of catatonia punctuated by flashes of light and minuscule twitches, both invisible to the human eye. The emergency responder pulled out her axe and decapitated the vampire’s body in one swing, ending his life. Head and body began rapidly to collapse in on themselves, at first as though the vampire were shrinking. Then, rather than continue to collapse, the whole of the monster seemed to vanish in a puff of smoke and light and then there was nothing; not even the stake remained.

Emily came to her senses in time to witness the vampire’s violent end, and to see the emergency responder move over to where Nicholas was rapidly bleeding out. Her head felt like it was full of bees. She propped herself up on one elbow to try to get a better look at what was going on, and she thought she saw the emergency responder cutting her own arm open. Emily shook her head to try to clear it a bit, then looked again at what was going on with Nicholas. It didn’t make sense to her, any more than the way the vampire had attacked them all.

Then suddenly Emily understood what the emergency responder was doing, and she shouted, “Stop! Wait! He’s opt-out!” Emily tried to get herself to her feet, tried to move toward them as she continued, “He’s opt-out. We both are. No vampire-enhanced healthcare! No blood! Stop it!” The best she could manage was to crawl in their direction, her head buzzing louder than ever. She couldn’t feel her fingers, from the cold, couldn’t feel the forest floor scraping up her hands. “You’re violating his civil rights! Nicholas only wants human healthcare.” Emily collapsed, continuing to mumble as she passed out, “We both opted-out. We won’t be your slaves. We won’t…”

A Science Fiction novel; half of a two-book series

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About the book

Now, after 10 years of Christian home-schooling and near-total isolation, Sophia secretly plans on moving out the very night she turns 18. All her research, her online classes, and her natural curiosity have prepared Sophia mentally for the world she’s about to dive head-first into, but no amount of research could prepare her heart for falling in love with Joshua, the first young man she sees after donating her corneas the next day.

Her faith in God and her desire to heal the sick gives Sophia the strength to persevere through the pain of donation after donation, and her vampirism gives her the ability to grow her organs back again and again, but Sophia finds herself unequipped to face her suddenly-awakened lusts of the flesh and the ache in her heart for a deep, reciprocated love. After a shocking and painful first date with Joshua, it doesn’t take Sophia long to learn just how difficult the search for love can be, especially for a teenage vampire with a child’s body and a strong desire to avoid falling into sin.

(Click here to read the first 2 chapters of Sophia)

Books in this series:

About the Author

Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker.

Teel is happily married to an English teacher and they live together in Phoenix, AZ with a grumpy old cat, a skittish young cat, and thousands of books, both read and to-be-read. Sophia and Emily (Never Let the Right One Go) are his seventeenth and eighteenth books, and there are plenty more trying to work their way into this world through the aperture of Teel’s imagination, hoping to be found and loved by readers like you.

Follow him on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Goodreads

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eBook

If you can afford to pay $4.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

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The FREE eBook edition is currently available in the following formats:

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Audiobook

This version is available exclusively as a digital download at this time. The MP3 Audiobook is DRM-free, but considering the free podcast version is still available, your respect in not re-distributing this ZIP file is appreciated: Download the Audiobook

If you cannot afford to pay for the audiobook, please enjoy the podcast version. The following is a list of links to all episodes of Sophia (Never Let the Right One Go) on the Modern Evil Podcast:

• Chapter 1 – In which Sophia goes to church on the 10th anniversary of her “resurrection day” – the day she died and was turned into a vampire, at age 7. Now nearly 18, Sophia looks forward to the chance to move out and get away from the protective environment her parents created and kept her in.
• Chapter 2 – In which Sophia’s concept of her identity as a vampire, and of the integrations with and separations from society experienced by vampires in the modern world, are explored from her limited perspective.
• Chapter 3 – In which Sophia bakes her own birthday cake and, not long after midnight, has her parents take her to the DMV to get her ID card – surprising her parents with her plan to get a place of her own that very night.
• Chapter 4 – In which Sophia goes to the Office of Vampire Affairs (OVA) to get her back-pay from a decade of blood donations and meets Franz, her point of contact at the OVA.
• Chapter 5 – In which Franz gives Sophia a quick tour of the vampire influences on the city, and of the history of human-vampire integration, before helping her find an apartment of her own.
• Chapter 6 – In which Sophia talks to Franz about the blood hunger she’d never felt before fasting for surgery, then briefly heads to her old home to gather her things and say goodbye to her parents again.
• Chapter 7 – In which Sophia goes through her first organ donation, struggling through the pain of starvation, then of having her corneas cut out and her bone marrow extracted, with the comfort of her faith to help carry her through it all.
• Chapter 8 – In which Sophia experiences the feeling of falling in love at first sight with Joshua, the young man tasked with keeping her continuously supplied with blood while she recovers from her surgery.
• Chapter 9 – In which Sophia goes shopping for the first time in her life, buying all new clothes and furniture and household items, considering how to make the best impression on Joshua with each purchase.
• Chapter 10 – In which Sophia’s larger purchases are delivered and she gets her apartment furnished and decorated, then she goes to the blood center to donate blood and has another encounter with Joshua.
• Chapter 11 – In which Sophia fixates on the idea of Joshua, writing about him in her journal, imagining her first date with him, and finding herself fantasizing about him in ways she’s never experienced before.
• Chapter 12 – In which Sophia tries to recover from her painful, personal ordeal while preparing to see Joshua again that night, then finds herself in yet another situation unlike anything she’d been through before.
• Chapter 13 – In which Sophia’s dramatic failure of a first date leaves her shaken, and she agrees to a radical and extensive organ donation to save another little girl from having to face eternal life in the body of a child.
• Chapter 14 – In which Sophia consents to additional donations which leave her little more than a head and a heart, and after a long and painful recovery returns home to find an intriguing invitation waiting for her.
• Chapter 15 – In which Sophia has a reasonably pleasant first date with Barry.
• Chapter 16 – In which Sophia attends her first college classes in person, and finds she already has friends from among some of the online classes she’d already taken.
• Chapter 17 – In which Barry takes Sophia shopping on their second date, buying her new shoes and clothes and gifts.
• Chapter 18 – In which Barry accompanies Sophia home and their date takes a turn Sophia realizes she isn’t comfortable with.
• Chapter 19 – In which Sophia attends a new church for the first time, then later finds herself very grateful to have a couple of good, new friends she can talk to about what she’s been going through since moving out.
• Chapter 20 – In which Sophia is set up on a date with Balthazar, who arranges to have a world-famous designer create an evening gown for Sophia to wear to the opera.
• Chapter 21 – In which Sophia is nearly overwhelmed getting ready for her date with Balthazar, though the results are amazing, then is underwhelmed by the opera itself.
• Chapter 22 – In which Balthazar gives Sophia a tour of his home, which is a little like a palace but more like a museum, and she begins to realize she’s been looking at him the way Barry had looked at her.
• Chapter 23 – In which Sophia and her friends discuss her date with Balthazar, and Sophia decides to try to stop looking for love in every new guy she meets.
• Chapter 24 – In which Sophia describes to her friends the details of how Nicholas asked her out, and they discuss the impending date in the context of her Christian walk and her earlier decision to stop dating.
• Chapter 25 – In which Sophia meets Nicholas at the zoo for their date, and finds his intentions for her are not what she had expected.
• Chapter 26 – In which Sophia tells everyone about her date with Nicholas, then with just her closest friends makes a definitive declaration of her dedication to remaining single and asks for their prayer and support.
• Chapter 27 – In which Sophia reconciles with her parents, and acknowledges that she didn’t need to seek love in the world as she already had the perfect love of Christ in her life.

Which book should you read first?

Longer answer: Which book you read first will have a significant impact on how you see the world of Never Let the Right One Go, and how you see the characters, beliefs, and activities of whichever book you read second. Each book is designed to be a complete story, the story of one young woman as her eyes are opened to the world around her, and her life is changed as she steps out of her old comfort zones for the first time, but the paths taken and the end results are wildly different from one another. One of the books is told from the perspective of someone who sees the world as a dystopia, and is structured so as to demonstrate (as in a Euclidean proof) that the world is a dystopia, and the characters and plot are fashioned in the style of dystopian fiction both traditional and popular. The other book is told from the perspective of someone who sees the world as a utopia, and is structured so as to demonstrate that the world is utopian – or at least that everything which makes the world unique from our own has been an improvement both for the society and for the individual.

Based on the feedback of early readers who read both books I can also say that (probably) whichever book you read first you’ll like least, and whichever book you read last you’ll like most. After finishing one, they said they liked it, but after finishing both they preferred the other. Perhaps this is because people are convinced by whatever argument they’ve heard most recently, and each book is built as an argument for its own point of view; by reading the second argument, their perspective on the first is altered – usually reversed. Of course, there are other factors at play, as well. Maybe you can’t stand Nicholas, so reading Emily becomes difficult. Maybe you’re aggressively anti-religion, so Sophia’s Christian background and reliance on faith to get her through tough situations rubs you the wrong way. Maybe the long political and economic discourse in one is too dry, or the awkward and painful sexual situations in the other are outside your comfort zone. There are countless differences between the two books, any one of which may be the thing your opinion hinges upon.

None of these differences, however, puts one book ahead of the other. Both books cover roughly the same time period, the same few months of the same year. Both books introduce and explain the world in the course of the girls’ journeys, without repeating one another. The books are well-enough paralleled that going back and forth between them, one chapter at a time (as you would experience them by subscribing to the Modern Evil Podcast), is a reasonable and viable approach to Never Let the Right One Go, as a duology. (In fact, doing so will reveal even more about the differences and similarities between the girls and their lives – I recommend it for a re-read, rather than a first-read, as some of the story becomes even sweeter when you know what’s coming in both books.) Which book you read first is truly a matter of personal preference, or random chance, rather than any pre-determined order.

My personal preference: I prefer Sophia over Emily, personally. I think it’s the superior book, I think Sophia is the stronger character, and I think hers is the better story. I fundamentally disagree with the politics and basic beliefs of Emily, Nicholas, et al, and had a hard time writing them convincingly. I wrote Sophia (mostly) first, though a significant portion of the world-building I did only appears in Emily. I think starting with Sophia is the way to go, because I think it gives a better overall impression of the duology, though I also want to suggest that you start with Emily, since I want you to like Sophia better.

I know, I know, I’m no help. Sorry…

Read the first two chapters of Sophia:

Tonight is the ten-year anniversary of my death, and next week is my eighteenth birthday. My parents wanted to celebrate today, instead of my birthday, because they think my resurrection is more monumental than my birth. What’s truly monumental is legally becoming an adult, so I convinced them to save the cake a few nights. I’m so excited to finally be allowed to see the world beyond the four walls of this house and those of the church across the street. I’ll be eighteen, and there won’t be anything my parents can do to stop me. Not any more. No more bedtime at 4AM, regardless of sunrise. No more home schooling; I’ve been doing college coursework online for years, and when the new semester starts next month I’ll finally be able to actually sit in a classroom like a normal person for the first time since Kindergarten! I’ll finally be able to interact with people my own age, face to face and in person!

Speaking of which, no more suffering through Sunday School with second graders for the 11th consecutive year! What a relief it’ll be to finally be able to study the Word of God at my own level for a change, or sing songs of worship with a little more complexity than ‘Jesus Loves Me’ and ‘Down In My Heart’. It’s like 1 Corinthians 13:11 says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways.” I may still look like I’m seven years old, but my parents, my pastor, my teachers and all of you know I set aside my childish ways long ago. Or at least you should. And now that I’m finally, legally, going to be allowed to make my own decisions, I won’t have to put up with being treated like a child any more!

Sophia filled her friends-only online journal with her hopes and dreams, her frustrations and longing, her plans for her life once she was freed from the monotony it had become. It wasn’t that her life was particularly awful; Sophia had enough blood to drink, she had parents who loved her, a comfortable home in a good neighborhood, a church that welcomed her with open arms, and no reason to be anything but hopeful about her future; it was simply that Sophia was a teenage girl, and that was reason enough for anyone in the same situation to have something to complain about. Luckily for Sophia, her parents had made sure she was well-versed in the constantly evolving state of technology; she was much better at managing her online privacy controls than any flimsy lock on a cheap paper diary could have been, and her parents had rarely heard her voice a word of dissatisfaction.

Sophia’s parents were the sort of Christians for whom everything was wonderful, all the time, a blessing from God, no matter the situation. Sophia wasn’t entirely sure how they would react to reading her journal entries of the last few years, whether to pray in thanks to God that they’d been given yet another challenge to overcome and thereby strengthen their character, or to begin making intercessory prayer to turn Sophia’s heart from this internal darkness and to bolster her faith in God’s Will for her life; Sophia figured it would probably be both, with her Mom and her Dad taking turns thanking God for the situation and asking Him to change it. She thought it better to keep it a secret, at least for the next few nights.

“Sophia,” her mother called from upstairs, “are you ready to go? We don’t want to keep everyone waiting on your special night.”

Sophia finished her thought and hit ‘Post’, sending her words out to her small circle of trusted friends -none of whom she had yet met in person- and called back, “Yes, Mom, I’ll be right there!” She leapt across the room with startling alacrity and began getting ready, a literal blur of motion. After a decade of practice procrastinating, Sophia knew exactly what measure of her super-speed she could get away with while dressing before she began to tear her own clothes to shreds in the process. That her entire wardrobe consisted of conservatively-cut dresses, none shorter than mid-calf in length, certainly made it easier for her to get in and out of an outfit in record time. Brushing her hair took a few extra seconds because moving too rapidly would only make it more wild than it had been when she’d begun, but Sophia’s parents preferred such a simple style, she was stepping into her shoes and headed up the stairs before more than a handful of seconds had passed. “See?” Sophia asked, presenting herself for her mother’s inspection, “I’m ready.”

“Your father went ahead, as usual.”

“It doesn’t hurt to get a few extra prayers in,” Sophia replied.

They walked out the front door of their house into the cool nighttime air, and Sophia began to cross the soft grass of their front lawn while her mother locked up. She knew her father didn’t like anyone walking on his fastidiously maintained lawn, but Sophia figured she could get a little leeway on her resurrection day; her mother walked around the lawn, but didn’t say anything. Sophia especially liked the feeling of the cool, soft grass under her bare feet, but even just crossing the lawn in her shoes woke up a world of indescribably faint and beautiful scents and sensations to fill her lungs and cover her skin. Sophia prayed a little silent prayer of thanks to God for her supernatural senses as she relished in the beauty of this tiny, landscaped patch of His creation. She looked both ways down the empty residential street, then ignored the fact that it would have been safe to simply walk calmly across the road and leapt twenty-five feet in the air, landing softly on the precise place on the sidewalk she’d selected, with her hands pressed to her sides to keep her dress from billowing out and up and taking her modesty with it. She waited there for her mother to reach her side by conventional means, then took her mother’s hand and they walked into the chapel together.

Maribel and Agnes, two of the little old ladies in the congregation who never missed a service or a choice piece of gossip, were standing just inside the door whispering to one another when Sophia and her mother walked in. Their voices shifted from conspiratorial to congenial as they turned to face them, and Maribel said, “God bless you two on this glorious evening.”

Agnes said, “Happy resurrection day, Sophia. You’re so blessed to be among the first resurrection. Congratulations.”

Maribel continued, “I can’t believe it’s been ten whole years since you were in the hospital. What a hard time that was, for everyone. We should have known the Lord would replace our suffering with joy, just as he promised.”

“God has taught us all a little something about faith with little Sophia,” her mother replied, “and of the importance of persevering through what seem like inescapable problems and learning to rely on the Lord. It’s just like the story of Joseph; if he hadn’t been sold into slavery, beaten, accused, and thrown into prison for crimes he didn’t commit, he would never have had the strength of character to become ruler of the richest nation in the world, or the savior of the multitudes during the years of famine. We are all forged in the fires of the challenges we face, and strengthened by them for the challenges yet to come.”

Sophia had heard variations of this conversation repeated again and again over the years since she’d suffered and died, and while she knew it was true, and a good lesson if you’ve never heard it before, it was one she’d been hearing for what felt like her whole life. She’d begun to tune them out and look around to see who was already seated when Maribel addressed her directly, “At least you know what your challenges will be, Sophia. Back into the hospital, back into the pain and suffering,” she shook her head and took on a look of concern which may actually have been genuine, “I don’t think I’d be strong enough to take that on as a way of life, dear, but I’ll be praying for you. Do you know when your first surgery will be?”

“I can’t donate until I turn eighteen, next Tuesday. They always need bone marrow, and they usually need corneas, so I’ve been tentatively scheduled to donate both Wednesday night.”

“So soon?”

“If I could have been helping people sooner, I would have been. I know my blood is already saving lives in emergencies, which is good, and my corneas may restore someone’s vision, but my bone marrow could turn the course of a chronic disease around.” Sophia’s confidence in her words made her feel larger than her four foot frame, and she nearly forgot she was forced to literally look up to people like Maribel and Agnes. “They prefer to start us off with relatively minor donations, but hopefully within a couple more weeks I’ll be saving the lives of children with congenital defects or worse, children who, like me, may not have a lot of time to wait for replacement organs before they die. Wouldn’t you do anything you could to save a sick child’s life, Maribel? Being turned into a vampire may be an option for them, but it isn’t optimal; wouldn’t they be better off if they had the chance to grow up naturally?”

“Of course, of course, I…” Maribel stuttered. Sophia knew that Maribel, like most of the congregation over the age of about twenty, had opted out of organ donation when the new legislation had made opt-in the default for every citizen almost as long ago as she’d been dead. She knew their interpretation of the resurrection was like that of the Pharisees, that it was their literal, physical bodies which would be resurrected at the end of days, and that they wanted to keep those bodies whole for that reason. Considering the reality of the first resurrection, that of vampires, which was clearly a physical resurrection of a person’s dead body, Sophia could understand why they would cling to such a simplistic interpretation. It was the fact that vampires’ bodies are made whole upon resurrection, not to mention the omnipotence of God in general, which cast their aversion to having their own bodies used to save lives seem selfish and narrow-minded.

“I only wish I could donate my heart, too. Heart disease is still the number two killer among adults, and something like one in five hundred children have a bad heart, just waiting to fail. Only the unresurrected dead can donate their hearts,” concluded Sophia before leading her mother by the hand deeper into the church.

Her father saw them coming and waved, saying softly, “Sophia, would you mind helping us up here?” He knew Sophia’s hearing was good enough to hear him whisper from across the street, and didn’t bother to raise his voice.

“Dad wants me to help move the altar again,” Sophia told her mother, releasing her hand and skipping playfully toward the front of the church. “You know I’m not going to be able to move this thing while I’m recovering from surgery, right?” Sophia didn’t mention that she had no intention of remaining at home with them after she began her donations, or that she wanted to find a new church to attend, but she wanted her father and the pastor to be aware she wouldn’t always be around.

“We know,” said Pastor Rigby, clearing the last items from the altar’s surface so it could be moved safely, “and if you’ll help us again after tonight’s service, I think we’ve picked a good, semi-permanent spot for it.”

“Where do you want it for now?” The Pastor pointed, and Sophia wrapped her tiny arms around one end of the altar as though giving it a hug, squeezing the heavy stone between the palms of her hands. She lifted it as though it were light as a feather and moved it with delicate grace to the indicated place, gently setting nearly a ton of solid marble out of the way like so much folderol. Pastor Rigby and her father thanked Sophia and got to work replacing the array of displaced items to the top of the altar, and she joined her mother in the frontmost pew.

After a few minutes, the last of the congregation, including Sophia’s father, were seated and after giving a brief welcome, Pastor Rigby dove into the delivery of the night’s message. “As I’m sure you are all aware, tonight is not a night like every other for our community. Tonight is the anniversary of a great blessing which was bestowed upon us by the Lord, the First Resurrection of one of our own just ten short years ago.” There were already a few amens and a “Hallelujah!” rising from the congregation, and Sophia knew the Spirit of the Lord would be felt by everyone present, that night. “Young Sophia was not the first in the world, but she was the first from our little world, and she has been a brilliant light of Kingdom hope, shining upon us! She is an undeniable reminder among us that we are living in God’s own age, a time of great blessings and revelations, a time of miracles and of wonders.

“Our generation is witness to the true realization of the Great Commission, accompanied by the signs foretold in Mark 16. It was said that they would drive out demons, and lo, did they not remove the scourge of terror from the face of the Earth?” “Amen” “It was foretold that they will pick up snakes with their hands and whatever poison they drink will not harm them, and behold, are they not protected from dangers both animal and mineral, natural and man-made?” “Hallelujah,” and “Amen!” “We were told they would place their hands on the sick and they would be made well, and we have seen with our own eyes that they hold the power to heal in the palm of their hands! You, Michael, were you not struck down in the prime of your life by a drunk driver?” “Yes, father!” and from another, “Struck down!” “And were you not made whole again by the power of the blood?” Louder this time, “Yes, father!” and “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” “The healing power of the blood has saved you, Michael!” “Amen!” “And little Sophia, poor, precious Sophia, was on her death bed just ten short years ago. She suffered, she weakened, and no worldly cure could be found for her. In the end, ten years ago to this day, our little Sophia died. Her organs simply could not sustain her. Science could not bring her back to us.” “Oh, no!” and “No sir!” “It was only by the grace of God and the power of His blood that Sophia was restored to life,” “Hallelujah!” “resurrected,” “Praise the Lord!” “and given new strength as a part of the Lord’s Great Commission, as we all are part!”

The congregation was in active dialog with Pastor Rigby by then, and actively praising and worshiping God with shouts and calls and raised hands as he continued, “Are we not in the most glorious age, the dawning of the Kingdom of God here on Earth? For millennia the church has struggled under the oppressive yoke of worldly governments. For centuries we have watched democracy itself fail to improve upon the tendency toward corruption and inequality which all man-made institutions are prey to, because of our weakness to the flesh. Finally, in our own time and before our own eyes we have seen the very hands and feet of Jesus Christ going to work to reform the world’s government. We have seen men of incorruptible flesh step up to the challenges of this corrupt world, and we have seen the good fruit of the power of the blood at work in the land. Lives saved, the sick healed, the poor and hungry clothed and fed, the mourning comforted, and the good examples created by those precious few like our little Sophia have finally set so many others on the straight path toward salvation and good works of their own! Our world was rapidly descending into Hell, but by the power of the blood, the same blood which brought our little Sophia back to us, we are now ascending on the wings of angels into Heaven!”

Pastor Rigby’s sermon went on like that for over an hour, the congregation burning hotter and hotter with the fire of the Holy Spirit, praising and worshiping God. Sophia, despite being self-conscious about being made the center of attention once again, was just as moved by the Spirit. By the end of the service, as she walked back across the street with her parents, she was almost convinced to continue attending the church after she moved out. Then her father said, “It’s too bad your resurrection day is in the summer. All the other kids your age are missing out when the Pastor gives a message like that this late at night,” and Sophia was reminded once again that her parents still thought of her as a seven-year-old girl most of the time. She bit her tongue and began putting together another post for her journal in her head.

Chapter 2

Sophia liked to read about vampires online. In part this was because she didn’t really know any other vampires. If she’d been turned just a few months later, new legislation would have applied to Sophia and she would have been expected, as an underage vampire, to attend one of the new vampire schools or at least to pass a sort of standardized test which was supposed to prove she was normalized enough to be able to get by in society. Instead, she was grandfathered in as an existing vampire and her parents successfully appealed to have Sophia exempted from both public schooling and standardized vampire testing; they also minimized her contact with the outside world, human and vampire alike. Other than what she saw in the news or read online, Sophia knew next-to-nothing about vampires, even though she was one. She’d been turned at such a young age, she couldn’t really remember much about being anything other than what she had been every moment since then; Sophia was like the proverbial fish who couldn’t really tell you much about water.

The other reason Sophia so liked to read about vampires was because it told her a lot about humans. Whether the journalists and bloggers and authors writing about vampires were human or vampire, they all seemed to write from a perspective of humanity being the baseline for all things; because of this, Sophia was able to begin to understand more of how she was different. She was able to see herself as abnormal, by looking through the eyes of other people. It was much more eye-opening than any comparison or conversation with her parents could be, since they were so gentle, loving, and deferent, trying always to make everything about Sophia’s life seem like it were normal and everyday. When she read about other vampires doing things like she did, and the way people wrote about it, Sophia could see that some of the things she took for granted were far from normal.

Some aspects of what set Sophia apart were easier for her to see. When Sophia accidentally cut herself while chopping vegetables for her parents’ supper, the wound had closed before she’d even noticed the blood and the only problem was washing the blood off the cutting board and the food; relative to the gamut of sensation she was subjected constantly to, the pain had hardly registered. The first time Sophia saw her mother accidentally cut herself while chopping vegetables, her mother shouted in pain and then bled and bled until the wound had been cleaned and dressed, and it would have taken more than a week to heal if she hadn’t gone in to get stitches – the doctor skipped the stitches and put a few drops of vampire blood on the wound, healing it completely in a moment. The next time her mother accidentally cut herself, once more she shouted in pain and bled and bled and then asked Sophia politely if she would mind sharing a drop or two of blood, to save them all some time and effort and pain – and from then on, Sophia’s parents never went to the doctor for minor injuries again.

Seeing the healing power of her blood first hand, working right before her eyes on herself or her parents, was one of the easiest differences from normal Sophia could see. Her mother’s blood was a sign of injury, but Sophia’s blood was the solution to injury. Her mother’s body could heal on its own, gradually, over days, weeks, or months, but Sophia’s body could heal itself rapidly; she had never yet suffered an injury so severe it hadn’t healed beyond trace within minutes.

Furthermore, seeing the difference every night between what she ate and what her parents ate, exemplified once in a while by the blood spilled across chopped vegetables, Sophia knew another major way she was set apart. Sophia could eat food, but gained no nourishment from it and often instead found her body’s false parallel to digestion to be quite discomfiting. Preparing food, cooking it, even chewing and tasting it, could be quite sensual and enjoyable for her, but just as she experienced the food in supernatural detail before swallowing, she continued to experience it all the way from being swallowed to being expelled. It wasn’t until Sophia was almost eleven years old that she realized living people were not so minutely aware of their body’s internal workings, and after several months of trying to express in detail the way she experienced digestion she finally convinced her parents to stop expecting her to eat food with them at every meal.

Alternatively, Sophia had learned online that if her parents had tried to drink human blood -the only thing which could nourish her- they would likely become quite ill. They all still cooked together and took meals together, but for over six years Sophia had been drinking only blood while her parents ate their food. At one point Sophia had written an essay, for an English assignment her mother had given her, which analyzed the anti-vampire bias inherent in the way the word ‘food’ itself was used to the exclusion of human blood. The idea that what nourishes the living is all called ‘food’ while what nourishes vampires is not included in such a blanket term is just the sort of built-in bias toward humanity-as-baseline which gave Sophia insights into the more subtle differences between herself and others.

It was usually the less subtle differences Sophia noticed directly. She was able to lift a ton of solid stone while strong men could only lift dozens of pounds at a time. She was able able to leap high enough and far enough that living people took minutes or longer to catch up with her. She was fast enough, both in covering distance and in performing detailed tasks, that other people described her as a blur and she was frequently asked to perform tasks which would have been tedious and time-consuming for the living but which she could work through in a tiny fraction of the time.

Sophia was certainly aware that many of the ways she had to restrain herself, by moving more cautiously and significantly slower than she expected she was able, were due to problems the people around her had never considered. Sophia had quickly determined the maximum velocity at which she ought to collate papers, not just because of the violent winds generated by her rapid movements which could be countered with heavy paper weights, but also because above a certain speed the friction of paper on paper and sometimes of the papers with the air itself was enough to start fires and destroy all her work. Her strength was more than sufficient to crush or otherwise accidentally destroy things the people around her had certainly not considered to be fragile. Sophia had found that, even with so few places to go, people still expected travel between two points to take a certain, usually fairly specific, amount of time; the spare minutes she was afforded by people’s expectations, often standing near doorways in silence, had added up to many long hours of contemplation over the years.

Then there was her age; Sophia had been frozen, physically, in the body of a seven year old girl. Her parents had tried to minimize the effect of this by keeping her isolated from normally-aging people, and by keeping her with other seven and eight year olds in her rare, late-night Sunday School sessions; it had been effective, for a while. Since adults don’t change quickly and she was prevented from maintaining friendships with any children who were constantly growing up, Sophia was nearly a teenager before she began to be frustrated by her unchanging body. Unlike her success at altering the ritual of their family mealtime, Sophia was never able to convince her parents that she should be allowed to attend Sunday School with other children her actual age, or even to begin to be socially promoted with any particular class; they were convinced it would be too difficult for the other children to handle having a classmate who didn’t fit in than it would be for Sophia to cope with being treated only as old as she appeared to be. The argument that the outside world would only ever see her as a seven year old girl was never a convincing one for Sophia; she wondered why her church couldn’t be the ones to set a better example for the world.

Finally, there was the big thing about vampires which was about to change Sophia’s life more significantly than anything since the last time it had turned her world upside-down; vampire blood and organs had radically altered the face of modern medicine. Sophia had been a recipient of vampire-enhanced healthcare when a childhood illness began destroying her body from the inside out, though it had been too early in the history of vampires working openly with the living to be able to save her life. She had been donating her blood into the system twice weekly since she’d been turned, knowing it had been used throughout the region to enhance emergency-room care, paramedic care, and other forms of recovery. In a few nights, Sophia would begin donating her organs as well, saving the lives of children with her child-sized organs in ways the adult-sized organs of physically-mature vampires had been unable to do for her. Sophia sometimes felt her life was defined by extreme medical interventions, beginning with trying to save her first life and now in her freely giving of her second life to try to save others.

In the nearly-sixteen years since vampires had first revealed their existence to the world, and especially in the decade since Sophia herself had been turned, the daily miracles made possible by widespread use of vampire blood and vampire organs had become commonplace and even expected in the public eye. When Sophia was too young to really comprehend, every life saved had been reported on and celebrated in the media. The first successful vampire-to-human organ transplant had been a big deal. The first vampire lung transplant had received live coverage, and the first transplant of each other major organ seemed to get equal time. The first vampire limb used to make an amputee whole had been talked about for weeks, and the sports press couldn’t stop talking about the quadruple amputee now playing ball at a professional level, thanks to the donations of a well-matched vampire. A particularly well-endowed vampire whose generous donations had altered the face of pornography got a few seconds of jokes on every channel, but it was when a vampire’s organs were proven capable of reversing reproductive failures up to and including radical hysterectomies that the news anchors figured out how to speak maturely about such delicate procedures. The first children born from couples whose reproductive organs had been replaced or restored by vampire-enhanced healthcare had proven to share their parents’ genes, and reporting on their total normalcy -no signs of dhampyrs among them- was one of the few aspects of the new reality of modern healthcare which continued to be newsworthy. When the first of the new generation of child vampires like Sophia began to reach the legal age of consent in 2012, most news outlets picked up a story or two about how children in need of transplants were finally being brought into the new, better world of vampire-enhanced healthcare.

Sophia herself did not expect her donations to get any coverage at all; it was 2017, and the world had moved on. The big medical stories were no longer in treating the debilitatingly sick, but in medical advancements which might soon be able to prevent illnesses from reaching the point of organ failure, the need for hospitalization, or any major intervention. Sophia’s donations would be saving lives and improving the quality of people’s lives, but they weren’t newsworthy. Her ability to recover from a major organ donation, to regrow whole organs or limbs, was probably the biggest thing beyond her theoretical immortality which set her apart from the living, but even that significant a difference was now considered part of the baseline; if not for humans individually, then for humanity collectively.

A collection of short poems

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From the back cover:

Notes from the Author, Yoshira Marbel:

I started this collection during a very difficult time in my life. The guy I loved dearly had lied to me, I was experiencing extremely terrible side effects from all the medication I was taking including seizures and restless leg syndrome, my very conservative family had their own opinions on my condition which they voiced regularly, and death seemed the only escape. Poetry became a constructive way for me to express my emotions honestly and to cope with all these feelings of emptiness and loneliness I had built up inside me over all these years.

As an Indian in South Africa, I come from a very religious, traditional family. And my relationship with my family is an important aspect of my life. With depression my outlook on life, my patterns of thinking all began to change and this was not acceptable. So the struggles to be true to myself and satisfy them have been long and seemingly never ending.

I hope after reading my poetry you will feel a sense of comfort in knowing that you are not alone in your sadness or, alternatively, think I am just a selfish, crazy mental patient who needs intense psychiatric help. Either way, read it and enjoy.

-Yoshira Marbel

About the Author

Yoshira Marbel is 27 years old and lives in the vibrant coastal city of Durban, South Africa. The city’s various population provide a rich tapestry of inspiration and heartbreak which endlessly fuel her writing.

You can read her blog about poetry here, or follow her on Twitter.

Why offer free eBooks & podcasts?

eBook

If you can afford to pay $2.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Directly from the publisher: Download the eBook
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The FREE eBook edition is currently available in the following formats (updated October 2011):

• PDF, 5×8″ (same as paperback)
• PDF, 8.5×11″
• .epub
• .txt
• .rtf
• .mobi, for kindle
• .lrf, for Sony Reader (only via Smashwords)
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Audiobook

• MEPod 267 – The dedication and introduction to the collection, as well as the first two poems: My Friend, and Left Behind
• MEPod 270 – Two poems: The End, and Misunderstood
• MEPod 273 – Three poems: Lost Soul, and two haikus
• MEPod 276 – Two poems: Hollow Heart, False Face
• MEPod 279 – Two poems: Euphoria, and a haiku
• MEPod 282 – Two poems: Broken, and a haiku
• MEPod 285 – Two poems: Desolate, and Jaded
• MEPod 288 – Three poems: Promised Liberation, a haiku, and Drowning
• MEPod 291 – Two poems: Heartbreak, and a haiku
• MEPod 294 – Two poems: Going Home, and The Race
• MEPod 297 – Three poems: Family, a haiku, and Cycle
• MEPod 300 – Two poems: Shattered, and Released Pain
• MEPod 303 – Two poems: Doll, and Living in Hell
• MEPod 306 – Two poems: Whole Again, and Obsessed
• MEPod 309 – Two poems: a haiku, and Cutting Death
• MEPod 312 – Two poems: Rejection, and a haiku
• MEPod 315 – Two poems: Dark Face, and Wide Open
• MEPod 318 – Two poems: Broken Anger, and a haiku
• MEPod 321 – Two poems: Escape, and Contempt
• MEPod 324 – Three poems: Miss You, and two haikus
• MEPod 327 – Two poems: a haiku, and Afterlife
• MEPod 330 – Two poems: Fake, and Fire Anger
• MEPod 333 – Three poems: Addicted, and two haikus
• MEPod 336 – Two haikus
• MEPod 339 – Two haikus, About the Author, and the Acknowledgements

Original Cover Art

‘embers of you in a sea of me’ – Original Cover Art for Unspecified acrylic on canvas	12×24″ SOLD

 
This painting was used as the starting point to design the cover of Unspecified. See more of Teel’s original artwork at wretched creature.

Three SciFi/Fantasy novels, the second half of a series of six novels

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The book’s full title(s):

From the back cover:

Brace yourself for a story where it’s coming out of rabbit holes that takes you places you’ve never expected, where enemies can quickly become trusted friends and allies, and where one man’s unconditional love for his wife may be able to save humanity and destroy the universe at the same time.

The Second Untrue Trilogy follows Trevor as he gets to know the story behind his exile on Earth, regains his memories while losing something much more precious, then finds a few friends to face off with him against a universe-spanning corporation – only to have to convince them to confront an even worse enemy instead.

This is a trilogy which features a narrative that moves forward by going backward, characters who don’t become themselves until they look like someone else, challenges to the nature of the real and the virtual, of gender and identity, and where there are mysteries that won’t be finished unravelling until the very last page.

Books in this series:

About the Author

Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker.

Teel has stated publicly that contrary to what the AIs in charge of the simulation may want you to believe -and to the thoughts they may have implanted into your mind without your knowledge- the Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction series is not based on his own attempts to escape high school by fleeing first the planet and then the universe altogether. A simple fact-check of the true nature of reality against these memoirs should not be seen as a contradiction, when Teel’s life bears no resemblance to reality.

Teel would like to remind his readers that even if it were true that they’re all only virtual people populating his own private simulated world, a claim he has purported to have refuted time and again, he has no intention of deleting them and their world from existence, out of boredom, on a whim, and without a second look. Teel insists he’d first have to access the simulation at least one more time to retrieve a copy of the Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction series, as he’s never made a backup of it in the real world. Then he could delete you.

Teel is happily married to an English teacher and they live together in Phoenix, AZ with a cat which does not appreciate having Teel read his books aloud to it nearly as much as you probably would. While satisfied with never having to shovel the desert’s heat from his driveway, Teel is interested in experiencing more travel in his life—especially of sorts like “through time” and “to other planets,” so feel free to invite him along if you’re going.

Follow him on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Goodreads

Why offer free eBooks & podcasts?

eBook

If you can afford to pay $5.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Directly from the author: Download the eBook
• Amazon
• Apple
• Barnes & Noble
• Sony
• Goodreads
• Smashwords

The FREE eBook edition is currently available in the following formats (updated March 2011):

• PDF, 5×8″ (same as paperback)
• PDF, 8.5×11″
• .epub
• .txt
• .rtf
• .mobi, for kindle
• .lrf, for Sony Reader (only via Smashwords)
• .pdb, for Palm devices (only via Smashwords)

Audiobook

The MP3 Audiobook version is available exclusively as a digital download at this time. This audiobook is made available DRM-free, though considering the free podcast version is still available, your respect in not re-distributing the provided ZIP file is appreciated: Download the Audiobook

If you cannot afford to pay for the audiobook, please enjoy the podcast version. The following is a list of links to all episodes of The Second Untrue Trilogy on the Modern Evil Podcast:

Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past,
Book Four: Explorations of Ridiculous Realities
-or- Corporation and Collusion
-or- How to Subvert Corporatocracy

• Episode 1 – In which Trevor, Toni, their daughter, and Nirgal briefly meet the captain of the ship which abducted them from Earth, then Toni begins to tell the story of how she and Trevor first began to explore the universe.
• Episode 2 – In which Trevor and Toni attempt to visit a museum, and find that even such a simple experience is marred by the bureaucracy of the corporation, then purchase a space ship and set out into the universe.
• Episode 3 – In which Trevor learns how to access the universe’s knowledge from any terminal, Toni picks a few planets to visit first, and Toni talks about their first impressions of the universe-spanning corporation and its planet-spanning bureaucracies.
• Episode 4 – In which Trevor and Toni meet the people of Waterstone Five, a class five corporate colony, get a tour of their unusual amenities, and learn about their day to day work.
• Episode 5 – In which Trevor and Toni learn about the work and the local culture of Waterstone Five, and offer to try to assist them with some of the paperwork standing between them and a better quality of life.
• Episode 6 – In which Trevor assists Bill with filling out paperwork and ends up accidentally creating a new class of artificial intelligence in the process.
• Episode 7 – In which Trevor reconnects with class one AI after over a hundred years of being turned away, shares some intimate experiences with them, then arrives at 77 Di-Krustos, another class five colony in need of assistance.
• Episode 8 – In which Trevor enjoys a terrible, nearly-inedible meal with the citizens of 77 Di-Krustos, learns that making love with Toni has exposed an unwitting citizen to a dangerous thought crime, and then he and Toni are shown to the Di-Chroma fields by Sam and Bresk.
• Episode 9 – In which Sam and Bresk show Toni and Trevor the basics of the Di-Chroma harvesting operation, then the class one AIs make Trevor and Toni’s life worse while making the lives of everyone else in the universe better, and Bresk’s inability to love Sam dooms Toni and Trevor to centuries of meaningless arbitration.
• Episode 10 – In which Toni explains how their centuries of arbitration resulted in Trevor’s exile to Earth, then they reach their rendezvous with Pretana, head of the guild, whose petulance and power create a new challenge for Trevor to overcome, and he comes up with an equally challenging solution.

 
Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past,
Book Five: The Bloodless Battles
-or- Conscription and Revelation
-or- How To Break Into Prison

• Episode 1 – In which Trevor and Toni return to Earth to try to recruit the other exiles to fight back against the corporation, beginning with the twins, whose life’s work Trevor destroyed handily (in Book Two) less than a day ago.
• Episode 2 – In which Trevor and Toni head to Heaven to convince God and the Devil to accept their lost memories and then to join the exile army & the fight against the corporation.
• Episode 3 – In which Trevor heads back to his high school with Toni to try to reconcile with the tall man, and discovers that his classmates and teachers have lost all their magical abilities.
• Episode 4 – In which Trevor talks with the exiles already on his ship, taking special time to discuss plans with Maheu’le and the other oversized exiles.
• Episode 5 – In which Trevor’s fleet of ships discovers that the entire Kuiper Belt has been made into a defense network of hundreds of thousands of automated drones, armed to the teeth and set on preventing the escape of the exiles.
• Episode 6 – In which Trevor and Jesus describe what they know about the Oubliexxe to the small group who will be heading inside to try to find Nirgal and Neyal’h.
• Episode 7 – In which the exile army takes on the Oubliexxe’s defense forces while Trevor and his shipmates follow a prison transport ship seen leaving the prison after dropping off the latest batch of prisoners, hoping to get some useful information.
• Episode 8 – In which Trevor’s crew makes final preparations, then head into the Oubliexxe and begin their search for Nirgal and Neyal’h.
• Episode 9 – In which Trevor’s team does an exhaustive search of the Oubliexxe, reaching the black hole without finding Neyal’h and Nirgal, and just after they cross the event horizon, Pretana’s ship shows up outside with shocking news.
• Episode 10 – In which Jesus confronts Pretana then finds himself continuing his search of the Oubliexxe sans Toni and Trevor, who meanwhile end up discussing the fate of the universe, of humanity, and of Nirgal & Neyal’h with an old friend who has new information.

 
Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past,
Book Six: Waking To The Truth
-or- Explanation and Supplication
-or- How To Resolve An Apocalypse

• Episode 1 – In which Jesus describes the events which led to the development of the simulation they’re all taking part in.
• Episode 2 – In which Trevor and Toni describe the initial appearance of The Radiant Empire on Ersetu and the changes to everyone’s lives they began systematically to make.
• Episode 3 – In which Toni and Trevor describe how they met and fell in love, then how things went bad for humanity at the hands of the Radiant and how their wedding took them by surprise.
• Episode 4 – In which Toni describes her parents’ death, then Trevor and Toni continue with the story of how they survived the Radiant and ended up at the location of the underground facility.
• Episode 5 – In which Toni describes how she stumbled upon the facility’s secret location, as the Devil’s frustration continues to grow, and Majel describes how Trevor and Toni’s changes to her systems turned into a galaxy-spanning nano-network.
• Episode 6 – In which Trevor and Toni are finally reunited with Nirgal and Neyal’h, explain what’s really going on, and everyone wakes up from stasis.
• Episode 7 – In which the remnant of humanity follows Trevor across Ersetu’s skies, taking in the extent to which the Radiant have rewritten their world, then face off against the Radiant at the foot of the Seal.
• Episode 8 – In which a representative of the Radiant explains the events that led to the near-annihilation of humanity, then Trevor and Toni have to decide how they’ll respond in light of the new information.
• Episode 9 – In which Majel decides to become a living human, and shows Trevor and the others how they can use the same technology to bring anyone they like from the simulation to real life.
• Episode 10 – In which the various futures of Trevor and Toni, Nirgal and Neyal’h, Jessie and Stan, Majel and the AIs, Christianity and The Radiant Empire, are briefly described, along with one explanation for the books you’ve just finished.

Details on each of the three novels:

Available as:
Podcast; 10 episodes (complete), FREE

About the book

 
Book Five: The Bloodless Battles
-or- Conscription and Revelation
-or- How To Break Into Prison
by Teel McClanahan III, Copyright © 2011
A SciFi/Fantasy novel

Available as:
Podcast; 10 episodes (complete), FREE

About the book:

 
Book Six: Waking To The Truth
-or- Explanation and Supplication
-or- How To Resolve An Apocalypse
by Teel McClanahan III, Copyright © 2011
A SciFi/Fantasy novel

Available as:
Podcast; 10 episodes (complete), FREE

About the book:

Three SciFi/Fantasy novels, the first half of a series of six novels

Available as:
Paperback; 358pp, ISBN:978-1-934516-41-6, $12.99
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-49-2, $3.99 or FREE
Audiobook; 14hr 30mins, $12.99
Podcast; 30 episodes (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
eBook Audiobook Paperback + eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords – IndieBound

The book’s full title(s):

From the back cover:

Whether being attacked by the teachers he’s supposed to be able to trust, seduced by beautifully identical sisters with sinister intent, psychicly crippled by sympathetic birth pains, or forced to play a rigged game against the Devil in order to win his friends’ freedom, Trevor’s every move is dictated by the compulsion to find love.

Sexual love, brotherly love, parental love, naive love, polyamourous love, self-love, love of learning, love of freedom, and unconditional true love that breaks all boundaries and opens new doors are all part of Trevor’s journey in The First Untrue Trilogy, and he is not the only one whose love plays a part in its unfolding events.

The first half of the Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past series is a gradual unfolding of hidden truths, a walk from ignorance to intimacy, with secret societies, afterlife realities, and gender identities. It will set you on a collision course with the second half, in which reality unfolds twice as fast.

Books in this series:

About the Author

Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker.

Teel denies claims by certain members of the underworld and a particular “pope” in the “Holy Roman Church” that the Trevor character from his Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction series is modeled after his own adolescence, and goes on to assert that as far as he knows he hasn’t yet put the world in as much danger as his own reproduction would imply or saved mankind from any religious organizations trying to take over the world.  The fact that he also refers to the entire series as included in his ongoing attempt to document his life in memoirs is an idea that should not be considered a contradiction of this.

Teel has semi-publicly stated that any and all inquiries regarding the management and operations of the underworld should be directed to your deity or deities of choice in triplicate, whereupon the goldenrod copy will go through the appropriate channels and eventually make its way into his hands and/or compost heap.  The fact that he acknowledges that the suggestion has been made by certain off-world corporate interests that this book series represents a breach of the terms of his exile should not be considered admission of any guilt on Teel’s part.

Teel is happily married to an English teacher and they live together in Phoenix, AZ with a cat which does not appreciate having Teel read his books aloud to it nearly as much as you probably would. While satisfied with never having to shovel the desert’s heat from his driveway, Teel is interested in experiencing more travel in his life—especially of sorts like “through time” and “to other planets,” so feel free to invite him along if you’re going.

Follow him on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Goodreads

Why offer free eBooks & podcasts?

eBook

If you can afford to pay $3.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Directly from the author: Download the eBook
• Amazon
• Apple
• Barnes & Noble
• Sony
• Goodreads
• Smashwords

The FREE eBook edition is currently available in the following formats (updated March 2011):

• PDF, 5×8″ (same as paperback)
• PDF, 8.5×11″
• .epub
• .txt
• .rtf
• .mobi, for kindle
• .lrf, for Sony Reader (only via Smashwords)
• .pdb, for Palm devices (only via Smashwords)

Audiobook

The MP3 Audiobook version is available exclusively as a digital download at this time. This audiobook is made available DRM-free, though considering the free podcast version is still available, your respect in not re-distributing the provided ZIP file is appreciated: Download the Audiobook

If you cannot afford to pay for the audiobook, please enjoy the podcast version. The following is a list of links to all episodes of The First Untrue Trilogy on the Modern Evil Podcast:

Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past,
Book One: An Introduction to Dodgeball
-or- Conception and Induction
-or- How to Begin an Apocalypse

• Episode 1 – In which Trevor has a vivid sexual fantasy that the object of his imagination seems to experience as well, and the next day gets ready for and then walks to school, letting his imagination wander to a particularly ominous vision of himself being watched in an unusual, magical way, on his way there.
• Episode 2 – In which Hannah experiences the most disastrous of mornings, ending up hospitalized, Trevor begins exploring the most mundane details of other people’s daily lives in his imagination with remarkable clarity, and two doctors make an unethical decision regarding Hannah’s unexpected medical mystery.
• Episode 3 – In which Trevor takes a journey of the mind, hopping from person to person and place to place at a thought, growing better and better at getting into the innermost thoughts of other people, and finally reaching the mind of Betty, one of his classmates, to try to learn what he imagines she thinks of him.
• Episode 4 – In which Trevor is transported magically by Sqrat to a school he’d thought he’d only imagined existed, learns he’s to be a student there, and quite suddenly finds he knows more than enough magic -and the world’s secret history- to be able to fit in come Monday morning.
• Episode 5 – In which Trevor gets ready for his first day at his new school with only a couple of missteps before he makes it out his front door, makes a good first impression in the hallway before class, and then finds himself fitting in and performing well during first hour.
• Episode 6 – In which Trevor attends his English class without incident, then finds himself in P.E. – where he gets a very fast and harsh introduction to Dodgeball as he’s never seen it before.
• Episode 7 – In which Trevor, in only a couple of highly dramatic plays, wins the dodgeball match for his team without even a basic grasp of its rules, then turns down an offer to join the school’s dodgeball team.
• Episode 8 – In which Trevor finds that having Sunshine’s first-hand memories of watching history unfold makes sitting through a bad history class unbearable, then experiences his first direct magical attack.
• Episode 9 – In which the tall stranger, trapped in a darkness thick and clinging like living tar, attempts to steal Trevor’s satchel, then Mrs. Leeds is confronted by Sunshine, and finally Trevor sees how interesting -and mathematical- the exploration of magical ethics can be.
• Episode 10 – In which Trevor lets his mind wander from his last class of the day, the hospital finally informs Hannah’s parents of her condition, and the stunning conclusion of Book One sets up the events of Book Two.

 
Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past,
Book Two: The Twofold Invasion
-or- Penetration and Destruction
-or- How to Make Love With Twins

• Episode 1 – In which Trevor has an idea that helps his team win the National Dodgeball Championship, and the search for the mother of his unborn child continues unsuccessfully on multiple fronts.
• Episode 2 – In which the outcome of the co-ed championship game leaves the audience dumbstruck, and Trevor and his twin girlfriends go to their place and work through the inevitable awkwardness preceding any teenagers’ first time.
• Episode 3 – In which Trevor, Kay, and Elle experience the mind-bending sensuality of teenage sexual passion enhanced and multiplied by their intense psychic mental connections, until Trevor senses something is not quite right in his girlfriends’ minds.
• Episode 4 -In which Sunshine helps Trevor escape from being naked, paralyzed, and in the thrall of the hivemind, then after being psychically attacked by it they, together with Kay, go to the Wolyd Centre to get professional help.
• Episode 5 – In which the experts at the Wolyd Centre fail to develop any solutions or ideas after a week of observation and speculation and Sunshine decides to take action, waking Trevor and Kay only to discover more dark secrets.
• Episode 6 – In which Trevor’s enemies plot against him, Kay wakes up in a panic, and Trevor -upon learning the true strength of those holding his daughters captive- nearly gives up the fight.
• Episode 7 – In which Trevor tries to cope with experiencing Hannah’s intense labor pains while assembling a small team to attempt a rescue mission for his daughters, and they face their first challenge on the doorstep of a cathedral.
• Episode 8 – In which Trevor and his compatriots too easily overcome the congregants of the church they’d thought was their target, meet a large two-headed woman who explains how wrong they were and who puts the challenge ahead into perspective, then inform the second wave of their invading force of wizards and warriors of their revised plans.
• Episode 9 – In which Trevor, after spontaneously kissing one of the wizards of the second wave, remembers how to locate Hannah, whereupon the true battle for the lives of his unborn children finally comes within his reach.
• Episode 10 – In which the ongoing battle against the twins comes to a bloody and disgusting end, Sqrat is reunited with his master, and in the end the only way out is for Trevor to willingly open the doors to Hell.

 
Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction – Recollections of an Alternate Past,
Book Three: Escape From Exile
-or- Confusion and Contraction
-or- How To Get Out Of Hell

• Episode 1 – In which Trevor meets Satan, is distracted by his nefarious fireplace, and negotiates for the release of his party from Hell.
• Episode 2 – In which Satan has a bit of a breakdown in front of Trevor, Jurrin battles a demonic horde of misshapen beasts, and what appears to be all four party members together flee the dark church, escaping into Hell.
• Episode 3 – In which Nirgal discusses the size and shape of Hell with his traveling companions, then sings with a whirlwind/demon to negotiate the party’s delivery from Hell directly to the Wolyd Centre.
• Episode 4 – In which Nirgal eats breakfast, sings some more, and is drawn into an unbelievably detailed sexual encounter with a ghost-like nurse.
• Episode 5 – In which Nirgal’s first sexual encounter is transformed into an impossibly fast and visible reproductive act within an imagined biology at the whim of an ancient goddess, then finally finds out that his recent experiences may not have been at all what they’d seemed.
• Episode 6 – In which Nirgal is nearly convinced to destroy the Gollum, then is reunited with his original party only to watch Trevor agree to duel the devil for a chance to free his friends.
• Episode 7 – In which Trevor plays an intense, violent, and chaotic dodgeball game against Satan and the damned, then comes to terms with an outcome that is both somewhat less and far more than he’d expected it to be.
• Episode 8 – In which Trevor, Nirgal, and the Gollum share memories, come up with a plan that will allow the living to escape Hell, and take the ‘scenic route’ out of it.
• Episode 9 – In which Trevor and Nirgal find themselves at the End of The World Ball where Trevor addresses the crowd, sings them a song, dances with a beautiful young woman he’d never met before, and -ignoring a violent interruption- kisses her.
• Episode 10 – In which the tall stranger explains Trevor’s true place in the world, Trevor’s daughters make a shocking reappearance, then without much warning an unexpected authority extracts Trevor (and other anomalies) from the room.

Details on each of the three novels:

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-43-0, $2.99*
Podcast; 10 episodes (complete), FREE

Order from:
Amazon – *Book One by itself, as an eBook, is an Amazon KDP Select exclusive, always available for free to Amazon Prime members.

About the book

Transferred to a school where they teach subjects ranging from the mathematics of magical ethics to the secret histories of the magical world, Trevor tries to fit in to a student body who believes his existence has been foretold by prophecy – and that he might cause the end of the universe as they know it. Some of the students, and even a few of the teachers, are willing to risk lives and their own ethical balance to stop Trevor from fulfilling his potential, while he just wants to get through his first day at a new school.

Add the menacing conspiracy of three dark figures -two of whom work at the school- and the fact that Trevor accidentally got a girl pregnant when he thought he’d only been fantasizing about her, plus a P.E. teacher who thrusts him into a game of dodgeball where Trevor has to quickly adapt to avoiding balls of fire, lightning, and worse, and the first book of Untrue Tales gets the series off to a potentially apocalyptic start.

 
Book Two: The Twofold Invasion
-or- Penetration and Destruction
-or- How to Make Love With Twins
by Teel McClanahan III, Copyright © 2005-2011
A SciFi/Fantasy novel

Available as:
Podcast; 10 episodes (complete), FREE

About the book:

 
Book Three: Escape From Exile
-or- Confusion and Contraction
-or- How To Get Out Of Hell
by Teel McClanahan III, Copyright © 2006-2011
A SciFi/Fantasy novel

Available as:
Podcast; 10 episodes (complete), FREE

About the book:

A Horror short story

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-72-0, $1.99
Podcast; 1 episode (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
Download the eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords

Story Description:

About the Author

Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker.

Teel is happily married to an English teacher and they live together in Phoenix, AZ with a cat which does not appreciate having Teel read his books aloud to it nearly as much as you probably would. While satisfied with never having to shovel the desert’s heat from his driveway, Teel is interested in experiencing more travel in his life—especially of sorts like “through time” and “to other planets,” so feel free to invite him along if you’re going.

Follow him on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Goodreads

Why offer free eBooks & podcasts?

eBook

If you can afford to pay $1.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Directly from the author: Download the eBook
• Amazon
• Apple
• Barnes & Noble
• Sony
• Goodreads
• Smashwords

Podcast Audio

Original Cover Art

‘Last Christmas’ – Original Cover Art acrylic on canvas	10×8″ SOLD

 
This painting was designed and painted specifically to create the cover for the eBook version of Last Christmas. See more of Teel’s original artwork at wretched creature.

Science Fiction short stories and essays

Available as:
Paperback; 202pp, ISBN:978-1-934516-07-2, $10.99
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-65-2, $3.99 or FREE
Audiobook; 6hr 8mins, $10.99
Podcast; 17 episodes (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
eBook Audiobook Paperback + eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords – IndieBound

From the back cover:

Hard science fiction written to stimulate your mind without forgetting you have a heart.

Stories and essays include:

• Second Thoughts
• The Shape of Time
• Time, emiT, and Time Again
• Unstuck From Time
• Oracular Offspring
• This Sixth Day
• Family Forward
• All a Dream
• Iteration, Interruption
• Buying Time

About the Author

Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker.

Teel is happily married to an English teacher and they live together in Phoenix, AZ with a cat which does not appreciate having Teel read his books aloud to it nearly as much as you probably would. While satisfied with never having to shovel the desert’s heat from his driveway, Teel is interested in experiencing more travel in his life—especially of sorts like “through time” and “to other planets,” so feel free to invite him along if you’re going.

Follow him on: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Goodreads

Why offer free eBooks & podcasts?

eBook

If you can afford to pay $3.99, you have your choice of eBookstores and eReaders, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Directly from the author: Download the eBook
• Amazon
• Apple
• Barnes & Noble
• Sony
• Google
• Goodreads
• Smashwords

The FREE eBook edition is currently available in the following formats (updated January 2011):

• on the web (HTML/weblit/blog)
• PDF, 5×8″ (same as paperback)
• PDF, 8.5×11″
• .epub
• .txt
• .rtf
• .mobi, for kindle
• .lrf, for Sony Reader (only via Smashwords)
• .pdb, for Palm devices (only via Smashwords)

Audiobook

The MP3 Audiobook version is available exclusively as a digital download at this time. You can buy the audiobook from Audible, or if you buy it directly from the author you can get the MP3 Audiobook without DRM; though considering the free podcast version is still available, your respect in not re-distributing the provided ZIP file is appreciated: Download the Audiobook

If you cannot afford to pay for the audiobook, please enjoy the podcast version. The following is a list of links to all episodes of Time, emiT, and Time Again on the Modern Evil Podcast:

• Second Thoughts
    Part 1 of 3 | Part 2 of 3 | Part 3 of 3
• The Shape of Time
• Time, emiT, and Time Again
    Part 1 of 3 | Part 2 of 3 | Part 3 of 3
• Unstuck From Time
• Oracular Offspring
    Part 1 of 2 | Part 2 of 2
• This Sixth Day
• Family Forward
    Part 1 of 3 | Part 2 of 3 | Part 3 of 3
• All a Dream
• Iteration, Interruption
    Part 1 of 2 | Part 2 of 2
• Buying Time

Original Cover Art

‘Time, emiT, and Time Again’ – Original Cover Art acrylic on canvas	18×36″ SOLD

 
This painting was designed and painted specifically to create the cover of Time, emiT, and Time Again. See more of Teel’s original artwork at wretched creature.

Details on each story/essay:

Second Thoughts

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-66-9, $1.99
Podcast; 3 episodes (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
Download the eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords

Story Description:

This is a story about finding yourself so stuck in seeking the same somebody that you become unstuck from the world.

This is a story about love, and about waiting.

The Shape of Time

Available as:
Podcast; 1 episode (complete), FREE

Description:

Time, emiT, and Time Again

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-67-6, $1.99
Podcast; 3 episodes (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
Download the eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords

Story Description:

Unstuck From Time

Available as:
Podcast; 1 episode (complete), FREE

Description:

Oracular Offspring

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-68-3, $1.99
Podcast; 2 episodes (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
Download the eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords

Story Description:

In this short story, Harold and Anne are faced with questions like these in the wake of the devastating loss of their first child—created and born naturally, rather than technologically.

This Sixth Day

Available as:
Podcast; 1 episode (complete), FREE

Description:

Family Forward

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-69-0, $1.99
Podcast; 3 episodes (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
Download the eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords

Story Description:

All a Dream

Available as:
Podcast; 1 episode (complete), FREE

Description:

Iteration, Interruption

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-70-6, $1.99
Podcast; 2 episodes (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
Download the eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords

Story Description:

Buying Time

Available as:
eBook; ISBN:978-1-934516-71-3, $0.99
Podcast; 1 episode (complete), FREE

Buy directly:
Download the eBook

Or order from your favorite bookseller:
Amazon – Apple – Barnes & Noble – Sony – Smashwords

Story Description: