Dear Reader…
Thanks for being a reader. You’re the reason for the season.
Let me tell you about my latest release, Dieback.
Six hundred years after a
fifteenth century scryer gains the alchemical knowledge to create a dark future
in his own image, Addison Shaw inherits a destiny: to fight this ancient war
that threatens all he loves with extinction. Using an alchemical pen, he writes
himself into past lives, leaving his body in the present. Upon completion of
his mission, he must die in order to break the link and return home. While his
enemy, Kairos, plays a three-dimensional chess game across the centuries, with
each ‘Inking’, Addison’s world shifts further into chaos. From ancient Alexandria to modern Tokyo, Addison and his fellow Inker, Jules, fight a time war
against Kairos. After Jules is murdered in the present and her consciousness
trapped in an Inca princess five hundred years in the past, Addison,
alone and close to defeat, realizes that the only way to save his world is to
destroy it.
To save the future he must die in the past, and as often as
possible.
You might wonder where a story
like this comes from. People who know me would say a twisted mind. LOL. But
actually, it started with a fountain pen. I was holding a fountain pen one day
and my mind wandered to the power of words. Human beings have been naming
things since the beginnings of language. It’s how we find our place in the
world and in some cases I think, gives us a sense of control. Or at least the
illusion of control. So, what would happen if a character had a pen filled with
alchemical ink that when he wrote the name and a date for someone living in the
past, his consciousness would be transported into that person? What would he do
with that astounding capability? And as with most technology, what if someone
decided to use the alchemy to acquire power and control time itself? How would
the protagonist fend off this attack on the time continuum and reality as he
knows it? And then I put the fountain pen down, pulled out the laptop, and
started writing.
Some of the experiences have a
grounding in life. For example, I’m a private pilot, so the flying scenes,
while not based on specific experiences, are grounded in my knowledge of
flying. My dad was a bombardier on a B-17 during WW II. He actually did the
low-level bombing of Japanese ships off the coast of Guadalcanal
described in the book and I’ve crawled around the interior of a B-17 to
research the scene. And the scene set in an altered present Austin
occurs in an actual place I researched for the book.
The story goes all over the
world, past, present, and future. Ancient Alexandria, Egypt; modern Tokyo; WWI
France, fifteenth century England, an altered present Austin and Seattle; WWII
Guadalcanal; and fifteenth century Peru to name a few. As the story unfolds the
time continuum shifts, sometimes with subtle changes and sometimes with radical
shifts in culture and technology. And my characters have to play on this
multi-dimensional chessboard. So, I’m sure you can imagine, I had to be
structured to the point of working from an outline and making notes to myself
at the end of each writing session to keep me oriented.
But what drives a story are
characters. I think you’ll find the protagonist, Addison Shaw, to be both an
interesting and a complicated guy. He has a deep guilt and sense of
responsibility for the death of a girlfriend when he rolled their car on a
mountain road in a snowstorm. He carries the scars of that night, emotionally
and physically with a damaged knee requiring him to use a cane to walk. He went
from school athlete to disabled loner. As the story progresses, he will face
even greater challenges and will have to find a way to heal himself enough to
move forward. He’s also a bit of a smart ass, a little compulsive, more shy
than he’d like you to think, and willing to act even when he’s terrified.
As you know, in the fantasy
world many of the books lean toward the fantastical in a unique fantasy world
far from our own reality. Dieback has
its feet on the ground, anchored in the actual. There’s a sense that, even
though the story is fantasy, the speculative and historical elements feel very
possible. I once heard someone (Ken Burns?) say the attraction of professional
baseball is that you can watch in the stands and think you can actually play
the game. But of course, it takes tremendous skill to hit a 95 mph fastball.
But it sure is fun imagining the possibility! In Dieback, readers can realistically imagine they could do the things
these characters are doing. Is seems possible. Which I think is an important
message in our day and time. When life looks hopeless, when everything seems to
be turned upside, the people who make a difference are not super heroes, but
people like you and me, people who persevere in spite of the odds and do the
best we can.
Thanks again for being a
reader. Please check out Dieback on
Amazon. For fun, go check out the trailer for the book. https://youtu.be/qesyHscyzNM. And I’d
love to hear from you. Visit my website, www.richardhacker.com
and drop me a line.
About the Author
Richard Hacker is a longtime
resident of Austin, Texas who now writes and lives in Seattle.
His writing has been
recognized by the Writer’s League of Texas and the Pacific Northwest Writers
Association. In addition to his writing, he provides editing services to other
writers and is the editor of an online science fiction and fantasy journal, Del
Sol Review. His three published humorous crime novels ride the sometimes thin
line between fact and fiction in Texas. DIE
BACK, his first fantasy thriller novel, has been published by Del Sol
Press.
When not writing he’s singing
in a vocal jazz ensemble, cooking with a sous vide and a blow torch, or
exploring the Pacific Northwest with his wife and his springer spaniel, Jazz.
Website Link: http://www.richardhacker.com
Twitter Link: @Richard_Hacker
Facebook Link: http://www.facebook.com/RWHacker
About the Book:
In 272 AD Egypt, an enemy thwarts an attempt by League Inkers, Thomas Shaw
and Nikki Babineaux, to obtain the Alchįmeia, a document holding
alchemical secrets. Sensing his impending death, Thomas secures Nikki’s promise
to keep his son, Addison, from the League, an organization defending the time
continuum. After his father’s death, Addison inherits a mysterious pen,
Fixated on the pen, Addison inks into a B-17 bombardier in 1943. The pilot,
whose consciousness has been taken over by someone calling himself Kairos,
gloats over killing Addison’s father and boasts of plans to destroy the League.
As Kairos attempts to wrest Addison’s consciousness, Nikki shocks Addison out
of the Inking. She confesses her knowledge of
the League. When Kairos threatens to steal aviation technology, she she
sends Addison and his partner, Jules, to an Army test of the Wright Flyer in
1908. Believing they have succeeded, they return to find the continuum shifted
and Nikki knowing nothing about the League.
Inking back to his father’s mission in Alexandria, Addison and Jules hope
to get his help in returning the time continuum to its original state. Instead,
Addison’s father gives him the Alchįmeia to hide in a crypt at the Great
Lighthouse on Phalos. On their return to the present a Kairos agent murders
Jules, her consciousness Inked into the past. Addison follows the clues, Inking
into Pizarro in 16th century Peru. He finds Jules in the child bride of the
Inca emperor. His plan to find the technology and save Jules without destroying
the Inca civilization is thwarted by a fleet of Inca airships. Captured, he is
taken to Machu Picchu. With Jules help, they find the stolen schematics, but are
confronted by Kairos. He stabs Addison, forcing Addison’s consciousness back to
the present and traps Jules in the 16th Century. Addison returns to another
altered world. Nikki no longer exists, the world is at war with the Inca, and
Manhattan lay in ruins.
Addison
Inks his father, learning the origins of the League. Thomas urges Addison to
uncover their enemy with the help of his colleague, Maya. Putting suspicion on
another inker, Cameron, she insists he
must be killing Inkers and acquiring Pens. In a final attempt to stop him, they
entrap Cameron, only for Addison to discover Maya is Kairos, his enemy. She kills Cameron, also wounding
Addison. He chases Maya, who intimates that
she holds his mother’s, Rebecca’s, consciousness. Confused he delays, giving
her time to scrawl a name with her pen before shooting her dead.
Inked away when Maya died,
Kairos finds himself, not in his intended host, Hitler, but in a German
infantry soldier POW in the Ardenne during the Battle of the Bulge, WWII.
Hoping to repair the shift in the time continuum, Addison brings the League
Pens together with the fate of the world and everyone he loves at stake. He
awakens to a dissimilar world, but Jules and Nikki exist. And with life there
is always hope.
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