The Near Future — Gene O'Neill

In THE NEAR FUTURE, Gene O'Neill covers an immense spectrum of color in a post-apocalyptic vision of California. A meta-novel of sorts, part three of The Cal Wild Chronicles collects some of Gene's most memorable fiction, cohesively connecting stories such as “The Armless Conductor,” which was published over thirty years ago in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, to Doc Good's Travelling Show, a Bram Stoker Award nominated novella, and “Coyote Gambit.” Tying these stories together are completely new chapters of Cal Wild, such as a new short story, “Return of the Ice Man,” as well as a new novelette, Mohave Transfer, and a new novella, The Scarlet Man, in which the lives of colorful DP's, or Dyed People, cross paths as they try to survive a world left in ruin. Gene O'Neill masterfully blends decades of literary creation in this penultimate book of a genre-building series that may one day be called his magnum opus of his speculative work. Horror, fantasy, and science fiction collide with unforgiving, unflinching abandon as THE NEAR FUTURE of Cal Wild draws closer to THE FAR FUTURE.