Josh Cooper has always had trouble managing his anger. His rockabilly band in Florida went through so many personnel changes that finally Josh’s best friend, Tony “Boozer” Curtis, called it quits and moved to Nashville. But then Josh got a call from Boozer, asking if he’d like to join him in Nashville for a fresh start, but only if Josh can keep his cool and stop firing other musicians. Josh and girlfriend Rana pack up and head north … until Rana convinces him to take a scenic turnoff.

Josh and Rana find themselves prisoners of a man reverently referred to as The Professor by his ignorant hillbilly followers. Disgraced and terminated from his research position at a university, The Professor now carries on his experiments in an abandoned coal mine modified for his use. Josh’s anger is just what he’s been needing to complete his work.

Capturing human emotions, distilling them, and injecting the serum into corpses to create an undead, rage-powered army is The Professor’s plan for revenge against those who wronged him. Controlling his anger now is more than a professional necessity, Josh realizes. People will die if he gives in to the rage he feels over his captivity, the loss of his guitar, and what The Professor made him do to Rana.

Can he do it?

The Prometheus Syndrome is actually the first novel I ever completed, and that was back in about 1988, proudly pounded out on a Smith-Corona Electra XT typewriter. Then I rewrote it (really, it was mostly retyped) and it languished on Smith-Corona PWP-3 portable disks for years after I gave up sending it to publishers and agents. I finally came to realize I wasn’t very good at several things in the ’80s, but I always liked the story idea. So, about 15 years later I dusted off the disks, ran a clean hardcopy of the manuscript, then fed it through one of those newfangled copiers that would scan text and save it electronically. Over the next few years The Prometheus Syndrome received a complete overhaul.

Bad Moon Books was the first place I sent it after that. It was accepted for publication sometime after Amara’s Prayer was to be released. Years rolled by, until I finally withdrew the book, and it did nothing for a while. Then I sent it to Permuted Press, where it was again accepted. And we know what happened there. As I said in the post linked to there, that was pretty much the final straw for me and the small press field. So, I’ve published The Prometheus Syndrome myself under my MoonHowler Press imprint.

Quick shout-out to friend and fellow teacher John Carey for providing the eyes you see on the cover.

The novel is available in paperback and electronically for the Kindle and Kindle app. I’d love to hear what you think of it. I will have copies at SoonerCon 24, too. Click my STORE link above for more buying options.

(I am willing to make a few PDF proofs available to reviewers, but only if those requesting it have a track record of reviews to show me. Contact me with your e-mail address and a link to your reviews, if interested.)