Monday, April 7, 2008

Mai Shangri-La: the Cover Blurb

Reuben James Runquist is finally facing facts; at eighty, he's stuck with a retirement condo in an environment that is decidedly "Mai" ("Not" in Thai) Shangri-La. Global climate has "flipped" raising sea levels seven meters over turn of the millenium levels, plagues have killed hundreds of millions, and worldwide transportation and commercial infrastructures have collapsed. Reuben is reduced to s subsistence existence in the high-tech but questionably secure "Panic Room" of his barricaded condo in Pattaya.

Reuben needs to escape if he's going to truly live out his "golden years" in relative peace and security. By now, though, the Thai central plain is awash in a new inland sea, and Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Lee is ratcheting up the pressure to acquire rights to Reuben's new virtual reality game/novel "StimSim". Reuben's always been his own man, but what are his options? How can he escape global warming AND the clutches of a man who won't take no for an answer?

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(many thanks to Joan Rickard of Author Author Literary Agency for her straightforward advice on drafting a workable cover blurb. This is approximately what went on the back cover of the 1st Proof Copy at CreateSpace, and I haven't yet come up with a better draft)