When I was a kid, John Steakley was an author I was immediately interested in for two reasons. He wrote cool, pulpy genre fiction with an emphasis on character dynamics … and he was actually from my home town, Cleburne, TX. In fact, his second novel Vampire$ was partially set in Cleburne, which was even more rad (to use a term from back then). He published that book in 1990, when I was in high school. Buildings that featured in the story, like the Santa Fe railroad depot, took on a new relevance in this place that, honestly, didn’t particularly interest me at the time. And as a wannabe sci-fi writer in rural Texas, knowing someone else from my neck of the woods had made that journey was inspiring. I kind of became fixated on Steakley.
The Severed Tower (Excerpt)
Dystopian, Young Adult || Holt, Mira, and Max have fled Midnight City with Zoey after watching her repel an entire Assembly army. Zoey's powers are unlocked, but who and what she is remains a mystery. All she knows is that she must reach the Severed Tower, an infamous location in the middle of the world's most dangerous landscape: The Strange Lands, a place where the laws of physics have completely broken down.
