Set in the high mountains of what was once called New Mexico, the debut novel that Heartland Reviews called “science fiction at its best” takes off in the year 2534. Glendyl has just gotten too lucky. That gets her banished into the wilderness to Quest for the Last Nevergate. Her 249 predecessors failed, but Glendyl might have something extra going for her (not counting her snide QPack with its irritating talent for mimicking human voices). When she encounters an oddly-colored ground squirrel who writes notes in the dirt, she thinks her luck has returned. But when he leads her to the forbidding Dunningans Wall, she finds herself trapped between two ancient enemies in a war that never quite ended.
An encounter with fiery dragon breath proves that one side wants her dead. But Glendyl is hard to kill…and she has a talent for making friends like Lysheem and a charming 300-year old gentleman who is not exactly alive. Plus, she has other things to worry about, like whatever is hidden in her geneset that’s turning her into someone else. Will this biological time bomb transform her into the Wildcard predicted centuries ago, or just the latest dead quester?
Author Ellison tackles the nearly impossible challenge of knitting together persuasive technological realism with fantasy staples like castles, dragons and magic in a future Earth not wildly different from our own. The story that Locus Online called “a rip-roaring good tale, a story for all ages” is a wild ride of a coming-of-age quest, but it’s also a story that can be read at multiple levels by readers YA and above. Does it work? January Magazine called it “fantasy of an original enough nature to deserve its own genre.” Through it all runs an undercurrent of social commentary and satire delivered with wry humor and Ellison’s “cheerfully skewed wackiness.”
Will you be one of the readers who A) falls in love with Lysheem; or B) is merely insanely jealous of her flying skills? Get yourself a Kindle copy and then let us know.
The Luck of Madonna 13 is Book 1 in the Last Nevergate Chronicles. This completely revised 115,000 word all-new edition includes three bonus chapters of the much-anticipated Book 2: The Mask of Madonna 13. Plus, readers can download a copy of the colorful 114-page Chronicler’s Compendium, a volume of “supplements and oddities” originally created for the hardcover Chronicler’s Edition but updated and expanded.