Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters (A Ragnarok Publications Anthology) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 194476089X ISBN 13: 9781944760892

Verlag: Ragnarok Publiations, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

A revised and updated 2nd edition, Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters is a collection of stories focused on strange creatures in the vein of Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Cloverfield, and more. Opening with a foreword by Jeremy Robinson&;author of Project Nemesis, the highest selling Kaiju novel in the United States since the old Godzilla books&;the collection features work from New York Times bestsellers to indie darlings. Authors include Peter Clines, Larry Correia, James Lovegrove, Gini Koch (as J.C. Koch), James Maxey, Jonathan Wood, C.L. Werner, Joshua Reynolds, David Annandale, Jaym Gates, Peter Rawlik, Shane Berryhill, Natania Barron, Mike MacLean, Timothy W. Long, Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Kane Gilmour, Peter Stenson, Erin Hoffman, Howard Andrew Jones, Edward M. Erdelac, and James Swallow.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tim Marquitz is co-owner of Ragnarok Publications. Jeremy Robinson is the bestselling author of more than 50 titles.

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Kaiju Rising

Age of Monsters

By Tim Marquitz

Ragnarok Publications

Copyright © 2017 Tim Marquitz
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-944760-89-2

Contents

FOREWORD Jeremy Robinson, 
BIG BEN AND THE END OF THE PIER SHOW James Lovegrove, 
THE CONVERSION David Annandale, 
THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER OF KUROHAKA ISLAND Kane Gilmour, 
OCCUPIED Natania Barron, 
THE SERPENT'S HEART Howard Andrew Jones, 
MONSTRUO Mike MacLean, 
THE BEHEMOTH Jonathan Wood, 
THE GREATEST HUNGER Jaym Gates, 
HEARTLAND Shane Berryhill, 
DEVIL'S CAP BRAWL Edward M. Erdelac, 
SHAKTARRA Sean Sherman, 
OF THE EARTH, OF THE SKY, OF THE SEA Patrick M. Tracy and Paul Genesse, 
THE FLIGHT OF THE RED MONSTERS Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, 
OPERATION STARFISH Peter Rawlik, 
WITH BRIGHT SHINING FACES J.C. Koch, 
THE BANNER OF THE BENT CROSS Peter Clines, 
FALL OF BABYLON James Maxey, 
DEAD MEN'S BONES Josh Reynolds, 
STORMRISE Erin Hoffman, 
BIG DOG Timothy W. Long, 
THE GREAT SEA BEAST Larry Correia, 
ANIMIKII VS. MISHIPESHU C.L. Werner, 
THE TURN OF THE CARD James Swallow, 

CHAPTER 1

BIG BEN AND THE END OF THE PIER SHOW

JAMES LOVEGROVE

THE FOREVER FUN PIER HAD stood for more than a century, surviving everything the world could throw at it: two wars, three recessions, innumerable storms, and the endless corrosive lick of salt water. But it was no match for a two-hundred-foot-tall sea monster and an almost as gigantic robot.

IRONICALLY, ON THE DAY THE pier was destroyed, owner Keith Brown was trying to decide its fate.

He was on the horns of a dilemma which were, to him, no smaller than the horns of the Kaiju currently wending its way up the English Channel towards his hometown.

On the one hand, he had a firm offer from an entertainment consortium to buy the pier. They would take it off his hands, lock, stock, and barrel, no questions asked, for a cash lump sum.

The money was not retiring money, not head-off-to-the-Bahamas-and-drinkmargaritas-for-the-rest-of-your-days money. Once tax was deducted and business debts paid off, there wouldn't be much left. Barely a few thousand. But the pier would not be his headache anymore; it would be someone else's, someone with deeper pockets and friendlier creditors.

On the other hand, Keith had been contemplating an insurance job. A fire would do the trick. A jerry can of petrol left in the fuse box room. A burning rag. It would look like an electrical accident, a stray spark from a circuit breaker igniting a terminal conflagration. The pier's ancient, weathered boards would go up like tinder. Its wooden superstructure would be a raging inferno in no time. The fire brigade would have no chance of saving it.

The benefit of this option was that the insurance company would cough up the pier's full market value, giving him twice the amount the entertainment consortium was tendering.

The drawback? Well, if he was caught and convicted of arson, there'd be no payout. Instead, there'd be a hefty fine and a stretch in jail. Besides, how could he burn the pier down? It had been in his family for four generations. His great-grandfather built it. His grandfather paid off the last of the initial bank loan. His father presided over the pier's long, slow decline as a going concern. Keith inherited a sizeable overdraft and a crumbling, barely profitable business that incurred eye-watering overheads in maintenance and upkeep and was dependent on the vagaries of tourist crowds and the British summer.

But it was still the Brown family pier, their livelihood since 1885. Keith's attachment to it went beyond the merely financial; was rooted in his psyche. The pier was in his DNA, in his soul. Its rusty cast-iron stilts were his legs. Its white-and-blue finials and cupolas were his brain, his dreams. Its rickety helter-skelter was his heart.

THE KAIJU, NICKNAMED RED DEVIL, toiled eastward up the Channel, inbound from the Atlantic. Sometimes he swam, thrashing himself along with great sweeps of his tail. Other times, when his feet could reach the seabed, he waded, neck deep. Puffs of smoke curled from his cavernous nostrils with every exhalation. His horns rose proud like two galleons.

Already he had downed a Portuguese Puma attack helicopter just off Madeira, incinerating it with a single fiery exhalation, and had crippled a French naval frigate.

A Royal Navy Astute-class hunter-killer submarine was now shadowing his progress, awaiting word from the top brass. If Red Devil strayed too close to the British coastline or looked as though he was attempting landfall, the sub's captain could be ordered to unleash Spearfish heavy torpedoes and try to blow the beast's legs out from under him.

This was a precaution, though, a last-resort measure. Subaquatic Kaiju kills were hard to pull off and, more often than not, simply resulted in an even more irate monster.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom's very own special defence measure was being prepped for action in its hangar at the Deepcut Barracks in Camberley, Surrey.

Big Ben.

The alert level at Deepcut was high amber, meaning that, if necessary, in under half an hour the engine could be cycling, the weapons primed, and the three-man pilot team installed in the cockpit, ready to go.

Should Red Devil decide not to circumnavigate the British Isles but instead strode out of the sea onto the nation's sovereign territory, Big Ben would be deployed to intervene.

KEITH, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, WAS keeping half an eye on Red Devil's approach. BBC News 24 was tracking the monster step by step, with maps and satellite surveillance, like meteorologists monitoring the course of a hurricane. Talking heads — defense officials, Kaiju experts, naturalists — debated the likelihood of the creature actually attacking the country. The consensus of opinion was that Red Devil would bypass the south coast and carry on up the North Sea, making for the Arctic Circle. Possibly, he might stop off at Denmark or Norway en route, to snack on Scandinavians. This view, however, was offered more in hope than expectation, as was the similar notion the creature might prefer France to the UK. Once Red Devil reached the Straits of Dover he would be as close to either nation as could be, more or less equidistant from both. Who was to say he might not turn right instead of left and go in search of Gallic cuisine?

Kaiju were hopelessly unpredictable. Those who anointed themselves experts on the beasts were more like educated guessers than anything. Gypsy Rose Petulengro, who told fortunes in a booth on the Forever Fun Pier, would have been a better predictor of a Kaiju's movements than any of them. Her tarot cards and crystal ball were at least as reliable and credible as the prognostications of these amateur know-alls. The only thing they were interested in was a TV channel inviting them into the studio and crossing their palms with silver.

THE TOWN WAS QUIET AS Keith bicycled down to the pier that afternoon. Traffic was thin to nonexistent, pedestrians few and far between. The hotels had the hollow look of the dead — their guests having gotten into their cars and headed back home. The fish and chip shops lacked paying customers, and several had closed up, with hand-scrawled signs in the windows saying they would reopen once the all clear was given.

Along the south coast there had been an exodus inland. Anyone who had somewhere else...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Ragnarok Publiations
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 194476089X
• ISBN 13: 9781944760892
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 2
• Anzahl der Seiten: 498
• Herausgeber: Marquitz Tim, Sharps N. X.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar