Jeff Horton - The Dark Age - Guest Post

My thanks to Jeff Horton for stopping by The Character Connection and sharing a guest post during the blog tour for his book, The Dark Age.

Guest Post

Have you watched, as I have, the many post-apocalyptic movies that have come out of Hollywood over the past several decades? During the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, apocalyptic stories became increasingly popular, particularly at the box office. Movies like Mad Max, The Day After, Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact, and 2012, just to name a few, have captured and held our imagination. I know that I've always been fascinated by apocalyptic thrillers, and I suppose many other people have as well. Apocalyptic stories in which the world is threatened and the unlikely hero finds himself in the right place at the right time to make a difference, and post-apocalyptic thrillers in which the protagonist is in a position to change the world for the better, have always inspired me, and helped me to realize how so very small many of my everyday concerns in life really are.

There have been a number of programs on television over the last few years, which examine possible outcomes should a specific global, catastrophic event occur, and how humanity might recover. There have also been experiments where people attempt to live as prehistoric man did, without the benefit of modern conveniences. While it certainly would be difficult to thrive or even survive under such conditions, one of the experiments I saw offered hope that humanity would be able to survive.

I didn't necessarily set out to write a post-apocalyptic thriller when I started writing The Dark Age, but it soon turned into one. As I did research for my first novel, The Great Collapse, and my second novel, The Dark Age, I was astonished to learn how vulnerable our national infrastructure and our civilization itself are to powerful electromagnetic pulses and solar flares. In 2008 a report requested by Congress and was completed by the EMP Commission. It confirmed that the threat of a single nuclear warhead detonated high in the atmosphere somewhere around Kansas was real, and that it could potentially take out the United States' national power grid.

In The Great Collapse, it is an EMP attack and a solar flare knock out power worldwide, causing civilization to collapse within months. Unlike an EMP generated by a nuclear detonation, however, the EMP attack and the solar flare renders it impossible for anyone anywhere on the planet to rebuild the technology so vital to our society. With most of humanity no longer possessing the know-how to safely live off of the land, it is a struggle just to survive. Now fast forward five-hundred years and you'll find yourself in The Dark Age, which is set in a world where humanity survives by the sword, the bow, and the arrow, while secretly hoping that a legend about the Great Oracle is true and that civilization will one day return to the Earth. The Dark Age is a story about self-discovery, perseverance, and self-sacrifice, all in an effort to save the world from a fate worse than death.

Hopefully, you will find as I did that The Dark Age paints a stark, yet intriguing and hopeful vision of the future, where heroes must work together in order to offer mankind a brighter tomorrow.

About the Book
The Dark Age

Book Details:
Publisher: World Castle Publishing
Published: June 2011
Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction
Format: paperback & ebook
Price: $12.99 paperback, $5.49-$5.99 ebook

Buy Links: Amazon, Kindle, Nook

Blurb:
Suppose you learned that an ancient prophecy about an artifact, said to be powerful enough to dramatically change the world, was true. Would you risk everything to find it? It has been five-hundred years since the Pulse caused the Great Collapse, ending the Golden Age, and civilization on planet Earth. Humanity has waited ever since for a long-anticipated sign from God, which has finally appeared in the night sky. The time has come for Ferrell Young, the Warrior Clan, and the Church to risk everything in an effort to restore civilization, and bring hope to a world full of despair. Alex Montgomery is an archaeologist who has spent many years looking for a mysterious book on behalf of the Holy Christian Church. The book is said to contain the location of the Great Oracle which, according to legend, can endow the one who finds it with great power and wealth. Of much greater importance to the Clan and the Church however, is the fact that it may also enable the world to emerge from five centuries of darkness and suffering. When a powerful, intelligent, but sadistic barbarian leader named Kraken learns of the Oracle, he plans to destroy the Warrior Clan and the Church, take the Oracle for himself, and enslave the rest of humanity. Join Ferrell and his companions as they set out on a desperate journey to find the Great Oracle, and rescue humanity from The Dark Age.

About the Author
Jeff Horton

Jeff Horton was born in North Dakota, the youngest son of a career Air Force master sergeant, where he spent the first four years of his life before moving to North Carolina. A somewhat voracious reader growing up, he read everything from comic books to The Bible, including stories by many popular authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Jeff Horton's novel, The Great Collapse, a story about the coming of the pulse and the end of civilization, was published in 2010. He is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network.

When he's not penning his next novel, he enjoys reading, going to church, and spending time with his family.

Connect With Jeff:
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Web Site
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About the Tour

The Experience Tours

Tour Participants:

Oct. 9: Guest Post & Book Excerpt @ Beauty Brite and Giveaway @Bee's Knees Reviews
Oct. 10: Guest Post & Giveaway @ Letters Inside Out
Oct. 11: Giveaway & Guest Post @ Books & Other Creative Adventures
Oct. 12: Guest Post @ Mad Moose Mama
Oct. 13: Guest Post @ The Fairytale Nerd
Oct. 14: Review @ A Casual Reader's Blog
Oct. 15: Guest Post & Giveaway @ After the Book
Oct. 16: Guest Post @ YA Books Beyond the Cover
Oct. 17: Giveaway @ Mind Reader
Oct. 18: Giveaway @ Books Ahoy
Oct. 19: Giveaway, Author Interview, & Guest Post @ BookSpark
Oct. 20: Guest Post @ I'm A Book Shark
Oct. 21: Guest Post @ The Character Connection
Oct. 22: Giveaway @ Reviews By Molly