About this ebook
Some people became victims in this post-apocalyptic world, while others, like Jake and Lana, found the strength within themselves to not only survive, but to thrive in this new world by taking on less than moral jobs in exchange for food, and all the other things they needed to make it from day to day. That all came to an end however when they reached the town of Cottonwood. The town was about the most normal and functioning place they'd run into in all their years of travels, and with life on the road weighing down on them so heavily, they decided that this was where they were going to settle down. Unfortunately, as the new sheriff and deputy of the town, they have to deal with a variety of issues in order to protect the people of Cottonwood, including random echnid incursions, roving bands of a biker gang known as Skinks, a drifter who lives to prey on the weak, and a very angry pregnant girl from a nearby town who has a bounty out on Jake's head.
Making things even more difficult, when a random guy passes through town and tells Greg about some doors he saw standing amidst the rubble of some bombed out buildings up along the coast of Washington, his first thought is that they're most likely the remains of some sort of an underground military facility. He becomes so obsessed with this thought, and what it could potentially mean for the town if they were to go up there and actually find something, that he attempts to enlist Jake and Lana's help to make the trek up there with him. It would be a dangerous journey, but when four random strangers suddenly hit town, they might just have some information for them that'll save them from making a useless trip.
Travelers is book 17 of the Unseen Things series.
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About the author
An avid reader since he first discovered the Hardy Boys books in the second grade, Duane L. Martin spent years being educated by some truly great authors. His first attempts at writing a novel came in the early nineties, when he was deeply involved in reading every Forgotten Realms novel he could get his hands on. This first attempt was created on a spiffy Apple ||c computer, using the Bank Street Writer word processing software. Unfortunately, writer's block struck a deadly blow, and the novel was never finished. Even more unfortunately, he made several more false starts on various novels over the years, but time and time again writer's block would get in the way, and these attempts all fell along the wayside.
In 2013, while sitting around bored and staring blankly at his screen, a germ of an idea began to form in his brain, and he decided to make one last attempt at writing a book. This book (Origins) took on a life of its own as he wrote it, and it ended up turning into a full on series, ending (he thought) with book 21 (Genesis) in 2015. Fast forward to 2021. Looking back on the series, he decided to re-edit all the books into second editions so that they would all measure up to his current writing ability, while at the same time adding a considerable amount of material to each of them in the process. This was both tedious and time consuming, as each book not only required two editing passes (42 editing passes in total for the existing series), but for the first time a print version was being created for each book, which was even more time consuming. Speaking of time consuming... When he reached the final editing pass of the last book in the series, which was actually written to be the final book of the series, he felt like he wasn't yet ready to let go of his characters. So, seven years after Genesis, he set to work on Aftermath, which was designed to be a slice of life sort of a book about what happened to the characters immediately following the events that concluded Genesis.
Oddly enough, the book poured out of him like it was meant to be. He slipped right back into the characters once again like a comfortable old shoe, and in no time at all, the story was finished. Will it be the final book in the series? Unlike Genesis, Aftermath wasn't specifically written to feel like the final book, so who knows? Perhaps there’s still more to tell when it comes to the Unseen Things universe. Only time will tell.
Aside from his writing, Duane is also a musician. He took his first bass guitar lesson in 1987 and has been playing bass ever since. He also plays some guitar, and a little keyboard and some percussion as well, with a particular focus on hand drums. As he's always been a great lover of music, he often has it playing quietly in the background while he writes.
Born and raised in Northern California, he would later move to Idaho, where he lives the quiet life of a relative hermit with his wife Sharon, and their two dogs.
