Introducing THE DREAM LAND Book II "Dreams of Future's Past"

Those of you who have been eagerly anticipating Book II of THE DREAM LAND Trilogy need anticipate no longer. It is here...er, well, over there at that Amazon place as a Kindle ebook. First things first, right? Let me catch my breath and I'll get started on the print edition as well as return to finishing Book III.

Some music fans will note the title of this novel "Dreams of Future's Past" and associate it with a music album by the Moody Blues. You would be correct. You may also complain that my title is not the same as theirs. You would correct again. While I liked the idea behind the title of their album enough to borrow it (and my book's original title was "Days..." rather than "Dreams..."), the exact phrasing they used did not quite fit the time travel idea of Book II. So I took some authorial license, with apologies to the Moody Blues, and changed it. You might also be delighted by how many Moody Blues references you can find in THE DREAM LAND Trilogy.

Here is a brief description:

When you conquer a new world, do you change its history or change yourself?

After his adventures in Book I, Sebastian Talbot (a.k.a. Set-d’Elous, legendary warrior) has exiled himself to a desolate island, content to laze away the days writing his memoir. Until the emissary from Queen Tammy arrives with a mission he cannot refuse. Tammy, the IRS clerk he took to Ghoupallesz in Book I, wants him to fetch the son she left on Earth. How could she return for him? She married the King of Aivana.

That mission raises desperate questions for Sebastian: If he can go back and forth through these interdimensional doorways and arrive in different time periods, perhaps he can do something to prevent the big war he fought through, the war that destroyed his family and millions of others. He returns to his Ghoupalle wife Zaura in the years he was previously away. While on patrol duty, he comes upon a young poetess he knows will become the rebel leader who helps overthrow the monarchy and causes the wars. What would you do?

Meanwhile, back on Earth in another timeline, Sebastian awakens from a coma and is helped in his recovery by Dr. Toni Franck. An affair develops—just as his opportunity for escape comes along. Later, as Sebastian/Set escorts teams of mercenaries back and forth to conduct their history-changing business, he tries to meet up with Toni again only to realize the police are still in pursuing him. Desperate to see her, he arranges a meeting only to have a SWAT team show up, cornering him. Can he escape through an interdimensional doorway this time?

THE DREAM LAND Trilogy continues in Book II with parallel time lines, world domination and alien romance, and as always the minutia of heroic minds playing god without a rule book. Cheer or jeer--it's up to you!

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Take your first trip to the other side with THE DREAM LAND Book I "Long Distance Voyager"!

Then follow the further misadventures of absent-minded romantic hero Sebastian Talbot in THE DREAM LAND Book II "Dreams of Future's Past"!

And Book III "Diaspora" is well underway and should be coming out in December 2013 or early in 2014.

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If you are new to THE DREAM LAND environment, let me offer you a description of Book I which should give you a sense of the overall story:

How far would you go to save the love of your life? Through a portal to another world?

Sebastian, that quiet tax examiner at the corner desk in the IRS service center, carries a dark secret: once upon a time he and his high school sweetheart Gina found a rip in the universe and stepped through it to a strange world of magical beauty.  
 
Far from being a Disney-esque playground, the world of Ghoupallesz bursts with cosmopolitan elegance, alien perversions, and political strife. Gina, the adventurous one, falls in love with the adventurous possibilities. Not Sebastian; always practical, he insists they return to Earth. Gina refuses so he goes back alone, vowing never to return. Yet he finds himself drawn back repeatedly--he calls it “research”--and often crosses paths with Gina. Sometimes he saves her, sometimes she saves him, forever soul mates. 
 
Now years later, life on Earth hasn’t gone well for Sebastian. Then the headaches revisit him, with flashes of memories from Ghoupallesz. Gina is in trouble again, he senses, and he must, as always, save her. Meanwhile, a pair of too-curious IRS co-workers have accidently overdosed on the Elixir of Love he brought back on his last trip and the antidote exists only on Ghoupallesz. With these co-workers in tow, Sebastian returns through the interdimensional portal, fearing it may be his final adventure. He must gather his old comrades from the war, cross the towering Zet mountains, and free Gina from the Zetin warlord’s castle before her execution. Perhaps then she will stay with him.  
 
But are his adventures to the other side real? Or are they just the dreams of a psychotic killer? That’s what the police want to know when Sebastian returns without his co-workers.  
 
THE DREAM LAND is a genre-mashing epic of interdimensional intrigue and police procedural, a psychological thriller marbled with twisted humor, steampunk pathos, and time/space conundrums.

Here is a review of THE DREAM LAND on the Connie J. Jaspersen's Best in Fantasy Blog and Carlie Cullen's blog.

THE DREAM LAND Trilogy 

is published by

in association with

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(C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Do you remember the war that never happened?

For the past few weeks I've been foisting excerpts from THE DREAM LAND Book III "Diaspora" onto my dear, overly patient readers and followers.

During those weeks I was working hard on that novel, driven by the fire that only a really hot muse can light. Finally got to tell some of Gina Parton's story: how many ways the world can go crazy as a comet approaches. I charged through the climactic scenes and cruised into the epilogue on Monday, essentially completing the main plot line of the novel.

Now I will go back and add the subplot scenes to fill it out; most of those will be continuing and wrapping up the stories from THE DREAM LAND Book II "Dreams of Future's Past"--which ironically is the topic of this week's bloggerette.

Here's a summary of Book II for those of you who like the short versions. In THE DREAM LAND Book I "Long Distance Voyager" the final Act is a "mission" and Book II is no different. However, I must leave off the spoilers from this summary. Sorry.

It will be out for Kindle in June 2013.

THE DREAM LAND

Book II : “Dreams of Future’s Past”

Synopsis

[The following complete synopsis originally had portions blacked out because the text contained "spoilers"; the black boxes have been removed now that the ebook is available.]

After his adventures in Book I, Sebastian Talbot (a.k.a. Set-d’Elous, legendary warrior and Sekuatean cavalry regiment captain) has exiled himself to a desolate island, content to laze away the days and write his memoir. Until the emissary from Queen Tammy of Aivana arrives with a mission he cannot refuse. Tammy, former IRS clerk who he took to Ghoupallesz along with Michael in Book I, wants him to go fetch her son, Chuck junior, who she left on Earth when she did not return but married the King of Aivana. That king eventually died and she married Sebastian’s friend, the mechanical wizard Jason.

Sebastian reluctantly returns to Earth and coaxes Chucker (“Chuck R. Tucker”) back to Aivana where mother and son are reunited. Mission accomplished. However, on the way back to his island he stops in his favorite city, Selauê, and reminisces with a man who was his military colleague during the wars. He realizes that he would change all of that period in history if he could. He also regrets missing ten years with his Ghoupalle wife, Zaura, when he returned to Earth for a brief visit that turned out to be longer on Ghoupallesz. Zaura thought him dead and remarried; their brief reunion was tragic even though they were able to reunite still later, thanks to his fellow Interdimensional Voyager, Gina Parton, a.k.a. Jinetta, Queen of Fenula.

Meanwhile, Sebastian awakens from a coma in a hospital for the criminally insane and becomes the patient of Dr. Toni Franck, psychiatrist. Evidently, he did not escape to Ghoupallesz at the end of Book I but was shot by police. Now he is recovering; Dr. Franck comes to believe his story of traveling to another world might be true rather than his fantasy. The detective Chuck McElroy (ex-husband of Tammy, father of Chucker) is investigating him, however, and befriends Dr. Franck to get information; they date but he is not a gentleman and she tries to break it off with him. Chuck pushes her against the desk and she gets a concussion, falls into a coma; he releases Sebastian and urges him to escape just so he can pursue him and kill the killer of his ex-wife Tammy (who is alive and well on Ghoupallesz).  Sebastian arrives at the quarry where the interdimensional doorway exists and Chuck follows him through the doorway.

Chuck finds himself in the Aivana desert and when Sebastian tells him to retrace his steps and return to Earth, Chuck takes it as a challenge. Sebastian walks off to begin a new life while Chuck eventually is captured by desert nomads and taken away to be sold into slavery. Sebastian realizes his good fortune: he has returned to the ten years he missed living with Zaura and pretends to be someone new; they marry and he rejoins the regiment. Life is good, even though he will need to leave before his previous self can return to resume life with her.

Sebastian as Set-d’Elous is sent with his regiment to the northern district for autumn harvest patrol. There he meets a youthful Basura-Kanoun who he knows will grow up to become leader of a rebel group that eventually sparks revolution and becomes the new government of Sekuate. He weighs the morality of killing one to save millions. He chooses; along with that choice he must also vanish from his life with Zaura they have had for eight years. He knows that what he has done is for the greater good. His friend Jason does not agree. They argue and Set-d’Elous runs off to his island once more to hide from the world.

Meanwhile, Chuck suffers at the hands of his captors—until they understand that he “belongs” to Queen Tammy. They change plans, wanting to get a reward for returning her slave. Then a storm kills all but the youngest nomad, who mends his wounds. They become a team, making their way to civilization, playing the role of slave and slave master when needed. When they encounter a couple of bandits, Chuck comes alive and kills them to save his new buddy, the young nomad who saved him earlier. Reaching civilization but afraid to be seen by Tammy, Chuck and the nomad set up a domestic partnership.

At the same time, Tammy’s son Chucker learns the ways of Ghoupallesz from his new step-father Jason. They take a Youth Trek, a custom for young men. Jason teaches Chucker yet their journey turns to finding what happened to Michael Fenning, who had been involved with Tammy before. Last they heard Michael had abandoned his treatment for overdosing on the elixir of love moussalaganê and took off with his nurses, then went on alone whoring and gambling and being a playboy across the countries of Gotanka, the northern region of the continent of Zissekap. Finally, they track Michael to a clinic for the terminally ill and Chucker confronts Michael about what he did to Tammy.

Chucker, maturing beyond his years while on Ghoupallesz, goes to Sebastian’s/Set’s island to get answers to his questions. Set explains everything; then he leads Chucker back to Aivana without ever crossing the sea, just by using the interdimensional doorways. In Aivana, Chucker resumes his training to be a prince but Set discovers evidence that what he did in killing Basura-Kanoun has had odd effects on history. The war never happened but his own family suffered different, perhaps worse fate. He and Chucker realize they must change what was changed before to correct the mistake in history. Of course, Set cannot go do it himself—he can’t stop himself—so someone else must take on the mission. They form a mercenary group called History, Inc. and plan what to do.

Sebastian/Set begins having hallucinations of wartime, only they do not exactly fit what he remembers. His team of mercenaries goes through the right interdimensional doorways to arrive at the correct time period to meet his previous self and stop him from killing Basura-Kanoun. The mission goes wrong and a Plan B is initiated to correct the mistaken mission to undo the first change!

Meanwhile, Dr. Franck awakens from her coma and starts a new life with a son who was born while she was unconscious. She maintains the father is her former patient Sebastian/Set. While Set is on Earth to direct the latest mission of History, Inc., he discovers her story and contacts her. They make plans to meet but the police are monitoring the calls and plan to intercept him. He escaped from the criminal hospital, after all, and he is still blamed for the deaths of his IRS co-workers as well as the attack on Dr. Franck which she denies was him.

As the History team makes its move, Sebastian/Set attends the Royal Audience in Aivana but leaves just as Chuck arrives to reclaim Tammy and terrorists follow him in with bombs. The explosions blast Tammy and Chuck back to Earth and Chucker also to somewhere else. For Sebastian/Set, it seems to match the explosion of the propane tank at the old, abandoned house he was going to meet Dr. Franck at. It was surrounded by a SWAT team; Dr. Franck did not meet him and whether or not he escaped is uncertain.

Sebastian/Set awakens in bed with a woman in an elegant hotel room; he thinks he’s in Paris on vacation with Dr. Toni Franck, reunited at last. But it turns out he is someone of importance: a personal assistant comes to dress him and lead him through his busy schedule. The woman in the bed is Basura-Kanoun, not Toni Franck. Not wanting to alarm any of his handlers, he plays along, trying to figure out how he ended up in this strange new scenario.  Gathering enough information, it finally dawns on him that he is the emperor—the Emperor of Sekuate! Not only did he not prevent the wars, he became the emperor who initiated them. He tries to find a way to escape before he must give a caustic speech to the assembled representative at an international conference. Biding his time in a waiting room, his entourage is attacked by a team of assassins: Sebastian/Set is shot and falls through a window, down to the plaza below—except he does not hit the plaza stones. He falls through time, back to that moment when he remeets the young Basura-Kanoun and instead of killing her agrees to marry her...thus setting in motion the timeline that we have just read.


So...what if there was a war and then somebody changed something and there wasn't a war? Would those who lived through it still have memories? Would those people be called crazy?

You can get started on Book I "Long Distance Voyager" 

here: THE DREAM LAND

THE DREAM LAND Book III "Diaspora" 

will be available perhaps as soon as December 2013.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.