BookSurge, LLC is proud to present an exciting (YAWN) novel Fourteen years, and 100,000 boxes of crayons, in the making:
TARGET: AKAI-I REFUSE TO DIE
(The New and Improved Edition)
Written by Todd Shields, an escapee from The Ludlow Asylum for the Criminally Creative and Bait Shop.
Why The New and Improved Edition, you ask? Because 'Revised Edition' is so unoriginal. Fortified with better writing with none of the typos of the original.
Influenced by Anime and Manga (mostly Hayuo Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the valley of Wind), as well as Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and David Lynch's Twin Peaks, Target: Akai is a bizarre and dark blend of Pythonian satire, science fiction, samurai drama, spaghetti western and allegory, a psychological cold war in the guise of a post-apocalyptic fairy tale exploring the human condition.
The book also features a cover drawn by David Mack, the creator of the renowned comic book series Kabuki and the writer of Parts of a Hole for Marvel Comic's Daredevil.
But Target: Akai’s main focus is a question once proposed by William Shakespeare:
"To Be or Not to Be . . . "
And what's a post-apocalyptic fairy tale without a weird cast of fantasy stereotypes. In addition to the wicked king (Caligula), his personal militia (The VD) and the ogre (his twisted sister Brucie), there's a fetching princess (Felicity), a handsome prince (Bully), a wise old mentor (Okami), a black knight (Nimrod), a magician (Cassius), a fire-breathing dragon (Mechabrucie), a rebel leader (DeZhon), nomadic warriors (The Vikers), freedom fighters (The Dai-Kakumei and the Gyakushi) and dangerously religious fanatics (The Caligulites).
And at the heart of it all is Akai Hinode Devlin Arcadius, the Angel with the Eyes of a Demon (named so because the pupils and irises in her eyes are blood red), a heroic hybrid of Nausicaa, Joan of Arc, Pearl White and Wolverine. Dashing hero and damsel in distress rolled into one.
The child of the Euro-American ambassador to the Tetzu Empire and the adapted daughter of the former Tetzu Shogun Osamu Okami, Akai was born with some unusual abilities, aside from her red eyes, including hyper senses, incredible strength (by the age of three she could press 30 pounds; by 16, she's as strong as two adult males), lightning fast reflexes, night vision, rapid healing and a high intelligence quota.
Unfortunately, these qualities do not endear Akai to her peers, whose jealousy and hatred force the child to become an outcast. This social exile is mostly incited by Eiji Kito, the spoiled son of a Tetzu Daimyo who is determined to destroy Akai at all cost. He even labels her with her own unique slander: Abnorm. The proverbial round peg stuck on a world dominated by squares, Akai becomes a fighter, possessing an indomitable spirit and a stubborn, nearly suicidal survival instinct. Her motto:
I Refuse to Die.
Target: Akai spans 13 years in the life of our heroine, from the age of three in 2246 where she befriends the Euro princess Felicity Arcadius and witnesses the murder of her parents during an assassination attempt on the Euro monarch, Lord Augustus, to 2249 where she sees the fall of the Euro-American Commonwealth, the Tetzu Empire and the People's Republic of Hispainia, followed by the rise of the Nasti Establishment, led by the evil pervert Caligula Gaius Tiberius, who seized power after murdering Lord Augustus and brainwashing the Euroes with subliminal messages and drugs. Under Caligula’s rule, honor becomes a joke and dignity becomes a sin.
Meanwhile, in the remains of Anchorage, Alaska, Okami and his mentors, the Du Run Runs, prepare the surviving youth of the Tetzu Empire as a counterattack force, the Gyakushi, to invade the Nasti capital, Caligulopolis, in 2261. Along with Okami is Princess Felicity, who was on holiday in the empire during Caligula's coup, Akai, who would eventually become the Gyakushi's Shogunette, the Tetzu prince Akira 'Bully' Tanaka (the Gyakushi's former leader) and Mr. Pain-in-the-Ass Eiji Kito, who is determined to overthrow our hapless heroine by any means possible.
In 2252, the Establishment is rocked by the dark warrior Nimrod, an insane cyborg who has not only vowed to destroy Caligula, but the surviving kin of Lord Augustus (RE: Felicity and Akai, who Augustus adopted after the deaths of her parents). But despite this fact, and any real common sense, Akai only views the Dark One's heroic side, developing a sort of hero worship with the hope that she could one day meet with him and talk him out of his death threat, which she is convinced is a misunderstanding.
It is now 2259 and the shit hits the fan. Buckling under the pressures of command, 16 years old Akai takes a little holiday in the Alaskan wilderness, only to find that the Nastis has discovered Anchorage, killing many until Felicity surrenders herself. Grabbing the prize, VD Field Marshal Brucie leaves the young bushi a message: Come to Caligulopolis, alone, or Felicity will become her bitch.
Driven by anger and guilt, Akai takes the challenge, embarking on a kamikaze odyssey armed only with her wolf-hilted katana, her hand-built motorcycle Frankenstein and her wits (but none of her marbles), her only hope is to ally with Nimrod, a man determined to kill her.
Can Akai convince Nimrod to help her rescue Felicity and bring down the establishment, or will the Dark One scatter her to the winds? Why does he want to kill Akai . . . and what past events links the two bushi? What dark secrets does Akai discover about her mother . . . and the Dark One? What is the proposal that Caligula made to Felicity? And what inner turmoil drives Akai to the ultimate battle. . .the one within her soul?
But the big question is how many books can Mr. Shields sell before the men in the little white coats with the butterfly nets can find him?
TARGET: AKAI-I REFUSE TO DIE
A post-apocalyptic fairy tale
Only $19.95 for 456 pages of action, comedy, adventure, philosophy, commentary and madness For ordering information contact: