Grey has turned his back on the life of a raider. He’s learned other ways to survive in a damaged world stripped of its technology. Late in life, he’s made friends and a home - and buried his inner darkness in dreams.
He’s respected, known and trusted throughout the slowly-recovering valley he calls home. He should be happy, and he is.
But a murderous chance meeting shows that others have dire plans for this refuge. Further, the power behind the plot is a man Grey once called a friend. More worrying, he has an army, with yet another chasing behind.
Grey is left with the choice of abandoning his home and friends, or risking everything – including those friends - in a desperate and pitiless stand behind the bloody skills of his own ruined youth.
Review
"This was a wonderful story. The author's writing style is clean and smooth, without the jarring moments that sometimes rip a reader out of the experience of the story. The plot was solid and believable and the people and places within the scope of the story are well developed without being mundane. I ended the book hoping for a sequel, which is probably the highest compliment I can give any book." - Jeremy Menefee, jmenefeeblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/behind-the-ruins-a-book-review/
From the Author
Behind the Ruins combines several things I believe very deeply about speculative fiction: SF doesn't need to use genre conventions, characters are the real reason people read books and readers are smart. I went into the project with the plot fairly well worked out, and with a conscious decision to write it using Hemingway's rules of writing. Be direct. Be simple. Tell the truth. I wanted to visit the well-trodden wastes of post-apocalyptic fiction and ask some real questions: What would it really be like? What would it do to people? Thematically, the book examines the costs and seductions of violence, but the guts of the novel are found in Grey's quest to save whatever is human in his tattered soul.
Description:
Grey has turned his back on the life of a raider. He’s learned other ways to survive in a damaged world stripped of its technology. Late in life, he’s made friends and a home - and buried his inner darkness in dreams.
He’s respected, known and trusted throughout the slowly-recovering valley he calls home. He should be happy, and he is.
But a murderous chance meeting shows that others have dire plans for this refuge. Further, the power behind the plot is a man Grey once called a friend. More worrying, he has an army, with yet another chasing behind.
Grey is left with the choice of abandoning his home and friends, or risking everything – including those friends - in a desperate and pitiless stand behind the bloody skills of his own ruined youth.
Review
"This was a wonderful story. The author's writing style is clean and smooth, without the jarring moments that sometimes rip a reader out of the experience of the story. The plot was solid and believable and the people and places within the scope of the story are well developed without being mundane. I ended the book hoping for a sequel, which is probably the highest compliment I can give any book." - Jeremy Menefee, jmenefeeblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/behind-the-ruins-a-book-review/
From the Author
Behind the Ruins combines several things I believe very deeply about speculative fiction: SF doesn't need to use genre conventions, characters are the real reason people read books and readers are smart.
I went into the project with the plot fairly well worked out, and with a conscious decision to write it using Hemingway's rules of writing. Be direct. Be simple. Tell the truth. I wanted to visit the well-trodden wastes of post-apocalyptic fiction and ask some real questions: What would it really be like? What would it do to people?
Thematically, the book examines the costs and seductions of violence, but the guts of the novel are found in Grey's quest to save whatever is human in his tattered soul.