Sorry 'bout the weather...

The Hoard, which I wrote in the first months of this year, has a timeline beginning in late spring and ending in summer. The starting point was necessitated by the time when certain crops are planted and harvested in Kansas. But I also needed it to be hot, so I wrote that the summer heat had come early, bringing drought and fire which drove a deadly new creature before it.

I wondered, as I wrote it, if it was believable for it to be so hot in June. Then a few months later my questions were answered, as Kansas experienced multiple June days over 100 degrees.

So the question is: did I prognosticate or progenerate this hellish weather? Coincidence? I think so!

Here’s the thing: once the heat wave has passed and you’re enjoying pleasant, 90 degree November days (global warming puhshaw!), you’re going to miss the feeling of the air being sucked from your lungs when you step outside. You’ll miss the sense of déjà vu when you open your car door and a blast of heat hits you in the face, and you realize you’re remembering the last time you opened the oven on a roasting chicken. You’ll miss the confidence brought about by the knowledge that Hell could hold no worse for you.

Luckily, you’ll be able to re-experience it all in The Hoard!  There will be a collector’s edition limited to a hundred hard covers, but the TPB is already available for pre-order at B&N for the ridonk low price of $11.46 (I have no idea if it will stay that way, since it says it’s discounted from 16.99).

The pitch:

THE HOARD by Alan Ryker

A new breed…a new evil…

Hidden deep beneath its landfill lair of trash and filth, a strange new organism has come to life.  When an accidental fire drives it out, the mysterious creature escapes across the drought-blasted Kansas prairie and finds the home of elderly hoarder Anna Grish.  In desperate need of shelter, it burrows in, concealed amidst the squalor and mess.

When Adult Protective Services force Anna to vacate her junk-riddled home, she moves in with her son and his family.  But there is something wrong with Anna, something more than her declining mental condition and severe hoarding disorder.  Something sinister has taken hold of her, and it’s not only getting stronger, it’s spreading.  Amidst the wide-open Kansas plains, with endless blue sky above and flat, open vista stretching from one horizon to the next, there is nowhere to hide from…THE HOARD.