Angie's Diary reviews Watcher by Mike Philbin - now with exclusive excerpt

The follow-up to last year’s Tandem (G3-whistleblower #1) novel, Watcher further expands on the surrealistic confessions of a covert-operations super-soldier.

 

Super Soldier: someone who can dream harder than you.
Covert Operative: your mum, your dad, your sister, your brother, your son, your daughter.
War World: the place where you live right now, at war for PROFIT.
Dream Space: ah, come on, you know what I’m going to say, “Your dreams are not what you think they are.”

 

So, where are we going with this press release for Mike Philbin’s latest fictional novel?

 

In Tandem, released in 2013, Lorien Howell, an estate manager at Oxford law firm Convo & Convo, is seduced by her G3 whistleblowing client ‘Actor Arrenay’ to join him in liberating mankind from The Global Gambling Game or War World. Of course, she doesn’t believe him, in fact she despises his lunatic ramblings, until the evidence starts to mount in his favour and she finally sees what kind of a sick and manipulative (and wasted) world she inhabits.

 

 

Read the rest of it here, at ANGIE'S DIARY.

 

 

WEEKS LATER UPDATE: Angie's Diary just published an official exclusive excerpt from a couple chapters into Watcher, the corporate assassination scene.

Watcher (a G3 Whistleblower novel) by Mike Philbin published by Chimericana Books

WATCHER SYNOPSIS:

 

  Having lived on the streets of the city for seven years, ex G3-agent Vagrant Millgate starts to receive messages from a cube inside his head. He had lost his job. He had lost his daughter. He had lost his wife. Suddenly, he has a new mission, his life has new meaning. But how will he be able to cope when the G3-world of psychic-attack dogs and transforming super-soldiers has changed so much in his absence?

  Vagrant Millgate finally chases down his first target by listening to the Shirley Bassey song, “I who have nothing,” that's been playing in this person's head all morning. His mission is to save this guy from a fate worse than death. Very soon, it all starts to go wrong and Vagrant Millgate finds himself in a struggle for power that may encapsulate the whole of modern human experience.

  “One down, seven to go,” says his new friend and ally Lady Grey but where will her charitable patronage take our hero? And what is his role in a world rampant with these surrealistic and seemingly unbeatable foes?

 

Buy Watcher in ebook format, kindle format and paperback format.

 

Here's the book trailer:

 

 

Watcher, second draft complete!

Watcher (book two in the G3 Whistleblower Series), second draft complete.

 

Came to 65,000 words, which is comparable in length with its 2013 predecessor Tandem (book one in the G3 Whistleblower Series).

 

And by 'second draft complete' I mean, "It's done," there's not much I'll add to it at this point, apart from a more refined word selection or turn of phrase, I've already taken out a lot of swear words that weren't necessary. I have one final thing to do before I send it through the Chimericana Books publishing process.

 

RUICHI SAKAMOTO's Three CD.

 

I played this excellent CD, when I first got it, for almost every Tandem writing session. It really set the mood and the atmos of what became a character-written piece. No concern for story or narrative cleverness. Just the joy of writing the central characters, Lorien Howell and Actor Arrenay aka...

 

I'm gonna go through Watcher with this CD playing and see if Tandem's atmos, mood, freeformness can't be evoked again in the final tidy of this second G3 Whistleblower book. In fact, I'm going to read/tidy the chapters backwards because it's the back end of the book that's supposed to tie in with the start of Tandem. You'll understand when you read it.

 

Watcher will be available through Amazon and all other online distributors by early in the week; ebook, kindle, kobo, itunes, paperback, all the formats.