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Tag: speculative fiction

Enter a surveillance society in this text adventure by the author of We, The Watched!

Happy holidays, everyone! As a gift to my fans, I’ve just created an interactive text adventure in Twine based on my novel We, The Watched.

Cover for the novel We, The Watched
Read it today!

The novel and its sequel Divided We Fall are set in a dystopian nation in which the government keeps a Watched list of its own citizens. Citizens must be careful about what they say because there are surveillance cameras everywhere. Meanwhile, the Church has become as powerful as the State, and people who resist are called Heretics and face execution.

The books follow a young man called Seven who wakes with no memory in this surveillance society. His amnesia gives him a blank-slate perspective that helps him see through the propaganda, and he soon gets involved with a group of rebels called The Underground.

The new text adventure follows Chapter One of We, The Watched, in which Seven wakes up in the middle of a forest with no idea of where he is or how he got there. It’s a lot of fun and is a great introduction to my books for new readers! You can play the game below or in full-screen here.

Also don’t forget to check out my other We, The Watched game, Watched Sweeper!

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Adam Bender reads dystopian sci-fi novel We, The Watched

Hey, listen up! Will Norman of AuthorReads, a podcast that features exciting books by indie authors, interviewed me recently about my novels WE, THE WATCHED and DIVIDED WE FALL.

I offered some thoughts on the government surveillance debate and what makes a great dystopian novel. I also read an excerpt from WE, THE WATCHED and — I have to say — my unique voice-acting  talents must be heard to be believed.

You can listen to the entire thing below via SoundCloud!

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Divided We Fall joins Library Journal’s SELF-e Select

SELF-e logoLibrary Journal and Biblioboard have selected my second novel, Divided We Fall, as a featured indie novel in its curated SELF-e Select module!

This means my novel will soon be available to libraries all over the US through BiblioBoard Library. In addition, Divided We Fall will soon be available to readers throughout my home state of Pennsylvania in the Indie PENNSYLVANIA module as a highlighted selection.

Divided We Fall is a dystopian love story and the sequel to We, The Watched, which was accepted into SELF-e earlier this year.

The idea behind SELF-e is to expose notable self-published eBooks to readers around the country who are looking to discover new authors. Libraries can make ebooks available for free with no requirement to return the book and no multi-user restrictions.

Libraries are a perfect place to discover new books, and I’m super excited that both of my novels will soon be available for free to this large audience of hungry readers.

Divided We Fall by Adam Bender
Divided We Fall by Adam Bender

In Divided We Fall, Elite Guard Eve Parker must arrest her fiancé after he loses his memory and becomes a revolutionary called Seven. But when Eve learns more about the President’s plan to broaden citizen surveillance, she begins to question what she’s always believed to be right.

Seven runs, but in his flight realizes that losing his memory may not have been enough to erase his feelings for Eve. Unable to escape his past, Seven determines that he must come to terms with the man he was if he ever wishes to win freedom.

You can buy Divided We Fall today as an eBook or paperback from Amazon and other major online retailers.

Join my mailing list to get a free eBook edition of the first book in the series, We, The Watched.

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Batman editor takes on The Wanderer

Rachel Gluckstern

Big news for my upcoming third novel! I’m excited to announce that Rachel Gluckstern will edit The Wanderer and the New West.

Rachel is an award-winning editor who worked more than ten years at DC Comics, including as editor of the Batman Group from 2010 to 2015. Follow Rachel on Twitter and check out her LinkedIn profile for more details. We connected on Reedsy, an innovative web platform that helps authors find freelance publishing assistance. Be sure to check out my interview with Reedsy co-founder Emmanuel Nataf.

Rachel will be doing content and copy editing on The Wanderer to sharpen my prose and, generally, to keep me from looking like a hack. I’d be lying if I said comic books didn’t influence the knockabout action in my new book, and I believe Rachel’s experience with action/adventure stories will really give the novel a boost.

I completed my own edits for The Wanderer last week, and–if you’ll allow my biased opinion–it’s a fun and topical book. The story is set in a possible future won by gun evangelists and advocates for hands-off government. Plagued by shootings, this America has returned to the ways of the Wild West, a lawless land where people make their own justice.

Keep your eye on this blog and please sign up for my newsletter for more updates!

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Adam Bender | adambenderwrites.com | watchadam.blog