Monday 7 April 2014

Reap The Whirlwind by Robert Sells Blog Tour and Guest Post!


Title : Reap The Whirlwind
Author : Robert Sells
Published :  July 18th 2013 by Martin Sisters Publishing




Synopsis for Reap the Whirlwind 

Whit Emerson had a beautiful girlfriend, great friends, the respect of his peers, and more than enough money. Until he discovered his bank account has been depleted. A day later he's fired from his job. Friends die, disappear, or disown him. Everywhere he goes, he is watched by security cameras. Something is definitely wrong with his world, but Whit doesn't know who or why. Then he is accused of a crime he didn't commit. That's when his life got worse. Much worse. Whit seeks help from a stuttering computer nerd, his attractive sister, a bank robber and a rogue detective all hiding from the government for different reasons. Together they search for a legendary computer expert known as Little Lion. Eleven years before Little Lion created a super computer for the military, a super computer which is now being used to take over the internet. Little Lion mysteriously disappeared but left strange clues behind to help Whit and his friends. When the clues are unraveled, an even worse threat faces the friends. They are determined to stop a nightmare scenario if they can live long enough. Please be advised, the story is fictional, but the 'nightmare scenario' is inevitable, if it hasn't already happened.


Robert Sells

I attended college at Ohio Wesleyan where I struggled with physics. Having made so many mistakes in college with physics, there weren’t too many left to make and I did quite well at graduate school at Purdue.   
I worked for twenty years at Choate Rosemary Hall, an exclusive boarding school in the heart of Connecticut. More often than not, students arrived in limousines. There was a wooded area by the upper athletic fields where I would take my children for a walk. There, under a large oak tree, stories about the elves would be weaved into the surrounding forest.
Returning to my home town to help with a father struggling with Alzheimer’s, the only job open was at a prison. There I taught an entirely different clientele whose only interaction with limousines was stealing them. A year later Alfred State College hired me to teach physics. I happily taught there for over ten years.  A rural, low income high school needed a physics teacher and the superintendent, a friend, begged me to help out.  So, I am finishing my teaching career in a most fulfilling way… helping kids who would otherwise not have access to a qualified physics (and math) teacher.
My wife pestered me about putting to “pen” some of the stories which I had created for my children and kids. I started thinking about a young boy and a white deer, connected, yet apart. Ideas were shuffled together, characters created and the result was the Return of the White Deer. This book was published by the Martin Sisters.
Years ago I gave a lecture on evolution. What, I wondered, would be the next step? Right away I realized that silicon ‘life’ had considerable advantages over mortal man. Later this idea emerged as the exciting and disturbing story called Reap the Whirlwind, my most recent novel.
I have many other stories inside my mind, fermenting, patiently waiting for the pen to give them breath. Perhaps someday I will even write about those elves which still inhabit the woods in the heart of Connecticut.

Robert Sells has taught physics for over forty years, but he has been a storyteller for over half a century, entertaining children, grandchildren, and students.  He has written the award-winning novel, Return of the White Deer, historical fiction, and he has written Reap the Whirlwind, a thriller.  His third book, The Runner and the Robbery, a young adult book, will be published by December, 2013.
He lives with his wife, Dale, in the idyllic village of Geneseo, New York with two attentive dogs who are uncritical sounding boards for his new stories.  He is intrigued by poker and history, in love with Disney and writing, and amused by religion and politics.


Guest Post!

A DIFFERENT WORLD

I got a note from my daughter praising me for contributing to a blog. I confess that I’m really not sure what a ‘blog’ actually is. She, like my other children, recognizes that her old man is a techno-illiterate dinosaur lost in a modern world of electronic wonders.  Apologies, but I grew up in the sixties and things were a bit different back then.  The story which follows might help you youngsters understand what we oldsters are dealing with. Actually, it is based on a true story. At least as true as things get in this new age of stretching the truth in politics, advertisements, and ‘come-ons’ in all media. Be wary, dear reader, of that last phrase whether it is stated in movies or books or… blogs. The truth may be there, but usually it is only a small acorn while it’s presented as an enormous oak tree with golden bark, purple leaves, and branches gossamer thin. With that admission, I share this story.

The nurse opened the door and saw the doctor standing beside the bed. The patient was obviously asleep again, long white hair fanning out like she had been struck by lightning. The smooth face, wrinkles absent, belied her chronological age which was seventy-two.
She stood beside the concerned physician.
“What happened?”
Eyebrows pressed down in puzzlement, he continued to stare at the patient.
“She’s back into the coma, I think.”
The nurse looked up at the monitor. 
“Low heart-beat. I think your right, Doctor. Can’t believe it. Fifty years in a comma and then wide awake, alert, happy. I talked with her just an hour ago.”
She sighed as she adjusted the IV feed.
“I guess it wasn’t meant to be. What do you think happened?”
He shook his head and closed his eyes. The confusing world is often better handled with closed eyes.
“I don’t know. We were talking about computers. She worked for IBM when computers were affordable only to the big companies like the airlines and telephone companies. Big, room-sized computers. I tried to explain to her that times had changed. Kept looking at me strangely when I talked about cell phones, ipads, and laptops.”
“Did you tell her I posted her picture on Facebook last night?”
“Yeah, I think she thought it was some sort criminal posting. She kept saying she didn’t do anything illegal.”
The nurse was looking at her cell phone.
“Now, I gotta tell my ten thousand friends that she’s back in a coma. Well, I’ll probably get just as many hits as last night. Always a silver lining in these things.”
“Hits,” repeated the doctor.
“Hmm?” responded the nurse while she tapped her cell phone.
“Hits,” repeat the doctor. “Not sure that was the best word choice when she and I were talking. I told her that she had generated over two hundred thousand hits on the net,” said the doctor looking down at her.
Not wanting to be overheard by the myriad monitors around the room, he whispered, “Then she started crying.”
Eyes wide, incredulous, the nurse asked, “Why?”
“Something about not wanting to be responsible for some many deaths.”
The nurse had pulled out her ipad and was flipping through one screen after another.
“Saw your blog. Well written, sir. Why would she be upset by two hundred thousand hits? I mean, like, she’s famous.”
“Beats me. I told her that I blogged her. Eyes got wide. Looked frightened.”
The nurse nodded looking at the patient now in the deepest possible sleep.
“Hmm. Maybe that explains her reaction when I told her about your twitter.”
“What did she say?”
The nurse scrunched her face.
“She covered her face and said she had absolutely no desire to see your twitter. Strange woman.”
He sighed.
“Yeah, I know. I offered to Skype her with her former husband. She said she thought she might be too old for sort of stuff now. That’s when she shut her eyes.”
The doctor took out his personal ipad and typed in some words as he spoke.
“Look I gotta go. Sending the last few words she said on the cloud for download. You can catch it there, okay?”
The nurse chuckled.
“Wondered what she would have thought about the icloud?”
“God! Who knows?”
While the doctor tapped some words on his ipad, she finished with the message on her iPhone. The nurse looked over his shoulder and read the last two sentences he wrote.
I asked if she was sleepy. Her last words to me were: “No. Not sleepy, but I have to get out of your world. I don’t want to be blogged, Skyped, or twittered. Ever.”   

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