Title THE CLICK
Author STEVE SHEAR
Genre FUTURISTIC THRILLER (SCI-FI)
Publisher THE WILD ROSE PRESS
Book Blurb
In a futuristic society controlled by theocratic zealots, a retired CIA operative racing against time to save his young grandson from prematurely dying unravels a startling conspiracy and the frightening truth about himself.
The Click is a dramatic thriller set in the distant future when all humans reaching the age of seventy-five experience ‘the Click’ and peacefully die in their sleep; God’s chronological death sentence intended to prevent overpopulation according to conventional wisdom at the time.
Handsome Oliver Hitchcock, who looks to be in his late fifties, is a retired narcissistic C.I.A. operative, and lady’s man. He is also one of the lucky ones, a Beater. At seventy-eight he beat the Click and the aging process. His eleven-year-old grandson, Christopher, is not so lucky. Christopher, a Preemie, is prematurely in the throes of the Click and will die within the year if Hitchcock can't save him. To do so, Hitch must fight off the Church of Ecclesia and the Coalition United for Theocratic Oversight, the Cūtocracy, as well as Janine Rousseau, his past lover and strong-willed antagonist. But he has help including the president of the United States and a village hidden in India's heart of darkness.
Excerpt
It began slowly, according to all the articles
appearing on television and the Net, like the upward
seepage of water from a small crack in a pipe below
ground. And then without warning, like a total failure in
the pipe, an explosion of illness, then death, spread
from city to city, from village to village, across the
Earth; citizens of the world on the streets coughing,
vomiting, dying. Many of the more fortunate who
needed to venture out wore masks as they weaved
around deceased bodies yet to be picked up by the
caravan of mortuary trucks that carried with them bright
orange body bags. The citizens still living but too weak
to move from the streets, sidewalks, and even the
gutters were attended to by medics and paramedics who
also knocked door to door hoping to help those who
couldn’t help themselves.
Before the Plague, people lived longer and died of
old age, most of them in their late nineties and older.
Humanity had cured cancer, heart disease, most
infectious ailments, and many old age catastrophes like
dementia. By then the religious fanatics making up the
Coalition United for Theocratic Oversight, the
Cūtocracy, had successfully infiltrated the legislative
bodies of much of the world, including the United
States, institutionalizing many of its theocratic policies
within what were once secular democracies. They
prohibited the highly successful use of stem cell
reproduction to correct birth defects and dismantled all
the international programs scientifically regulating
weather. Indeed, any technological advancement that
placed man above God, at least according to the
Cūtocracy, was considered sacrilegious. The most
dramatic of those policies were the absolute banning of
abortions and birth control, and the insistence on large
families. The combination was synergistic, devastating,
and inevitable—severe overpopulation.
The left-wing populists had no miracles, the rightwing
Cūtocrats no cures, and the politicians no talking
points. Eventually, all the nations of the world raced for
the little bits of land and resources that remained and
began staking their claims. First the Chinese, then
India, two of the four economic superpowers, followed
by the other two, the United States and Neuropa, both
fighting polarizing internal political battles focused
mainly on border control, keeping out the riffraff, and
escalating budgets. They all had nuclear warheads
rusting away in readily accessible silos. A touch of the
button could have easily solved the problem of
overpopulation. A gigantic boom here, a mushroom
cloud there, and presto, no more problem. But alas,
world order was restored, sensitive trigger fingers
anesthetized, and overpopulation was at least
temporarily curbed by the plague’s deadly virus,
quickly dubbed the ERAM virus, Earth’s Revenge
Against Mankind, or sometimes merely ERAM-V. The
water in most places carried the deadly virus, but
sometimes it was the air. The righteous, encouraged by
the Cūtocrats, branded it the hand of Heaven avenging
all the malignant murderers of the innocent and their
renunciation of the Good Books. The Godless ones
repudiated such demagoguery, insisting that the great
lady of nature recoiled against a worldwide population
boom playing havoc with her creation. And so it
went—in churches, on street corners, barbershops,
salons, and on the Net.
With time and deliberate action on the part of all
nations, the plague relinquished its hold on humanity
but not before a startling twenty percent of the world
population fell within its grip.
Well before that devastating plague was more than
a bothersome influenza in areas around the world, a
small segment of the scientific community examined
the virus, the likes of which had never been seen before.
They recognized its virulent nature right away, that it
could and more than likely would rear its ugly head on
a large scale and continuously replicate itself if not
eradicated once and for all. A super vaccine had to be
developed.
Buy Links
The Wild Rose Press: https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/search?controller=search&orderby=position&orderway=desc&search_query=tHE+cLICK&submit_search=
Author Biography
The Trials of Adrian Wheeler was my first published novel (L&L Dreamspell, 2011). It was awarded runner-up in the San Francisco Book Festival 2015.
I am happy to say that The Trials of Adrian Wheeler has been optioned as a movie by EVW Entertainment (producer of the movie Break the Stage), and the screenplay has been written by Erik Wolter and me. EVWE is now looking for partners to produce the movie. Erik and I have collaborated on a sequel to the screenplay.
The Wild Rose Press published The Fountain of Youth, my second published novel, in May of 2017. It has received exceptional reviews, some of which appear on Amazon and Goodreads. Also, the stage play has just been completed.
My wife, Susan, and I collaborated on The State vs. Max Cooper and The Steele Deal (published by ArtAge Publications), courtroom plays in which the audience serves as the jury. Both are being produced around the country.
In addition to The Click, presently being published by The Wild Rose Press, I have three novels that have recently been completed: The First Coming, An Eye for an Eye, Black Hearts and Hungry Bears (a trilogy). I have written screenplays on these latter three and am presently collaborating with Erik Wolter on a screenplay based on The Click.
In my earlier days (for approximately forty years) I was an Intellectual Property attorney in Silicon Valley and Boulder Colorado and a painter/sculptor specializing in portraiture and the figure.
Social Media Links
WEBSITE - www.steveshear.net
FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/steve.shear.94
TWITTER - @steveshearbooks