New Amazon listing, new creepiness for Lords: Part One - By N.L. Belardes
We're finally listed on Amazon.com. That means you can leave a review of the novel. Please do. Good or bad, leave your thoughts... be the first!
What was Bakersfield really like?
Read about the creepy and maddened old newspaper publisher. Where was he lurking?
Purchase at Borders.
Purchase at Russos.
Purchase on Amazon.com
Buy from Noveltown
Or see me on the streets with a copy...
And more... If you haven't bought Lords, now is the time to find out just where this kid was headed:
From Chapter 6.
Heading north, Minstrel left Billy and the toy store in the shadows of fog and boyhood. The morning was drifting toward noontime as he pedaled as fast as he could, escaping the now shadow of his friend reading the comic book, and the wooden clown head of the toy store that scowled at his back. Like any boy his age, he could endlessly speed down city streets and barely grow tired. Today, the fog seemed to pull him northward for a while, onto a circle beneath a freeway overpass that sent people, cars, and bikes on a wide path around the ominous statue of Father Garces, the explorer who laid the eyes of Catholicism onto the valley in 1776. Garces stood tall, carved, holding a hat to his breast. A godly guardian of the streets, cars circled him endlessly on the asphalt surface of the circle beneath the overpass, their wheels in a constant screech like the sound of old marshland water birds. Minstrel saw the looming cement figure reach out to him like a great shadow of valley darkness, a behemoth shooting from the valley floor; he pedaled faster as he imagined Natives clinging to the statue’s cloak like impish shadows clawing toward a dark valley heart and chewing on bites of cement with their steely teeth.
On the other side of the circle the road took Minstrel from the guardian to the river. He knew why he had to go this way. He didn’t always know his own intentions, but this time he knew for himself what was just down the river.
Downtown streets open up into the blue-collar suburb of Oildale, another city like Bakersfield built over old swampland that once drained into Yokut fields. Not far from the overpass Minstrel could see a dark horizon of small wooden buildings, a junkyard, and the sandy, mist-covered shadow of the wily Kern River.
Minstrel stopped his bike on the river’s concrete Chester Avenue overpass. Below, the river stretched before him. It was once a mighty torrent but now poured its mountain runoff from a nearby canyon into farm-controlled waterways. This was a sandy bed, a sandy tribute to the mighty waterways of the old river that worked so hard to pound its way into the valley swamplands. He peered for a moment into the northern suburb that lay on the opposite side of the river bottom, then darted to a dirt path that paralleled the riverbed both to the east and west. He was surprised to see that there was some water in the river.
He headed west along a small trickle of a stream where two snowy egrets stepped in shallow water and searched for morsels among what was left of the Kern’s bottom-dwelling plants. He zipped past the large white birds and they fluttered away just as he hurtled westward in a thin layer of powdery dirt that barely covered the hardened earth.
The dust lay thick in places along the river. It was so thick that several times he had to stop and walk his bike through the powdery dirt. Soon, there wasn’t even a trickle of water in the riverbed. Plant life in the bed itself disappeared, with only the bent forms of cottonwood trees hunkering themselves over the path. Their branches were hand-like and gloomy. They held onto the river’s edge and floated their cottonwood stars like a heavenly mist.
Now read the book and go leave a review on Amazon.com...
What was Bakersfield really like?
Read about the creepy and maddened old newspaper publisher. Where was he lurking?
Purchase at Borders.
Purchase at Russos.
Purchase on Amazon.com
Buy from Noveltown
Or see me on the streets with a copy...
And more... If you haven't bought Lords, now is the time to find out just where this kid was headed:
From Chapter 6.
Heading north, Minstrel left Billy and the toy store in the shadows of fog and boyhood. The morning was drifting toward noontime as he pedaled as fast as he could, escaping the now shadow of his friend reading the comic book, and the wooden clown head of the toy store that scowled at his back. Like any boy his age, he could endlessly speed down city streets and barely grow tired. Today, the fog seemed to pull him northward for a while, onto a circle beneath a freeway overpass that sent people, cars, and bikes on a wide path around the ominous statue of Father Garces, the explorer who laid the eyes of Catholicism onto the valley in 1776. Garces stood tall, carved, holding a hat to his breast. A godly guardian of the streets, cars circled him endlessly on the asphalt surface of the circle beneath the overpass, their wheels in a constant screech like the sound of old marshland water birds. Minstrel saw the looming cement figure reach out to him like a great shadow of valley darkness, a behemoth shooting from the valley floor; he pedaled faster as he imagined Natives clinging to the statue’s cloak like impish shadows clawing toward a dark valley heart and chewing on bites of cement with their steely teeth.
On the other side of the circle the road took Minstrel from the guardian to the river. He knew why he had to go this way. He didn’t always know his own intentions, but this time he knew for himself what was just down the river.
Downtown streets open up into the blue-collar suburb of Oildale, another city like Bakersfield built over old swampland that once drained into Yokut fields. Not far from the overpass Minstrel could see a dark horizon of small wooden buildings, a junkyard, and the sandy, mist-covered shadow of the wily Kern River.
Minstrel stopped his bike on the river’s concrete Chester Avenue overpass. Below, the river stretched before him. It was once a mighty torrent but now poured its mountain runoff from a nearby canyon into farm-controlled waterways. This was a sandy bed, a sandy tribute to the mighty waterways of the old river that worked so hard to pound its way into the valley swamplands. He peered for a moment into the northern suburb that lay on the opposite side of the river bottom, then darted to a dirt path that paralleled the riverbed both to the east and west. He was surprised to see that there was some water in the river.
He headed west along a small trickle of a stream where two snowy egrets stepped in shallow water and searched for morsels among what was left of the Kern’s bottom-dwelling plants. He zipped past the large white birds and they fluttered away just as he hurtled westward in a thin layer of powdery dirt that barely covered the hardened earth.
The dust lay thick in places along the river. It was so thick that several times he had to stop and walk his bike through the powdery dirt. Soon, there wasn’t even a trickle of water in the riverbed. Plant life in the bed itself disappeared, with only the bent forms of cottonwood trees hunkering themselves over the path. Their branches were hand-like and gloomy. They held onto the river’s edge and floated their cottonwood stars like a heavenly mist.
Now read the book and go leave a review on Amazon.com...
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Monday, November 28, 2005.
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