QSFer Steven A. Coulter has a new MM YA sci-fi book out: Passageway.
Chosen by mystical warriors to protect a parallel Earth from a catastrophic future, a young man must push his mental and physical abilities to the limits if he is to help save mankind.
As seventeen-year-old Darwin McQuaid flees high-school bullies, he is saved by an enigmatic stranger; an indigenous teenage warrior who was born 500 years in the past.
Strong and powerful, Daruk possesses an intelligence that exceeds his rugged youthful appearance, and Darwin is drawn to learn more about him. Surprisingly, the high-school junior discovers that the mysterious warrior has a connection to an old family friend—an elderly indigenous shaman called Uncle His.
As the physical attraction intensifies between Darwin and Daruk, the warrior reveals a secret—that he and Uncle His are Guardians of the Passageway and are destined to protect the crossroads of three parallel universes, three Earths, each 500 years apart.
Discovering worlds he never knew existed, along with an untapped power within himself, can the young man become the warrior needed to defend this ancient world from corrupt invaders? Or will the death and danger of a more primitive time prove to be too much for this 21st century teen?
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Excerpt
1.
He can’t stop grinning when he comes here. As he stands on the precipice, the ocean wind whips his long black hair, pelts his bare chest with sand and brings salt to his lips. He feels energized and alive on this hilltop, watching the roiling waters of the Pacific Ocean pound the half dozen islands, all that is left of San Francisco. He is not melancholy over what was lost, knowing the land is still vibrant in his own world.
There are lessons in tragedy if you care to learn and change. Ignorance or indifference do not avert disaster. Myth makers and politicians will convince survivors that no one was at fault, it was inevitable and for the best. Human memory is short and truth always fungible. Who cares about history or blame? What is the point?
The 26th century is not his favorite time to visit.
The warrior pulls off his beaded headband and eagle feather, carefully slipping them into the leather pouch at his hip, remembering his pride when an Arapaho chief on the Great Plains gave them to him in recognition for rescuing a girl, not much younger than himself, from a group of renegades
Throwing his head back, he coyote howls into the wind. He pounds the end of his wooden staff on the stone path and a door opens in the hillside.
Moving into the darkness, he drops down three hundred feet, through a blue shimmering icy flame thirty feet high, ten feet across, undulating in slow motion. Enveloped in a white gauzy mist and intense cold, he travels back in time. He is anxious to see his adopted father, continue his training and once again be near the object of his destiny.
Maybe this time he will be brave enough.
2.
“This is perfect.” My closest friend, Miguel Medina, held up a leopard print silk disco shirt with a giant retro collar covered in yellow rhinestones. “Very sixties, something my granddad might like.” He pushed it to my chest. “Yes, so, so quintessential for your starring musical role.”
“You did not just say that.”
“It was on a spelling test this morning in English. I need to use it three times to own it. She also said I need to increase my vocabulary.”
“Good luck with that.” I turned to the mirror in the small used clothing store in the Haight, the place undisturbed since the hippies ruled here in the ‘70s. Maybe my best friend saw something I was missing.
No. “Sorry Miguel, I need a New York street gang look, not the Bee Gees.”
I pulled out a threadbare denim vest with assorted patches and held it up. Very biker. “I’ll take this,” I told the young cashier with a grin. She looked like she might be in high school too.
“That will be six dollars,” she said. “So archetypal.”
“You win,” I told her.
Outside it was a perfect San Francisco late afternoon, temperatures in the low sixties, fog lingering offshore as it prepared to reclaim the city at sunset.
“Gotta pick up something for my dad then head home,” Miguel said, pulling me into a hug.
“Tomorrow,” I answered, watching him cross Haight Street and head down the hill while I continued west. Mom was on my case for always getting home late.
Beckman High was going to stage a revival of West Side Story. It was a small private high school but did decent musicals and was promoted as an elite academy. You could only believe that if you never attended. I wanted to be Tony but it was a stretch. I was a junior with no history in the Music or Drama departments. Few people knew I sang outside of family and friends. But I loved Broadway and began to quietly sing the lyrics.
“Somewhere… there’s a place for us…”
Miguel was right, I was a boyish seventeen, almost eighteen if one added eight months, not a kid but behind some of the early bloomers. I shaved once a week, not that anyone would notice. Mom’s friends said I looked innocent as if it were a compliment. Thanks to getting a bloody nose in fifth grade from a kid in fourth, my dad started me on a workout regimen and joined with me making it impossible to fake. Nothing fancy, free weights in our shared garage and lots of pushups, chins and jogging. Dad also enrolled me in a series of self-defense courses. I resisted at first but when I saw results, when friends noticed the upgrades, I became a believer. Singing in public was something Mom was pushing, arguing that this high school was a safe place to experiment. It might work because bullies were unlikely to attend. My main competition for the romantic lead would likely be a handsome senior, active in the Music Department.
“Get the faggot!” I snapped out of my Broadway performance and looked up; three jerks from school were running toward me.
“Fuck!” I pivoted and started to run the other way, maybe hide out in the store. Another guy was fast approaching from this direction, a big grin on his face. They planned this, must have seen me shopping and decided they couldn’t resist. …
Author Bio
Steve writes science fiction and fantasy as well as contemporary story telling featuring fast paced action, exotic settings, nasty bad guys, reluctant heroes, and the audacity of love. American politics is in a dark period; he features LGBTQ+ protagonists, often the target for political exploitation. We need heroes in literature and real life even if they sometimes are less than pure.