Brett Battles Sick

[Giovanni Gelati]

I am going to channel my teenage son here: “Sick is just sic, it is off the hook sic, basically it can’t get any sic’r than it is.” Now to understand the teenage mind just a little bit, that means it is good in a good way even though it doesn’t sound that way. For me, being the geezer that I am, I would say that it is just rad, hip and cool, peachy keano, or something along those old man one foot in the grave type things. But seriously folks, I am a big Cleaner fan, the franchise that Brett Battles has handled so well. So when I heard he had this new work, I was not just intrigued but jazzed and ready to read. I was fortunate enough to have interviewed him on The G-ZONE just as I finished reading the latest Cleaner novel, The Silenced, here is the link for that, it is in the archives:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gelatisscoop/2011/04/21/brett-battles-...

In the interview Brett Battles does discuss Sick, and it was fun listening to the passion in his voice as he described for me the mechanics of his writing and how much he thought this was possibly his best effort to date. The neat thing for me as a reader is that as good as Brett Battles is, he wants to get better and better with each effort. I personally don’t see how he can do that because his stuff rocks already but hey, if he Amp’s it up a bit, as a reader I am not going to bitch about it, if know what you mean. I think the guy’s style and substance rules already.

The new work, Sick, just took things in a whole new direction for me. I think Mr. Battles new found freedom of putting his work up as soon as he completes it. It is liberating and has allowed him to use his creative genius in ways he hasn’t felt before, thus the new work’s success and his heightened sense of accomplishment of mobility and purpose. In the interview he said he has plenty of ideas floating around, that he loves to write, and he can now get that to market in a timely fashion. As a reader that makes me happy. I was used to that once a year thing that really bummed me out. Basically what I am trying to say my friend, is that more of something good in my estimation just makes it better, especially in the hands of someone so skilled and driven. That just comes through when you listen to him discuss his craft, his vocation, his life’s work.

Here is a little something on today’s novel, Sick:

“Daniel Ash wakes after midnight to the cry of his daughter. Just a bad dream, he thinks. She's had them before. Yet he can't help but worry when she cries out again as he pads down the hallway. Stepping through her doorway, he expects to find her sitting up in bed, frightened by a nightmare.

But the nightmare is his. It's real. And it's just beginning...

Something is burning Ash's daughter alive. Something horrible that is spreading beyond the walls of their home, and taking no prisoners.

Thirty seconds later, Ash will discover his daughter isn't the only one in his family infected, and as his world spins, coming apart at the seams, a team of armed men in biohazard suits bursts into his house.

But these aren't the good guys.

They haven't come to save Ash's family. They've come to separate them, to finish what they started.

The problem is Ash refuses to disappear. He wants only one thing: to find those responsible.

Because humanity is on the brink of execution.

And man is pulling the trigger.”

 

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