In honor of Independence Day (Happy 4th to all who celebrate, woohoo!!) and my 100th blogger celebration, I’ve got a very special post cooked up here with the help of some spectacular bloggers who have pitched in to participate. There are seven excerpts total lined up in no particular order.
Now I’m gonna need your help! Please vote for your favorite excerpt. I will ask the author of the excerpt with the most votes to guest post a week from now! If they choose to opt out, the runner up will be asked to guest post, and so on.
Without further ado, may I present excerpts from both novels and short stories by these amazing folks:
(#1) Short Story: “Network” by Picture-Bandit
“Please find yourself, this Morning at 9 o’clock, at the Net-Authorities-Office U-Z-7 to check a suspicion of information-fraud.” A simple, automated message, is able to destroy an existence of twenty-five years in mere moments. His family, friends and Denise, the love in lie how he himself wrote it, they all will see in him a criminal, liar and cheat. “What crime did I commit other than enjoying the freedom of privacy, piece of mind and deed without judgdement?” The injustice and the fact that he had to be abstinent of so many things in his life gave him the power to come to a stop, breathe and order his thoughts.
Dexterous and carefully he moved his way out of the crowd of students, as he himself moments ago on their way to the university, into a quiet alley. His heart pounding as if he had ran for hours and running is all there is left. What else could he do? His life and how he played it is over. The curtain has fallen, the mask slipped. The only hope to escape the net-police is to flee the city and on the countryside free from security cameras and Netaccess, to make his secret identity his only one.
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(#2) Novel: Under the Desert Moon by Emma Meade
To be released this fall.
Erin stared out her bedroom window, wishing like always that she was elsewhere. Anywhere but here, she thought wistfully.
Nothing ever happened in this rundown town, not since the last mine had closed a decade ago. Copperfield, Arizona was dusty, quiet and old-fashioned. It took months for the latest movie to make it to The Oracle theatre where Erin worked part-time, but it was the easiest job in the world. It got Erin out of the house she shared with her brothers and angry, alcoholic father, put money in her savings account, and most importantly, Erin got to see movies for free.
It was escapism. For a couple of hours she could lose herself in another world, imagining herself as the beautiful heroine. Erin was waiting for the day she would learn she wasn’t her father’s daughter. That her mother had embarked on some secret affair with a handsome, rich man, and it was only a matter of time before he discovered her existence and introduced Erin to his world.
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(#3) Short Story: “Unwound” by Sean Sandulak
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. There’s never enough time. Cut and paste. Crop a photo. Typing. Typing. Done. Wait for the buffer to clear. Take a sip of coffee. One last time to check the code. It looks good. Upload. Wait. And wait. Tapping fingers on the desk. I need a faster connection. Finally, done. The bills are paid. Another satisfied customer. The working day is over. It’s time to enjoy life.
Maybe I’ll watch a movie, he thought. Brian switched the television on. The computer monitor was mirrored on the big screen. He opened the movie directory. Something with a lot of action, he thought. I need to stay awake. He picked one he hadn’t seen yet. The opening credits came up on the screen. He set the playback speed at two-hundred-fifty percent. At that rate the movie would last forty-seven minutes. Forty-seven minutes of his life. It had better be worth it, he thought.
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(#4) Novel: Earth Angel by Ruth Ellen Parlour
To be released July 27th, 2012.
‘Found anything yet?’ asked Gabrielle. Sweat trickled slowly over her flaky brown skin. The pungent stench attacked her senses in waves as the unyielding sun burned the flesh off her neck and arms.
‘No,’ replied her brother Ossoldo who was chained beside her. His lank brown fringe flopped constantly over his almond shaped eyes and a rough beard grew gristly like a hedgehog that clung to his jaw. A heavy chain linked them all together. Rows of workers were hammering at either side of them, in front, and behind; lined in deep trenches of crumbling rock. The rutted surface shifted in and out of Gabrielle’s consciousness like a mirage. The rhythmic thud mixed with the haze of the sun was hypnotic and hallucinations came like a dream, the colors intoxicating; dreams of things too far out of life.
A long metal trough sat behind them, permanently waiting. Minute pieces of mixed grey and brown rock sat in the rusting metal. They were digging for any valuable metal or mineral. What happened to the metal was nobody’s business.
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(#5) Short Story: “The Second Civil War” by Rachel Horwitz
I can’t say who struck first. Some say the first salvo was the presidential assassination. Others claim the Chicago massacre last July. Censorship and corrupt law made it near impossible to discern who was actually at fault. Loopholes and the restriction of First Amendment Rights did not allow for a public investigation. All I know is the cataclysmic civil war that erupted across America stunned the world. Americans were not as surprised. The elderly, more venerable Americans were touted as paranoid for spending decades prophesying the ultimate collapse of our republic. Most Millennium Babies, like my parents, had grown up in the turmoil indifferent to the day our nation fell into darkness. And every single one of my peers was forced to fight, literally, for an outdated system that imploded over our heads. Three years ago President Bane reinstated the draft, for all able bodies over seventeen to help quell the faction uprising. Some speculate that may have led to his death.
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(#6) Novel: Trinity by Clare Davidson
To be released July 20th, 2012 in ebook format (soon after in paperback).
“Kiana, are you even listening to me?”
Kiana peeked over the top of her drawing board and smiled innocently. “Of course I am, Ducarius.”
The old man pursed his lips and peered at Kiana, forcing the young girl to stifle a laugh behind her hand. He always seemed to be annoyed with his pupil.
Kiana looked back down at her artwork: a detailed charcoal castle. It stood on a tall hill, surrounded by a grey stone wall. She had never seen it before, except in her dreams. From her apartments in Blackoak Tower, she had only ever been allowed to see the sky.
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(#7) Novel: The Hope of Years to Come by Emmanuel Taiwo
Things are falling than the way we expected them and life seems unlivable because we can’t afford the worries and the uncertainties we are/might face and the truth is that we are bound and predestined to face these difficulties in life. We are passing through hard times which sometimes make us think if there will ever be a way out of our distress, however the truth about the solution to our problem is what we don’t want to hear. An African proverb says “the truth is bitter to swallow”.
Distress is defined as the state of adversity (danger or affliction or need {from free dictionary online}). Most of the readers of this book may be wondering that we have no fear of affliction whatsoever be it economically or otherwise; however the fear of tomorrow is constantly within our grasp. We cannot fully live each day without the fear of terrorism, insecurity, financial burdens, the fear of the future of our children and our lives, the fear of economy after recession and the fear of the revolutions we have witnessed and will witness in the coming years. The world is becoming a place we can no longer predict in terms of how the government will rule its administration, the increasing fear of immigration with its pros and cons, the rise of religious extremists and in summation the fear of the future.
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I can’t tell you how much fun I had with these! Now I can’t wait for the 200th blogger celebration 
You guessed it, if you missed it this time, you’ll have another shot to participate, and those who have already taken part can come back for another round as well!
Be honest, which was your favorite excerpt (besides your own)? Hard, right?
-The Story Addict
*Disclaimer: I reserve the right to edit all excerpts for grammatical mistakes, however I am not responsible for professionally editing the excerpts. All authors are responsible for editing their own work. Please contact me if you have issues with formatting and/or editing.
I was torn between ‘Unwound’ and ‘The second civil war’
The former had an X factor in its character, if I knew more of the story, I may be hooked. But the latter was obviously a good choice because it appeared grander and its a really good idea.
Thanks for your input, great points and excellent choices
… I did my choosing, it was not easy. Again thank you for sharing and including my story.
No problem, thanks for voting and sharing!
Thanks for this opportunity again.
No problem, thanks for sharing! A real treat
Reblogged this on picturebandit.
There’s some good extracts there, I’m stuggling to pick one!
Yeah, I was impressed with most of them! Lots of talent here
Reblogged this on Verbatim Gibberish.