Tour Stop, Guest Post & Giveaway: Juggernaut by Amelia C. Gormley

Hi, and welcome to the Juggernaut blog tour!

Almost before I was done writing Strain, my mind began trying to fill in the blanks of the world we saw in Strain, trying to piece together what had led up to that point. I decided I wanted to write a story chronicling the apocalyptic pandemic, both the events leading up to it and the immediate aftermath. The result, of course, was Juggernaut.

On the Juggernaut blog tour, I’ll be sharing my thoughts about the world of Juggernaut/Strain/Bane, including several cut scenes from Juggernaut which I felt contained important world-building details that in the end just didn’t fit the flow of the story. I’ll also be sharing a couple sneak previews of the third book in the Strain universe, Bane (coming September 21 from Riptide Publishing) as well as giving away three e-copies of Bane before it hits the shelves!

To enter to win, leave a comment on this post including a way to contact you (email, Twitter, or Facebook.) Each stop along the blog tour that you visit offers you another chance to enter. Be sure to check the Riptide blog tour schedule for a complete list of other stops. The contest will close Saturday, August 15^th, 2015 and the winner will be contacted no later than Monday, August 17^th. Any entries made without a way to contact the winner will be invalidated, so please don’t forget to provide your email, or your Twitter or Facebook address. Contest is NOT limited to US entries.

Good luck, and enjoy the tour!

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I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the influence that Stephen King’s The Stand had upon my vision of how the world would function during and immediately after an apocalyptic pandemic.

Nevertheless, there are some significant differences.

First of all is the size of the remaining population. I believe in The Stand, something like 1% of the population survived the pandemic. So in a large metropolitan area like, say, present day New York, with a population of roughly 8.5 million people, there would be 85,000 survivors.

In my pandemic, the surviving population is closer to 0.01%. In other words, in a population the size of present-day New York, there might be 850 survivors.

Though, that’s not entirely accurate either, because the shape of the pandemic would be entirely different. In The Stand, the survivors all lived because they are immune to the Captain Tripps superflu.

In the Strain universe, there are actually very few people who are immune to the virus, even among those who survive, and that survivors are not people who are immune (as a rule) but people who managed to avoid infection. This means that major metropolitan areas are likely to see a smaller percentage of their population survive than rural areas, because there is no effective way to quarantine yourself. Each time you breathe the same air as another person presents another opportunity for exposure, and your daily life in a crowded city presents so many more such opportunities.

The other confounding factor is the mutation of the Gamma strain, which produces zombie-like cannibalistic creatures known as revenants. Aside from the danger of being eaten, the revenants can also transmit the virus, which means that even after the first wave of the pandemic has passed, there is still a danger of exposure. Maybe you might run into a revenant and escape being eaten but still infected by virtue of your proximity to the revenant. Maybe you’ll encounter another seemingly uninfected survivor who had a close brush with a revenant a couple weeks ago and isn’t yet exhibiting any symptoms. There’s no way of knowing.

The primary result of this set of circumstances is going to be that the survivors of the first wave of the pandemic are much less likely to immediately try to band together for survival and to rebuild society (which is what happens right away in The Stand.) Their inclination is going to be to remain in seclusion and to hoard supplies to enable them to remain in seclusion longer. Other survivors not only present a danger of contagion, they are also competition for supplies. Pockets of survivors are going to start from a position of mistrust and a reluctance to cooperate with one another.

It also means that survivors are going to be primarily from a particular socioeconomic subset of the population. They’re going to be people who had the money to live in single-unit housing (see my “Life in the Tenements” post along the blog tour) outside the cities and to lay away stockpiles of supplies before the outbreak. This particularly becomes a factor when we see the surviving civilian population juxtaposed against the other group of survivors, the Juggernaut Battalion, who are the military troops infected with the Bane Alpha virus—the be wellspring for the fatal Beta strain. Military service is frequently seen as a way for people from underprivileged populations and circumstances to make a better living than they otherwise would, and that becomes a source of tension in the aftermath of the pandemic as we discover that prejudice didn’t die with the majority of the population.

The other result is going to be the elaborate quarantine system that will need to be implemented by the congregating survivors before admitting anyone new into their population. For more information on that, see my “Life in the Quarantine Pens” post along the blog tour.

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Title: Juggernaut by Amelia C. Gormley
Part of the Strain Universe
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Genre: romance, sci-fi, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, drama
Length: 370 pages/Word Count: 100,400

Summary:

They helped destroy the world. Now they have to survive the new one.

For rentboy Nico Fernández, it’s a simple job: seduce a presidential advisor to help cement approval to launch Project Juggernaut. He’s done similar work for General Logan McClosky before, and manipulating people for his favorite client beats the hell out of being trafficked for slave wages in some corporate brothel.

Zach Houtman feels called to work with the most vulnerable outcasts of society. But his father, the Reverend Maurice Houtman, insists that Zach work for him instead as he runs for Senate. Zach reluctantly agrees, but is horrified to see his father leave behind Christ’s mandate of love and mercy to preach malicious zealotry and violence instead. Zach even starts to suspect his father is working with fundamentalist terrorists.

When Project Juggernaut accidentally unleashes a deadly plague that claims billions of lives, Nico and Zach are thrown together, each bearing a burden of guilt. With only each other for safety and solace, they must make their way through a new world, one where the handful of people left alive are willing to do anything—and kill anyone—to survive.

Add to Goodreads.

Purchase Link: Riptide Publishing

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Author Bio

Amelia C. Gormley may seem like anyone else. But the truth is she sings in the shower, dances doing laundry, and writes blisteringly hot m/m erotic romance while her son is at school. When she’s not writing in her Pacific Northwest home, Amelia single-handedly juggles her husband, her son, their home, and the obstacles of life by turning into an everyday superhero. And that, she supposes, is just like anyone else.

Author Links: Website * Tumblr * Facebook * Twitter * Goodreads

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Giveaway

Three e-copies of Bane before it hits the shelves!

To enter to win, leave a comment on this post including a way to contact you (email, Twitter, or Facebook.) Each stop along the blog tour that you visit offers you another chance to enter. Be sure to check the Riptide blog tour schedule for a complete list of other stops. The contest will close Saturday, August 15th, 2015 and the winner will be contacted no later than Monday, August 17th. Any entries made without a way to contact the winner will be invalidated, so please don’t forget to provide your email, or your Twitter or Facebook address. Contest is NOT limited to US entries.

Follow the rest of the tour HERE.