I am usually very low key about tooting my own horn when it comes to my literary work, but I have to say I am very proud of these two newest West Michigan-based works.
BULL is a continuation of the JOE CROSS: URBAN SALVAGE ENGINEER series started with RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL via Peninsulam Publishing.
FACES IN PERDITION is a collection of four short stories/novellas of material either published and out of print, or submitted-for-publication, almost-made-the-grade, never-before-in-print work. All the stories are locally-based, featuring a fictional future with characters fighting the good fight and sometimes winning and sometimes...not so much.
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What's BULL about?
Note: You do NOT have to have read the TRANSPORT Series to enjoy this book. But I won't complain if you do. :)
Joe Cross is part of the Reganshire community during the events of TRANSPORT (Book One). He knows some bad sh*t happened to a entourage of Reganites who ventured out to the sprawling Valley State University campus where a commune of crazed geneticists had created something...not-so-good for them or the surrounding countryside...and IT got loose and stomped the bejeezuz out of everything and everybody.
The creature, a giant, mutated, undead (??) bull had been run off by a local military transport and her stalwart crew. (As seen in TRANSPORT Book One)
A year later, Joe is heading out of town on a special salvaging trip, after the events of TRANSPORT: UNCIVIL WAR. He happens across two Reganshire soldiers who are considering going AWOL. They hold Joe at gun point, tell him he WILL take them out of town, they run into another soldier--this one bloodied, torn and half-crazed--and things get chaotically amped-up from there.
Joe always enjoys being a pull-toy behind a gigantic, raging creature of POST post-apoc West Michigan.
Umm, yeah. Not so much.
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What is reflected in FACES?
(See what I did there. LOL)
Four main short stories and some commentary about what and why I do (write) what I do. The four stories are:
FACES IN PERDITION
A young woman, trying to survive in post-apoc West Michigan, starts to have issues with her current "job" with collecting and distributing drug-toting zombies. As her close peers see her potentially going soft, she gets tested in the field one final time. The odds are against her but with the eyes of past victims haunting her, she won't go down without a fight.
FINAL RIGHTS
A far-flung future Grand Rapids is fighting for survival as the lights are going out all over the globe and dark, ferocious creatures stalk along the lines of shadows waiting to consume Humankind. A young sharpshooter, battling cancer, must rush to New Holland on the lake shore to bring his remaining sister and her son back to the city... before the ebon tide and death swallows them whole.
REVENGE OF THE ROADKILL
The crazed geneticists from Valley State University have been dumping the carcasses of their failed (and grossly successful) experiments into the Grand River valley. A small group of GRCC troops (Grand Rapids Central Command) find out first hand that sometimes you shouldn't stop to inspect the mooshed rabbit-thingie on the side of the road. Oops.
SIGNAL IN THE DISTANCE
A 1950-esque, post-Korean War alt-history story. An ex-soldier comes out of his underground bunker on Grand Rapid's West Side to find what he believes to be the Chinese Red Army infiltrating his wartorn city. His path leads him out to Grand Haven, to the Lake Michigan lakeshore, where he gets to be the first living human to witness the rise of a Cthulhu-esque Old One from the 900 foot depths of the big lake.
NOTE: I don't write doom and gloom to write doom and gloom. Hell, my main goal isn't to write doom and gloom at all. I write stories of strong characters facing survival and often impossible confrontations, BUT they keep moving forward no matter the odds. It is a goal I believe in...KEEP MOVING FORWARD AGAINST ALL ODDS...and it is what I try to instill in these stories of intrigue, action and adventure.
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Anyway, I am proud as hell of these two new books because, simply, they kick ass and in the style the Midwest hasn't seen or been part of...and now, they...YOU...are!
You can order the books online through Peninsulam Publishing or Amazon, or ask for them by name via your favorite bookstore. Or you can come see me and say hello and grab a copy or two at any upcoming book gig (B&N Muskegon Oct 28 6-9 and Comic Signal Nov 12 11-2).
This is exciting and cool stuff. It is.
Thanks for your time.
--Peter
JOE CROSS: URBAN SALVAGE ENGINEER copyright 2015-2016 Peter Welmerink
Cover art by Russ Colter
Cover art by Peter Welmerink & Peninsulam Publishing
Other illustrations by Tim Holtrop, Jason C Conley
Editing credits: Julie Bonner-Williams, Scott Sandridge, Rodney Carlstrom
