QSFer Rachel A. Rosen has a new book out, The Sleep of Reason book 2 (bi, gay, non-binary, trans FTM): Blight.
What use is a revolution in a world ruled by magic?
A young wizard on the brink of burnout searches for her lost mentor. A bereaved mother, summoned to the sea by an ancient god, risks all to avenge her child. Her ex-husband smuggles weapons to a rag-tag resistance.
The Cascade ruined the world that was; the Blight nearly destroyed what remained. The magical catastrophe unleashed demons and shriekgrass, an endless winter, and a promise of worse to come.
In what remains of Canada, the genocidal Dominion government rules with an iron fist, while the libertarian Silicon Valley Autonomous Region chips away at the country’s sinking west coast.
Can a restive coalition of revolutionaries, defectors, and magicians pick up the pieces?
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Excerpt
The Milky Way stretched across the sky like a wound.
They had rolled up their camping gear in the failing light of dusk, hiked the trails adjacent to the road. It was the more difficult route, but it rendered them nearly invisible to surveillance drones. At moonrise, the outcrops of rock became crooked old men, a giant fist raised, in rage, to the heavens.
What conversation there had been, was only a breathy, “this way” or “watch for the branch,” quiet enough to hear six sets of breaths, ranging from the infant’s snuffles to the man’s irritated rasps, to hear the swishes and sighs where the forest gave way to them.
Quiet enough to hear when something else was moving through the trees.
These are the things that, according to common wisdom, kept away a demon: salt, fire, wards, bullets, prayer. A large enough flamethrower, if you could find the gas to power it. Concrete walls.
These are the things that, according to Blythe’s experience, kept away a demon: absolutely fucking nothing, if it really wanted to get at you. It would unhinge its jaws and swallow you before you could reach for your gun. It would have claimed your mind long before that. You would walk, smiling, into its rotting arms as it sang your name.
She felt their presence before the temperature dropped, a needle-bright jab that danced over the labyrinth tattoo on her shoulder. Leave it to Ian fucking Mallory to bestow her with an advanced warning system that told her only of a fate she couldn’t avoid.
Author Bio
Rachel A. Rosen is an activist, graphic designer, and for her sins, a high school teacher. In a previous life, she published two long running anarchist ‘zines and designed the uniform for the Christie Pits Hardball League.
She is the author of Cascade, this novel’s predecessor, and, with Zilla Novikov, the co-author of The Sad Bastard Cookbook: Food You Can Make So You Don’t Die. More of her writing can be found in Beyond Human: Tales of the New Us, Instant Classic (That No One Will Read), and The Dance. Rachel co-hosts the Wizards & Spaceships podcast with David L. Clink (www.wizardsandspaceships.ca), and designs book covers in her theoretical spare time.
She lives in Tkaronto (Toronto), where she is the harried personal assistant to two cats. Her website is www.rachelrosen.ca.
| Author Website | rachelrosen.ca |
|---|---|
| Author Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/rachel.rosen.921 |
| Author Mastodon | https://wandering.shop/@youseeatortoise |