Guest Post: Trans Liberty Riot Brigade 2 Sneak Peak by L.M. Pierce

Welcome, one and all, to the first of this month’s guest book posts! Today, I’m welcoming author L.M. Pierce aboard to talk about the upcoming second book in her Trans Liberty Riot Brigade series. Oh,and fi you’ve not read the first book yet, you can see my review … tomorrow!

“Wow, that’s a little close to home right now…”
Yes, yes it is. When I started writing Trans Liberty Riot Brigade, the year was 2014 and we weren’t talking about giant border walls (at least, not in the bellowing proclamation we hear today) and the idea our government would take a right turn into the “hey, nationalism IS SO RAD AND IF YOU DISAGREE, DIE” lane, hadn’t fully developed. So imagine my shock, horror, and dismay when all of these things happened and my book launched… and my dystopian science fiction nightmare became a “little too real” for some readers. We have jokingly seen A Handmaid’s Tale and 1984 be shelved as non-fiction, so I guess we can count Brigade as one of these causalities.
However…
I worry. I worry a lot because: 1) social anxiety and 2) people forget. Though writing and reading are so often much needed escapism, they serve another function: warning. Call it the canary in a coal mine or what have you, but books often signal the barometric pressure of any given society. If we opt-out of these warnings, we exercise our privilege to not be affected, to not be moved, by the truth that so many people CAN’T opt-out. That some people’s very existence has been politicized and they face real threats to their survival. We choose to ignore the legislative violence happening all around us. People forget that, it’s an easy thing to do. I forget lots of these things too, but sometimes, when I need a stark reminder, a harsh grounding with what is quickly becoming reality, I pick up a hard book. A fiction book that’s “a little too real” right now.
All right… ENOUGH SOAP BOX!
Here’s a draft SNEAK PEEK from Book Two of Trans Liberty Riot Brigade:

“Going to be a bit of a hard landing, just squeeze your nips and take a deep breath,” Myra calls back to us. 

The small plane bobs and then we drop like off an ocean swell, my guts in my mouth, tastin’ like battery acid diapers. We’re goin’ land—land right over the border wall, in the mystery of the North, where the Enclave is supposedly waitin’ to save us all. Doubt claws at me like a spades bet run by alley cats. 

David reaches across the aisle, grabs my hand, still bandaged from the explosion burns Bird Man wrapped up. His eyes shine with—aw, shit tits, there’s hope in them eyes. And I hate it. Makes my belly squeeze sludge further into my throat. I squeeze his cold boney fingers and hope I ain’t about to spew chunks all across both sides of this airborne death-box.

We level out hard, my chest squeezin’ with the pressure of breathin’ and landin’. My ears crackle with sudden crunchin’ pain. The floor grumbles and groans but I can feel we’re back on land, feel the wheels skippin’ on ground. Our high ride through the sky is over and we’ve made it to the magical North. We’ve left the United Free States of Liberty, crossed the Wall, and left… well, we’ve left the Brigade behind too. It’s just me, Elenbar, and David—oh, and our two chaperones up front. They’re already unbucklin’ and Myra checks and flips switches on the front dash, not even turnin’ her dark bunned head toward us. 

Trinia stoops and slides open the hatch of the airplane door. “Let’s move out.” She hops out, guess expectin’ us to follow, but Elenbar don’t look so great, her eyes squeezed shut. 

David and I wiggle between the seats and slip our arms under her pits, hoistin’ her up like a kiddo mite with no legs—like Puddin’. I swallow back the slick, the throat hole memory of what brain spatter tastes like, of Puddin’ who didn’t know what-from-what all the way until the moment the bullet waffled in her piggy smushed face. I dry retch in my mouth, keepin’ my teeth clicked shut against any loose bits wantin’ to gush free.

“Andi?” David grunts, tryin’ to keep Elenbar up because I’ve dropped my side. I grab Elenbar’s arm and jerk, harder than I want but just as hard as needs to be done. She falls forward and together we shuffle her into the darkness outside. 

“Fuckin’ hell. She dead?” Trinia glares at us like we been cockin’ it up, lettin’ people die on board her plane. 

“No. But, hey, we gotta get her to a doc,” I mutter. When did I get so puckerfuckin’ useless? My arms shake and my whole body feels like a pair of leakin’ swiss-cheese panties.

“Need to get all of you to the doc,” Trinia says, her eyes givin’ me a quick up-down. “Here, let me do it. You’re all gonna need to get scanned up here anyhow.” She slides her arms around Elenbar and I don’t wanna let go for a minute, wonderin’ if she’ll really hold her, really keep her safe. But my failin’ arms make the choice and I let them drop to my sides, exhaustion surgin’ through every mote I got in me.

Then I notice… The smell of food whomps me in the face. The smell of cracklin’ meat and juice. Bein’ up in that tower with Boy and Bird Man, all we ate was fish and ocean plants—and after my beginnin’ hunger had faded, I’d come to the worn conclusion I ain’t a fan of fish. This ain’t fish though and I can smell the meat sweat and char over a flame. My stomach forgets bein’ sick and strains at the prison of my flesh, threatenin’ to rip out of me and grow legs, just for the chance at some of that fat. 

 

 

Like what you read? Here’s the details for book 1!

Trans Liberty Riot Brigade Blurb

How do you fight for who you are, when the government controls what you are?

Andi knows being born an intersex “Transgressor” and then choosing to stay that way, can have lethal consequences. After all, surgical assignment is mandated by law. But she ain’t going to spend her life hiding from the Society, hooked on Flow, and wanking tourists just to make a few bucks. She’s a member of the Trans Liberty Riot Brigade, an underground faction of Transgressors resisting the government’s war on their illegal genitalia.

​But it’s not enough to tag their messages on shithouse walls and sniff down the next high. The government has found their headquarters, decimated their ranks, and they’re crushing the resistance. Though Andi might be nothing but a junktard, she embarks on a desperate dash to stay alive and send a call for help before they’re all killed—or worse, surgically assigned.

​Andi, together with Brigade leader Elenbar, must get beyond the communications block preventing all radio transmission, which means crossing the seaboard Wall barricading the United Free States borders. It’s designed to keep enemies out and the citizens in, but amid increasing earthquakes and deadly pursuit, Andi will discover there’s a far more dangerous secret hidden deep within the Wall itself.

NineStar Press: https://ninestarpress.com/product/trans-liberty-riot-brigade/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Trans-Liberty-Riot-Brigade-Pierce/dp/1947139347

Author Bio

“Hey, but what if…?”Music to Lindsay’s ears. She is a graduate from The Evergreen State College and bathes in the sweet liberal waters of the Puget Sound. Or she would, if it wasn’t so polluted. She is a lover of the new and the old, of asking questions and contemplating possibilities. Lindsay’s work is primarily speculative fiction and she is an unapologetic Nerd. She lives with her husband and four fur-babies in Olympia, Washington.

Website: http://www.piercebooks.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PierceAuthor/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lmpiercebooks

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/writerschange/

 

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