Pandora Driver: The Origin

John Picha

Mar 2011 · John Picha

About this ebook

It was the 1930s. The avarice of the elite had plunged the country into the Great Depression. Class warfare was being waged, and someone was about to snap! Young Betty McDougal discovered how hard life could be when her family was evicted from their farm and forced to live in a Citadel City shelter. They struggled to survive. It was a time of desperation, sin, mistakes and lessons Betty didn't want to learn. Her life felt pointless until a mysterious stranger delivered her an ominous black car. It transformed her. Pandora Driver was the relentless avenger of the common man sifting right from wrong in a realm where the villains were the local gentry and the heroes were outlaws. Pandora was a mistress of disguise who used sly audacity and an unstoppable Car-of-Tomorrow to unleash chaos into the halls of wealth and power. She infiltrated the unscrupulous rulers of Citadel City and adopted their unsavory methods to usurp them. Her fight was the fight of the ages. She was the fist of the people battling greed, graft, inequality, and exploitation. Her time was in the past, but the problems were the same blights facing society today. She intervened when law enforcement or the justice system failed citizens. Sometimes her methods were unsettling. Battling sin in the filth where it resides can dirty even the purest hearts; the good old days we remember in monochrome were lived in color. In a time when good and evil was simply black and white, Pandora lived in the gray area. Pandora Driver: The Origin, summons the spirits of pulps past and adds dieselpunk hardware. This retro-hero tale is for mature readers. It ain't Shakespeare. It's pure Pulp!

Ratings and reviews

...Pandora Driver runs big business off the road and kicks it square in the teeth. Drawing inspiration from classic comic book super heroes, bathed in the harsh back-lighting of film noir, Pandora takes us from the smokey backrooms of hopping speakeasies to the gilded opulence of dusty boardrooms. Truly a new pulp heroine plucked from the ranks of the proletariat, Pandora rises up from the gutter to defend those who can ill-afforded to defend themselves. Pandora Driver makes for a sexy and thoughtful read, filled with clever dieselpunk tech and engaging characters. As the first chapter of a high-adrenaline series, I look forward to Pandora's continuing adventures.

When I first open up this book, I wasn't too sure what to expect. As I started to turn each page, I quickly was drawn into someone else's world. I was absorbed into a story as seen through the eyes of a young girl as she awakens, develops, and transforms into her own hero. I thought of the movie, "Sucker Punch," of a heroine drawn into different planes of adventure and fantasy rolled into one. This could be great fun, I thought, and I took a high dive and plunged directly into this book. Not willing to accept defeat, the heroine maneuvers her way through life's obstacles, achieving physical fitness, disguises, and acquiring the instruments of her craft. Out of a mist of fog, fire, and smoke, rises a heroine who fights her way to a righteous cause. So what is the very substance of our heroine? Is the Phantom Driver like a batgirl, a Tomb Raider, a female version of the Phantom, or a new breed of crime fighting vigilante? One thing I can say for sure, the heroine is certainly a flesh and blood crusader with a strong passion for seeking justice for herself and others. If you like stories of high adventure, personal struggle, spirited conflict, and excitement, this is for you.

About the author

John Picha was born on St. Patrick's Day 1968 in Joliet, Illinois. He was raised in Frankfort, a suburb of Chicago, but his mind always seemed to be elsewhere. The little midwesterner was captivated by comics books, cartoons and animation, mythology and all things imagined. He made the world around him more exciting by pretending. A bicycle was a spacecraft, a bush became a dinosaur, and, of course, there was always a bath towel hidden away for a quick change into a super hero.If you'd like to learn more about John or to see his other work, you can visit him on the web.www.takejohn.comwww.youtube.com/johnpicha