QSFer Brian Barr has a new Alternative History/Paranormal book out now:
Carolina Daemonic is a dystopian alternative timeline urban fantasy-horror with LGBT, steampunk, and occult elements.
It’s 2020. The South won the Civil War and achieved manifest destiny in the United States. Great Britain, known as Victoria, and China, have maintained their empires. American slavery was abolished in the late 20th century instead of the late 19th century. Steam powered machinery and electricity make up the bulk of modern technology.
In the shadows of the Confederacy, there is magic. Esoteric sciences arcane and archaic survive from forgotten times, and strange demonic creatures wander through the slums of Charleston…
Enter Carolina Daemonic. In an alternative timeline, see a dark world not too far removed from our own- religio-political cults, racism, sexism, homophobia, corporate takeovers and corruption are abound. Witness the strange and mysterious beyond the familiarity of our ordinary world as well- godly avatars, lustful demons, necromancers, and the undead. Carolina Daemonic, Book I: Confederate Shadows.
Excerpt
“Remember.”
Many final scenes and memories flashed in Zev’s spiritual sight, as he slowly rose from his induced coma; his hands ripping at the cocoon of chaotically pulsing skin and tissue wrapped around him. He could remember the feel of the amulets on his neck and in his hands, the summoning of great golems sweeping the Southern landscape, disguised as Union soldiers with Hebrew letters on their foreheads, giving each earth-made man their own name and number.
Figures formed from American dirt and clay rose from the earth, wearing blue uniforms and carrying guns of their own, while the South played the hand with its own collected brand of zombie soldiers. The dead and the supernaturally conceived blended in well with the horrors of war, fighting alongside their human comrades; farms burnt to ash, slaughtered civilians rested in mud pits and along dirt roads.
I had been commissioned, the rabbi’s son remembered, commissioned and given asylum.
Back in the President’s office, in hidden rooms behind brothels, in the homes and tents of generals… everything was coming back in flashes, in stretched moments of time. Zev had sat in backrooms with war strategists, watched them draw up maps of Gettysburg, Appomattox, Yorktown, and New Orleans. A usually drunk Ulysses S. Grant had offered the magician a swig of liquor and scowled when it was politely refused. Zev had drawn up his own images to show the generals that had hired his services, explaining the intricacies of the Etz HaChaim, the powers of the melakhim… most of the time, the men offered blank stares to the rabbi’s son, but none of them thought he was crazy. They knew of his great reputation, and they had already seen his powers on the open field, along with the other occultists they had a pleasure to work with.”
Buy Links
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Author Bio
Brian Barr is an American author of novels, short stories, and comic books. He also writes under the pseudonym of Aghori Shaivite. Brian has been published in various short story anthologies, including Queer Sci Fi’s Discovery, NonBinary Review No. 3: The Wizard of Oz, Dark Chapter Press’s Kill for a Copy, and various short story collections from J. Ellington Ashton Press. Brian collaborates with another writer, Chuck Amadori, on the supernatural dark fantasy noir comic book series Empress, along with Pencil Blue Studios’ Marcelo Salaza for the art. His first two novels, Carolina Daemonic and Psychological Revenge, will be published by J. Ellington Ashton Press in 2015.
Website: http://www.brianbarrbooks.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/brianbarrbooks
Interview: http://amandamlyons.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-brian-barr