Sunday, February 11, 2018 Rustling the Leaves: Michael Fiegel book launch Categories: Other Local Events Timelines: 1b: Past Events (Unseen Archive)
Where:
Talking Leaves…Books
951 Elmwood Ave
Buffalo, NY 14222
Date: February 15, 2018
Time: 7:00-8:15 p.m.
Michael Fiegel is a Seattle-based writer and game designer best known as the creator of Ninja Burger, an internet cult classic that spawned a series of books and games. He was an editor and columnist for RPGnet, a role-playing game website. He will be launching his first novel, Blackbird, at our event. Michael is a Buffalo native.
Fiegel as will launch his debut work of print fiction, Blackbird, published this fall by Skyhorse. The darkly compelling novel tells the story of an unusual bond between two killers, and the destruction left in their wake. Fiegel’s background in role-playing games serves him well in this black comedic thriller.
A cold-blooded killer-for-hire, Edison North drifts across America from city to city, crime scene to crime scene, leaving behind a world in flames. But during a seemingly random stop at a fast food restaurant, Edison meets Christian, a young girl who mirrors his own sense of isolation and stink of “other.” Though it’s been a long time since he felt anything resembling a human connection, something about this desperately lonely child calls to him like a fallen nestling. Edison feels certain she deserves better. And while he is not convinced that he can give her that, he can teach her to fly on her own. So he takes her. Though he’s a killer for hire, he has standards, and he raises Xtian (as he rechristens her) as his apprentice—forbidding her, for instance, from playing role-playing games online because the players curse too much. North’s teaching provides Xtian with brutal lessons in survival and how to kill with cunning, but other people in North’s amorphous organization don’t appreciate his bringing her into their business.
Weaving together past and present, Edison begins Christian’s strange apprenticeship as Christian looks back upon her fractured upbringing and the training that made her into the killer she’s become. What emerges is a savage and ultimately tender exploration of the unlikely bond between two outsiders: a fledgling assassin and the man who took her under his wing. Publishers Weekly calls the book “electrifying, satisfying, and original.”
This event is free and open to the public–books will be available for purchase. Anyone wishing to have a copy signed by the author is expected to purchase it from Talking Leaves, as an act of respect and support for the author and the store hosting his appearance.