Books and Banter: Christopher Scott Wagoner ~ an interview and his novel ~ We the People: Liberty or Death

Warning: Adult content.

I AM PLEASED TO WELCOME AUTHOR

Christopher Scott Wagoner

AUTHOR BIO:

Chris Wagoner was jettisoned from his doomed home planet as an infant and crash landed in a field in the Midwest. He was taken in by a kindly couple and now lives to fight for truth, justice, and the American way! Sometimes he finds a free moment to pen novels like We the People.

BANTER – STUFF ABOUT YOU

Q: Tell me one thing about each of the four seasons you like. It can be anything.

A: Winter =No mosquitos

Spring =It’s not cold anymore

Summer =Water slides.

Fall =Leaves changing color.

Q: If you could morph into any creature what would it be?

A: A founder Changeling from Deep Space Nine.

If you don’t mind me asking, why?

A:They can morph into anything, even other states of matter, so I could be anything I

wanted at the time.

Q: What kind of music do you listen to? Do you have an all time favorite song?

A: I like a variety of genres but my favorite is Heavy Metal. Iron Maiden’s entire library

is my favorite song.

Q: Coffee or Tea?

A: Coffee but only if it’s black.

BOOKS – ABOUT THE CRAFT

Q: When did you start writing and why?

A: I started writing when I was twelve because back then there was no internet and we

didn’t have cable. My first novel was about an elf named Rainmist who fought dragons

and trained in ninjitsu. I wrote it in several spiral bound notebooks. Kind of wish I still

had it today.

Q: What do you think is the hardest part of writing a book?

A: The edits. What to cut out and why, and what to leave in? Choices choices!

Q: Who's your favorite author?

A:Glen Cook

Q: Your favorite title?

A: The Black Company series.

Q: Would you ever consider a joint project?

A:Sure, if Steven Brust or Glen Cook were down for it ;)

Q: Are you a sit down and play it by ear kind of writer, or do you need a structured

guideline, or maybe a little of both?

A:A little of both.

Q: Generally speaking, is your work based on real life experience? If it's not would you

want it to be?

A: All writers are being allegorical with regards to their own experience whether they

are conscious of the fact or not. It’s not always as heavy as the symbolism in, say, “The

Yellow Wallpaper” but the author indelibly leaves their mark on their work.

Q: How does the woman in your life feel about the genre you write? Has she read any of

your work?

A: Actually, we met because of one of my novels. She reviewed the first We The People

novel via advance copy and we started emailing each other. Then texting, then phone

calls, and then the next thing you know I’ve moved to Texas! Sarah is very supportive

and actually did my cover art for We the People: Liberty or Death.

BOOKS - NOW LETS PROMOTE – STRUT YOUR STUFF

Q: What are you working on now? Would you like to share anything about it?

A: Snowblind, a sci fi novel set a thousand years in our future with nods to Dune. It

features cyborgs, hermaphrodites, space battles and mech suits, and asks questions

about how we define gender identity.

TITLE: “We the People: Liberty or Death”

RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2016

AUTHOR: Christopher Scott Wagoner

KEYWORDS: goth, alien contact, zombies, fantasy, dystopian, alien invasion, young adult

CATEGORIES: New Adult/Science Fiction

PAGE COUNT: 306

ISBN: 978-1533547996

IMPRINT: Devil’s Tower

BOOK PAGE: http://ravenswoodpublishing.com/bookpages/libertyordeath.html

ONE LINER:

An immortal young woman must travel back in time to the American Revolution to stop an alien menace from re-writing our history, aided by Benjamin Franklin and John Stark.

SYNOPSIS:

You'd think being indestructible would be an easy life…

Unless you're Morticia Thane, living-dead amnesiac and government agent. Thane hasn't been able to regain her memories, even with the combined resources of the FBI and US armed forces. They certainly make good use of her abilities, however, using her to break up a human trafficking ring.

Thane is called back to her old unit, a group of misfit teens much liker herself. While tracking down the Extraterrestrial fugitive Dr. Kass they are hurtled back through time to the American Revolution. Hampered by their lack of historical knowledge (Franklin is the guy on the hundred dollar bill, right?) and their own bickering, they struggle to achieve their goal; Save the future of the human race.

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin, founding father and inventor can help...if he can stop being distracted by his misogynistic tendencies and libido.

Thane must face both the Redcoat army and her own lack of faith in humanity. Can she pull her team together and save the world one more time? Or will her disillusionment mean the end of our history?

We the People: Liberty or Death is full of action, angst, zombies, and enough belly-laughs to thrill you no matter what century you were born in.

EXCERPT:

Thane lay on the van's floor, pale cheek pressed against her black mesh sleeve, legs were drawn up to her side, because even while pretending to be unconscious she didn't want the men sitting in front to look up her skirt.

How long have we been on the road? She thought. Three hours? Four? Feels like forever since we left Rapid City.

She risked cracking an eyelid. A fuzzy dreadlock had taken curled around her neck and taken up position in front of her face. Though the sun had long since set, and the van's interior cloaked in gloom, Thane made out details of her fellow captives readily enough. Young faces painted prettily, lithe young bodies clad in skintight dresses. Neither seemed old enough to drive, let alone consume half a bottle of scotch and six jaeger bombs respectively.

Thane suppressed a grin as she recalled the cramped, dimly lit nightclub where she and the other girls were taken captive. The idiots in the front seats had no clue the drugged wine she'd imbibed would have no more effect than a glass of water. Just as sitting completely still for three hours in a chilly van with nothing but flimsy club clothes between her and the metal floor caused her no discomfort.

The others did not fake slumber. Thane felt a swell nausea, not from the drugged wine but from guilt. Allowing the girls to be abducted along with her still rankled. Cold comfort that as long as they stayed unconscious, they were out of her way.

“Hey, is that the one we want?” the driver said. He sounded nervous, no longer the smoothtalking 'recording industry professional' he'd claimed to be in the club.

Shuffling, and the crinkle of paper. Thane remained still as a corpse.

“Yeah. Exit fourteen,” the passenger said. Though his tone was polite there seemed an underlying edge to his speech, as if he were always on the verge of lashing out.

“Be glad to get off the highway.”

“Stop acting like a sissy.” He rolled down his window, and the resulting gust made Thane's hair dance. One of the girls sighed and rolled over onto her side. The passenger coughed several times and spat.

“Hey, the feds were on to us. That's why they sent that spook”

“Shut the hell up,” said the passenger between coughs. “Not in front of the bitches.”

“Oh, they're zonked out on GHB,” the driver said smugly. “They barely even spoke English.”

“I'm not sure they're all foreign, kid,” the passenger said. He wheezed a bit more, then spat again. “That goth chick seems like she's been Stateside for a while.”

“Well, take a look at her ID,” the driver said. “And close the damn window, I'm freezing!”

“Don't try and boss me around, boy,” the passenger snapped. “I've been up and down the road longer than you've been alive.”

“Sorry,” the passenger said quickly. “Uh, what does her license say?”

Thane heard a snap as the passenger opened her black vinyl purse.

“Let's see...Morticia Thane. Sure sounds foreign to this old redneck. Says here she's twenty one years old and hails from...Death Valley, California?” He snorted. “Give me a break!

Gotta be a fake ID.”

“Don't matter, does it?” the driver said with a touch of rancor. “Once we get to the farm, where she's from will be irrelevant.”

Thane lolled her head to the side, facing toward the men with her eyes barely open.

Through a thin wedge she could see the older man in the passenger seat turning slightly to regard her. His handlebar mustache and longish graying hair brought the word Cowboy to mind.

“Say, Sam?” asked the driver.

“What?”

“You ever...have trouble sleeping?”

The older man laughed. He spat wetly out into the night cleared his throat. Thane's hair stopped blowing about when he closed his window.

“Used to.”

“How'd you...how'd you get over it?”

“I realized the truth.”

“Truth?”

“That we're doing these girls a favor. Jobless, homeless, drug addicts, and the ones who aren't have parents so zonked out on xanax they have no clue their daughters go out and get plastered to the point of blood alcohol poisoning every weekend. How long do you think they would last on their own? We give them a place to stay, fresh food, and uh, you know, medical care.”

“Yeah but,” Anguish lay thick on the boy's tone. “We...well, we....y'know...”

“Oh please.” The older man laughed with derision. “All women give it up to one man or another, and they never do it for free. Buy 'em dinner, get a slim chance to slip 'em the salami, you see what I mean? Get 'em backstage to a Stones concert, well, that's when she better get down on her knees!”

Both men engaged in a bout of guffaws that turned Thane's stomach. Physical hardships were nothing to her, but just the fact that men like this were allowed to exist hurt her to her core.

How is this happening in America? She wondered. What happens to make people such monsters?

“You see, son,” the cowboy said “the difference between a whore and a housewife is a ring on the finger.”

Thane gritted her teeth. The casual dismissal of her gender made her blood boil. She had to maintain her ruse until the van reached its destination, and could only clench her teeth in frustration. But soon she could act. Soon she could lash out. Soon…

“There's the road you want,” Sam said. The younger, unidentified man grunted and Thane heard pops and tings as the van pulled onto a gravel road.

“The fence is closed,” the driver said.

“Just honk twice. They'll open it up.”

Thane heard the van's horn give two high pitched bleets. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up, stretched, and yawned with comical loudness.

“What the Hell?” Sam turned around to face her. Thane's grin grew merrier at the incredulous slack in his mouth, revealing scant, blackened teeth.

“Man, I was just having this weird dream,” she said. “I was hanging out at this guy's party, and then two soontobe bludgeoned idiots drugged me and threw me in the back of a van.”

“Stop the car!”

The truck lurched as the young driver slammed on the brakes. Sam grabbed the side of his seat and levered himself into a backbending crouch. He made it into the cargo area with surprising speed. Thane smirked as his hand closed on her throat, tight enough to keep her from breathing—if she was the type who did that sort of thing.

“And you, missy...you're not going to give us any trouble, are you now?” he said, fetid breath rolling over Thane.

“Please,” she said, lower lip quivering.

“That's more like it.”

“No, I mean please, start using mouthwash. Your breath smells like an anchovy's ass!”

“God Damn Bitch,” Sam sputtered, his face a twisted, wrinkled mask, eyes tiny and black like coal.

Thane didn't try to stop Sam as he reached back with his free hand. Face contorted like a stone age savage, he struck her across the cheek. Her face darted to the left, the right, and then the left again as he hit both sides of her face in succession.

“That take care of your smart mouth?” Sam sputtered, his pockmarked face bright red.

“I don't know,” Thane said cheerfully, a line of thick, dark blood trailing from her mouth.

“Let's try it out. Ahem. I bet Stephen Hawking can hit harder than you.”

Sam's fingers closed even tighter on her throat. Thane brought her elbow down across the crook of his arm, forcing his hand away. She lowered her shoulder and crouched, building energy in her body like a spring. Launching upward, she slammed the top of her head into the man's chin with a wet crunch. Sam was lifted off his haunches, then crumpled back to the van's cold floor and lay in a twisted heap.

The younger man struggled desperately to disengage his seat belt. Her right hand clawed up her black skirt and lifted it up slightly, revealing the thinbladed stiletto strapped to her thigh.

She whipped it free of its sheath and placed it across the man's throat in one smooth motion. The driver tensed, eyes wide and barely daring to breathe.

“Just drive, buddy,” Thane said with relish. The way his face turned white in the rear view mirror was satisfying. He wasn't leering at her undies now. “Like everything's aokay.”

“You don't know who you're messing with,” he said shakily. The blade cut him just a bit when he swallowed. The acrid, metallic tang of blood reached her nostrils.

“No!” Thane grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled hard, forcing his throat against the knife another millimeter. “It's you who have no idea who you're messing with.”

“You're another fed, aren't you?” Nervous sweat broke out on the youth's forehead.

“Look, I'll testify in exchange for immunity.”

“Not my call.” Thane's knuckles popped as she tightened her grip on the knife handle.

“Lucky for you, too, because if it was up to me I'd cut your damn head off right here, right now. Still might if you piss me off.”

The man's hands shook as he put the van back in drive and continued up the gravel lane.

From her new vantage Thane could see out the windshield. They were entering a heavily wooded property, a long concrete building barely visible through dense foliage. The full moon shone down from a cool, cloudless sky, splashing the scene with silver light.

“I have a question.” Thane said, her voice level though her insides roiled.

“I'll answer it! I'll do whatever you tell me!”

“You asked me if I was 'another fed.' Where is the first agent? Is he still alive?”

“I” his lips trembled as he struggled to speak “I don't know if he's still alive. He was, I mean, he was last time I was here.”

“When was that?”

“Three days ago, I think.”

“What kind of security do you have?” Thane stared out the windshield as the long, gray building loomed closer. A dozen vehicles, mostly pickup trucks and nondescript white vans, were parked in a lot adjacent to the structure. Formidable bars on every faintly glowing window of the building made it seem all the more foreboding. It stretched out into multiple wings, at least three from Thane's perspective.

“The whole complex has cameras,” the driver said in a wavering voice. They might even have seen you already. You should get out and start running.”

“Yeah,” Thane said after a chuckle. “That's just not gonna happen. How many men inside?”

“I don't know. Usually like twenty dudes or so. Big dudes. They all have guns.”

“Well, I certainly hope so,” Thane said with a smile.

“You...you do?”

“Sure. If they didn't have guns, this wouldn't be any fun.”

“You're crazy,” he said, nearing hysteria. “You're going to get both of us killed!”

The young man pulled the van into a space next to a truck with a chipped red paint job.

Thane snaked her free arm around his neck as she withdrew the knife. The man's head soon lolled to the side and she gently lowered him until his face rested on the steering wheel.

Thane exited the Van, but not until she'd used her captor's own handcuffs to secure their wrists behind their backs. The sleeping women she left alone; they would likely be safer in the van if things went badly. And Thane intended for things to turn out badly—for the traffickers.

She reached for the garage door handle, but a split second before she grasped it the whole affair slid quickly into the ceiling. Thane was now facing four men, the shortest of whom had a foot of height and over a hundred pounds on her. Their eyes widened in alarm.

“One of em's loose!”

“Grab her! Grab her!”

“Where's Sammy and Joe?”

Thane allowed two of the burly men to seize her arms. No sooner had their fingers closed on her skin than she took a half step back and brought both her arms down and in, pulling them off balance. Their shaven heads collided with a hard crack. Both men slid to their bellies on the concrete floor, bleeding and unconscious.

A man with a pencilthin mustache and neatly trimmed goatee took a swing at her with a rusted monkey wrench. Though Thane could have moved out of the way, she instead allowed the blow to land right between her eyes.

The mustached man's eyes went wide as he locked gazes with Thane. She didn't even blink from the impact, though blood trailed down her nose and stained her teeth.

“Hey, maybe it's broken?” Thane asked. She tapped the metal with a ragged nail. Then she took it from his nerveless fingers and brought it down over his head. He crumpled like foil.

“Nope, works just fine!”

“Yeah, so does this,” said an accented voice from behind her.

Thane turned just in time to see the 9mm automatic pistol's breech snap back. Amid an explosion of smoke and fire the gun coughed and jumped in the burly man's hand. Thane felt the bullets rip through her chest and stomach, and her smile faded.

“My shirt!”

She looked down at the ruined garment, grown dark with her saplike blood.

The man kept pulling the trigger, even though his clip was empty. Thane stalked toward him, hands outstretched and eyes rolling back into her head.

“Braiiiinzzz...” she said, staggering forward.

The man collapsed backward, fainting dead away. Thane rolled her eyes back and grinned.

“Works every time.”

Momentarily bereft of foes, Thane took a moment to scan the garage. For the most part, it looked like any other; There were neatly arranged tools, engine parts, and several oil stains on the concrete floor, and it was large enough to service several of the vans at once. Thane passed by a truck with its engine half removed as she headed for the only other door beside the entrance.

Her eyes narrowed as they fell upon a rack of women's clothing on a bent and worn rack hidden behind one of the trucks. Sparkling evening gowns, lacy lingerie, plaid skirts and knee socks...no practical clothing whatsoever. She was so angry she could hear her teeth grinding.

She put an ear to the cool wood and listened. She heard shouting, and the pounding of feet. The gunfire stirred the hornet's nest, and things were about to get violent.