Screens

THE BOOK: Screens (Seven Coins Drowning Book 4)

PUBLISHED IN: 2021

THE AUTHOR:  Christopher Laine

THE PUBLISHER: Independently Published

SUMMARY: We have all wondered if our devices are listening to us, or if the government can see into our homes through the cameras on our phones, iPads or monitors. But what if that was the least of our worries? In a chilling and creepy near-future, physical printed manuscripts begin appearing to a select group of suspicious and seemingly unconnected readers. The documents reveal motives much more sinister than advertising or government surveillance in Screens by Christopher Laine [Garden Path, January 26, 2020].

In a moody and atmospheric entry into the dark sci-fi canon, a manuscript has appeared which describes a horrific presence feeding off humanity through our screens, and their ultimate goal of destroying all life on the earth. Those that read the manuscript have either been murdered, have disappeared, or have completely disconnected themselves from all digital communications. There is no information online about this manuscript, or of any of the surviving readers who have formed an anonymous collective who spread knowledge about what the manuscript describes — known as The Network.

THE BACK STORY: Screens was the next of my Seven Coins Drowning series, each of the series focusing in on one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  I was up to Sin #4.

I decided to write it in late 2015.  I was back in San Francisco for a conference.  It’d been a while since I’d been back to the states from New Zealand.  I hadn’t really been back to my hometown since 2008 or so.  I’d passed through, but not really hung out, if you catch my drift.  I was back this time not only for a conference, but to just roll around SF, sink back into the world which made me.

So, there I was on this Muni train, rolling outbound for West Portal, when I note it.  Everyone on the train is on their mobile phone.  Everyone but me and this older lady sitting by herself.  Everyone was gawking into a screen.  Eyes kinda glazed; mouths a little agape.  While I watched them, a shudder went up my spine as my messed-up muse came calling with freaky inspiration.

It was existentially unnerving, that little epiphany I had right then.  It was a personal epiphany, a stranger-in-a-strange-land dystopian epiphany.

“They’re all doped to the gills,” the junkie kid in me chuckled.  “Look at them, dude.  Look at how much they look like you did back in the day with your tabs and your powder.”  

And that voice come slithering out of my past was not wrong.  That junkie kid I was decided it was time to return, all in the name of what we were seeing.  Everyone was completely high, totally hooked.  This one guy’s hand was actually shaking.

That right there, that’s some twisted Sin.  Human civilization locked in a cultural addiction, the new Coke of dangerous substances.  Heroin?  Amphetamines? Weed?  Booze and smokes?  These had nothing on this dose, the hit of anxiety and panic and exhilaration and flashing lights that is digital media.

That was the genesis of it, that little Muni moment.  That was when I felt the pieces of my life coalescing around this crackpot narrative, this tale of madness and the end of days.

It took a lot longer than I’d expected, but I gotta say, the results truly capture that messed-up nightmare moment on the Muni train.  Five years all up it took to finally complete Screens, what with the rewrites and the promotion and book trailers and playlist and art to go with the book.  It was definitely a stretch I’d not been expecting, especially considering most of my other pieces usually took no more than a year to finish.  Yet I’d not have it any other way.  It’s all been worth it. It’s been the most difficult, and the most satisfying time of my life.

I love the book, even after reading and re(re(re(re(re))))-reading it ad infinitum.  Why? Because it refuses to say something to make me or anyone else feel comfortable or safe.  It is about discomfort, about the nightmare of addiction, and of the power of digital media over our minds, for good and for evil.  It is a slap in the face, but the kind you want, the slap you get to snap you out of it, to look around, maybe see a different perspective.

That’s not everybody’s bag, but it is mine, and I know people like me who want to get out on the edge where stuff gets creepy and unsettling.  That’s where people like me do most of our growing.

WHY THIS TITLE?: Screens.  The book is about what I call in the book The Rectangular Gods.  Phones, TVs, monitors, movie screens, tablets, digital displays, VR.  All of us bowed down to worship our Rectangular Gods.  Screens, everywhere we turn now.  We love to tell ourselves we are in charge of it all, that it’s technology which we control, yet it is not hard to flip the drowning coin and see the other side.  We are very much at their beckon call, not unlike an addict is with opiods or speed or booze.

Screens have a distinct power over us these days, not dissimilar to the Parlor Walls in Fahrenheit 451, where Mildred sits hypnotised and delusional by the floor-to-ceiling digital displays which are the walls of the living room, all the while feeding her madness, delusion and escapism.

When Bradbury wrote that, people couldn’t have imagined such a thing would ever come to pass.And yet here we are. 😊

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Screens combines science fiction, cosmic horror, punk rock, the 90s messenger scene, drug addiction and time travel.  Weaved through it are a slew of conspiracy theories, found documents, scientific information on lots of things (particularly screen addiction).  All these threads will catch up with each other eventually, though you may not see how as you’re reading.   The book can feel frenetic and yeah, confusing as you get up into the middle of the book, but in the end, it all lands.  I mean all of it.

Every connection, every link, every piece that seems random will come to a head in what I think is a very disturbing but intellectually satisfying way.

Look, I’ll be straight up:  my writing and I are certainly not everyone’s cup of tea.  My writing is meant for fringe types, for people who like to push the envelope, people who are often labelled freaks or outsiders or the bottom rung.  People who push for the outer bounds, where there be dragons and unwholesome things. That’s who I am.  I’ve never fit in, and as such felt a kindred spiritual and psychological affinity to people like me who enjoy – as they say – the avant garde. That’s what I enjoy, and clearly there are people out there who share this enjoyment with me.

What audiences might want to read it?  There’s a lot in the book.  It says a lot.  You can read it as an indictment of our addiction culture, or you can read it as a twisted drug tale ala Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  You can read it as Cosmic Horror, or even as a noir faux-detective novel.

It’s good, horrific, trippy fun.  What’s not to love?

REVIEW COMMENTS:

“[Laine] takes full advantage of the frenetic, frantic and fumbling manner in which humanity is flailing about as technology quickly outpaces mankind’s ability to adapt, and some seek solace in nostalgia for decades they were never even a part of.” – Pete Rawlik, Lovecraft Ezine

“It’s different, it’s wild, it’s complex, with lots of good prose bits and interesting science fiction and horror [elements].” – Well Read Beard on YouTube.

“Screens is so much more than just a story about a mysterious manuscript. In fact, Christopher Laine has built an entire world within 300+ pages, that not only includes our reality, but others as well.” – Curiosity Bought the Book

AUTHOR PROFILE:

I love writing.

I love the weird.

I love being creeped out.

I live for making people go hush, their eyes a little bugged, then whisper “whoa.”

That’s my real bread and butter. I’ve spent most of my life to date focusing on doing what needed doing. I have a family; I have a job; I have all the bullshit you have. And I’ve got the voices in my head.

I’ve been followed incessantly by the ghosts, gods and daemons which linger at the other edges of my brain. They don’t stop telling me things, no matter how I ignored them. Took me a long while, but now I liten and write down what they tell me.

You know the story. Run from them, hide in the well-lit places. Eventually, we all have to call that game of hide and seek quits.

Now I’m stuck in the wonderland of my own muse, and would welcome guests if and when you’re free for tea.

The world looks mighty odd these days, wouldn’t you agree?

Why deny the madness that has gathered en mass around you. Let in in; let it ignite into fusion.

In an era where we are so far from the centre, I hope my writing will give you the courage to let go, float into the open space where you’ve never been. There is something beyond the periphery waiting.

Come read what I’ve written. Take a step off the edge. How far could you fall?

AUTHOR COMMENTS: When I started writing my Seven Coins Drowning series, I set out to create unique takes on the concept of Sin, as the topic fascinates me.

Each of them has done so, but Screens does it in a way which surprises even me.  We approach such antiquated notions as Sin with bemused humour, and why wouldn’t we?  They do feel old-fashioned, and in many contexts, straight-up oppressive.

Yet we should never imagine any of us (or even ALL of us) are so advanced that we are not just as likely to stumble over our own failings as our ancestors were. We are very much human as they were, and just as capable of doing good or evil as they were, especially evil to ourselves and those around us.

I always want the things I read or view or hear to push me a bit, to make me wonder if I’m not missing something, and so I expect the same of what I create.  And Screens very much does this.  Like I said, it won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, and that’s cool.  But for people who want to get pushed a bit, go a little further from shore, it will certainly appeal.

I set out to create a book that – if I was the reader – I’d go “Whoa!”  And with Screens, I definitely succeeded.

LOCAL OUTLETS: He’s a NZ author, so nothing local.

WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: Amazon, Barnes & noble, etc. 

PRICE: $14.95

CONTACT THE AUTHOR:

Connect with Christopher Laine at ChristopherLaine.net, Facebook.com/domingoladron and Twitter.com/domingoladron.