by Sean Platt
What’s scarier than the sudden inability to trust your own mind?
Despite Realm & Sands' start as an imprint that eschewed research (read the Unicorn Western author’s note for the full story), we both enjoy the right type of story prep, and do it often. For this book, we read a lot about persuasion and conditioning. I watched a bunch of Darren Brown videos on YouTube. That shit is freaky. Watch the one where he talks the cashier at the race track into paying out on a losing ticket. Or the one where he correctly guesses that the one thing his subject wants most in the world is a red BMX bike. Darren had just subliminally convinced him how awesome a red BMX bike would be during the same conversation, without the guy having a clue.
And so the idea was born for our lead man. He’d be a clone, yes. But he’d also been conditioned to believe in a history that hadn’t happened and into beliefs he’d otherwise not have had. He’d act as if of his own accord, but deep down, he’d be acting the ways that someone had conditioned him to act.
And as that unspooled for Ephraim, we knew he’d begin running from the one thing he couldn’t escape: himself.
We knew The Tomorrow Gene would be the first book in a series from the very beginning, but we had only the loosest ideas of what would happen in books two and three — or two through five, as we thought at one point. But: having nearly finished the third book’s rough draft as I write this note, I can tell you that even our loose ideas were wrong. We thought The Tomorrow Gene would be prelude to one kind of story for our entire series, but it ended up being prelude to a different story entirely.
And that, if you’re paying attention, means that we as authors were unreliable narrators when we were writing this book, too.
Which, when you think about it, is kind of awesome. Ephraim doesn’t know where he’s running because his mind isn’t working properly. But Sean and I also didn’t know where he was running (in the end) because we didn’t yet know what the full Tomorrow Gene trilogy’s story arc was about. We thought we knew, and trust me, this first book is a KILLER start to the story this trilogy ended up telling. But when Sean and I wrote it, we got it wrong. We, like Ephraim, were “crazy” too, stuffed full of false assumptions like shadow memories.
So good luck figuring out what will happen in the sequel, is what I’m saying.
But isn’t that the fun of getting lost in a story?
Flip back a few pages; find the place where you can join our list and be sure to join it. You’re going to want to know when the second book in this series comes out.
Because the stuff that happens next?
Yeah. You’ll never see it coming.
Johnny B. Truant
May 2, 2017
Austin, Texas
Get books 1 and 2 in the bestselling series for FREE!
The discovery of objects approaching from Jupiter orbit immediately sets humanity on edge. NASA doesn't even bother to deny the alien ships' existence. The popular Astral space app (broadcasting from the far side of the moon and accessible by anyone with internet) has already shown the populace what is coming. So the news has turned from evasion to triage, urging calm and offering the few facts they have: The objects are enormous, perfectly round spheres numbering in the dozens, maybe hundreds. They are on an approach vector for Earth. And they will arrive in six days.
GET INVASION AND CONTACT FOR FREE:
http://sterlingandstone.net/rsfb
THANK YOU FOR READING!
Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sean Platt is the bestselling co-author of over 60 books, including breakout post-apocalyptic horror serial Yesterday’s Gone, literary mind-bender Axis of Aaron, and the blockbuster sci-fi series, Invasion. Never one for staying inside a single box for long, he also writes smart stories for children under the pen name Guy Incognito, and laugh out loud comedies which are absolutely not for children.
He is also the founder of the Sterling & Stone Story Studio and along with partners Johnny B. Truant and David W. Wright hosts the weekly Self-Publishing Podcast, openly sharing his journey as an author-entrepreneur and publisher.
Sean is often spotted taking long walks, eating brisket with his fingers, or watching movies with his family in Austin, Texas. You can find him at www.SterlingAndStone.net.
Johnny B. Truant is the bestselling author of the Invasion series, the political sci-fi thriller The Beam, Fat Vampire, Axis of Aaron, Unicorn Western, and many more fiction titles in addition to the nonfiction bestseller Write. Publish. Repeat.
He is also co-owner of the Sterling & Stone Story Studio, and along with partners Sean Platt and David W. Wright hosts the weekly Self-Publishing Podcast, openly sharing his journey as an author-entrepreneur and publisher.
Johnny and his family are thrilled to finally call Austin, Texas their home after far too many years of planning to move and complaining about life in northern Ohio. You can usually find him hanging out at www.SterlingAndStone.net.
For any questions about Sterling & Stone books or products, or help with anything at all, please send an email to [email protected], or contact us at sterlingandstone.net/contact. Thank you for reading.
