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Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World is a novel in which nothing is quite what it seems and everything is loaded with shadowy dreams of the past and nightmares set to soul-pounding music of the future.
Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World combines popular music culture, science fiction fantasy, and horror to create a uniquely engaging metaphysical epic. The story takes us inside the world of Danny Blue, a young man struggling to make peace with the death of his girlfriend, a gifted artist named Valerie Hyerman whose passing sparks the creation of a controversial spiritual movement. Was her death suicide, murder, or something completely different from either?
The stunning truth unfolds in Froggtown, a college community where many people are said to have “died dirty” and wander the streets in search of release from a spiritual limbo. Such a town seems an unlikely place for a superstar musician like Jimmy Redfyre to kick off his tour on Christmas Eve, or for his main rival Ruzahn to keep popping up in Danny Blue’s life. Moreover, how is it that both singers seem to have released songs about his life? Equally bizarre are the strange changes that Danny Blue himself begins to experience and that appear to be causing him to evolve from an ordinary human to something not so ordinary at all. Written with the visionary intensity of Franz Kafka, the mystical poetics of Khalil Gibran, and the psychological complexity of Philip K. Dick, Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World is a one-of-a-kind work of extraordinary modern fiction.
Excerpt
A MYSTERY FOR MANY YEARS:
"At this point, I have a proposal for you, which is that Valerie Hyerman is now and shall remain for many years to come one of the great mysteries of our age. You’re holding in your hands a collection of material which would thoroughly define beyond question the life of anyone else. For Valerie Hyerman, they hint at a labyrinth, show us the arrow pointing the way to get in but hiding the arrow showing the way to get out. On the first three pages you have news clippings from the Froggtown News Press, Froggtown Offline and the Weekly Froggtown Star. Can I see the hands of those who knew who Valerie Hyerman was before these stories of her death appeared in the papers?"
Aside from four of the visiting art students, only Zachary and Peter Westman raised their hands until Zachary tapped Danny's shoulder, repeated what Moonwine had said and held Danny Blue’s hand up for him.
"Ok, that’s about what I thought. In the different newspapers we’re told different things. The Froggtown News Press says Ms. Hyerman was a gifted young art student who came from Idaho to attend the prestigious College for the Creative Arts and wound up dying there under bizarre circumstances. They speculate that she may have had a heart attack while kickboxing in the nude. The paper then basically uses Ms. Hyerman's death to point out other issues pertaining to the college but not necessarily to Ms. Hyerman. The writer tells us about all night rave parties turning into drug binges and orgies, about the very few black students that attend this college in a city with a better than majority African-American population. About scandalous––read private––matters that really only concern specific faculty members. Froggtown Offline is a relatively new paper and they chose to focus on Ms. Hyerman’s life exceptional achievements at such a young age. They did, however, point out that she was found without clothing near one of her sculptures and…uh…in the company of her boyfriend.”
What you want is the video, thought Danny Blue. I can’t show you that. I can’t look at it myself.
--from CHRISTMAS WHEN MUSIC ALMOST KILLED THE WORLD (ISBN 0966235673)
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