Pale Zenith - Paperback

by Wendy Rathbone (Author)

On a far-flung "Earth" in a parallel universe, two factions are fighting a decades-long psychic war. Young talented psychics are being kidnapped from present day Earth to serve as part of one side's psychic army. They are put under the control of spychiatrists, mysterious machines with many limbs that have a programmed ability to travel time and space and universes to kidnap and control carefully selected humans. The humans never know they are being used; when their missions are completed they are brought back to their universe through time and placed back in their beds, their memories wiped. Lacy meets the twins, Zack and Leo, late one night in a bar and learns that her nightmares and Leo's match, along with matching scars neither remembers. They set out to solve the mystery of the reality that exists beyond their dreams. Kittin lives on a parallel Earth and has never known a world without war. As a victim of psychic attack and its resulting madness, she is whisked from her family and institutionalized, until one day at age 18 she discovers a psychic connection to a dangerous boy from the "other side" and becomes part of the elite psychic army at Moltenrose Tower. Ashao is the son of the ruler of the Walled City. His birthright is to inherit his father's kingdom, and the psychic army he controls. On his 16th birthday he is given a spychiatrist to experiment with. From that one gift, he learns a harsh truth about the tortures of war, and must make a decision to follow his father, or become a traitor and follow his heart. "Pale Zenith" is the story of how all these characters unite to overcome their tragedies in an alien environment of horrific war-time abuse. Angst, humor, tragedy and romance ensue.

Author Biography

Wendy Rathbone has had over 500 poems published in various magazines and anthologies, and dozens of stories published in anthologies such as: Hot Blood, Writers of the Future, Bending the Landscape, Mutation Nation and more. The book "Dreams of Decadence Presents: Wendy Rathbone and Tippi Blevins" contains a large collection of her vampire stories and poems. She won first place in the Anamnesis Press poetry chapbook contest with her book "Scrying the River Styx." She lives in Yucca Valley, CA with her partner of 30 years, Della Van Hise. "Unearthly," her omnibus collection of 7 out-of-print poetry booklets is available on Kindle.