The Vault by Paul Nemeth - An Unbelievable, Extraordinary Mindblower!

My name is Owen Tipton, and this is a dream.

Owen recited the familiar words, and the world swam before him, like a television station not quite tuned in. He felt the familiar pull, an unseen hand threatening to pull him back from the rabbit hole, back to reality. As he'd done thousands of times before, Owen grabbed the nearest item, a tree branch, and held on, watching his knuckles grow white against the evergreen bark.

His roll was brought to a violent halt,
knocking the wind out of his lungs with an
almost comical paaaah sound. Dusting
himself off, he got to his feet, looking for
some kind of challenge.
"What?" he murmured, looking around.
This time, the question was for him alone;
he'd forgotten about his precious fans for
the moment.
No longer red, the sky was a pure, azure
blue. Owen had grown up under artificial
skies, but he knew without being told he was
looking at the real thing now...

After a moment, the light-headedness was gone, and Owen looked back around at the Default, knowing millions of eyes were following his every move...

"Well," he announced to his unseen audience, "what shall we dream today?"

It was for show, of course, he already knew the course today's 'cast would take. Scene change, he thought, and the pine-laden hillside was replaced by jagged rock formations under a red sky.

A throng of people stood around a fish-sized hole in the earth. They were dressed in black, Pilgrim-like, the men in suits, women in long black dresses. Some wore veils. Their bearing was so dark, so somber, that Owen, lost in unease, forgot he was dreaming.

He walked with slow, measured steps toward the gathering. At first he thought the sounds coming to his ears came from the wind, but then he realized it was weeping. Whatever this is, he thought, it's going to bring people down. Scene change!

His mind didn't cooperate. Damn. There were thousands of active channels in The City, and competition was fierce. If this show was an embarrassment, that could be the beginning of the end...

What the hell?

~~~

The Vault

By Paul Nemeth

Nothing seems unimaginable anymore,  and we've already seen, "The Dome." But as far as I'm aware, that's the only thing that I'd known about that is even close to the extraordinary part scifi, part horror, part mystery...and more...that you will find when you read The Vault. Oops, then I found the author's article on how he began to think about writing the book, and discovered that the "professional dreamer" was earlier conceived... but I still found the idea to be amazing. Normally my preference for SciFi is futuristic, having been a Trekkie since that show first appeared... But this book is quite different...and the emotional impact is far beyond most books I've read. It's a powerful statement, albeit, sadly, not a surprising one, for our future...

Our time period is after a second American Civil War when much of the west coast was destroyed...and rebuilt under a dome. Life has returned for the particular me-generation of that time and those under the dome are quite happily waiting for a final expansion which will allow more room to do all of the pleasurable things that are again available.

The main plot of the book is fairly basic...Owen, Jason and Jillian work as a team to produce Owen's dreams. Owen is able to control his dreams, so, with the addition of head gear created by Jason, his dreams are captured and televised. Within a genre of his or his fans' choices, Owen will dream an action movie, thriller or romance, although he's really not into the latter...

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
Beware the Jabberwock, My son!
The jaws that bite,
the claws that catch?...
!!!

Ryan looked back to his sketch
, pencil lightly shading up and down.
He'd already done the main figure
and was now touching it up. He felt
torn about it; the macabre shape
springing to life under his pencil
was the best thing he'd done, but
he wasn't quite sure where in his
head it came from. A dream perhaps?
Or a series of them?
...thinking of a poem he'd heard,
one that might explain the odd
creature his pencil had birthed.
~~~

Two things happen: Jillian's son falls asleep and he cannot be wakened... He is dreaming and has been seduced by a creature who is also known to Owen as his nemesis and is called Jack... a creature who Ryan had been doodling in school, on a rare scrap of paper, since paper was no longer used. When Ryan meets Jack in his dream, he is able to talk him into going home with him... 

Owen enters into a dreamscape, but before long, the scene has changed to one he didn't create and no matter what he tries, he is unable to regain control of the dream. As he wanders around, he happens to see a boy in the distance and later realizes it must have been Jillian's son.

Owen was getting bad feedback from his fans and boss--the scenes they were seeing were dark and unpleasant... Soooo, a PR genius decides to turn it around once they'd learn of Ryan's sleep...Owen would enter into a search and rescue for Ryan where he had glimpsed him...in his dream...

You may think you will be able to predict what will take place. You won't. I guarantee it! 

 You would think this is a page-turner, but it's not. Everything that is being discussed will be new to you, the reader. Being in somebody's else dream is not easy, even when you are reading it! While the rescue is going on, the type of head gear that Owen has been using, has been made available to the public. When many put them on and watch Owen's show, they enter a potentially dangerous situation...

Aside from the fascinating scifi, the horror part is extremely graphic yet is the crux of the book! Our future? Nothing much has changed... Yet, I'm certainly glad I had the chance to read the book, even with the hard parts! It's exciting, fresh, unique! With the surprises coming left and right toward the ending, readers will be astonished! And, by the way, there is a little romance evolving when Ryan's mother begs to enter the dream and search for her son...

This is a very cool book that any scifi fan won't want to miss. While the horror is hard to learn about, the overall concept cannot be matched. You've just got to check this one out!

GABixlerReviews

Paul Nemeth's first novel, Cataclysm Children, was released in February, 2015. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and son, dividing his time between writing and a busy music career.

Review: A Must-Read by Paul Nemeth

"I rubbed my eyes, wondering if what I was seeing was real...The wolf was huge, and handsome, with snowy hair. I would have been taken with his beauty, if not for the fact he didn't belong in a hospital room...he'd never been in any of the nightmares I'd had here since... The wolf, the warg, watched our...grief. He cocked his head when he heard me crying...I'd been torn up with grief, but now it was gone, replaced with anger...Fury was born September 15, 1984...
(p. 126-127)

Image by Furryscaly via Flickr



Cataclysm Children


By Paul Nemeth



If I were a parent, or a concerned adult, there are some books about which I would want to be told. Paul Nemeth has written such a book--Cataclysm Children. Some will call it a great action, suspense book. It is that. Some might call it a horror of some time in the past or the future. It is that too.

I call it a warning--a wake-up call! If you haven't already heard it by events such as Columbine I urge you to read this book!

I am not an alarmist; I am a realist...

The book begins in 1991 when Rabbi Avram Levin has been attacked, the synagogue burned. When the police arrive, they find, not what they expected--a swastika.

Instead, they found a Pentagram and in the center was a wolf.

The Rabbi only remembered that he had seen two slithering figures, with clown-white skin and long black hair, with rune-like designs on their face. They looked like demons to him.

The Rabbi had met the Brotherhood of the Wolf...

Moving back and forth in time, readers learn that the Brotherhood had been started in the late 80s. One of the members had murdered Father Dermott Cavanaugh in Hadley, Colorado and was now in prison.

He had been turned in by one of his brothers...









In 2003 Danny Andrews was making his way to class when he was picked up and thrown against the wall by two jocks. He was being punished once again based upon stupid rules established by those who wore the blue shirts, most of those were athletes or those that associated with them. The teacher who saw the incident turned and quickly went back to class. Danny and his friends had no choice but to ignore it; the administrators would do nothing against the blue shirts--it would be Danny or his few friends who would be punished, just because they were not athletes.

Danny had once gone to church, but almost gagged when he had seen Haversmith was a member. Danny figured that anybody who was as mean spirited as Randy Haversmith was, but was involved in church, then he didn't want to participate there. Danny was a musician and had formed a band with his friends, DJ and Tim. They had discovered an old abandoned mansion and used it to practice. Actually, Charon had taken them to the place.

Charon was an older guy, but he knew what it was all about. He brought beer for the boys and supported their efforts and listened to them... Like many families, Danny's father worked all the time. He had remarried and his new wife was totally involved with their baby. Danny lived in the basement since he really had no relationship to his step-mother and his father was never at home. Most nights, he would sneak in and out through the window to be with his friends until early morning.

Charon spoke to the boys as a friend, and bad-mouthed everybody else, except one. He introduced them to Satan and explained how he spoke for them... Charon, however, was only passing on what he himself had been taught years ago, before The Brotherhood had broken up when one of the leaders went to jail...

In fact, Charon spoke to many small groups such as with Danny and he taught them much--he invited them to become a part of a brotherhood...The Brotherhood of the Wolf... None of the boys or girls in the small groups knew any of the others. But they knew that one day hundreds of teenagers would be brought together to work as a group. In the meantime, they were given tests to become members. Such as placing bombs under random cars and blowing them up. Or, burning down any church of any religious group.

Fortunately, one day when a teacher, who was also the football coach, was roughing Danny up in the hall, they were seen by a new guidance counselor. Mary Anne Allen had come to the school as a teacher, but the principal had talked her into taking the administrative job. Now, when she started questioning what was happening, he couldn't very well remove her! Also fortunately for Danny, his uncle, who he didn't even know existed, had come to visit. As Danny talked to both Mary Anne and Ian Andrews, he began to question what he had become involved in.

Especially when he learned who his uncle was...

Paul Nemeth has written an exciting book that provides a climax so amazing that you will have teenagers talking about it... Indeed we adults will love the drama as well, and hopefully will be sharing the book with our children and discussing it with them...There's nothing wrong with a fantastic book also having an underlying theme! Parents, I believe this is a must-read for you and your older teenagers; tell me I'm wrong--read Cataclysm Children by Paul Nemeth...and let's talk!

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G. A. Bixler