Writing SLA novels and stories has been a great joy for the last several years.  I have one more to go before I decide whether or not I'll do anything else in this setting. Posted here is the first part of what will likely be a book to rival "Shiv" in length.

Like Shiv, this work will follow the life of one character in the World of Progress.  Unlike Shiv, I knew the ending before I began the first chapter.  My greatest thanks must go to Rob Wood and all the material and characters he developed and presented in-game to make Mort vibrantly alive, particularly Cloak Division, the Skin Trade, and the Canniabl Sectors.

Synopsis:

Cerise Fiske is an inexperienced Operative thrown into the deep end of SLA's harshest realities from the moment she is discovered by a cryptic man named John Roman, who claims to be Cloak Division.  Uprooted from her place in Uptown's society, all previous connections severed and essentially conscripted to serve Cloak directly, she will be tried and tested to her breaking point and beyond, beginning within Cloak Division's walls and out into the Cannibal Sectors, before going undercover within one of Mort City's most feared and most persistent Soft Companies: the Skin Trade.  If participating in the kidnappings and cruelties isn't bad enough, Cerise will also discover unsettling truths inside the Trade, unveil mysteries of Changtown, and struggle to keep one step ahead of dangerous Props, skulking manchines, gang wars, a cult convinced of the End Days, and a traitor within Cloak itself who would see everything they worked for crashing down.

Sometimes the only hope is one candle in the dark that others can still see.

The novel is as follows:

Part One: Broken Loose (added October 24, 2011)

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