#IN SPLENDID CITY FREE#

No doubt they said something to annoy you.

I’m not actually the kind of person who goes around shooting people.” “Well, that just tells you about my character. She had pale skin, medium length brown hair, hazel eyes, and a face that gave away everything. She tried to make sure her face was neutral it wasn’t easy. “You always regret it.” It was very hard not pointing out the cat’s failures. He had to agree it was becoming a nasty habit. “I shot someone again,” he said, sighing. “How was your day?” Eleanor asked the cat when he walked in the door. The cat put the gun back in his pack and ran off.Įleanor was going to be mad. “Really?” he asked with a nasty, hissing kind of snarl, pulling off his fanny pack and rummaging through it quickly to pull out a gun. “I don’t think you’ve got quite the right kind of analogy there.” “But mushroom roots aren’t right or wrong,” she said, frowning. Have you heard about those mushrooms whose underground roots spread out for miles in all directions? That’s the internet for you.” People see crap, believe it, and act on it before there’s a chance to respond. “Things would be so much better if there were no internet,” the cat said moodily. “I mean, everything is endlessly manipulated.” If she’d had time, she would have wondered why she was having a conversation with a cat, but right then and there she felt it was best to be polite, because he was such a very large cat. “I wonder if there are any facts left,” she said with a sigh. Everyone shouts sound bites and no one shouts facts.” “I’m finding it very hard to have a reasonable conversation these days. The cat was wearing a bowtie and a fanny pack. Ah! She had been muttering again, a bad habit that was growing on her. “It’s true,” the big black cat said, nodding wisely. No one could tolerate anyone who didn’t agree with them. But the larger problem was that the world was going crazy. So much had already changed since the election, why not this, too? Why should anything work when none of it made sense? The president did not want buses to run anywhere near the palace, and that was necessary, she supposed.

She felt a sort of grim satisfaction in it. The structure is breaking down, she thought, and no surprise there. Things suddenly were, and then just as suddenly, were not. Why don’t they say? But these were the times – indefinite suspensions, removals, reversals, etc. She was standing at the bus stop, reading the notice that said the bus had been cancelled, permanently. The Splendid City will be available from 14th June 2022 from Angry Robot, and is available to pre-order HEREīetsy Bunderoo was used to seeing cats, but not ones who walked upright or spoke. A talking cat who loves craft beers, picket lines, and duping and ‘shooting’ people.Įleanor has no time for Stan and his shenanigans, because she finds herself helping another coven locate a missing witch who she thinks is mysteriously linked to the shortage of water in Liberty. This terrifying (and yet somehow vaguely familiar) terrain is explored via Eleanor – a young woman eagerly learning about the gifts of her magic through the support of her coven.īut being a white witch is not as easy as they portray it in the books, and she’s already been placed under ‘house arrest’ with a letch named Stan, a co-worker who wronged her in the past and now exists in the form of a cat. In this society, paranoia is well-suited because eyes and ears are all around, and they are judging.

#IN SPLENDID CITY FREE#

In the state of Liberty, water is rationed at alarming prices, free speech is hardly without a cost, and Texas has just declared itself its own country. Today, we’re thrilled to be able to share with you an excerpt from the upcoming novel from Karen Heuler –

In splendid city