Up the Tower

by J. P. Lantern

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BLURB:

Disaster brings everybody together. A cloned corporate assassin; a boy genius and his new robot; a tech-modified gangster with nothing to lose; a beautiful, damaged woman and her unbalanced stalker—these folks couldn’t be more different, but somehow they must work together to save their own skin. Stranded in the epicenter of a monumental earthquake in the dystopian slum, Junktown, there is only one way to survive. These unlikely teammates must go…UP THE TOWER.

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Excerpt:

Before anything else—before the riot, before the flood, before the gap and the deaths and the fires and the pain—before all of that, Ana just wanted to get the hell out of Junktown.

But she was stuck there with Raj, and Raj had all the bodyguards, so she couldn’t very well leave on her own. Walk into Junktown without any protection? No, thank you. She had a knife on her, but that was hardly enough. The knife fit neatly in a small, luxury Cardion-brand sheath at her side.

The rest of her outfit was direct out from a fashion magazine. She wore tight black Cardion slacks, her patent leather Aushwere ankle boots sexy and stylish and perfect for inner-city walking. Her dark blue blouse was Cardion again (there had been a sale); already she had noticed the way Raj had been hugging his eyes to how it cupped and clung to her body. He would have been looking a bit more, perhaps, but she wore her favorite Kadaya Sarin-brand leather jacket, allowing her a bit of modesty with the long sleeves and tight collar, despite the thinness of the material. She was a woman dressed to impress, but also was no whore—she had her man. He liked her dressed attractive, but not like some slut. Ana knew what he wanted, because that was her entire life, as she saw it, from now on.

They were inside the ground floor of a tall building. Cleanbots rushed around them, sweeping up dust, guided along by retrofitted eyebots that spied out areas of dust and disrepair.

“Here’s where we’ll have the lobby,” said Raj, opening his hands out wide to the open space.

Ana had presence of mind to hold her tongue.

What she wanted to say was, “Really, dear? Here in the first possible place that someone could enter from the street? That’s where you’ll have the lobby? That’s so inventive. You’re so smart.”

What did she say was, “Oh! It will look beautiful, I’m sure.”

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

J.P. Lantern lives in the Midwestern US, though his heart and probably some essential parts of his liver and pancreas and whatnot live metaphorically in Texas. He writes speculative science fiction short stories, novellas, and novels which he has deemed “rugged,” though he would also be fine with “roughhewn” because that is a terrific and wonderfully apt word.

Full of adventure and discovery, these stories examine complex people in situations fraught with conflict as they search for truth in increasingly violent and complicated worlds.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7171112.J_P_Lantern

Blog/website: http://jplantern.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JpLanternBooks

twitter: @jplantern

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MU46DL4

Author Interview

1. When you are working on a book, what is your typical schedule?

Well, the most effective schedule is to sit down right after breakfast and start writing, maybe after about twenty minutes of reading. When I do that, I write boatloads. When I don’t do that, I stall and stall and stall.
I’ve noticed that if I don’t get what I want done by 6 PM, I’m pretty much done unless I want to just go overboard on coffee. And the problem with that is—unless it’s Friday (I don’t write on the weekends), I have to get up the next morning and write. So if I stay up until 3 AM, I still have to get up the next day at 8 AM or whenever and get to work.
So there’s a kind of constant pressure, which I think you need if you want to continually get things done.
Anyway, I either sit down and write all the first part of the day and put down anywhere from two thousand to four thousand words, and then move on to taking care of other important social media and publishing-type things; or I stall on the internet all day taking care of other stuff and rush out a thousand to two thousand words.
2. What kind of research did you have to do (if any) for this book?

I didn’t do that much research. I did a lot of paying attention. I have a lot of interest in class, in gender, in politics, and corporate culture. So, every day I tend to absorb something of that nature, and those sorts of things just kind of flow out. Also, I’ve lived in St. Louis for about six years now, so with the city taking place in a futuristic St. Louis, I think that counts as research done?

3. Which character in this book is most like you? Least like you?

Oh, gosh, I’m not sure. Most of them have some part of me in them, or some part of how I used to be or would like to be. Ore might be the most like me. She is a gangster searching for revenge and for her long-lost brother. I’m not a gangster, and I know right where my brother is, but Ore is very single-minded in her purpose, very resourceful. I’m like that a lot of the time. Victor—the cloned assassin—might be the least like me. He’s sort of dead inside, and I’m a lot of things, but that’s not one of them.

4. What is your favorite and least favorite genre to read? Why?

My favorite is probably science fiction. It just speaks to me. I like imagining possible worlds, where the future might take us. The future scares me most of the time, so it’s nice to consider future worlds in which all our humanity is still intact with all its gifts and all its failures.
Least favorite? I don’t know that I have one. I can read pretty much anything. I don’t read very many self-help books, I suppose?

5. If you could have dinner with three people living or dead, who would you choose and why?
Vince McMahon, The Ultimate Warrior, and Andre the Giant. I just think they would create a lot of chaos. It’d be fun to see them all sit down at once.

I don’t know how it would go but I do know it would be just bananas.

6. What do you like to do in your free time?

I watch wrestling (notice the answer above!); I play video games; I read (though that’s not necessarily my “free time”; I play with my dog and cat; I build legos. I’m rather introverted, so I end up staying inside most of the time.

The author will be awarding a backlist ebook copy to a randomly drawn winner at every stop during the tour and a Grand Prize of a $25 Amazon GC will be awarded to one randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during this tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the entire  tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/07/virtual-nbtm-book-tour-up-tower-by-jp.html

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