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Front cover by Jade,
New 2008 jacket.
WINDRAGE
by Mel Keegan
136pp
cover by Jade
Price:
US$13.50(paper)
US$4.95(eBook)
($5.50 from Smashwords)
In paperback, from Lulu.com
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10% of this novel online!
READER ALERT / CAVEAT:
the sample readings offered here encompass about the first 10% of these works, and they're uncensored, unabridged. If you will be disturbed by candid descriptions of same-gender romance, or by realistic violence, please don't download! These samples are not intended for younger readers. By clicking to open these documents, you agree that you are of age in your local jurisdiction; you know what you are about to read; and the material will not disturb you ... 'nuff said.
Any "content warning" to readers?
Realistic violence, frank description
of same-gender relationships, some
coarse language.
First edition cover.
PUBLISHING HISTORY:
Two editions:
First edition: mid-2006
Lulu.com edition, January, 2008.
IN PRINT?
Yes.
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distribution and supply. Please do contact us!
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WINDRAGE
"It's the end of the road ... in a world that's turned to ice!"
Mel Keegan is back in the future — and what a future. Like AQUAMARINE, this novel explores a post-apocalypse scenario, but rather than it being a 'drowned world, in this opus Mel looks at the 'nuclear winter' situation. Just how would we survive, after the impact of a large, rocky asteroid ...?
It's something like 2025, and both Jon Cameron and Scott Warne were kids of about twelve when 'Asteroid Rodgers' suffered its fatal rendezvous with the Earth. Military scientists tried to blast Rodgers out of the sky, but only succeeded in turning one object (which would have plowed into the northern hemisphere and perhaps left the southern hemisphere mostly alone) into a whole flock of object which peppered the planet.
The scene is the Adelaide hills, right on Mel's backdoor step! ... about two decades from now; but what changes there have been. The landscape, the people, human culture — everything has been through a 'melting pot' process, and what has emerged is a new world, a new society.
Most people are glad to have the chance to start over, but some folks, like Ezekiel Gant, are far from happy. Armageddon happened. It's been and gone. Where is the Paradise on Earth, which was promised to the righteous? And if Paradise did not come about, what stopped it — and might it be 'wrested out of the wasteland through blood and fire?'
The massive storms are still coming; they bring choking dust and temperatures of thirty below. Worse, when the storms roll in, they drive the 'roadies' with them, and some of these nomads spell trouble for settlements like Windrage, which have just begun to rebuild. Ezekiel Gant is at the head of one savage 'roadie tribe,' and Gant is on a mission.
When a storm drives his tribe, who call themselves the Stone Angels, into Windrage, Provincial Officer Jon Cameron is the only lawman in town. It's his job to challenge the seventeen Stones, and it's a suicide mission. In desperation, he forcibly deputizes a gunfighter who is just passing through Windrage. Scott Warne is furious about being dragged into the situation, but there's instant 'chemistry' between himself and the Provincial Officer, and he's already named his price for cooperation. It's 'Cam' he wants, when it's all over!
If you loved AQUAMARINE, and like an SF romp with a sting in its tail, don’t miss this one!
Pullquote:
Mel Keegan’s name is a byword for thrilling gay adventure in the past, present and future — MILLIVRES on Aquamarine.
 The SF List
Reader reviews of this title
Read the first segment online!
(Note: see our caveat.)
Reader reviews for this novel are online on our Review Page
and at Amazon.
(You can post your own comments to this site via the Readers Review page.
Please note that this is a "moderated forum," where comments will be monitored,
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MEL KEEGAN COMMENTS ON WINDRAGE
The scary thing is, these are real places. This piece is set in my own backyard, the Adelaide
Hills, and the very suburbs where we all live and get in our groceries and go to the movies are
'ground zero.' Inspires a shudder, doesn't it?
There have been a lot of 'Earth gets smacked by the comet' type stories. What makes this one different
is that it's fifteen years AFTER the impact, and nobody was able to stop it happening; there were no
underground shelters, and Bruce Willis wasn't able to put a missile up, uh, anything. We got plastered.
End of statement — or, not quite. Armageddon did visit, but it didn't stay; and there will always
be survivors. The other thing making WINDRAGE very different is that is doesn't take place in Los Angeles
or New York. It's the proverbial back of beyond, not even the densely populated part of the Adelaide
Hills, but the other side, where the farms checker the landscape and the land falls away to the
riverland. Yonderland. Hmm.
The first draft of this story dates from 1984/85. I had a literary agent at the time, and I wrote a lot
with the object in mind of keeping her supplied with new materials for publishers. Nothing every came of
it (what a surprise), and the story was revamped. The original 1984 version was straight (!), short
(something like 20,000 words), set in the USA, and terse. Years went by, and one day I was turning out
boxes of old stories and discussing projects with the late Lane Ingram. We saw the potential in
WINDRAGE, but I had no time to invest in it. In fact, Lane took the notes I'd made and worked up a new
(rough) draft ... this one was gay in orientation, but the story was set in the UK now, and it was about
25,000 words, I think. Every word of my original story was incorporated, and my ideas were more fully developed than I had time to do myself. (Though I did blink a little when I saw how Lane had developed
my ideas: some proceeded far from the way I'd have done it myself!)
Fast-forward yet again to 2006. Lane passed away ten years ago (my gods, how time flies), and as a memorial
I've tried to save some of the best development work that was done, way-back-when. No one would be more pleased than Lane to know people are reading this story in whatever form. However, having said that (!), I had
to cut the 25k back to about 16k (yep, I ditched a lot of my own old work too) and reconstruct the whole thing. At last the story is set in South Aus, where I'd always wanted to set it ... it has something of an
Aussie 'spin' in places. And this time around, the 'world' of Cam and Scott is fully developed and
detailed, and the bad guys are three-dimensional. You'll meet Ezekiel Gant and his mob, and there's something
spine-chilling about this quasi-biblical experience. This final version of the story has a deep vein of
the philosophical, too ... I won't say one more word right here, but it's going to make you think.
So, now the work is all done, the result is something new, in which one can still glimpse the old. 'Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.' And I'll leave it to the reader to work out which is which! My final version of WINDRAGE is seamless, rich and well developed. Seldom have I had the opportunity
to go back to an old work and rewrite, yet I'm as aware as the next writer of truth in the old
saying that 'Good books aren't written, they're rewritten.'
The research for WINDRAGE was about local maps, and the mechanical problems of how things
work — and don't work. I had my nose in road atlases, several (!) best-selling religious books whose
copyright dates back, oh, a couple of millennia, plus first aid manuals
and (!) the SAS Survival Handbook!
In its own way, WINDRAGE was a damned challenging piece ... about survival skills,
big motorcycles, spellunking, bullockteams and drivers, bad dreams, 'black humor,' big guns,
cool gunfighters, and a whole lot more. Lane always loved this storyline; for me, it's nostalgic. So — Cheers to you, Lane E. Ingram, wherever you are: enjoy!
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