Week Four! We’re clipping along with happy winners and excellent books! We continue the trend and this week you have the chance to win the award-winning dystopian YA book, All is Silence. This book is SIGNED by Robert L. Slater and comes with a free ebook download of his short story and poetry collection Outward Bound AND his novella Toils and Snares. A trifecta of awesomeness!
Week Four: All is Silence by Robert L. Slater
Summary: In a future that could be ours, Lizzie, a suicidal teen-age girl, barely navigates her own life. Then everything falls apart. In an apocalyptic land nearly deserted by disease, she lacks reasons to live until a shocking turn of events reveals a phone number. Her call pulls her dangerously cross-country to meet a stranger she thought was dead.
In a world where there is plenty of food, plenty of gas, plenty of space… fear, anger and a lust for power still control the patterns of human life.
Okay, so I’m here to ask the important questions, the ones that REALLY matter…
It’s the apocalypse and you’re trapped in a karaoke bar with boring people. What song do you sing to, you know, make everyone feel like they’re not going to die, even though they totally are?
Jungleland by Springsteen. Amazing Grace and Get Real by me. Though I’d do the last two live with a guitar!
Open your fridge and tell us what’s inside (and don’t think I don’t see that expired tub of goo back there):
Who knows? It’s very full. There are a lot of recycled containers filled with frosting, leftovers, etc. Some things are strangely not moldy, some less surprisingly are… There’s usually cheeses, creamers to make my cheap drip coffee taste better!
End of the world preference?
Pandemic, nuclear winter, zombies, or giant meteor? And how would you try to survive? Pandemic, definitely. Less people fighting over things. Head to the wilderness like I did with my characters in Toils and Snares, the ebook novel currently being printed as a flipbook.
Tell us your favorite joke (no pressure):
The Pope, the leader of a country and a millennial middle schooler are flying in a plane. The engines have all died. The pilot has volunteered to keep the plane aloft as long as possible. Problem is? There are only two parachutes left.
The leader of the country says, “I’m not only the leader of my country, I’m also the smartest man in the world.” He grabs a parachute and jumps out of the plane before anyone else has time to say anything.
Pope Francis rolls his eyes and sighs. “Son, you need to take this parachute. I’m old and have done what I can, but others will take my place, you have your whole life to live.”
The Boy Scout hands the Pope a parachute. “Don’t worry, we can both survive. The smartest man in the world just jumped out of the plan with my backpack.”
Give us the run-down on five other lives you would live if you could be reborn into each one!
This is ridiculously hard. As a student of history, I have a major sense of how lucky I have it to be alive now. And even luckier to be born into a lower middle class American family. I know how hard human life has been through the centuries… I would have loved to meet Shakespeare, chat with Robert A. Heinlein, to have been at Woodstock, a Beatles concert. I guess if there was another life to live it would have to be in the future on another planet: a Mars base first, then an interstellar ship and a non-Sol planet.
Okay, give us the scoop on “All is Silence” and how Lizzie resonates with your readers!
Well, it depends, but the responses seem to fall into two major categories. They love Lizzie and think she can do no wrong. They’re even angry with Zach and Nev for their treatment of Lizzie. The other side is the people who can barely stand Lizzie, perhaps because they were like her or she represents someone they love. They grit their teeth through her impulsive choices, but can’t stop reading--like they’re watching a train wreck and they have to find out what happens!
Thank you for taking the time to chat with us! Be sure you’re subscribed to piercebooks.com for a chance to win Robert L. Slater’s award winning work!