THE SHORT OF IT:
A mysterious vigilante stalks the urban streets, beating down gang members and crooked cops with his bare hands. He is the Voice of the City, a phantom no one can say for sure exists. Is he a ghost? An urban legend? A figment of fearful imagination? To some, he is a dream; to others, a very real nightmare against which they seek revenge. Now Sally Reiser, seer of God, stumbles into the hero’s world carrying visions of strange creatures and impending mayhem. A fearmonger from a nightmareverse has arrived to terrorize the city and Sally and the Voice strive to stop this ancient enemy. To do so, they must rein in the baser instincts of the city to prove that talk vanquishes violence and civility trumps hate. Can they do it, or is the city too far gone?
THE LONG OF IT:
Indianapolis, present day. Not the most burgeoning of American cities, not the place you think of when you call to mind crime, despair, and the hopelessness of urban existence. So, why does Indianapolis, Naptown to some, have a superhero patrolling its streets, and why did that hero settle in Naptown after two years fighting the good fight in Chicago, just a few hours north? For the mysterious, rarely glimpsed Voice of the City made his debut in that metropolis by the lake, beating down criminals and dirty cops alike, protecting the common citizen.
Then he disappeared, re-surfacing in that glorified farm town to the south.
CIA agent Richard Short, from Fiona Street and Uncivil Service, thinks he has a notion why. He thinks the Voice may have followed someone to Naptown. He may be allied with a young woman known and watched by the federal government: Sally Reiser, the “seer of God,” who in her dark past thwarted the plans of many a terrorist organization. In Last Days and Times, Redemption Song, and Uncivil Service, Sally stood against evils of which ordinary people are unaware, existential threats from both this world and another. Now, she’s retired and running a halfway house for formerly imprisoned gang members. Short knows the Voice and Sally worked together in Uncivil Service. Has the hero grown attached to the woman? Are their destinies somehow tied?
Of this Short isn’t sure. Of other things, he has no clue. He doesn’t know that a new threat rises. An old enemy of Man has come to town to wreak havoc. He believes mankind has attacked his universe, twisting the very roots of its existence. Though he’s powerless to halt this imagined attack, he knows he can make some symbolic stand against the threat. Better to burn standing than to burn cowering in a corner.
So the Boogieman (yes, you read that right) uses all his powers of injecting fear and doubt, all his knowledge of the dark nature of Man, to unleash overwhelming forces upon the city. Gang warfare. Vengeance. Rage. Murder. And an invasion from his nightmareverse that few humans could withstand.
But the city has defenders. Sally Reiser stands. So does the Voice of the City. Together with Short, Sally’s boyfriend Gary, a skeptical police officer, and the very gangs the Boogieman strives to ignite, the seer of God and the city’s champion seek to extinguish the growing flames of hate.
But, there’s a catch, a weakness so profound in the Voice of the City’s armor that not even the Voice knows of it. A weakness that can open up the ground beneath our protagonists’ feet and plummet them to immediate defeat. And it can happen at any time.
Voice of the City is a superhero/urban fantasy mash-up that takes both genres on a rollercoaster ride of action, adventure, and deep personal introspection. It’s a big story about little people, and an even bigger story about gods. An epic happening down on the corner.
Can the city be saved from its own base instincts, or is it too far gone?
Superhero Fantasy/Urban Fantasy - Adult themes - Rough Language - Action/fantasy violence