The Maelstrom Ascendant

The Maelstrom Ascendant is the sequel to The Vortex Winder. In the tradition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, this book looks at the darker side of human nature, and Jimmy Brandt’s in particular. Most novels don’t have characters who are solely good. Indeed, evil characters are often more interesting.

In The Maelstrom Ascendant, Jimmy Brandt, turns to the dark side. As the story begins he’s leading a quiet life, having given up on his former days as a rock musician. Yet almost against his will, he’s drawn back to it, making a comeback to rock n roll. But the further he goes, the more he sees that the showbiz world is rotten and corrupt and there’s no point resisting it.

He turns to the path of evil and so falls into a sequence of events he can no longer control. In the end, perhaps only an old, forgotten friend can save him – that is, if he wants to be saved.

There’s a lot of ground covered in The Maelstrom Ascendant. I would like to have included more extracts here, but it’s a spoiler to present events out of sequence, and detracts from how the story unfolds. I’ve chosen to present only the first chapter.

Mind you, that does put me at a disadvantage, as the chapter is rather low key. I’d like to assure readers that the book turns out considerably more epic as the story unfolds.

The Maelstrom Ascendant – Chapter One

It felt so good to be a quitter.

There I was, having given up on my dreams and resigned myself to a quiet life. My guitars were in storage and the Vortex Winder lay dormant, as it had for the last three years.

Even Sandra was back on the scene, having forgiven me my madness of the years before. We’d left the glamour of Sydney’s east to live in the unwild western suburbs. After all, that’s what she wanted. It was in fact west of the west – in the Blue Mountains out past the city limits. I retired from music, got a real job and settled into a quiet domestic life.

Sandra? The Vortex Winder? Forgive me. I must remember that many readers have no knowledge of my past adventures.

And whose fault is that? Yes, this book is a sequel. Goddammit – if a few more of you guys had read the first one, we wouldn’t be having this difficult conversation! As it is, not only am I forced to give a summary of that book, it has to come without spoilers. Otherwise none of you will ever go back and read it at all now, will you?

So here’s the deal. I’ll give you a spoiler-free summary of the first book. In return you will agree to suspend your disbelief about the strangeness of the events described. There’s no denying the story was rather bizarre. That’s just the way it is. It will soon be obvious that we’re ‘not in Kansas anymore,’ just somewhere that looks very like it on the surface.

It all began one night when…