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    The Eyes of Blanders: A Rucksack Universe Story: Rucksack Universe
    The Eyes of Blanders: A Rucksack Universe Story: Rucksack Universe
    The Eyes of Blanders: A Rucksack Universe Story: Rucksack Universe
    Ebook54 pages36 minutes

    The Eyes of Blanders: A Rucksack Universe Story: Rucksack Universe

    By Anthony St. Clair

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Never look this boss in the eye.

     

    Feckniss was content in his London cubicle. The last thing he wanted was to wind up in a Nevada ghost town with his monotone boss, Blanders. If that's the price of moving up in the company, though, Feckniss is willing to pay it… until Blanders reveals a truth that Feckniss would run away from, if only it weren't for the ghosts.

     

    The Rucksack Universe series combines alternate history, speculative fiction, myth, adventure, globetrotting, and intrigue—all with well-poured pints of beer. Library Journal says Anthony St. Clair's storytelling has "universe building reminiscent of Terry Pratchett," and readers say they love the Rucksack Universe's unique combination of "quirk, wit, travel, and magic."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnthony St. Clair
    Release dateJul 19, 2020
    ISBN9781940119434
    The Eyes of Blanders: A Rucksack Universe Story: Rucksack Universe
    Author

    Anthony St. Clair

    Anthony St. Clair creates compelling fiction and non-fiction for a curious world full of everyday discoveries, endeavors, and surprises. He is the author of the ongoing Rucksack Universe series; covers craft beer, food, business, and more for various publications; and is a copywriter and content manager for select clients. When not at his desk or in his kitchen in Oregon, Anthony is on an adventure with his wife, son, and daughter.

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      Book preview

      The Eyes of Blanders - Anthony St. Clair

      The Eyes of Blanders

      The Eyes of Blanders

      A Rucksack Universe Story

      Anthony St. Clair

      Rucksack Press

      Contents

      1. Population, 2

      2. Glass House

      3. Destiny in the Desert

      4. Just Beyond the Sun

      Thank You for Reading

      Become a Wanderer

      Also by Anthony St. Clair

      Acknowledgments

      Special Features

      Sneak Peek

      About the Author

      The world’s dreams break like bones. Abandoned, forgotten places such as Rhyolite, Nevada, remind us that the exposed, raw shattering of the world is always near.

      – Guru Deep, The USA Through the Third Eye

      1

      Population, 2

      The smell of the nighttime desert at daybreak was a metallic chill. It wanted to linger in the moonlight but was being driven off by the already merciless sun. Feckniss took another sniff. Herbaceous scrubby plants hugged the flat shadow of the ground; from the train car’s window they looked like gray-black, craggy boulders. Or hunched-over gargoyles, trying to hide from the sun. For a moment Feckniss saw himself in the glass—dark-blue suit, crisp white shirt, bright orange tie, short blond hair, deep blue eyes—and wondered, not for the first time, why in the world he had been pulled away from London to wind up one of two passengers on a private train clacking toward the middle of the Nevada desert.

      Sitting back and fingering the lapels of suit jacket, Feckniss wished he’d been allowed to pack something other than suits. Their thick wool was far better suited for London’s foggy fall mornings. Where were he and Blanders again? Feckniss tried to think back to the map his manager had unfolded and shown him, while Guru Deep’s private jet had been descending towards Las Vegas. The strange oasis of bright lights gleamed in the midst of the dark desert, yet the map and its primary colors rendered the world bleak and over-simplified. Feckniss mostly remembered the shape of Nevada. The state’s southern tip ended like the point of a Japanese tanto knife, slanting northwest into California like a slash. Yet the back of the tip, the eastern border that formed the upper corner of Arizona, was curved and jagged, as if some cosmic battle had shattered the back of the knife.

      How sad to see things broken. Even states. It didn’t make sense to Feckniss. The world was a bright path. A clear straight road where at every new mile, excitement and amazement and possibility awaited. From the train window, Feckniss smiled at the night. Darkness was just the rest before the new bright day, and every day was another chance to move up, make up, amaze up.

      It had to be, after all. Twenty years old, and he had been working away in the Lotus, the brand-new world headquarters for one of the largest companies in the world: Deep Inc. One moment all the world had been Feckniss and his work. The next, it had fallen away. Despite being so tall yet slender, his boss, Blanders, had a way of filling the world—nearly

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