Last year, after dealing with the loss of my job and then having to watch as things went from bad to worse south of the border, I decided I was going to shift gears and do something I had been putting off for close to twenty years. I started writing a book. Today, I’m more than halfway through the first draft, somewhere north of seventy thousand words so far.
It’s a story about a young man named James and his two best friends, Tucumcari locals with a penchant for relieving tourists of their money with a sleeper of a hot-rod van, who find themselves backed into a corner after the rescue of one of their girlfriends goes wrong. With the police and the local Air Force looking for them and a curious piece of technology they liberated, they find themselves left with nowhere to go but… up. Presented with the opportunity to start a new life on an alien world, they use everything they learned growing up in the worst of situations to make the best of their new one.
Cartel Incorporated started its life as a fan site for a video game, and quickly evolved into something else entirely, hosting webspace, its own radio show, uncensored forums, image galleries, and much more. The users of that site were a strong community of role players, each an integral part that made the whole so much more than the sum of its code. I was the creator of that site, and I have been building on the ideas that gave it form for a long time. This book is the first account of that universe – an origin story. I only hope it does justice to its inspiration.
As the book nears completion I’ll be adding information about the universe, technology and some of the inspirations that led me on this journey. Be sure to check back often.
