Clarissa Johal: aliens

Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Kerry Alan Denney Interviews Corporal Kimi Jayden, Heroine of JAGANNATH

Interview with Corporal Kimi Jayden, heroine/ protagonist of JAGANNATH

I got lucky the other day and managed to squeeze in a few minutes of an interview with Corporal Kimi Jayden in the North Georgia Renegade Enclave’s weapons locker room. Kimi is the heroine/ protagonist of JAGANNATH, and I’m sharing this interview so you the reader can get to know her a little better. She’s an intimidating woman, let me tell you. She’s not only super-hot and sexy, with that short, wavy, flaming red hair and those captivating emerald green eyes, but she’s also a bad-ass soldier and a tough, lethal killing machine. I wouldn’t want to come across her as an enemy. Wiry, strong, mega flexible (like a pro gymnast in her prime), and damn, the girl is fast! Every move she makes is fluid, seemingly calculated but simultaneously spontaneous. After I popped my eyeballs back in their sockets, I stumbled through my interview.

Here it is:

The Reality Bender: Hi, Kimi. It’s an honor and pleasure to meet you. How are you today?

Kimi: Busy. What do you want?

TRB: Well, I, uhh... was hoping I could get a quick interview.

Kimi (donning her battle gear): It damn well better be quick. I got a world to try to save here, in case you didn’t notice.

TRB: Yeah, well, I did, in fact. I sure am glad you’re one of the good guys. We need more soldiers like you.

Kimi: Don’t patronize me, buddy. I don’t have time for that crap. So get to the point.

TRB: Right. Sorry. I, uhh—

Kimi: I don’t want your half-ass apologies either. Lily needs me. She’s out there all alone, and the Reaper wants her bad. We don’t have much time before it figures out how to kill her, or takes her somewhere we’ll never find her. Every second counts.

TRB: Understood. So how did you find out about Lily, and what’s so special about her?

Kimi: If you met her, you’d know why she’s so special. One of our hoverships was on a recon and rescue mission in Savannah, Georgia. They filmed a holovid of their operation—that’s a holographic video—and relayed it back real-time to our Enclave. We’d heard rumors about a young girl who’s immune to Reaper absorption, but they were sketchy, and came from a bunch of unreliable refugees who were so shell-shocked and hyper-tweaked they would’ve said anything to save their asses. But we had to check it out. The hovership filmed the Reaper trying to absorb Lily, and failing. Do you have any idea how amazing that is?

TRB: How amazing what is?

Kimi (scoffs and shakes her head): Are you even paying attention? How amazing it is that anyone could be immune to Reaper absorption. It’s unheard of, like an urban legend.

TRB: So you mean, like, everybody can be, umm, absorbed by this Reaper creature?

Kimi (rolls her eyes): How else do you think the damn thing has nearly destroyed civilization and sixty-plus percent of the world’s population?

TRB: Wow. That’s... horrible. So what exactly is this monster, this Reaper?

Kimi: Where the hell have you been hiding? It’s like a slime creature that can change its shape and form. It rose up out of the ocean sixteen years ago. Hello, do you not watch the news flashes? Have you not seen the cities burning? It can assume the likeness of anything it absorbs. Worse, it can read the minds of any creature it absorbs, animal or human, and guess what? It likes the monsters from our nightmares the most. It killed my whole family fifteen years ago, when I was just thirteen, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. I’m lucky as hell it didn’t get me. I still hear their screams as it absorbed them.

TRB: Unbelievable. I’m... really sorry for your loss.

Kimi: Yeah? Well, doesn’t matter anymore. Because I’m gonna kill that fucker, one way or another.

TRB: I have no doubt you are. And I swear I’m not patronizing you. But how? It seems indestructible.

Kimi: Any damn way I can. For one thing, it’s flammable. Our flamethrowers are kick-ass weapons against it. And the gel guns make its flesh harden and crystallize. That’s the best invention since fire to destroy the damn thing. But we need a better weapon. And we think Lily is it.

TRB: Yeah, Lily. Why? She seems like a helpless kid. What can she do?

Kimi (squinting at me): Helpless, hell. She’s the bravest little kid I’ve ever seen, even though she doesn’t know it. Yet. That thing killed her family too, you know? But she still managed to survive somehow. And I gotta save her. We think her DNA can turn things around. There’s something magic in her blood. She may be our only hope left. And she needs me.

(Kimi’s eyes get hard and shimmery, and I see the fierce compassion in them. This woman is determined to save that little girl, even if the rest of the human race perishes in the process.)

TRB: God, I hope like hell you can save her. So... what’s the plan? What’s next?

Kimi: We lost Lily to that damn thing once—I lost her—and that’s not gonna happen again. I’m going to get her back, and get her away from that worthless slimy piece of shit. And bring her back here, where she’ll be safe. Then we’re gonna learn how to use her magic to save the rest of us. Then I’m gonna hunt down that motherfucker and rip its heart out with my bare fucking hands. And you’re in my damn way. So move.

TRB: Yes, ma’am. Best of luck to you. I hate to resort to a cliché, but we’re all counting on you.

Kimi: Yeah? Well, make yourself useful for a change, instead of carrying around a damn microphone and asking a bunch of stupid questions. Go see the scientists and help them figure out a way to make Lily’s magic save us all. When I bring her back. Because I’m damn well going to bring her back, alive and safe, and you fuckers better be ready to make her mojo work. You got that, Mr. Interview Man?

TRB: Yes, ma’am. Good luck, Kimi, and Godspeed.

(with her back to me, she flips me a bird on her way out)

***

Man, you should see that woman storming out of the weapons locker room, all confidence and determination in her stride. If there’s any chance to save the human race from extinction, it’s in her capable hands.

I almost feel sorry for this Reaper creature.

Almost.

***

F acebook Online Book Release Party Saturday February 7 – 1 to 4 p.m. EST

Virtual Book Blog Tour 2015 Extravaganza Calendar

YouTube “JAGANNATH 2015 Book BlogTour Extravaganza” promo video

JAGANNATH Buy links:

Kerry Alan Denney: Author Bio

Colleagues and readers alike have dubbed Kerry Alan Denney The Reality Bender. The multiple award-winning author of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi/ horror thriller JAGANNATH (Permuted Press February 3, 2015 – e-book ISBN 978-1618684134, trade paperback ISBN 978-1618684127) and the paranormal thriller SOULSNATCHER (Lazy Day Publishing April 29, 2014 – ISBN 978-1499251777) as well as six more novels and numerous short stories, Kerry blends elements of the supernatural, paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror in his work: speculative fiction at its wildest and craziest. With joy, malicious glee, and a touch of madness, he writes reality-bending thrillers—even when the voices don’t compel him to. His protagonists are his children, and he loves them as dearly as he despises his antagonists... even when he has to kill them.

Kerry lives near Stone Mountain, Georgia with his Golden retriever Holly Jolly, a professional Therapy Dog, and is currently writing his next supernatural novel and trying his best to remain rooted in this dimension—and deciding which characters he’s going to kill.

For more information, please visit Kerry Alan Denney is The Reality Bender

Kerry’s Amazon Author Central Page

Stop by at Kerry Alan Denney aka The Reality Bender Facebook Author Page

Kerry’s The Reality Bender Blog

Kerry’s Goodreads Author Page

Follow Kerry on Twitter (@KerryDenney)

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Guest Author: Kerry Alan Denney Brings a Monster from Your Nightmares

JAGANNATH Synopsis/ back cover blurb:

The monster from your nightmares is here. It's destroying civilization. Soon the human race will be extinct.

The year is 2037, and Corporal Kimi Jayden has one chance to rescue the lone refugee girl who is miraculously immune to Reaper absorption. Thirteen-year-old Lily walks the deserted streets of Savannah alone, ever since the Reaper absorbed her family—and tried and failed to absorb her—a year ago. An amorphous creature that has nearly wiped out civilization, growing as it feeds, the Reaper assimilates its prey’s intelligence when it consumes flesh and blood. Growing smarter with each human it absorbs, the Reaper transforms into monsters created from our darkest nightmares—and it loves tormenting its victims.

Kimi and her fellow survivors in the North Georgia Renegade Enclave believe Lily’s DNA holds the key to mankind’s survival. But the Reaper covets and abducts Lily, and Kimi must battle a ghastly horde of Reaper incarnations to preserve humanity’s last hope against extinction.

JAGANNATH reveals the resilience and determination of the human spirit in an action-filled tale of terror, selfless courage, and ultimate triumph and redemption.

JAGANNATH excerpt:

Chapter 1

A tentacle as thick as a railroad tie burst out of the gap in the crumbling wall. The sinuous limb shot toward the Renegade soldier like a giant compressed spring releasing. Before the soldier could aim his flamethrower at it, the tentacle coiled around him and squeezed.

He shouted for backup, and two soldiers raced toward him. They aimed their wrist-mounted nozzles at the transforming tentacle. Tight streams of blue gel spurted toward the creature’s extended limb, but the soldiers fired too late. The tentacle seeped under the soldier’s visor and touched bare skin, and the Reaper began to absorb him.

Kimi scowled, studying the holographic video of the battle against the Reaper in the dead city of Savannah, Georgia. Safe within the War Room of the North Georgia Renegade Enclave, she had a bird’s-eye view of the chaos and destruction from two days ago. The scene stoked an ever-smoldering fire inside her.

The Reaper had killed her whole family fifteen years ago, one day before her thirteenth birthday. She had hidden, helpless to stop the creature as it consumed them. The loss left a gaping wound inside her that only vengeance could heal.

Her shoulders tensed as she remembered watching her hometown of Jasper, Georgia burn. The raging flames had surrounded her as everyone she knew and loved was absorbed. The Renegade soldiers who came to rescue the survivors were too late to save anyone but her.

Kimi was an orphan in the truest and bloodiest sense of the word.

Joining the Renegades was inevitable. She signed up two years after her rescue at the lawfully acceptable age of fifteen. Ever since that day, she wore the red, blue, and orange insignia of blood, life, and flame with honor and pride.

Though the holo-vid was painful to watch, Kimi’s duty was to observe and learn. She kept her eyes on the soldier, knowing he would respond with the only avenue of escape he had left.

“Fall back!” the soldier called to his buddies. “I’m hitting the fail-safe!”

His voice was loud and close through the War Room’s speakers. He was doomed, but he didn’t cry out as the Reaper soaked up the skin on his neck and jaw. The creature’s pseudo-flesh shifted shape, forming a cocoon around him. But the soldier popped off the cap covering the recessed red button on his hand-grip control before he was immobilized.

Not for the first time—or the last—Kimi wondered why they didn’t call the fail-safe button by its true name: a suicide switch.

The two standing soldiers trained their flamethrower nozzles on the creature as they backed away. Tight streams of fire shot out and ignited the Reaper’s viscous muck, too late to save the dying soldier. But the flames started frying the isolated portion of the creature into yellow smoke and charcoal gray ash.

The doomed soldier pressed the red button, and the potent explosives in his helmet and body armor did their job. The force of the blast made creature-gook spray outward in all directions—along with various body parts.

Kimi gritted her teeth. Had the soldier pressed the suicide switch in time, or did the creature absorb his brain before he died?

When the Reaper rose up out of the oceans’ depths and came ashore sixteen years ago, it seemed like nothing more than an amorphous sludge with the limited intelligence of the aquatic mammals it ingested, a creature of transforming slime that imitated living organisms. It separated into portions like a deploying army, and quickly developed a ravenous appetite for human flesh and blood. But when it began metamorphosing into human form and mimicking people, the evidence was conclusive: the creature was growing smarter, accumulating knowledge with each person it consumed.

The Reaper was not only feeding on their flesh and blood; it was absorbing their minds, and assimilating their intelligence.

And it grew as it fed.

Free Sneak Preview - Chapters 1 - 4 on Smashwords

JAGANNATH Buy links:

“JAGANNATH: The Monster From Your Nightmares Is HERE!”

F acebook Online Book Release Party Saturday February 7 – 1 to 4 p.m. EST

Virtual Book Blog Tour 2015 Extravaganza Calendar

YouTube “JAGANNATH 2015 Book BlogTour Extravaganza” promo video

Kerry Alan Denney – Author Bio:

Colleagues and readers alike have dubbed Kerry Alan Denney The Reality Bender. The multiple award-winning author of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi/ horror thriller JAGANNATH (Permuted Press February 3, 2015 – e-book ISBN 978-1618684134, trade paperback ISBN 978-1618684127) and the paranormal thriller SOULSNATCHER (Lazy Day Publishing April 29, 2014 – ISBN 978-1499251777) as well as six more novels and numerous short stories, Kerry blends elements of the supernatural, paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror in his work: speculative fiction at its wildest and craziest. With joy, malicious glee, and a touch of madness, he writes reality-bending thrillers—even when the voices don’t compel him to. His protagonists are his children, and he loves them as dearly as he despises his antagonists... even when he has to kill them.

For more information, please visit Kerry Alan Denney is The Reality Bender

Kerry’s Amazon Author Central Page

Stop by at Kerry Alan Denney aka The Reality Bender Facebook Author Page

Kerry’s The Reality Bender Blog

Kerry’s Goodreads Author Page

Follow Kerry on Twitter (@KerryDenney)