Two men, worlds apart, whose lives are inextricably linked. Ozzie Brooks, a loner in a dead-end job with a low Social Rating score that ensures he's never going to be anything but that same loner in that same dead-end job. Ozzie's life lacks meaning and focus unit he stumbles upon a small box in a run-down abandoned house. He takes the small ornately decorated box home with him, and quickly discovers he is becoming attached to it in ways he wouldn't have imagined, an attachment he'll go to any lengths to maintain even as he struggles to find out what the box itself actually is...
Morgo Fall, seemingly the only one in town who can see that the very fabric of his world is coming apart. Around him he sees how some men fetch their water from hand-pumped wells while others fly sleek air transport. A weapon to one man is a primitive six-shooter, to another it is a particle weapon capable of inflicting untold damage. Advanced technology exists alongside primitive farming equipment and no one seems to see there is anything strange is this duality. But perhaps Morgo is not alone after all. The town elder Asralon has also noticed there is something amiss, and lets Morgo in on a secret: The beginning of all things and place of creation known as Source, is not a mythical creation, nor does it exist on some faraway plain. It is a real place within travelling distance of where Morgo has lived all his life. If Morgo can only reach Source, he may be able to figure out what has gone wrong and fix it in time to prevent the mixed-up nature of his world from progressing any further.

What made this story interesting as well as both fun and difficult to write, were the dual voices. I didn't want to just shift from each of the main characters and back again, I wanted to have the entire tone and language of the book shift too, so that each felt like a totally different entity. Going back and forth like this kept it fresh for me, but it also made it difficult to keep two separate voices alive in my head as I wrote. I also had to keep the stories utterly separate and different until their connection is made clear.
Ozzie's part of the story was easier in that his when is the when from Killing Time, so I was able to follow on from there tonally. But Morgo's was a little more difficult, and to fully realise his world I think I guess I tried to write like Gene Wolfe.

Coming soon