Free Fiction: New Hope City (Book #2) Excerpt

I’ve been hard at work on the sequel to New Hope City. It’s been tough, but I think it’s going to be one of my best works to date. Here’s a tiny excerpt of the new novel. Enjoy! Also, if you haven’t left a review for New Hope City, please do so now. Thank you so much!

New Hope City – Book #2 (Excerpt)

Sliding my blade across the Captain’s throat would be the sweetest thing I ever done. Does that make me evil, Tony?

Sunni looks out from the rooftop at the dusty, sundrenched city two stories below as she talks to Tony. She tries to remember his face—calm and confident, not the death mask he wore as he bled to death in the trunk of Carlos’ car.

New Hope’s a lot worse off with you not in it. Squatters and campers got this side of town bursting at the seams and everybody’s still scared of the Captain.

A siren whines in the distance then it fades. Just below Sunni’s perch on the roof, a wild-haired man wields a machete. He spews a stream of epithets at a group of laughing teens who mock him. Nothing to see here, the same it’s been for the past four years and probably longer than that.

I didn’t keep my promise like I said I would. Every day I keep telling myself that I’m going to make them pay for what they did to you…to me…but…I never do. I keep dreaming and planning and pretending, but I never do nothing. Maybe I’m still the scared little girl you took in years ago.

Sunni closes her eyes and tries to imagine what it was like before the whole fucking world went to hell. But she can’t see it. She can’t imagine anything different from what she’s been seeing most of her life. Fuck it. She opens her eyes and takes it all in, the crazed machete wielding man, the angry, fucked up teens out to steal, rape and get high, the hundred or so tents and shacks in the dirt field across the street. This is the way the world is—fucked up and dog eat dog.

The trademark rumble of Danny’s rusted, blue pickup drowns out the noise of the encampment. He’s just a half block away but driving dangerously fast down the crumbled road. His front tire rams hard into the golf ball sized pothole as he comes to a stop just beneath Sunni’s spot on the roof.

“Sunni,” he yells out as he jumps out of the truck and makes his way to the bed.

Sunni comes to the edge of the roof and peers over it. A teenage girl’s laying in the trunk’s open bed, her navy blue school uniform, soiled black and brown with dirt, her limbs sprawled into a wild arrangement, her hair littered with stiff, red and orange leaves, and her face bruised but strangely peaceful.

“This one’s alive,” Danny calls out.

Alive? That snaps Sunni out of her dazed fascination with what she thought was a corpse. But it’s not a corpse, it’s a real living being. She rushes down the roof’s access stairs past the cluster of small, makeshift apartments on the second floor and down to the dark, dingy bar on the main level. The bar patrons’ demands for answers are ignored as she pulls a small cooler from the shelf beneath the register. Four glass canisters filled with clear liquid sit in a pool of melting ice, she grabs one of them, and then she gets a syringe from the wooden box on the shelf.

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The sequel to New Hope City is scheduled for release in 2015. To be notified of when it’s released please signup for the mailing list.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

5 Signs That Your City Is Becoming A Post-Apocalyptic Hell Zone

As much as most of us won’t admit it, the financial and social well-being of America is on the decline in many cities. That’s why you must immediately recognize the signs that the little cute dystopia you call home may be turning into a real life post-apocalyptic hell zone.

Sign #1 – You have two bachelor’s degrees, one master’s degree, an IQ of 200 and you’re a card carrying member of Mensa and you still can’t find a job. Even most dystopias need to hire someone to pull the torture lever when interrogating members of the resistance. So, if you can’t find work, you’re probably living in a post-apocalyptic hell zone.

Sign #2 – You’re the only living soul in a 20 mile radius and you don’t live in rural America. If you find that all your neighbors have moved away and left their houses to rot and become infested with rats and vicious criminals, then your city has definitely moved from a sweet dystopia filled with romance and good feelings to a full out apocalyptic nightmare.

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Sign #3 – You’ve gone to great lengths to make your home appear to be filled with an extended family of 30, plus a vicious dog when in reality it’s just you, your elderly mom and a three-legged mutt named Tiger. If you find yourself working overtime to give the appearance that someone is home by running lights, TV’s, radios, and random sounds streamed from your laptop because you fear that someone will strip your home right down to the frame while you’re on the street collecting scrap metal, then you probably live in a post-apocalyptic city.

Sign #4 – You’re dodging bullets on your way to the mailbox. If you’re always looking over your shoulder for fear that someone is following you, or if you’re wearing a bulletproof vest anytime you go to the bank, then your city is probably a post-apocalyptic hell hole.

Sign #5 – Even the postman won’t deliver your mail. The American postal system promises to deliver mail rain or shine, even in the event of a nuclear holocaust. So, if your postman hasn’t shown up to deliver your mail in years, you’re definitely trapped in a post-apocalyptic city.

Post-apocalyptic cities like the one in my novel New Hope City don’t get that way overnight. They get there over a long period of time. It’s like a cancer eating away at the fabric of the society, day by day. If you’re smart you’ll recognize the signs and get out while you still can. Do you live in a post-apocalyptic city? If so, share your experiences and/or photos, if you dare.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

What You Need To Become A Post-Apocalyptic Leader

Today’s leaders are usually well-spoken and stylistically dressed, but that’s not going to hack it for an apocalyptic leader. You’ll need more than good looks and pretty words if you want to survive and thrive during the apocalypse. Let’s take a look at a few things you’ll need to be a post-apocalyptic leader of men and women:

Strength, Tenacity and Ruthlessness

The recent abdication of the King of Spain to his son Prince Felipe is getting a lot of attention. The 46 year old is handsome, well-dressed and well-positioned in the highest echelons of society. You would think he would qualify as a post-apocalyptic leader. But the truth is that I don’t think this guy could survive the apocalypse for more than an hour. Do you? During the apocalypse there will be a lot of abdication and coup d’états but these men won’t be replaced by their soft-spoken heirs; they’ll most likely be thrown out of their palaces by the strongest and most ruthless people from the streets. Leaders of the apocalypse will by their nature be bold survivors unwilling to follow the powerbrokers of a bygone age, they’ll be making their own rules and building their own royal courts on the graves of their enemies.

Loyal Subjects and Minions

Forget your fantasies of lone wolf heroics. That’s just not going to happen during the apocalypse. If you want to lead a post-apocalyptic society, you’ll need a legion of loyal subjects, minions and strongmen. Did I mention the loyal part? You don’t want to get the old knife in the back (or the poison in your drink) right before you enjoy the spoils of all your hard work. So, pick your followers carefully and make sure you pay them well during the apocalypse.

A Shrewd and Ferocious Partner

Today’s leaders marry movie stars, models and other soft folks. But if you want to survive as a leader in a post-apocalyptic society, you’ll need to marry someone with a heart of stone (steel’s even better). Let’s take a look at what you should and shouldn’t do. Prince Felipe married this lovely TV star:

You DO NOT want to do that. The marauders and enemies will devour this type of spouse in one big bite. Instead, marry someone like this:

 

Or this:

You see what I mean? You need a partner who can scare off your enemies just with their face.

As you prepare yourself for leadership during the apocalypse, remember, that “Men are of no importance. What counts is who commands.” –Charles De Gaulle.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

After The Darkness: Omnibus Published

After The Darkness: Omnibus is published. This collection includes all six episodes from the first season and is $4.99.

Outlets: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Smashwords, Apple (more coming soon)

Giveaway Winners

If you’re a LibraryThing reader who won a giveaway copy of After The Darkness: Episode Three, I will send you a Smashwords coupon by Monday, May 19, 2014.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

Poverty As A Form of Social Control

One of my favorite themes to explore in post-apocalyptic fiction is social collapse and social control. I’m specifically interested in how poverty is used as a form of social control in dystopian societies. I’ve given this some thought and I’ve come to believe that in any society that has a social hierarchy, you will have some form of poverty and that this lack of access to resources is often used as a form of social control. Below I explore a few of my thoughts on this matter.

When we think of poverty we think of starvation, homelessness, living in unsafe neighborhoods and lacking the essential resources of life. But poverty can also mean a lack of access to channels of power, lack of status and lack of recognition. Poverty takes many shapes in both real and fictional worlds. Poverty is also relative and therefore a state of mind. Think about it: Someone living in a rural village where no one has electricity may have a different idea of what poverty is, while someone living in the US would immediately consider themselves poor if they were no longer able to afford their electric bill. In that sense poverty is relative. Now taking this idea a little further, outside of the basics such as food, water, shelter and relative safety, everything else we “need” is in fact a manufactured need. The electricity we need is there because so many things in our lives depend on it—the ability to keep our food fresh, to plug in our computers which some of us use for work, to charge our phones which we use to communicate.   When these necessities (including the basics) are unaffordable or scarce we experience poverty. Social control rears its ugly head when those people in power use their control of resources bolster their own personal power and/or to force others to make choices they wouldn’t normally make. If you can control a human being’s access to food, water, and sense of safety you can exert serious power over his decisions.

In my futuristic, dystopian novel New Hope City, a small, southern city is in a state of collapse. Most citizens struggle to get the basics such as food, water and shelter, and most live with the constant fear of losing what little they have. And because both crime and corruption go unchecked, most citizens live with an unrelenting sense of terror and desperation. It’s under these circumstances that the main character, Sunni Brown, tries to eke out a life. But because of her desperate circumstances she’s become easy pickings for those in power. It’s her poverty that allows her to be exploited. In New Hope City, the people in power profit from the suffering of others, so they have no incentive to improve the city’s living conditions.

In my science fiction serial “After The Darkness” I explore several themes, but one of them is the use of social status as a form of social control. In this post-apocalyptic future, people are separated into “levels” with the highest levels having the most access to resources and the lowest levels have virtually no access. The people in power use social status to control the will of the people. In the beginning of the serial, the main character, Nadia, is stripped of her higher status and made to live at the bottom of society. This punishment is a warning to others who would dare to question the choices of the people in control. It’s this type of social control that allows the city leaders unchecked power to do horrendous things in the name of keeping order or honoring the sacrifices of their ancestors. By threatening their citizens with poverty and the loss of status they can make them bend to their will.

While I don’t believe that poverty as a form of social control renders any human being completely helpless, I do believe it leaves them with limited and very difficult choices. I’m looking forward to exploring this theme further in my future post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopic and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

After The Darkness: Beta Reader Feedback Positive So Far

The sixth episode of After The Darkness is still out with some beta readers, but so far I’m receiving positive feedback. Once the remaining beta readers respond by the 18th, the ebook should be available by the beginning of May. In other news, I’m working on the sequel to New Hope City and another new standalone scifi novel. I look forward to releasing these books this year.  Have a good holiday this weekend!

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopic and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

After The Darkness: Episode Six Finally Done

I am finally done with After The Darkness: Episode Six and it will be going out to Beta Readers by next Friday. Please signup for the mailing list to receive a notification of when this episode is published.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopic and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

Poverty Myths Explored

One of the themes I explore in my books is poverty. Most of my main characters are poor or live in a society that has a huge disparity between those with financial resources and those without. While browsing twitter I discovered this interesting article about poverty myths.  Here is a summary of the myths below:

• Poverty is the fault of the individual, people only have themselves to blame

• Children from poverty have the same opportunities as children who do not live in poverty

• Getting a job is the key to avoiding poverty

• There is no real link between poverty and health

• We can’t afford to end poverty

• Job creation and a strong economy will help poor people

• People who are living in poverty are uneducated

I think the article is worth a read. The article provides its own rebuttal to these myths, but there’s something I want to discuss that often isn’t brought up in these conversations about poverty.  I want to first point out that the cause of poverty is complex. But I believe that one of the root causes of poverty is a disconnection from power bases.  For example, in my novel New Hope City, the protagonist is a poor teen born into poverty. Her poverty makes her a social outcast because some people equate poverty with criminality, lack of moral character and a host of other bad qualities. She can’t make friends with the “rich” kids because she is considered unworthy of friendship by both adults and youth.  A matter of fact, the only friends she can make are the people who are like her and who may be looking to exploit her for their personal gain. And her poverty makes her vulnerable to exploitation. She can be exploited by adults in her small town because she is invisible and considered unworthy of the full protection of the law. Her exploitation is ignored because it is assumed that she is a bad, inferior and less than. And some may assume that she caused her own troubles. And the irony is that because of her lack of social connections and her lack of life experience she does make decisions that deepen her own troubles. But this is how poverty works.  Youth  born into poverty are often cut off from the part of society that could help alleviate their condition. Many impoverished youth are raised by single parents who work several jobs to improve their financial conditions, but they can’t get ahead because they lack skills, social connections or they live in areas with terrible job prospects. Or maybe parents become so depressed and disheartened that they give up and fail to provide for their children.  These kids may even have parents who are themselves troubled emotionally, psychologically or have become burdened with legal troubles. It’s all of these things that can cause impoverished youth to have a stigma placed against them causing them to become isolated from power bases (jobs, resources, social connections) that could help them overcome poverty.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopic and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.

Attention LibraryThing Winners

If you’re one of the lucky winners of my recent LibraryThing giveaway for episode #1 and you want to receive a complimentary copy of episode 2 – 5, please signup for the mailing list. This offer is valid until September 10, 2013. Thanks!

How I Lost My Friend To Prostitution

Karen was only 15 when she was seduced by a pimp, but she was one of my closest friends. I’ll never forget the scars on her face, and the black circles under her eyes, and the fear in her voice when she spoke of him. But I also remember how she needed him to need her and want her. She was lost without him. She was dead without him. And the irony was that he probably would have killed her if she dared leave him. When I wrote New Hope City, I often thought about my friend Karen. I wondered how she had fallen into the pimp’s snare.  And when I look back, I would say that she was much like Sunni, the main character in New Hope City, in that her descent into the hell of prostitution began in a place that’s supposed to be safe – home.

Parents Play Dumb

Some parents are just too busy to uhm…well, to parent. They’ve got their own lives. Or, maybe their life hasn’t turned out the way they wanted and they want their kid to make it a little easier. My friend Karen had a parent like that. She was an only child and her mom was a single parent, and of course they didn’t have much money. Her mom liked to keep boyfriends around, and if she was real nice to them they would leave a few dollars on the nightstand. That could pay the light bill or buy a bag of groceries, but it also made the boyfriends feel entitled to more than just Karen’s mom. They took liberties with Karen too, and her mom would just play dumb, like she didn’t see anything.

Pimps Seem Nice – By Comparison

I’m not too sure about when Karen first started having problems with her mom’s boyfriends, I just know that one Summer she just seemed different, quiet, somber, and maybe even a little angry. That’s when she met Juan, that’s what people called him, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his real name. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that he was no good. No one ever used the word pimp to describe him, but we all knew that’s what he was. When Karen’s mood first started to improve I thought that maybe things had gotten better at home, that she had been able to get the men to stop “messing with her” as she always described it, but when she told me that Juan had given her a pair of new (and expensive) sneakers I knew she was headed for trouble.  Juan’s string of gifts made my friend happy but they also made her stupid, well stupid for him. She started hanging out late. And then she stopped hanging out with me and her other friends. And from there things went downhill. Rumors spread that she was “fooling around” with grown men and that she had moved in with Juan. That was the last time I saw Karen. She didn’t even show up for school that Fall.

There Are No Angels

In the movies, prostituted teens are portrayed as innocent victims worthy of a savior. They’re usually kidnapped or somehow forced into “the life.”  But the reality of teen prostitution is a lot more murky.  Prostituted girls like my friend aren’t perfect. They’re flawed and damaged which makes them do things that flawed and damaged people do. These girls may seem like troubled kids, stealing, lying, fighting and engaging in promiscuous sex. And it’s these things that make people less likely to see them as worthy of saving.  Just like my old friend, they get lost. And just like my old friend, they may face an early and tragic end.  But when I wrote New Hope City I wanted to talk about a girl like Karen, someone who may be damaged and flawed but who is in fact worthy of a savior.

SunHi Mistwalker writes fiction set in dystopic and post-apocalyptic worlds. Her new novel New Hope City, a dark coming-of-age story set in a post-apocalyptic America, follows the life of Sunni Brown, a teenage girl exploited by sex traffickers who tries to get a fresh start when she meets a disillusioned cop. She is also the author of the science fiction series After The Darkness. Please sign up for the mailing list for receive updates, freebies and special discounts. You can also follow SunHi on Twitter and Facebook.