We are so excited to be a part of the blog tour for James Knapp's newest YA novel, ALICE IN NO-MAN'S-LAND!
ALICE IN NO-MAN'S-LAND is a Young Adult, Alice in Wonderland, Sci-fi re-imagining that is just in time for the 150th Anniversary.Make sure to click one of the buy links below to grab your copy, and make sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom!
About ALICE IN NO-MAN'S-LAND:
When her escape pod falls to earth, crashing in Ypsilanti Bloc, privileged seventeen-year-old Alice Walshe is dashed from the wonderland of wealth and prosperity into a ruined, walled city overrun with militias, gangs, and even cannibals. On top of this horror, her younger brother’s escape pod is missing.
Alice isn’t naïve – she’s always known blocs like Ypsilanti exist, left behind after a foodborne illness ravished the country decades earlier and left pockets of severe urban decay in its wake. Men like her father - a major player at Cerulean Holdings - renew the devastated blocs and bring stability back into the areas. But, Ypsilanti is even worse than the tales she’s heard, and rumor has it the bloc is faced with the threat of extermination by Cerulean, not renewal.
Trapped within Ypsilanti’s borders and left for dead, Alice teams up with a pair of teen scavengers who tracked the wreck of her pod. Despite their rough exterior and vulgar speech, they’re her only option for navigating the hostile and violent environment of Ypsilanti, finding her brother, and getting out of No-Man’s-Land alive.Buy Links:Excerpt 1:
Barks overlapped one another, popping up over the sound of claws on blacktop as the dogs closed in behind me.
Three of them raced ahead and then turned back to block my path, barking and growling as the others moved in from behind. I veered toward a box truck that rested on two of its rims in front of the bus but in seconds they’d surrounded me and had begun to move in. When I turned back I saw there were now easily ten or fifteen dogs in the pack, of all different sizes and breeds.
The white one lunged at me and I recoiled, tripping over my own feet and almost tumbling to the ground. I grabbed the door handle to the truck and pulled but it was locked.
Up. You have to get off the street.
I scrambled up the side of the cab, using the runner, then the side view mirror to climb toward the roof. One of the dogs grabbed the bedroll on my back in its jaws and shook its head with such violence that it pulled me off balance and I went face down on the hot metal but before it could drag me down the fabric ripped, and it fell away. I managed my way up onto the roof, and then hoisted myself up on top of the tilted surface of the truck's box car.
The dogs swarmed around the truck, growling and barking. They paced back and forth, lips pulled back from their teeth as their hungry eyes glared up at me.
They can't get up here, I told myself. They can't climb. They can't come up here.
One of them jumped up on the hood and put its paws on the windshield. Another one joined it, claws tapping on the metal as they paced, judging the distance to reach me. I looked around. There was a fire escape with a ladder on a track in the alley just to the right of the bus’s back end. If I could make the jump...
The first dog scampered up the windshield, strands of drool trailing from its jaws as it stared up at me with rheumy eyes.
“Good boy,” I told it, as it advanced. Another dog, a patchy black one, leapt up to join it. Both of them growled.
“Good boy...”
I turned and ran the length of the box truck and jumped across, landing on top of the bus with a hollow metal thud. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the man reach the other side of the street and head for the alley there as I thundered down the length of the roof.
My foot found the edge and I launched myself toward the ladder, arms flailing in the air. Below the dogs followed, yipping in anticipation as I lost momentum much sooner than I thought I would.
As I began to fall, I made a desperate grab for the ladder. One hand banged off the side, pain jabbing up the length of my arm as my other just managed to grab the bottom rung. I held on as rust flaked loose, and the ladder began squealing down on its track toward the street below.Excerpt 2:
I knelt down, looking into the culvert. A trickle of water ran out of the pipe at a steady pace so it had an opening somewhere on the other side but it was too dark to see it. I reached in and felt around the inside. It was wet and slimy.
Will waiting improve your situation?
My instructor’s words came back to me...which one had it been? Mr. Baxter, maybe? He’d said it as though it were a commandment, at the time, a facilitator law. He’d meant during a business deal, of course, or a renewal project...not something like this, though I found it did still apply. I could wait all night – the pipe wouldn’t get any wider.
Getting down on my belly in front of the pipe, I stuck my head inside. There was just enough room in there to move my arms and kind of walk myself forward using my elbows. It seemed smaller on the inside, though, and it quickly trailed off into inky darkness.
It's the only way, I thought. It has to come out inside the compound, that's the only reason for it to be here. I can fit, and so can Cody. We can use it to get back out, too. Night is falling, most of them will be asleep soon. This is our best chance.
I pushed forward with my feet, squirming further into the pipe until my toes touched the concrete and my body blocked out most of the light from behind me. I could hear the rain thumping down somewhere up above, and the hollow hiss of it coming from somewhere in the distance up ahead.
Instinctively I turned to look back and hit my head on the wall of the pipe hard enough to make my eyes water. I tried to turn my body and couldn't, panic rising in my chest.
Stay calm...
Trapped, I tried to squirm backward, back the way I’d come but my shirt bunched up near the small of my back and I got jammed. I tried to look back again, and again I bashed my head on the interior of the pipe.
Calm down...calm down...
I made myself stay still and take a deep breath. I held it, willing my heart to slow down.
You can't turn around, but you can still move. You can move forward.
I shifted position, getting my right elbow in front of me and then rocked forward on it, dragging my body further into the pipe. I did the same with the other elbow, and moved forward again.
There...I can do this.
Cold water from the other end riled down, soaking the front of me, but it helped slick the slime covered tube to let me slip through more easily. I shimmied myself, slowly and deliberately, forward through the dark as a muted crack of thunder boomed overhead.
I can do this...
About James Knapp:
James Knapp was born in New Hampshire in 1970, and has lived in the New England area since that time. He developed a love of reading and writing early on, participating in young author competitions as early as grade school, but the later discovery of works by Frank Herbert and Isaac Asimov turned that love to an obsession.
He wrote continuously through high school, college and beyond, eventually breaking into the field with the publication of the Revivors trilogy (State of Decay, The Silent Army, and Element Zero). State of Decay was a Philip K. Dick award nominee, and won the 2010 Compton Crook Award. Ember, The Burn Zone, and Fallout were all written under the name James K. Decker.
He now lives in MA with his wife Kim.
Giveaway:Blog Tour Schedule:
October 5th:
Book Bite Reviews - Book Spotlight/Excerpt
What Is That Book About - Excerpt
Opinionated Cupcakes - Book Spotlight/Excerpt
Coffee Books & Art - Book Spotlight/Excerpt
A Sky Full of Stars Blog - Excerpt
A B Keuser - Guest Post
October 6th:
Deal Sharing Aunt - Interview
Book Lover's Life - Book Spotlight/Excerpt
October 7th:
ZombieePee's Blog - Book Spotlight/Excerpt
Mythical Books - Guest Post/Excerpt
October 8th:
The Best Books Ever - Book Spotlight/Excerpt/Guest Post
Have Words Will Scribble - Excerpt/Interview/Review
October 9th:
The Nerdgirl Review - Review
Mary's Cup of Tea - Book Spotlight
October 10th:
SnoopyDoo's Book Reviews - Excerpt
Evermore Books - Book Spotlight/Excerpt
Ceres Books World - Review
October 11th:
Bookworm for Kids - Excerpt
Dark Novella - Book Spotlight
October 12th:
A Thousand Books - Guest Post/Excerpt
My Bookish Ways - Book Spotlight/Excerpt
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