Liminal States

A visionary tour de force, Liminal States begins in 1874, out on the wilder edges of the New Mexico Territory, where Gideon Long stumbles toward his certain death, shot by his nemesis, Warren Groves, during a botched train robbery. But a mysterious white dog draws Gideon into a cave, leading him on a course that will alter a nation's history. . .Over a hundred years later, the promise of America has grown twisted beyond recognition. Two sworn enemies are still alive, immortalized by the foreign alchemy of an alien presence. Their feud has unknowingly set the stage for humanity's end. An invasion is well under way, unseen, unstoppable. Between submission and death, freedom is a distant whisper. . .A bold mashup of imagination and innovation, "Liminal States " is truly a story without limits. "An awe-inspiring, helter-skelter journey through mind-blowing SF, western dime novel, noir mystery, and near-future dystopian horror" ( Publishers Weekly , starred review). The debut novel from Zack Parsons, editor of the Something Awful website and author of My Tank Is Fight! , is a mind-bending journey through time and genres. Beginning in 1874, with a blood-soaked western story of revenge, Liminal States follows a trio of characters through a 1950s noir detective story and twenty-first-century sci-fi horror. Their paths are tragically intertwined—and their choices have far-reaching consequences for the course of American history. It's a remarkable mashup that "somehow manages to become a cohesive, thought-provoking whole . . . There's no way a novel with this many moving parts should hold together, but it does, and even readers initially daunted by the jumble will soon be glad to go wherever Parsons takes them" ( Publishers Weekly , starred review). "Parsons's debut is a tour-de-force, a justifiably showy demonstration of the author's chameleon-like ability to write in several genres all at once, and it emerges as one of the scariest and bleakest tales I can remember." —Cory Doctorow "A visionary tour de force, Liminal States begins in 1874, out on the wilder edges of the New Mexico Territory, where Gideon Long stumbles toward his certain death, shot by his nemesis, Warren Groves, during a botched train robbery. But a mysterious white dog draws Gideon into a cave, leading him on a course that will alter a nation's history...Over a hundred years later, the promise of America has grown twisted beyond recognition. Two sworn enemies are still alive, immortalized by the foreign alchemy of an alien presence. Their feud has unknowingly set the stage for humanity's end. An invasion is well under way, unseen, unstoppable. Between submission and death, freedom is a distant whisper...A bold mashup of imagination and innovation, Liminal States is truly a story without limits."-- Provided by publisher "It is 1874 and Gideon Long is dying. Wandering the savage desert of the New Mexico Territory, he craves a last drink before he bleeds out. On the brink of madness, he discovers a place best left forgotten and makes an insidious bargain: escape his fate and incur a debt too great for one man. His country will pay the price over the twisting course of more than a century and Gideon will learn there are worse things to bargin with than the devil."--Page 4 of cover