The Switch
Page 33
In this or any other possible universe, The Switch would not have found a home but for the tenacity and enduring faith of my literary agent, Kimberley Cameron. That faith has not always seemed to me well-deserved, but it has abided nonetheless, which goes to prove that sometimes others see in us what we cannot see in ourselves.
The home this book has found at Curiosity Quills Press wouldn’t be such a welcoming one if not for the enthusiastic efforts of my editor, Alisa Gus, who somehow managed to move with us from world-to-world without ever allowing the connecting path to be lost.
Although a lot of science was consumed in an effort to keep this story in some sort of rough harmony with current thinking about the multiverse, we offer our apologies in advance to the scientific heirs of Hugh Everett for the many liberties taken.
Finally, to Nathanael, who conceived the switch and kept his hand on it throughout this long process, which began when he was just fourteen. He is Jacobus Rose, and I wish him journeys as rich in meaning as the ones taken by his literary avatar—though I hope never to lose him to a parallel universe. But then, if what they say is true, I might never know!
A.W. Hill is a classic late bloomer. He began his writing career in 1995, under the influence of California—a place that makes one believe that crazy things are possible. Until then, he was (and still is) involved professionally in one aspect or another of the music business. He was a rocker, playing the circuit until he turned 31. His last band was called TigerTiger, after the William Blake poem, which may indicate that his literary aspirations were already germinating. In 1995, when he began work on what would become his first novel, ENOCH’S PORTAL, he had just left a 9-year stint as Vice President of Music Production for Walt Disney Studios.
(PORTAL, in a textbook instance of beginner’s luck, was optioned by Paramount Pictures and slated for production as a $60mil movie, only to crash into turnaround when the producers, director and studio couldn’t agree on a script)
That was 2000. That same year, he won a Grammy Award, which ought to have made it his favorite year, except that it was also the one in which he reported the lowest adjusted gross income ever to Internal Revenue Service, consisting in part of his meager earnings as a pseudonymous writer of women’s erotica.
He wrote two more books with the same protagonist as in PORTAL—THE LAST DAYS OF MADAME REY and NOWHERE-LAND, published, respectively, by Carroll & Graf in 2004, and Counterpoint Press in 2010.
Along the way, he was introduced by his literary agent, Dorris Halsey, longtime agent to Aldous Huxley, to an Indian physicist in need of a ghostwriter. Together, they dove deeply in quantum physics and the mysteries of the cosmos. He allows that his experience in editing two books on these subjects is perhaps the only thing that gave him the confidence to undertake THE SWITCH. Between 2012-2015, he spent four years teaching film composers in Europe, and along the way, produced an independent album, Another Country, for iTunes .
Nathanael Hill, co-author of “The Switch”, has always been interested in the possibility of parallel worlds. Even at a young age, he and his dad would mull over things like wormholes and higher dimensions. But how, he wondered, could one ever experience these alternate realities? He went to his dad and said, “What if there were a Switch?” That was how things began.
Nathanael, born in Los, Angeles, currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his mom and dad. But these aren’t the only homes he has known. His family has also made moves to Chicago, Spain, and Belgium, which may also have influenced the main character’s world-hopping in “The Switch.” Nathanael’s hobbies include playing guitar, drums, writing, and video games. He is currently attending Hume-Fogg Academic High School, and as of yet has no idea what he wants to be when he grows up.
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The Actuator: Fractured Earth, by James Wymore and Aiden James
(https://curiosityquills.com/kindle/actuator/)
The Actuator, a machine capable of literally changing reality, was created to make the world into a utopian paradise. Before it happened, a saboteur used it to transform the world into patches of every kind of genre fiction. Everyone alive found their lives radically altered and struggling against aliens, pirates, orcs, vampires and every imaginable creature. Many died. Only a handful of people on the planet, called Machine Monks, even knew why it happened or how. Now they have to put it all back before humanity is destroyed.
Prelude to Mayhem, by Edward Aubry
(https://curiosityquills.com/kindle/prelude/)
In the ruins of his world, Harrison Cody follows a mysterious voice on the radio as he and his pixie sidekick travel on foot across a terrifyingly random landscape. They discover Dorothy O’Neill, who has had to survive among monsters when her greatest worry used to be how to navigate high school. Together they search for what remains of Chicago, and the hope that civilization can be rebuilt.
Strings, by G. Miki Hayden
(https://curiosityquills.com/kindle/strings/)
Robert, an ordinary boy, finds himself in a newly chaotic world. Buildings move when and where they please, and time jumps around according to no known laws of physics. For Robert, getting to his regular school in the morning is impossible, and as for getting home… But Holden, a boy he and his friend Nila meet in a cave, offers them a string. Teeny and tiny, and invisible to the naked eye, this string will take Robert and Mila to their homes and way beyond, to other dimensions.
Please Don’t Tell my Parents I’m a Supervillain, by Richard Roberts
(https://curiosityquills.com/kindle/please-dont-tell/)
Penelope Akk wants to be a superhero. She’s got superhero parents. She’s got the ultimate mad science power, filling her life with crazy gadgets even she doesn’t understand. She has two super-powered best friends. In middle school, the line between good and evil looks clear. In real life, nothing is that clear. All it takes is one hero’s sidekick picking a fight, and Penny and her friends are labeled supervillains. In the process, Penny learns a hard lesson about villainy: She’s good at it.
Appetizer:
Book Cover
Title Page
Main Course:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Dessert:
Acknowledgments
Closing
About the Authors
Copyright & Publisher
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