Preorder sale for Doc Talos #17, “The Hills of the Unconsoled Dead”

The seventeenth Doc Talos book is now available for preorder!

Here is how it begins…

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The twigs which N’Longa flung into the fire broke and crackled. The unleaping flames lighted the countenances of the two men. N’Longa, voodoo man of the Slave Coast, was very old. His wizened and gnarled frame was stooped and brittle, his face creased by hundreds of wrinkles. The red firelight glinted on the human finger-bones which composed his necklace.

The other was named Miles Harmon. He was tall and broad-shouldered; his eyes closed…lost in thought, sleep, or death. The surrounding night, kept only marginally at bay by the fire, played redly on the lines of his face, which held a trace of anguish.

“You come again, brother,” droned the fetish-man. “Many moons burn and die since we make blood-palaver.”

Manhattan, 2025

“Hey Miles.”

“Rickie girl…hey, it’s great to see you.”

“Right back atcha. Though it feels a little weird…”

“Why, because I’m dead?”

“Well…”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m grateful you still think of me, all these years later. It’s…consoling.”

“Shit…this wasn’t supposed to make me all emotional.”

“Maybe it’s selfish, but I’m glad you are. We didn’t have much time. To really be friends.”

“I wish it had been different. Ironic I guess…you were the one who thought I was dead back in ’68.”

“Made me want to kill someone, to be honest.”

“Wow.”

“So when you’re ready, how about we get going on that consolation.”

Doc, in typical style, was ahead of the curve on Virtual Reality tech. I didn’t have to put any kind of goofy rig on my head, or heavy, obscuring shades over my eyes. Just a little jack that affixed to my temple, which ran on a thin cable down to the USB port of my laptop, which in turn was running the program. I’d fed Miles’ bio into it, enhanced by dictating some of my personal remembrances. Then, goddamn…when I closed my eyes, he was standing right there, on what looked like the African veldt.

Africa, because that was not only where Miles had died, but I had also fed one of my favorite pulp stories, Howard’s The Hills of the Dead, into the program.

Doc, giving the VR toy to me for my birthday, had said just to have fun with it. It was an earlier model of a system he was busy expanding on and enhancing. Enhancing this? Good lord…I could feel the heat of the African sun, and Miles was not just repeating lines, but actually interacting with me. Given other stuff I was hoping to experience during the VR trip, this could get damn addictive.

What I hadn’t expected, was for Miles to be self-aware about his death. Even though I had included that in his bio information, I had thought the program would just re-create him close to what he had been in 1968…but like a character in a story.

Doc had told me one aspect of this early iteration of his programming that he didn’t care for was that it behaved at times in an unpredictable manner. He preferred things to be in control. He certainly knew me well…having passed it along to me with the knowledge of how much I liked things out of control.

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This is a unique book in the Doc Talos library. A gorgeous, 9 x 7 landscape-format hardcover, with art reproduced on the highest quality paper stock. A “deluxe short story”, channeling classic pulp, daring eros and modern high literature as it weaves together themes pioneered by creators as diverse as Robert E. Howard, Philip José Farmer, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The artwork too is something new and special — sprawling, powerful collages by Iason Ragnar Bellerophon, which viscerally transport the reader into this hybrid world of storytelling.

Set in close to the present day, Rickie Talos receives a birthday gift from James Talos: a virtual reality program of unprecedented sophistication. She uses it to immerse herself into the story of one of her favorite pulp tales, Robert E. Howard’s The Hills of the Dead. For her companion in the experience, she chooses a man she had liked and admired, but who had died in Africa fifty years earlier.

Expecting it to be an intense, violent, sexual game, it quickly becomes far more, as the presence of the dead all around her ratchets Rickie’s own emotions, compulsions and desires to a fever pitch.

Will anyone leave the hills of the dead alive?

At full price, The Hills of the Unconsoled Dead will retail for $35. During the presale period which ends August 15th, it is available for $27.50 plus shipping. US purchasers will receive a copy signed by author R. Paul Sardanas.

If you have questions or are interested in purchasing the book, please send an email inquiry here: taloschronicle@gmail.com. We will get right back to you with details of how to acquire the book using PayPal, check or money order.

Travel with Rickie Talos to an Africa that is both nightmare and fever-dream. It will be an unforgettable experience.