Fortuna and the Scapegrace

In Delivering Virtue – Book One of The Epic of Didier Rain – Brian Kindall takes the classic novel of the West and turns it on its head. Grandiloquent humor, pathos, and a cast of absurd and depraved characters all come together in an American Frontier world inspired by myth and legend, creating a surreal and disarmingly poignant adventure reviewers are calling a triumph of American Magical Realism.

Foreword Clarion Reviews calls it "A splendid allegorical odyssey” and it was a finalist for their literary fiction Book of the Year. It is an Editor’s Choice at the Historical Novel Society, and Blue Ink Reviews says, “This provocative, wholly satisfying novel is a Western adventure told in the language of magic realism. It skillfully blends historical insights, moments of fantastical humor, stories of travel through exotic climes, and references to European poetry, Homeric mythology, and even Oedipal psychology.” 

And from Allie's Opinions: “The Odyssey” of the wild west with a swashbuckling dandy narrating a journey of prophecy and magical realism. Add a pile of depraved characters and stir. I couldn’t put it down. Definite 5 stars."

Yes. It does, and I'm here to remind you of that fact. Constantly. Because let's face it, the cataclysmically "world-ending" situation you happen to be in isn't, in fact, that. Allow me to show you how the world keeps on spinning.

Wrap up, kiddos.

~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~

The Man grabbed at Hierophant’s wrist and threw him into the grill of the Ford. Freddy shielded his face from the shards of the shattered windshield.

Hierophant pried himself out of the hood. He jumped up onto the cab and ripped the pump and console off the velcro. “It’s been fun swatting you around like a tee ball but I don’t think I can take much more. Weaving the plexus into this body was only a temporary patch, and I can feel the organs collapsing.” He pressed the central button on the black console. The engine shivered assent and next to Freddy the thick belt on the passenger side spun the pickup motor to life. The barrels rotated. Hierophant pressed another button and they rotated so fast the metal squealed like a pig trapped in a helium abattoir.

On the penthouse floor The Man lurched forward. The cannon squealed and shifted. “Before you take another step,” said Hierophant, “it’s only fair that you know what you’re up against. This, my invincible dearheart, is the General Electric GAU-8 Avenger. It fires a 30 millimeter round of depleted uranium, a four to one mix of PGU-14/B armor piercing incendiary and 13/B high explosive incendiary and it fires them at forty-two hundred per minute. I can only use it for a few seconds at a time though, as I’d ruin the barrels.” Hierophant manipulated the console to aim the cannon at The Man’s helmet. “I’m not sure if you’re familiar with pyrophoric artillery, Gordon, but the rod fractures on impact with a hard target to stay sharp. And then disintegrates into a very hot dust. You see, the Avenger is typically found on the United States Air Force’s Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. It kills tanks.” Hierophant leaned over his knee. “The Professor thought it was an expensive insurance plan. I didn’t.”

Hierophant’s face appeared in Freddy’s window. The blood from his lacerated lips ran down into his mashed nostrils. “There’s a pair of ear muffs under the wheel that I suggest you wear. Also, the recoil force is about five tons so I’m going to need you to step on the gas and keep the pedal down at fifty miles per hour, give or take.”

Freddy grabbed the ear muffs. “Yeah, okay.”

“What?”

“Yessir.”

The ear muffs hardly helped. No sooner had Freddy slid the cups over his ears than the hydraulics screamed and the Avenger sneezed the wall down. The flash was so bright Freddy screamed aloud. He kicked at the accelerator when the Ford crashed out the back of the elevator cage and tried to bust through the opposite wall. The window frame, mahogany desk, carpet, edge of the floor disintegrated, and it may as well have happened to the ghosts of those things as they went to dust in the rapidly swelling smoke, and made no sound that could exist in the same world and hour as the cannon. Then the first five seconds of it were over and the Ford flew over the balcony towards Old Polly and her silent sky.

He didn’t bother to scream this time, he just gripped the wheel tighter and slammed the accelerator down. The lights in the rain rose like shimmery stars in a galaxy friendly and vast. The tracks of car headlights and tail lights crisscrossed the backs of Old Polly’s rising towers, the wind singing in the rain, and he drove in free fall without a single car in his way.

Hierophant plummeted past him. He flipped on his turn signal and steered the other way.

In Delivering Virtue – Book One of The Epic of Didier Rain – Brian Kindall takes the classic novel of the West and turns it on its head. Grandiloquent humor, pathos, and a cast of absurd and depraved characters all come together in an American Frontier world inspired by myth and legend, creating a surreal and disarmingly poignant adventure reviewers are calling a triumph of American Magical Realism.

Foreword Clarion Reviews calls it "A splendid allegorical odyssey” and it was a finalist for their literary fiction Book of the Year. It is an Editor’s Choice at the Historical Novel Society, and Blue Ink Reviews says, “This provocative, wholly satisfying novel is a Western adventure told in the language of magic realism. It skillfully blends historical insights, moments of fantastical humor, stories of travel through exotic climes, and references to European poetry, Homeric mythology, and even Oedipal psychology.” 

And from Allie's Opinions: “The Odyssey” of the wild west with a swashbuckling dandy narrating a journey of prophecy and magical realism. Add a pile of depraved characters and stir. I couldn’t put it down. Definite 5 stars."

Prepare yourself to be amused!

She’s a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you’ll ever want to look.

Tender Branson—last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult—is dictating his life story into the recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He is all alone in the airplane, which will crash shortly into the vast Australian outback. But before it does, Branson will unfold the tale of his journey from an obedient Creedish child and humble domestic servant to an ultra-buffed, steroid- and collagen-packed media messiah.