Excerpt from James Wymore's Theocracide

Are you guys ready to finally read the promised excerpt from James Wymore's Theocracide? I'm ready to read it again! Which is why I am going to waste very little time in getting to it. I am only going to remind you that you can win your very own copy by entering Curiosity Quills' Photo Contest for Theocracide and that you can purchase the book on Barnes & Noble and Amazon (I'll remind you of the links for purchase again at the end when I am certain you will be ready to buy your copy!).

And now, without further jibber-jabber from me, get your first taste of Theocracide.

Willing his feet to remain silent, Jason Hunt concentrated on the ground as he weaved between the outstretched claws of the trees. The lens on his computer helped him see despite the heavy blackness of night. He deliberately lifted each foot higher to avoid rocks and roots, which looked deceptively flat on the computer projection screen wrapped around his face like glasses. He controlled each breath so the tiniest sounds would not give away his position to the people hunting him.

Ahead he recognized the welcoming gesture of a large tree with wide branches. Nimbly he slipped around, quietly leaning his heavy pack against it and pressing in so it would support his weight and let him rest.

Risking his own safety for a moment, he quickly checked on each of his companions. They were all running from the foes, too. He knew he couldn’t help them now, but resting here, he just wanted some reassurance they weren’t dead yet. He ignored the desire to talk to them and hear their voices. It would be suicide to speak aloud now. The men chasing them were in the army of the Undying Emperor. They would not hesitate for an instant.

Jason winked his left eye, engaging the user interface of the computer. Then the computer tracked his eye movements as he raised the sensitivity of his microphone to maximum. The speakers inside each earpiece of his glasses began to hum as Jason strained to detect the faintest sound within thirty feet. Hearing none, he lowered the volume and then pulled the glasses off the front of his nose so they hung below his chin. Nobody ever did this; removing the computer.

He stared into the dark sky, waiting patiently for his eyes to adjust to the near total darkness. Only a tiny sliver of a moon illuminated the forest tonight. Enough brownish smog filled the air to block out any star light. The pollution filtered the crescent line of light behind many layers of brick red silk. Jason’s father always said something about the moon having turned to blood, but Jason didn’t know what that meant. Right now, he had to exploit the small advantage. His pursuer would never remove the computer.

Eventually his eyes could distinguish the dark gray trees from the black air. So he quietly peered around the edge of the trunk serving as his fortress and scanned the woods. Patiently he traced the ground and every silhouette; searching for any abnormality. His heart leaped when he spotted the steel toe of a black combat boot poking out from a tree trunk about forty feet away. The computer would never recognize it as anything more than a rock.

Jason pushed his glasses back into place, staying well hidden so the light from them would not give his position away. The projected light temporarily night blinded him. He ignored the blur from tears as he blinked up his computer screen and selected the tree. Immediately a dim red glow highlighted the tree among all those around him. Then he returned to the main program. He would be able to find this tree easily from any angle.

A predatory smile cracked Jason’s face. He loved the moment where the game turns; the hunted became the hunter. He knew his quarry—the highest-ranking R.O.T.C. cadet in the university. In another year’s time, he and his team would be fighting and most likely dying in the service of the Undying Emperor. Therefore, he took this game very serious. For him, this game amounted to more training.

For Jason, this game represented freedom. If he didn’t have a scholarship, he would have paid to play. His father had been training him all his life, but Jason never appreciated the value of the training until he started playing tag.

Whenever two undefeated teams played against each other the stress of the game escalated. Adrenaline pushed them to the breaking point. Whoever won would go on to represent the University against other teams at the state level.

Jason pitied his opponent as he silently slid a mock-grenade out of his pack. Memorizing the location of the trees and the path, he squeezed the grenade. It wouldn’t really explode, of course. It would just send out a scrambling signal which all the computers they wore would register as an explosion if they were nearby. Light and noise would fill their senses. Gauging the distance carefully, Jason tossed the grenade in a wide arc. Before it hit the ground, he jumped out and started running behind it.

He clasped his hands together with one forefinger pointing forward and the other curled as if around an imaginary trigger. The computer, recognizing the virtual gun, pulled up red crosshairs to indicate the target if Jason were to fire. In a real war, their backpacks would have large guns mounted on electrical motors, which automatically followed the crosshairs.

The enemy peaked out when he heard Jason’s footsteps. He took a wild shot before he saw the grenade and reversed to dive the other direction. Jason pulled his glasses down on his nose and peered over a small line above the top rim. As expected, white dots and rumbling noise filled the screen for a few seconds. It temporarily blinded his opponent who started shooting wildly in every direction hoping for a random hit.

Jason carefully leaned around the tree. Estimating where the cross would land he pulled an imaginary trigger. His computer showed the image of a bullet hitting exactly where the crosshairs indicated.

“No!” The young man’s voice roared in anger. His glasses flashed red; indicating his death in the game. “You would have killed yourself with that grenade, too!”

“This isn’t a war,” Jason said with his slightly higher but much more composed voice. “This is a game; different strategies.”

Jason Hunt pocketed the used grenade and quickly stalked away from his victim. He heard cries of cheating fade as he carefully blended back into to the wood. Jason smiled because the noise covered the sound of him quickly climbing two limbs up into a great ash tree.

Time for another tactic nobody else ever used. His father taught him to do the unexpected. Exploit the expectation of common actions in those who never do anything extraordinary. People didn’t climb trees any more. Most people didn’t leave their houses for months on end. Fewer had the physical strength or manual dexterity required to climb a tree.

Jason leaned back into a perfect saddle and clasped his hands again to pull up the crosshairs. The defeated cadet still ranted. Predictably, his temper tantrum drew two of his team members. In the deep night, the faint glow of the computer glasses they viewed the world through made an easy target. The glow radiated like a tiny lighthouse beacon. The fourth member of their team must have been defeated already. Jason grinned as he lined the shot up on the furthest enemy and fired. One second later, his glasses showed two people flashing red.

“What?” The newest camouflage clad arrival said in confusion. “I’m dead!”

The last young man in the clearing tried to jump for cover. The moment his body hit the ground, his glasses began flashing red, too.

Jason jumped down from the tree quickly. He wanted to preserve as many of his tactics from becoming public knowledge as possible. Even though his night vision glasses flashed a green boarder around the forest scene, indicating victory, he moved back into the woods and started making his way around the grouping of defeated foes.

Having accepted defeat, they began searching the forest for their enemies. Jason froze and pretended to be hiding on a rock behind a cluster of quaking aspens. He celebrated choosing this park when he randomly won the right to select the battlefield. Most of the people in the game had not set foot in a real forest before. Therefore, it gave them a big advantage.

One of the opponents spotted him and pointed him out to the others. Jason waved, but he didn’t move closer. A flashing black arrow on the screen he viewed the world through indicated the direction everybody should go so both teams could meet before starting another game or ending the session. Jason waited. He didn’t want to be alone with the three opponents. In a few minutes, the rest of his team emerged. Then he stepped out and walked over to meet the group.

“That shouldn’t count as a win,” the opposing captain barked. “That would never happen in a real war.”

Jason’s team ignored the indignant grunt. They had each scanned the stats for the game and saw Jason scored three hits. Once again, he was the hero.

“So awesome!” said the shortest member of the team. Despite his clumsiness, they kept him on the team for his contagious enthusiasm. The only member of Jason’s team “killed” today, he first took one of their enemies out. An exceptional personal victory like that made him cheer. “The snow cats are undefeated!”

“It’s not a win,” the cadet persisted. His team stood in line behind him now, refusing to concede. Obviously, they all wore the same military uniform and enormous egos would not let them admit defeat. “You can’t run up on your own grenade without dying.”

Jason put his hand out to stop his short comrade before he said something to turn this into a fight. Like Jason, his team dressed from head to foot in black. Jason said, “Dead men don’t call out to their team, revealing the position of their enemies either.”

“That’s not…” the cadet stopped short. His team would not hesitate to back his hypocrisy, but the realization of it took some of the fire from his heart.

“We’ll play again if you want,” Jason said. “But if we beat you next time, you have to concede two wins.”

“And we get to be the team who puts Regiment 21 out of the varsity championships,” added another of Jason’s group. It would mean a great deal more humiliation than losing once to an undefeated team.

“No deal,” the cadet said. Since he did all the talking, Jason assumed he was a higher rank than the rest of his team. The others hung on his words, as if waiting for the signal to attack.

The last member of Jason’s team took a turn. “Then we have no choice but to submit the video to the judges and let them decide if your claim is valid.”

Jason winked his left eye. He quickly called up a video feed of the cadet raving about unfairness while he accidentally lured his out to become easy targets. He used his hand to touch imaginary controls in space. He cut the segment and pasted it into a file. Then he sent it out so all the players in the gathering could watch it simultaneously.

The cadet’s posture slumped. He finally realized he had brought about the demise of his entire team. Without a word he winked his controls up and touched the imaginary concede button in the air. “This is not over,” he growled. “One way or another, it’s not over.”

Jason’s team cheered and laughed while the neo-military group turned and marched away. Jason regretted making an enemy. In his heart, he hoped this would teach the cadets no strategy good enough to keep you alive in war. Signing up to serve in the military of the Undying Emperor amounted to suicide. Something told him these cadets had gone too far to question it now.

“We’re going to state!” crowed the smallest team member. They all clapped each other on the back and began talking at once.

Suddenly the reverie quieted with the return of the opposing captain. His hands, posed as a gun, pointed straight at Jason’s heart. His manic face snarled beneath a real swivel mounted machine gun.

One of the snow cats tried to step forward and speak, but the wild-eyed soldier quickly shifted his aim. Instantly the electric servomotors repositioned the gun so it pointed straight at his heart. Then he snapped his hand and the gun above him back toward Jason. Jason’s team, hands in the air, stepped back instinctively from the insane captor.

He said evenly, “It’s not just a game.”

Keep reading…

http://www.amazon.com/Theocracide-ebook/dp/B00AUGVALM

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/theocracide-james-wymore/1045512065

Interview with Jason of Theocracide (by James Wymore)

Life is full of surprises. You wake up one Monday expecting to start classes, and instead find you have a stomach virus pinning you to bed (and possibly to video games for one last day). Or you have a militaristic upbringing by a paranoid and delusional father teaching you that the apocalypse is going to come crashing down on your heads at any moment only to go off to college and become a sports star. Such is the case for Jason, the 22 year old star of James Wymore's Theocracide. Jason was kind enough to stop by the blog and answer some of my questions about his life, his past, and his hopes for the future.

Question: Jason, You are quite the sports hero! What can you tell us about the war games?

Jason: The game I play is called "Tag", and it is really the only sport anybody plays live anymore.  Four people on each team go out and try to shoot each other with virtual guns.  They all wear computer glasses which scan the world and overlay pictures right on top of what they see.  So the game can be pretty intense.

Q: There can be no denying that you are quite skilled. Any plans to become a soldier yourself? Tell us why or why not.

Jason: I have no interest in becoming a soldier, at all.  I don't need to go out and die for the Undying Emperor just because he can't do it for himself.

Q: You've definitely earned the status you have now, especially after what some might call a rough childhood because of your father. What can you tell us about him and the way he raised you?

Jason: My father is a paranoid man, hiding away in the woods and trying to uncover government plots.  He forced me to train for some unknown Armageddon my entire childhood.  Of course, that made me fit enough to get a sports scholarship in college.  But that hardly makes up for having to constantly hide my embarrassing relations from everybody I meet.

Q: We hear a lot about your father, but not much about your mother. What does she think about your skills in the war games?

Jason: My mother is preoccupied with watching interactive soap operas and taking care of my sister who suffers from Alien flu... In that order.

Q:  The innovation of the glasses has caused a sort of evolution in society--some say for the good and some say for worse. What is your take on this technology?

Jason: I can't imagine life without the glasses.  But it does make me think everybody is taking it a little too far.  I mean, some of them live and die without ever leaving their house.

Q: What do you see when you put on the glasses?

Jason: Everybody has a different favorite world view.  I like my friend's view where we are all pirates.  Mine is simpler.  I see the world as Olympus and all the people as Olympians.

Q: Tell us about your girlfriend, Di. How did you meet? Was it love at first sight?

Jason: We met during an online college course.  We worked on a History project together and just kept talking when it was done.  She has an amazing world view and a very artistic eye.  She always wears fabulous virtual outfits.  So I was intrigued by her from the first moment, yes.

Q: Your father is known to be quite the conspiracy theorist and is said to live in the wilderness. Do you speak to him often? What do you think of the theories he is known to spout?

Jason: I wish my father would let somebody help him, but he wouldn't trust them.  I only see him twice a month, every other weekend.  His conspiracy theories have no relevance to my life.  Even if the government is corrupt, what difference does it make to me?  I still have my life to live.

Q: Rumor has it the Undying Emperor has taken quite an interest in you and your father. What can you tell us about that and how this new development has changed your life?

Jason: The police have been harassing me since I was a kid because my SID (security identification) box registers that I am forty-two instead of twenty-two.  It's frustrating.  Especially since I don't want them connecting me to my father by it.

Q: What are your hopes and dreams for your future?

Jason: I just want to graduate, get married, and become a pro athlete.  A nice normal life in the spotlight.  Who wouldn't want that?

***

If you want to learn more about Jason and his journey, be sure to check out Theocracide by James Wymore, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Want a chance to win your very own copy? Check back here February 1st for an excerpt from the book and a giveaway!

Interview with Author James Wymore (Theocracide)

It's Author Interview time again in my corner of the blogosphere and I am more than thrilled to announce that today's victim willing participant is none other than my amazing mentor for the Haunted Writing Clinic and Contest, James Wymore.

Yes, I am pausing for applause. Why? Because he deserves it! I'm clapping, dangit. And you will be too by the end of this interview. This is actually the first stop on my blog for the Curiosity Quills Sci-Fi Tour, so if sci-fi is your thing, make sure you check back here for more on James as well as his cohorts in this tour, Thea Gregory and Anthony Mathenia. And some giveaways, of course. ;) For more information on Theocracide (and most importantly, where you can purchase it), you can find the blurb following the interview.

Question: Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the questions, let's start with your book Theocracide. What can you tell us about your main character, Jason, and the trouble he is about to be in?

James Wymore: Jason has grown up with a secret.  Everybody considers his father crazy and he spent his youth listening to conspiracy theories and heresy.  The up-side to it all came when Jason went to college and found the doomsday training he hated as a child made him strong and skilled so he excelled at sports enough to get a scholarship and lead a championship team.  The down-side is that police are constantly harassing him and he has to try and keep all of it a secret from his new girlfriend.

Q: What was your inspiration for Theocracide?

JW: The inspiration for this book came spread out over decades.  I thought of the rail cars in high school.  I came up with the idea for an Undying Emperorin the middle of teaching a science class one day.  The idea for computer glasses hit me when I was waiting for somebody at the dentist.  I started drawing and writing in the end pages of a paperback I brought to read.  Eventually all the ideas kind of fused in my mind and I knew I had to write this book.

Q: Your biography mentions that you were a teacher before you decided to start writing on a more serious level (like when you wrote The Forbidden Novels in high school). More often than not, we find that authors have to balance writing with the lives they lead and the jobs they already have. What can you tell us about what your process was when you first ventured back into novel-writing territory? How did you balance your life with your dreams?

JW: Life always came first.  I had time to write in high school, of course.  During college and starting a family I only wrote a few short stories here and there.  Then as I settled into a career and my kids grew, I gradually found more time to write again.  I spent a disproportionate amount of time on brainstorming and world building at first.  It took a long time to work through a novel.  Eventually I started taking it more seriously.  I found I had to cut back on other pursuits (games, video games, television) in order to free up more time for writing.  I still envy authors who don't need a day job.  I know my work would improve much faster if I could dedicate myself to it full time.  I'm hoping to get to there in time.

Q: Writing science fiction can seem like a daunting task for some authors because of the science aspect of the genre. What kind of research did you do for Theocracide?

JW: This book doesn't have as much science in it as most sci-fi.  It's set in the future.  However, the technological advances are really all in the computer glasses.  Everybody wears a pair of wrap around, clear glasses which use a camera to scan the world and then project images right over what they see.  So people literally see whatever they want to.  This over-stimulated, media based culture has led to a decline in many technologies because most people spend their time in the virtual world.  It mentions space travel and time travel, but only in passing.

Q: Are you more of a pantser or a plotter when writing a novel?

JW: I am more of a pantser.  I've written both ways, but as this book progressed I found the characters and situations often surprised me.  In fact when the ending came, it crashed down all at once, leaving me in shock.  It's a real rush.  I recommend it to anybody.

Q: Theocracide has been published with Curiosity Quills Press. What has your experience been like with them?

JW: I have loved working with CQ from the beginning.  Everybody I worked with there has been awesome.  When I submitted my work, I didn't realize what a great business model they have.  It's different from any other publisher I've looked at.  As the publishing industry changes around new communication and distribution systems made possible by the Internet (Amazon, print on demand books, etc) everybody in the business has been looking for the best way utilize the new technology.  Of all the places I've looked at, CQ has the best, most forward thinking structure.  I really believe this company will grow exponentially.

Q: Did you always set out to publish with Curiosity Quills, or did you try querying agents with Theocracide first?

JW: I tried other agents and publishers before CQ without any success.  However, some of the early drafts I sent out needed work.  I'm sure CQ wouldn't have wanted it before I did the later drafts.  Now I am glad it worked out the way it did.  There are a lot of advantages to publishing through them, which will play out better in the long run.

Q: As someone who has served as an amazing mentor for authors looking to get published (no bias here, of course), what sort of advice can you give writers working on their query letters?

JW: (Thanks!)  What I recommend for query letters is planning to write several drafts.  Start by writing a general query you can later tailor to each publisher or agent.  I've found every time I change something to be more clear or include more details, it becomes clinical and loses the most important ingredient-- voice.  The way I found to fix it is to work on one letter until it has all the right details in it.  Then, toss it out and write a new one completely from scratch.  The new one will have the right information, but in a fresh voice.  It took me several tries to finally get the right combination of information and voice in my query letters.

Q: You have your writing soundtrack for Theocracide linked on your website. How do you choose the songs for your soundtrack? Do they have a particular draw or beat or is it more about the inspiration for particular scenes that pulls you to them?

JW: Music has always been important to me.  When I write I often play music to match the mood of what I'm writing.  So when I saw some writers putting soundtracks out for their books, I knew I wanted to.  I have a pretty big collection of music and as I build a book I collect songs matching the themes or ideas into a playlist.  By the end I pare it down into a soundtrack.  I did all the editing rewrites for Theocracide to this soundtrack exclusively.

Q: What is ahead for your writerly future?

JW: I already have a second book under contract with another publisher.  Exacting Essence will be out soon from Wolf on Water Publishing.  I also have a book entered in the Curiosity Quills Press Na-No Virtuosos contest.  It's called Salvation and anybody who sees this, I'd appreciate you going to the website to vote for me!  I have two short stories coming out in themed anthologies inspired by Kurt Vonnegut and H. G. Wells, as well.  Of course the long term goal is to get to where I can be writing full time.

*insert applause here*

News headlines in the future repeat endlessly. Aliens bent on conquering the world close in on a weakened America. Epidemic alien-flu leaves people afraid to go outside their homes. America, led by the Undying Emperor, is drafting people of all ages despite the plummeting world population. Nobody really cares. They live in a fantasy facilitated by computer glasses, which project images right over the parts of the world they don’t like.

With a sports scholarship and an amazing girlfriend, Jason had it all. As captain, he led his college team from one victory to another. His new love, Di, created digital artist in a world where life didn’t exist outside of the virtual. As long as they ignored the constant barrage of terrible news, their lives would turn out to be perfect. Perfect, except for Jason’s secret.

Jason liked to imagine his family was just dysfunctional in the usual ways. He easily concealed his father’s rampant paranoia because the man lived alone in the wilderness like a hermit. In a world where everybody saw whatever they wanted, nobody noticed Jason’s father. But when Jason goes to visit, his father drops a bomb on him. Jason’s very existence is a heresy against the Undying Emperor. People would burn him at the stake if anybody found out. Also, his father secretly dedicated his life to finding and assassinating the theocrat.

Why did his father wait so long to tell him this? Because he didn’t want to worry Jason until the government found out. Why was he telling the secret now? The government just found out. They are coming to get them both.

Theocracide is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Want more of Theocracide? Check back here on January 15th for an interview with Jason before watching his journey unfold and also on February 1st for an excerpt from the book and a chance to win your very own copy!