The Bookworm Lodge
  • Home
  • About
  • The Tour Stop
  • Featured Books
  • The Book Shelf
    • September 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • August 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • July 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • June 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • May 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • April 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • March 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • February 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • January 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • 2019 Tours >
      • December 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • March 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • January 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • February 2019 Book Blitzes/Tours
    • 2018 Tours >
      • December 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2018 Blog Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • March 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • February 2018 Book Blitzes/Tours
      • January 2018 Blog Tour/Blitzes
    • 2017 Tours >
      • December 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • March 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • February 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • January 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • 2016 Tours >
      • December 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2016 Blog Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2016 Blog Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
  • Contact
  • A Bookworm's Inner Thoughts
  • Alexandra's Author Page

The Tour Stop
​

Check out these featured authors making their way around the blog scene!
CLick here to Inquire about our Book Blog Tour program

Playing Dead Book Blitz    Author: Bronson Palmer

12/13/2017

0 Comments

 

Playing Dead
Bronson Palmer
Publication date: November 7th 2017
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult

In the halls of Andrew Jackson High School, Jenaiya is a nobody. Less than a nobody. She’s practically invisible. An awkward, shy freshman, she very rarely gets any attention at all, unless she’s being harassed by the school’s multitude of bullies. In short, she’s not anyone’s idea of a hero.

But in ‘Age of Z,’ a post-apocalyptic multiplayer zombie game, she’s a gun-wielding, fast-talking GOD. She’s one of the top ten players in the online dystopia, and she doesn’t suffer fools lightly. It’s just the way she plays, and she likes it that way. She can become the person she wishes herself to be in the real world.

However, when the game gets overrun by trolls and n00bs who threaten to destroy the game by turning it into yet another online shooter, Jenaiya cannot sit still and let that happen. The very existence of the game is on the line, as people leave in droves, and she gathers a rag-tag group of players to fight back against this new kind of ‘brainless’ horde. They have wildly different personalities but one goal: rid the game of the real monsters.

Jenaiya will have to outsmart her enemies, outplay the bullies, and return ‘Age of Z’ to its former glory. Otherwise, it’s game over, and she’ll have to confront the real world that awaits her on the other side of the computer screen.

Goodreads / Amazon

--

Meet Jenaiya. She’s a survivor.
By Bronson Palmer

Meet Jenaiya. She’s the tough, flawed, sometimes misguided protagonist of ‘Playing Dead.’ A meek freshman at a particularly rough high school, Jenaiya spends most of the book trying to negotiate all the different areas of her life, from her online identity to her relationship with her family and her sexual identity. She’s not a simple character, and this is not an easy story to tell. It would be easy to make her an empty vessel for the events inside ‘Age of Z,’ but it was my goal to provide the audience with a believable, real character to identify with so each victory and defeat felt that much more credible.

When the novel begins, Jenaiya leads a fairly ordinary but unenviable life in Nashville. She hates school, because the school she attends is a haven for miscreants of all types. It seems as though everyone around her is a villain of some kind, and she is a constant target of their attacks. Her only refuge happens to be her favorite video game, ‘Age of Z,’ where she’s able to unleash her adolescent rage on an unsuspecting public. It provides insight into how Jenaiya feels the world really should run. She values fairness and fair play, loyalty, and integrity.

However, in the real world, beyond the confines of a digital asylum, rather than doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, she also gets caught up in the idea that “the ends justify the means,” which lands her in a whole heap of trouble. When it comes to bullies, especially teenage ones, it’s oh so tempting to fight fire with fire, but that usually ends up making things worse, as it does in ‘Playing Dead.’ Jenaiya wants to level the playing field for everyone, from the jocks to the dreamers and the jokers to the drama queens, but that’s not entirely how the world works, so the fuse she lights early in the novel eventually explodes right in her face.

Her digital world is rocked when her favorite game — really, the only game she plays — is trounced by new players who treat ‘Age of Z’ like your everyday, run-of-the-mill, cookie cutter first-person shooter. To Jenaiya, ‘AoZ’ is so much more than that. It’s a post-apocalyptic game, sure, but the world is built around relationships. See, in ‘Age of Z,’ players wander a vast wasteland in search of supplies. They can be found in buildings, abandoned cars, but the best place, by far, to hit the item jackpot is another player.

Only, players are tough to kill, and it’s much easier to work cooperatively with that person or negotiate peacefully to trade supplies. Think ‘FallOut’ without all the headshots. The game is loosely based on the experiential ‘sandbox’ games which have become popular over the past few years. Games like ‘Minecraft,’ ‘H1Z1,’ and ‘DayZ’ inform the gameplay, so if you’ve played those titles, you understand that the strategy lies not in quick-twitch mouse-and-keyboard murder sessions but in how you interact with the world and the other players.

What Jenaiya understands inherently, the new players do not, and it frustrates her. Being an African-American loner, Jenaiya feels yet another thing she loves get co-opted by society at-large, and rather than allow it to happen, she decides to fight back. She’s willing to befriend all of the different warring factions within ‘Age of Z’ to make that happen, if she has to. But she refuses — absolutely refuses — to give up on this game until she’s dead and gone.

That’s where the portmanteau character MICHONNEN_KNIFE comes in. I make a few sly references to ‘Fight Club’ throughout the book, and though the tone of ‘Playing Dead’ is nowhere near a Palahniuk novel, MICHONNEN_KNIFE is the Tyler Durden to Jenaiya’s normal Jack character. Where Jenaiya is meek and accommodating, MICHONNEN_KNIFE is uncompromising, and Jenaiya basks in every opportunity to live in that digital construction’s skin.

As a bonus, I decided to get a faux-D&D player card designed to show the audience just what MICHONNEN_KNIFE (+1 if you can guess both references embedded in the name) has to offer Jenaiya. Hope you enjoy perusing it, and if you’ve dug this blog post, you can get lots more obscure references throughout the whole of ‘Playing Dead.’


GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

XBTBanner1

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

  • Home
  • About
  • The Tour Stop
  • Featured Books
  • The Book Shelf
    • September 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • August 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • July 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • June 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • May 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • April 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • March 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • February 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • January 2020 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • 2019 Tours >
      • December 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • March 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • January 2019 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • February 2019 Book Blitzes/Tours
    • 2018 Tours >
      • December 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2018 Blog Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • March 2018 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • February 2018 Book Blitzes/Tours
      • January 2018 Blog Tour/Blitzes
    • 2017 Tours >
      • December 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • March 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • February 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • January 2017 Book Tours/Blitzes
    • 2016 Tours >
      • December 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • November 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • October 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • September 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • August 2016 Blog Tours/Blitzes
      • July 2016 Blog Tours/Blitzes
      • June 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • May 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
      • April 2016 Book Tours/Blitzes
  • Contact
  • A Bookworm's Inner Thoughts
  • Alexandra's Author Page