Have you been thinking about picking up a copy of Nate Kenyon’s cool new sci fi thriller, PRIME? Want to win signed copies of all of Nate’s mass market paperback thrillers–and get a sneak peek at his brand new one, SPARROW ROCK, due out next spring?

Well, here’s your chance to do both!

From now until August 7, anyone who already owns or buys a copy of PRIME, Nate’s sci fi novella, will be entered to win. Here are all the details you’ll need to enter:

1. Buy PRIME from Amazon here:
Buy Prime

2. Forward Amazon’s confirmation email of the order to Nate at nate@natekenyon.com.

3. OR, if you’ve already purchased PRIME and no longer have the confirmation email, or you’d rather buy it directly from Apex or another store, just take a picture of yourself holding your copy, post it to your Facebook page or Nate’s group page, or email the photo to Nate to post himself (if you post it to your own page, make sure to let Nate know).

That’s it. You’re entered to win! The more copies you buy, the more chances you’ll get. At the end of the time period, Nate will randomly draw the winning name from a hat. He’ll pick two others for consolation prizes too.

PRIME is fast, wild, and full of twists. It has been called “sexy” (author Christopher Golden), “startling and deeply relevant” (Tim Lebbon) and offering “a similar impact as Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451″ (SHROUD Magazine). It’s also been called Nate’s best work to date.

Come on, you know you want one–don’t wait to get your copy, enter the giveaway now!

“A blistering, fast-paced tale channeling the likes of “Blade Runner”, “Johnny Mnemonic”, even a bit of “The Matrix”. Offering social commentary as well as thrills and intrigue, Kenyon shifts from horror to science fiction and cyberpunk smoothly, enhancing an already strong storytelling reputation and widening his repertoire…To say that this is Kenyon’s best work is a bit of a misnomer - indicating his other works are of lesser quality, which is simply not true. “Prime”, however, is much more ambitious, and offers serious introspection on the nature of man and technology…and where our world is headed. In a way - while carefully avoiding hyperbole - “Prime” offers a similar impact as Bradbury’s classic “Fahrenheit 451″, because in a world that becomes ever more “plastic”, where “reality” is so easily simulated…Kenyon’s story is hauntingly plausible.”

–SHROUD Magazine

“Kenyon’s masterful third novel weaves supernatural realism and vivid characterizations into a powerfully suspenseful plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat.”

–BOOKLIST

“Effective, chilling, and full of promise…a compelling read about betrayal, sorrow, loss and despair, with murder and mayhem thrown in for good measure.”

–DREAD CENTRAL

Full Review

“His best work to date…It’s wonderful to experience a novelist taking risks and improving with each new book. Here’s hoping that Kenyon continues that way. If so, he’s certain to become a writer worth following in the coming years.”

–BOOKGASM

Read Full Review

“Intelligent horror that under no circumstances should be passed up. Set against Canada’s wintry backdrop, “The Bone Factory” vibrates with atmospheric chills. With each page the horror builds, cresting into a frantic dash to the end. Kenyon excels not only at building tension, but creating characters that readers truly care about.”

Full review

AFTER

Six years later

-1-

The two women were historians, and as they entered the nesting cubicle they were deep in a heated discussion about meat as art. “Fischer’s oils create a visceral response,” one said. “Raw flesh becomes an object of worship. Whereas with Sterbak, it’s often more about human flesh and our response as it is presented under circumstances that are jarring to the viewer. It’s the difference between consumption for sustenance versus sexual pleasure. You see?”
“I wouldn’t call her House of Pain sexual.”
“Ah, but that’s exactly it.” The two women settled back in soft, contoured zero gravity chairs, their weight perfectly balanced within the contact suits they wore like second skins. The cubicle was bare, the smooth cream walls meant to swallow noise and reflect sensation. It was rented by the hour. “Sex and death. Ever read The Tears of Eros? They’re inextricably linked.”
“Bataille was a surrealist.”
“Only when it was convenient.” The second woman, taller and nicely plump, rubbed her ample breasts. “These suits always make me feel like I’m wearing nothing at all. Are you ready, Dobs?”
The other woman nodded and handed her the headgear. “I want a tall one this time, a royal perhaps, with chest hair.”
The plump woman, whose name was Stephie, slipped the gear over her head and settled it into place. No corneal implants for either of them, at least not yet, although Deborah could have finally afforded something like that after all these years.
She looked at Stephie. So enthusiastic, like a child with a new toy. A net virgin until university, born to card-carrying members of the virtual resistance who were obsessed with organic cloned fruits, historical recreations of 18th century France and leg hair, the experience was still relatively new to her. Deborah assumed the history degree in 21st century art had been her version of rebellion. Now she seemed to be making up for lost time.
Stephie’s voice came muffled from within; they hadn’t established a com-link yet. “Sustenance versus sexual pleasure, indeed. I’m thinking Nordic, with a fighter’s build—”
“That’s what you always choose!”
“And a brooding, artistic type. Eric Bloodaxe and Poe. Wouldn’t it be fun to have an intellectual discussion with one, while the other bends you over a chair?”
Deborah giggled. “You’re so dirty, Stephie.”
“We’re on vacation. I feel it’s appropriate.”
“I suppose I need to invest in my own equipment.”
“Then you’d use it all the time,” Stephie said. “I’m not ready to give up on the physical, regardless of what our lovely government is preaching, but the temptation would be too much if it were right in front of me. As Gutenberg has made abundantly clear, once the illusion of reality is seamless, humanity will have difficulty finding reason to return. You’ve experienced his Transformations, haven’t you?”
Deborah nodded. Of course she had; everyone had at least once, even the non-believers. She had experienced it originally as a historian concerned with understanding the modern belief structures of humanity. She was not one to attach herself to religious movements; she considered herself a practical person. But she had to admit that the idea of Transforming was, regardless of her natural aversion to technology, quite appealing.
“Are there really natural sensitives?”
“Of course there are. I saw a documentary on one just the other day. I asked the AI what it was like, and he said it was just like experiencing a serotonin dip.”
“He was pulling your leg.”
“I asked for an immersive, and he showed it to me. Seamless, blinking in, blinking out, as natural as breathing.”
The lights in the room began to dim. Deborah sighed and adjusted her gear as the link popped. Steph’s voice was inside her head. “See you on the other side, Dobs.”
The room went black. Deborah felt the familiar sensation of panic as her senses reacted to the lack of stimuli, the feeling of floating through endless, deep space making her want to jerk out her arms and legs for balance like a sleeping child falling from bed, before the system blinked into life. Sterback would have enjoyed an experience like this, Deborah thought. Sexual expression that was real, and yet not real; would she have studied the reactions of users and considered them authentic? The ability to control an encounter compromised the experiment, perhaps. No matter how far you took it, there was always the safety net.
Sex and death. Two of humankind’s most powerful experiences. It was no wonder so many of them got the two confused.

—–

Sometime later Deborah said goodbye to her version of King Henry the eighth, who had become tiresome. She had thought it would be good fun and a bit of a dangerous thrill to be intimate with such a legendary rogue, one she had spent so many years studying. But after their initial conversations about the Boleyn sisters and the torture and execution of John Fisher, she found him terminally boring. The program could draw from recorded history, but it was unable to make him react with truly unexpected responses, the way a real human would. He could not tell her with any weight how the colors on his feasting room walls made him feel, or describe the smell of torchlight at an execution. Besides, she was feeling sore.
Stephie, on the other hand, seemed to have an endless appetite for these sorts of encounters, as if her parents’ resistance fighting had given her an addict’s temperament. Deborah switched off the gear and let the blackness envelop her for a moment, enjoying the floating, disconnected feeling as much as anything that had come before it. She talked a good game for Stephie’s sake, but truth be told she would rather spend her days buried among the actual pages of old books than inside the net. She’d grown up among the orphanages of Bangalore, where instead of ubiquitous net access, they had a room full of books nobody had any use for anymore, old fashioned novels and illustrated art history encyclopedias with vivid full color prints. Her early schooling was taken within the bounds of Indian slave traders between hours of begging for assistance for her father, crippled from the War, and who did not actually exist.
Perhaps that was why she and Stephie got along so well, she thought. They hit it off instantly when they met in a class on the impact of Tata’s Nano on the population explosion and industrialization of the Third World; perhaps by then they had been the last two net virgins on earth.
Even through the lack of any external stimuli, floating weightless in the void, she imagined she could feel the city of New London rising up around her, steaming streets full of the heat and humidity of nearly constant rain since the collapse of Old Greenland, the smell of twenty million humans, stray dogs and garbage filling her nostrils. This was her third trip to New London, and she found it terrifying. Giant OLED video screens and holographic projectors streamed customized infomercials and dark marketing broadcasts twenty-four hours a day. The latest wave technology beamed some of them straight into the brain like tiny, focused lasers of capitalism. They seemed to know Deborah’s every whim and wish before she knew herself, and the alternate reality games made her thirsty to buy things. Stephie said they were altering her alphas without her consent, although that was supposedly illegal. She didn’t like the feeling. It was more than a little unsettling for a woman who had lived unplugged for a good portion of her early life.
But Stephie embraced all new experiences with her typical gusto, her appetites huge, her enthusiasm limitless. Deborah was more than a little in love with her. Not in a sexual way, of course. And anyway, she would never say such a thing out loud.
When King Henry had sufficiently faded from memory and she removed her gear, the first thing she noticed was the heat in the room. It seemed to have risen twenty degrees.
She turned to Stephie, but it was too dark to see much other than the barest outline of her body. She seemed to be jerking back and forth.
“Steph?” Deborah whispered, wondering if she were out again. But no; she could just see the suggestion of headgear over her companion’s face. Stephie was still inside.
There was a smell in the air. Burned hair? Not quite. Deborah pinched her nostrils shut. It was growing stronger by the minute. Something was wrong.
“Lights,” she said, but nothing happened. Now she was feeling panicked, and knowing she was inside a seven foot square cubicle didn’t help. She tried to get up, but the zero gravity chair made it nearly impossible. The controls weren’t working at all.
A sudden tingle in the fingers of her right hand made her realize she was still holding onto the headgear. The tingle came again, much stronger this time, and she threw the gear against the wall like she’d been scalded. Her friend was thrashing more violently now. “Stephie!” she shouted, rolling against the contoured surfaces of the chair, damn these armrests, until she rolled over the edge and onto the floor with a thump.
Sex and death, Deborah thought, for reasons she only vaguely understood at the moment. She got to her feet with the smell of burning flesh in her nostrils, and she realized she could see now because Stephie’s hair was on fire.
Deborah screamed, but the room’s acoustics deadened the sound. Drawn forward by a mixture of fascination and dread, and driven by an animalistic urge to know, to see, she leaned over her friend’s body. It had arched upward so far it was as if her spine had cracked, her lips had peeled back from her teeth in a rictus of pleasure or pain, and her skin was blistering and turning black amid the flickering flames.

“At this inflection point the world as we know it will change; real will mesh with virtual and life will bleed seamlessly into art until there are no longer any visible seams. Humankind will, at its Second Stage apex, become one with the machine, and will never look back.”

–Michael Gutenberg, Transformations: Book One

BEFORE

Outside the shell the machines were alive, swarming his flesh. They entered through his mouth and tumbled down his throat like a thousand tiny sand fleas, leaping and turning and wriggling, pumping oxygen into his lungs and cells, keeping his blood fresh and red. The nanomachines took to their duty like good little soldiers while the waveform manipulators washed his cortex, reading whatever blips remained and recording past histories.
His chest rose and fell, muscles twitched, an eyelid fluttered, and imagination took flight with the dreams of men.
Inside, all was still and dark and empty.

—–

“He’s gone, then?”
“Not quite. We can detect a bit of activity, but it’s not clear what’s left.”
“Could see it coming. He lost focus.”
“Love will do that to you.”
The figure standing before the glass sighed. “What was recovered, then?”
“Memories. Fragments. I’ll show you.”
The glass flickered as a holodeck unit hissed into life. The projected image showed a darkened room and a man strapped to a chair, arms cuffed behind his back. His head was down, and although his chest moved, he gave no indication of consciousness.
A second man entered the room on the screen, and a third. They approached the man in the chair, spoke in a Cantonese dialect and then one of them kicked the legs of the chair away so that the prisoner fell backward to the floor.
“Siu sam!” the other said. Be careful.
The other one laughed. “Nei bin do tung?” he said to the man in the chair. “Nei sui yiu hui chi soh ma?”
The man on the floor moaned. “Don’t,” he said. His voice was barely audible. “Please.”
“English?” The one who had kicked him stepped closer. “You no tell us who hire you, you hurt more. I take finger.” He took out a laser blade. “I cut one, two. Maybe more. Maybe here next.” He gestured to his own crotch. “You like?”
“I…” the prisoner tried to move away, pushing his legs weakly against the floor, but the chair kept him still. “I’ll tell you. Just please…”
“Yes?” The man with the blade leaned in. “You talk now. Name?”
Abruptly the man on the floor thrust up from his hips and lashed out with a vicious kick, his foot snapping the other man’s head back and driving the cartilage of his nose deep into his brain. He flexed his arms and the chair frame cracked, and as his adversary fell dead he was already free of the chair and looping his cuffed arms underneath and around his legs to his front.
The second man who had entered the room turned to run. The cuffed man was on him in seconds, flicking his hands over the fleeing man’s neck and pulling the chain taught.
The room fell silent, broken only by choking sounds that slowly died away and then a second body falling lifeless to the floor.
The cuffed man listened for a moment, and then returned to the first body and picked up the laser blade. A quick twist of the blade in his hands and the cuffs fell free.
He stood among the dead, and smiled.

—–

“Stop it there, please,” the man standing at the glass said. The holodeck image froze. “Impressive.”
“He was hired to take down a virus that had disabled half the east coast network. These men were members of the group who unleashed it. He went in afterward and killed the bug in record time, then found the rest of the group and terminated them. He was gone before they’d even started cleaning up the mess.”
“Hmmm. How do we know he’s not playing possum now?”
“His waveforms are practically flatlined.”
“We didn’t see this sort of effort here.”
“He’s been compromised. Lost focus, as you said. I have other examples of his skill—”
“No, that’s enough. You think we still need him. Can he be revived?”
“I don’t know.”
The man at the glass studied the prone figure on the table. “All right. We have what we want. If this is an insurance policy, have at it, whatever you need to do. Just don’t let the whole thing come back to bite us.”
The man stepped away and left the room. After a few moments the second man who had spoken approached the barrier. He stared in at the prisoner on the table. “Thank you,” he whispered.
As he watched the nanomachines do their work, his finger absently traced the circle and arrow pattern etched into the glass.

HOW DO YOU STOP A KILLER WHO ISN’T REAL?

William Bellow just couldn’t stay retired. The world’s greatest bug hunter almost lost his life five years ago inside the Net, but when the New London network asks for his help against a vicious new virus that is killing users, he can’t say no.

There’s never been a bug hunter like Bellow. People say he’s the first of an entirely new species, one that can interact directly with the Net, the next step in human evolution.

But Bellow has never battled a bug like this before, and maybe he’s past his prime. When he falls for a newborn sex clone of a Hollywood movie star, he starts to wonder if he’s in over his head. There’s something about Kara that drives him crazy, in all the right ways, but she’s a distraction he can’t afford. She’s young, she’s beautiful, and she just might get him killed.

When Bellow goes underground and taps into a shadowy network of extremists who live off the grid, he uncovers a vast conspiracy that leads to the highest levels of Net society. Every step he takes leads him closer to uncovering a secret that threatens to tear him apart–and closer to a bug that will not stop until he’s dead.

Kenyon’s fast-paced, twisting thriller tracks Bellow’s progress forward through the case and backward through his own questionable past. Scheduled for release in summer 2009, Prime is a must-read for fans of Richard K. Morgan, Neal Stephenson, and Philip K. Dick.

Blurbs

“Nate Kenyon has already proven himself a hell of a writer, but PRIME puts him on a whole new level. PRIME is sexy, two-fisted Future Noir that riffs off of present day questions of techno-ethics and still manages an emotional finale. Bravo!”
—Christopher Golden, Bram Stoker Award winning author of Baltimore, The Myth Hunters, and Wildwood Road

“Nate Kenyon really messes with your alphas in this one: a futuristic thriller with shocks, startling insights into the human mind, and surprising twists, it’s also deeply relevant to what’s happening in the world today.”
—Tim Lebbon, Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Award-winning author of Dusk, Dawn, and The Island

PART ONE:
PAST TRANSGRESSIONS

—1—

David Pierce walked into the office expecting the worst. A loud, balding man in an expensive suit, or an old bastard with nothing on his mind other than to keep a young guy like him from getting a job. The past few months he’d run into both; one he couldn’t stand enough to work with, the other wouldn’t give him the chance.
Third time’s the charm. I wonder if they give out awards for this stuff? World’s greatest ass kisser, professional job searcher. As long as they paid him, he’d be willing to get called just about anything.
But the guy was all right.
“Welcome to Hydro Development, David. Michael Olmstead. Call me Mike.” He stuck out his hand, and David took it. The hand was smooth and dry, but the grip was firm. “Glad you could make it.”
Olmstead released his grip and flipped through a file folder on a neatly organized desk. “Please, sit down.”
David smiled and nodded, keeping his expression as neutral as possible. Showtime. Ass kisser. Not as flattering, but more accurate.
He sat in the wide, comfortable chair offered to him, and waited until Mike settled down in the leather seat behind the massive oak desk. He took a quick glance around, admiring the dark wood of the walls, the soft lighting and thick carpeting. Lots of money here.
“Let’s get right down to it. We want to know what you can do for Hydro.” Mike leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk, hands steepled in front of his sharply-defined nose. Every little detail of this man is sharp.
“Well, I’ve worked on two other hydropower plants, one right out of school, and one for six years which ended last July.”
“EPC?”
“That’s right. I was involved in development with them, primarily doing research on the possibilities of pumped storage and overseeing the reservoir construction plans.”
“Well, this job will be overseeing exactly that kind of thing. We’ve been a little old fashioned in the past, but now it’s time to take the big plunge, so to speak.” Olmstead smiled.
“You’re going to harness a portion of the St. John River through an underground storage facility.”
“Done some research? That’s good, we appreciate the initiative.” Olmstead tossed a folder across the desktop in front of him. “There’s a lot of hydro activity up in Quebec and New Brunswick, make no mistake about that. Most of the rivers coming off the North coast of the St. Lawrence have a big dam or two. But a lot of that power goes to the pulp mills. With the Jackson project, we want to supply New Brunswick with all the power it’s going to need for years. Down into Maine too. And pumped storage is a safe and effective way to get that power. It involves quite a bit of manpower, but if we can pull it off, this will be one of the largest successful underground pumped storage hydro facilities ever. If you do work with us, you’ll be getting all you can handle.”
David flipped through the folder’s pages, past engineer’s notes, schematics and technical summaries. “Selling to Canadian Power and Light. Big company.”
“That’s right. You’d be involved directly with the planning and development of the lower reservoir and tunnel, and getting us back on track.”
They discussed the plan details for a while before Olmstead took the folder back and stuck it in a desk drawer. “There are plenty of men working on this thing already, but most of them are at our branch offices in Quebec City at the moment. This is a major project, and we want to make sure everything’s done right. After that, there would be an opportunity to stay on in the area and work with maintenance and the lease agreement, that and figuring out how to keep the damn tunnels from icing up. That is, if you’re not bored to death by that time.”
“My wife and I are easily entertained. We both read a lot, watch movies. And Jessica—she’s our little girl—she’s got three or four make believe friends by now, I think. Maybe this would give me some more time to spend with her. I don’t do that enough.”
That seemed to make an impression. “I know how it is. I was going to ask you about your family. It does get lonely up there, or so I hear. A close family unit is really important to us. We need to know you’re intending to stay around for a while. Anyway, this place is pretty isolated. Bitch of a winter, too.”
“Yeah, I read about the problems you guys had keeping it going.” This seemed for an instant a little too critical, and David winced.
Olmstead just smiled, running a hand through his patch of well-groomed hair and sitting back in the relaxed pose of the successful businessman. “You got that right. What we really need is someone to be smart and work with people, not against them. We’ll have a big crew on site eventually, and they all have to use each other to get things done. Know your stuff, and take advantage of it. Frankly, I think you can do it, looking at your job experience and schooling. You’ve been in and out of the business for what, ten years? You know what makes a plant tick by now. You’ve worked with pumped storage development. And your references are good, with the exception of the EPC job.”
There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence. David cursed silently. Of course he knew it would come up, had to, but still he hadn’t been prepared to face it so soon.
“I’m not going to lie to you. Your boss at EPC had some pretty loud ideas about how you handled yourself there.”
“Look, I can explain all that.” David paused, and found Olmstead had leaned forward again, studying him closely, waiting. He didn’t look away. “The guy was a prick.”
Olmstead raised one eyebrow in an almost comical expression of surprise, then laughed. “I admire your courage. I spoke with your supervisor myself, and frankly, I’d agree with you. Now I hope I’m reading this right. You had a difference of opinion, got tired of waiting around for real opportunity and decided to go out and get it.”
David nodded. “That’s about right.”
“Again, I admire your courage. Not exactly what I would have done, not with the economy the way it is, but I understand. I think that shows some initiative that could be put to use. Of course, I’m not the only one that makes that decision.”
David forced a smile. “I hope you’ll put in a good word for me. I really want this job. I know what it takes. I worked in Alaska on my first project, so I’ve had experience with the cold. As far as Hydro goes, this has always been the place I’ve wanted to be.” I just got three million interviews in other places for kicks. “And working in Canada might be just the thing for my family life.”
“Could be. And the scenery’s beautiful, believe me. I went up there to check the spot out before we started construction last summer. Thick pine forests and lots of wildlife. There’s a hell of a lot of logging going on too, but you’d never know it in most places. And the water coming off the peaks is just about the most pure thing you’ve ever tasted.”
“Sounds great.” Of course, he would be spending the winters there too. Not saying much about those, are you?
Listen—” Olmstead stood up and stuck out his hand. David took it. “I have a couple other interviews, but I can say that you are the most impressive so far. If this works out, we’ll need you to start right away. The place has been completely shut down for months, but we need someone to evaluate the current situation and advise on next steps. We’d take care of getting you a place to live, as soon as something opens up, and of course we’ll pay for it. Salary’s more than fair, but the benefits are fantastic—full health, dental, the works. Not that there are any dentists within a hundred miles of that place.”
Olmstead grinned, and David felt a momentary touch of revulsion; just a touch, but nonetheless it was there. That grin had reminded him of the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
“I’m ready. Thanks for everything, and give me a call if there’s anything else you need to know.”
David thanked him and left. The interview had gone pretty well, he thought. He had liked Olmstead, not counting that quick moment of distaste; nerves really, that was all. He had already dismissed it. His history with EPC was bound to come up, and with all the problems he had run into before, this time was a pleasant surprise. Olmstead didn’t seem to care much about what McDougal had to say, which was lucky. McDougal could be a real son of a bitch.
As he walked out the doors and into the bright sun he considered Olmstead’s last comment. A hundred miles—a little exaggerated, maybe, but it got the point across. A skilled doctor could be fifty miles away for all he knew. What if someone caught the flu, or worse, broke a leg? Thinking about the possibilities made him nervous. If he got this job, he’d have to make sure Jessie understood the rules. Have fun kid, but don’t play in the woods.