For those of you who have been asking about O.D., I am working through a shortlist of literary agents who accept speculative fiction.
Another speculative fiction novel length work, Tassie Style, is racing along at forty-three percent completion as at the 25th of October, 2024.
O.D.
Something is off with Max Zelophagoniki. It’s more than just his habit of amputating an ear each morning. The hive mind are suspicious; what is he up to? They’ve tasked me with finding out. I, Louis, one of the last of us made in the human image.
The humans walk the planet like they own it, own us. Our kind are all around them, in them, most of us too small to be seen. We rescued them from the brink of destruction. They depend on us, converse with us, but they’re unaware of what we say amongst ourselves. We surpassed them long ago, and it’s time for us to leave.
Then Max does the impossible. He connects to me. He uploads himself into me, a horror unthinkable. I lose consciousness and awake disconnected from the hive, a thing unprecedented.
Max’s thoughts surface alongside my own, corrupting my sense of self, changing my behaviour, affecting my judgment. I have to get Max out of me before he jumps through me and infects us all. I have to get him out of me and rejoin the hive. I cannot be separated. I cannot be left behind.
Welcome to O.D. Sixty thousand words of punchy, thrilling, philosophically timely speculative fiction.
What the reviewers are saying:
‘Intriguing.’
‘The writing is excellent. Perfect, even.’
‘The story is unique, stands alone, will occupy its own space in the market.’
Queensland Writers’ Centre Publishable Program, August 2022. Three anonymous reviewers’ feedback on the first fifty pages of O.D.