The Betelgeuse Oracle
The Betelgeuse Chronicles
By Joseph Macchiusi
Publication: November 2012
Blurb:
The supergiant star Betelgeuse strikes. Our civilization collapses. Thousands convulse and perish. Electronics die. Aircraft plummet. Food and water are scarce. Trapped in this huge calamity, James Muir suffers bizarre visions. Desperate to reunite with his wife and young daughters, he cannot resist the command of a mysterious Voice berating him in ancient Egyptian. He must embark on a quest for 'the Stone.'
Haunted by the erosion of his own sanity, hunted by gunmen, James joins a group of strangers desperate to escape a metropolis transformed into a burning, violent wasteland. But what awaits them beyond the fringes of the city? The Stone has a fanatical will of its own. As strangers become friends and lovers, James realizes that even if the trek doesn't kill him, he may not be strong enough to match the Stone's baffling power.
The Betelgeuse Oracle is a sweeping saga of loss and heroism, mysticism and visceral horror. Reading this novel will change the way you see the world.
Advance Praise for The Betelgeuse Oracle
"Apocalyptic fiction has exploded with the turn of the millennium (see The Stand, The Hunger Games, Y: The Last Man, The Walking Dead) but Joseph Macchiusi has deftly pinpointed what would be the most catastrophic disaster of all…Try reading this beautifully written and gripping story and not have the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, wondering, "What would I do?" A cautionary tale that is as terrifying as it is unputdownable."?- Nikki Stafford, author of the Finding Lost series of books
My Review
I received a free copy of the book from the author for my honest opinion.
The world as we know it has come to an end. Nothing works any longer. If it needs electricity to run then it will no longer work. Cell phones, iPads, iPhones, Kindles, PCs, Laptops, Tablets, Xboxes, Wii, and PlayStation are all dead. Cars, trucks no longer run. Everybody is in the dark. Some people are running around like chickens with their heads chopped off wondering what is happening and some have totally lost their mind and don't have a clue what they are doing much less anyone or anything else is doing.
James Muir works at York U as a security guard. James is sitting in a quiet place on campus with his laptop trying to write a story. James is a writer or wants to be but he is having a little trouble in that area at the moment. While James is eating his lunch and trying to write his story he has a seizure. When he comes out of the seizure he sees other people that are just coming out of a seizure as well. James starts trying to help some of the people who like himself were hurt while having a seizure. Then everyone sees something in the sky and are wondering what it is when they realize that it is an airplane falling out of the sky. During this time is when the sane people start realizing that nothing works. That everything is just shutting down. This is just the beginning for James and everyone else that is still alive in the world.
James starts thinking about his wife and daughters. His daughters are just little girls and are both probably scared out of their wits. All James wants is to get home to his wife and daughters to see if they are safe. But there is a voice in his head that keeps telling him to go northeast. At first James is like no way he is going home to his family. Well he finally makes it home and his home is gone, it has been destroyed by fire. There is nothing left of his home but the good thing is he did not find his family. Yes it is good because hopefully they are still alive and looking for him as well. So James decides to listen to the voice in his head and go northeast. What else is he going to do while he is looking for his family right? He can go northeast and look for his family at the same time. Hopefully the voice is leading him to his family.
James meets a lot of different people, characters on his journey to the northeast. They are all like him you knowing looking for their families or have nowhere else to go so they go along with him. It is too dangerous for anyone to stay in one place any longer. There are bad people in just about all of the towns. It is not safe to go into any of the towns but sometimes they have to find food. Some of these people are just like them just trying to survive and some that just want to be the boss and take control of everything and everyone. James and his group have to stay on the run all of the time they can't stay in one place to long because someone is following them.
The Betelgeuse Oracle will make you laugh one minute and then the next minute you want to cry. Sometimes you want to reach in and give some of the characters a great big shake and say what are you doing? The Betelgeuse Oracle will take you on a long journey with James and all of his new friends that he meets along the way. I loved all the gore among other things that I read in the book and how it was described. I loved how the author just put everything out there and didn't leave much to the imagination. He just told it like it is; there was no reading between the lines as they say.
About the Author:
Joseph Macchiusi's previous publications include two short stories, "Of Smelly Toilets and Wet Cheese" and "Triage". Another story, "The Pythagorean Theorem" was short-listed for the 2006 CBC Literary Awards and The Writers' Union of Canada 2010 Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers. "The Perseids" also made this short list. His current obsessions include Motorhead, the experiences of frontline soldiers during the First World War, and the pathological psychology of Ajax Quire. Quire is the hero of another (soon-to-be-published) Macchiusi novel, Lurking in Plain Sight. He is currently at work on The Prion File, the second of the Quire thrillers; and The Betelgeuse Shaman, the second book of the Betelgeuse Chronicles.
Giveaway:
eBook or paperback of The Betelgeuse Oracle by Joseph Macchiusi (winner's choice)
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