I don't remember the explosion, only impressions.
The air, a solid presence, a hot rushing wind, the odor of sulfur, like the doors to hell had been blown open.
How did I come to be lying in the grass? Sharp pain in my ears, as if they had been ravaged by a dentist's drill.
Where was I? Confused by my witlessness, I struggled to my knees. Pieces of leaf and grass stuck to my hands--and glass, bits of glass gleamed like raindrops, all over the lawn, everywhere.
These seven sentences are from The Shadow Warriors. Emma, the narrator has gone out late at night to investigate a break-in at a computer institute, only to have the building blow up.
Late in 2010, my novel of Information Warfare and software agents, The Shadow Warriors, was released to the Kindle. Only $2.99 until end of February!
Here is the blurb on the back cover of the trade paperback.
Emma Lee Davis must delve deep into the past to find a weapon to end the Infowar that threatens to de-stabilize a computer-dependent global economy. Project manager of a tiny firm of cyber-sleuths, Emma scrambles to make the connections between a body washing up on a beach in Singapore, and the technical derring-do at a German university.
She tracks a desperate hacker planning a unique software auction, a determined entrepreneur who will stop at nothing to acquire ‘bleeding edge’ software and tumbles onto a new generation of terrorists with their own agenda.
Emma and her colleagues are sucked into a vortex of lies, spies, and betrayals and ultimately into the sleaze and paranoia of Berlin in the months before the wall comes down. Not quite glamorous, sometimes nerdy, always nosy, irreverent and intuitive, Emma becomes the reluctant sleuth. She narrates the story as she scrambles to manage a software project and her complicated love life, while puzzling over the paradox, “if our mission is to stop computer crime, why are we abetting it?”
For more information about cyber-warfare see: Cyberwar
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Nicely done! You really captured that "what the hell just happened?" feeling. The concept of ears being ravaged by a dentist's drill was spectacularly creepy, and I loved the protag noticing the grass and leaves stuck to her hands. I'm right there with her.
ReplyDeleteI know Judy via her Reading Proust blog, and landed here via her Fbook tip to your most recent (and excellent) post on 'DVD+Ladies' being sucked into the evil part of the interwebz.
ReplyDeleteAnyone near an explosion is knocked to the ground unable to stand because inner-ear damage affects balance.
I always think of that when I see Lunks in action-movies still speaking and moving next to exploding vehicles.