Outcasts of the Worlds
Outcasts of the Worlds Book 1
by Lucas Paynter
Genre: Cosmic Fantasy
456 pages
A confidence man. A liar. A monster. Flynn has seen himself for what he really is and has resolved to pay for everything. Even if it means spending the rest of his days locked in Civilis, a tower prison for society's unwanted - "half-humans" gifted by the fallout of nuclear holocaust centuries past.
Jean, a prisoner in the neighboring cell, has different ideas and despite himself, Flynn finds himself joining her daring escape. After rescuing her friend Mack, the three flee Civilis as Flynn pieces together the hours before his capture and finds himself drawn to an abandoned facility where a rift to another world opens at his nearing.
Together they will venture farther beyond the stars than humanity ever imagined, find others like them that will never belong, and tangle with forces both ancient and immortal. They stand alone, hated and scorned - and the last hope of making things right in a cosmos gone terribly wrong.
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From Chapter 2 - Rats in the Walls
As Jean scraped the last bit of beef from the bottom of a can, she glanced over at Flynn, who had been lost in thought for some while. “Been kinda quiet there, Flynn.”
“I have business I need to follow up on, once I leave Crescent.”
“Really?” Mack sat up, his curiosity piqued. “Where’re we goin’?”
“Only me. Just worry about getting as far away from here as you can. I take care of myself.” This felt like the right ground to set. Help them, but don’t get too close.
“What sorta business?” Jean asked. Her spoon scraped repeatedly against the bottom of the can, trying to scoop up what juices remained.
Flynn was reticent to share, but could find little reason not to. “I’m missing time from before Civilis. I don’t know why I ended up there. I…” His head ached as he grasped at the memories. “I wasn’t far from here. I was delivering something.”
“Oooh,” Mack was intrigued. “Anything else?”
“Just blue. Blue light. I don’t know what it was.”
“So where’s this place?” Jean asked.
“Up in the mountains, northwest of here,” Flynn replied. “It’s an old medical facility.
Run down, abandoned. Why?”
“I’d like to know where we’re goin’.” Before Flynn could object, she added, “I told ya before: I don’t ditch my friends.”
“You consider us friends?”
“Ya helped me bust out, and ya helped me save my best buddy. If that ain’t grounds for friendship, I don’t know what is.”
“Are you sure you know me well enough to say that?”
Jean stopped with her spoon hanging from her mouth and pointedly asked, “You a rapist?”
“No!” Flynn retorted, flushing.
“Good start then. Don’t have to go an’ smash ya.”
Flynn withdrew and gave this a moment’s thought. Trust of this sort was ripe, easily exploited. Yet with things as they were, there was little benefit to be found in taking advantage of two Civilis escapees—and more still, despite understanding the situation as he did, he found he didn’t want to. Flynn was not generally inclined to take unknown elements into unknown situations—without knowing what he would find, he couldn’t control what Jean or Mack might learn about him.
He set his near-empty can on the floor, his fork rattling inside. He considered the situation. He had not been alone when it had happened, but his then-companion was dead, captured, or long gone. Confident that his crimes lay concealed, Flynn nodded his thanks and consent, having concluded that he didn’t really want to be alone.
Three strangers escape from the tower which no one as attempted before or at least accomplished such a fate. The three strangers become fast friends and travel to other worlds together by going through gates. They really have nowhere to go or place to be they are just trying to run away and not get caught to be locked up again.
Flynn is the only one of the three who can sense the gates and get them through to the other worlds. Flynn, Jean, and Mack meet some interesting people on their travels. Flynn, Jean, and Mack are all considered as only being half human so therefore are known as "outcast" to the world. But don’t let Jean hear you refer to them as half human as she just might smash you. Jean likes to smash people and things and would do more than she does but Flynn sort of keeps her in line.
Outcasts of the Worlds has been a great little adventure with following Flynn, Jean, and Mack on their escape and then going along with them from world to world. I kind of like Jean as she likes to smash things. People just need to give them a chance like sit down with them and have a chat with them and get to know them they might find that they like them for just who they are.
I would recommend Outcasts of the Worlds to anyone who likes to read fantasy and visiting other worlds.
Killers, Traitors & Runaways
Outcasts of the Worlds Book 2
364 pages
As reality nears its final days, worlds fall to ruin. A benevolent god is shackled, and when freed, will create a new one ... allowing only the pure of heart. A company of seven have united on a bloody quest to stop him, but have little hope of emerging victorious.
The outcasts are adrift--they have a mission but no means to fulfill it. Airia Rousow, the fallen goddess who set them on their path, is gone. Guardian Poe, her intended successor, believes deification will absolve him of his sins and his remorse alike. And Zella Renivar, daughter of the Living God, is still hunted by her father's agents, drawing danger on them all.
Trapped in this storm, Flynn is able to find and open the ways between worlds, but cannot discern which path is the right one. Since losing the trust of his closest friend, the temptation to fall back on his former, deceitful ways with grows with every crisis he faces.
A lone bulb came alive at Flynn’s entry, lighting the otherwise dark rail car. He stopped a few steps from the door. The rainfall was more noticeable in this better silence, and the isolation gave space to think. It was also a place to speak, without appearing insane.
Flynn sorted through a crowd of people in his mind. He sought to know his enemy, whose rebellion had upset the divine pantheon that he was now the sole remaining member of. With a blink, Flynn met the visage of Taryl Renivar, the Living God whose power—if unshackled—would sunder the existence of old to create one new and unspoiled.
This memory of Taryl Renivar was not bound to the earth, dragged to bow like in reality—there was no point in binding a mirage. Rather, he stood tall and lordly. As a human, he had lived more than half a century; as an immortal, he had seen over a millennium. His black hair, though fading, had held its color since his ascension. Nonetheless, he was old by any measure. Old, but firm.
The cone of light from the ceiling marked the distance between them, and he spoke. “You look to me for answers. You understand so little. Though you know what I seek to do, you do not grasp my methods or manners.”
“I need to organize the chaos,” Flynn replied. “Much of what I have are accounts and secondhand encounters. Your soldiers, your self-proclaimed ‘right hand’—”
“I am deeply less than the Living God,” the facsimile told him. “A memory, piece-mealed from a fleeting encounter? I cannot impress upon you anything you do not already know. I am not a font of knowledge, only a fogged lens of perspective.”
Flynn approached Renivar, his arm tensing in recollection. He’d attempted to slay the genuine article, and it was an empty motion that had meant nothing; attacking this facsimile would mean even less.
“Your most noted lieutenant is vicious and arrogant,” Flynn accused. “Zella, your own daughter, was poised to sacrifice her life to unbind you. Your people …” Flynn growled, “… are going to hunt mine.”
“I steward millions … perhaps more,” Taryl replied. “You are seven. I am prepared to sacrifice far more than that to ensure the safety of those I serve.”
Flynn wasn’t sure if that was Renivar’s perspective or his own. Many Reahv’li soldiers had died for their god when Flynn and his allies were cornered, but Renivar had been pained by their deaths.
“They are treasured to me,” Renivar explained, reflecting Flynn’s thoughts. “Just as your friends are valued to you.”
Our little band of misfits the outcast are back and still doing a lot of traveling. They are on a mission but have no ideas or way to complete it. They meet more interesting characters on their journeys.
Flynn has become trapped in his own world without his friend to help find the right path to take. He can find the way to the gates and knows how to open them but is having a hard time deciding which path to take. Flynn is struggling with who he is and not becoming the person he once was. He doesn’t want to go back to being that person ever but without his friend to help him who knows what he will become.
It is all on Flynn’s shoulders to keep his friends safe and together. Can Flynn save his friends? Can he choose the right path? Will he become the person he once was? To find out read Killers, Traitors, & Runaways book two in the Outcasts of the Worlds series.
If you like reading fantasy and traveling to different worlds with a lot of action around every corner then you are going to love Killers, Traitors, & Runaways but I would highly suggest that you read Outcasts of the Worlds book one first so that you will understand more of what is happening.
Lucas Aubrey Paynter hails from the mythical land of Burbank, California, where there are most likely no other writers at all.
Back in 2014, he published Outcasts of the Worlds, and he’s now releasing its follow-up, Killers, Traitors, & Runaways.
A fan of gray-area storytelling and often a devil’s advocate, Lucas enjoys consuming stories from a variety of mediums, believing there’s no limit to what form a good narrative can take.
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2 comments:
The world sounds amazing.
I love the covers.
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