HUGO-AWARD WINNING FINALIST ALVARO ZINOS-AMARO DEBUTS HIS FIRST NOVEL RELEASED BY COLORADO’S INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING HOUSE HEX PUBLISHERS. “A CLEVERLY BORGESIAN, REALITY-DISTORTING PREMISE ENLIVENS THIS TRIBUTE TO SILVER AGE SF,” (KIRKUS REVIEWS) — EQUIMEDIAN IS AVAILABLE THIS MONTH. Jason Velez lives a mundane existence installing EmuX virtual reality machines — scraping together just enough money to pay for his increasingly unsustainable science fiction collection — when he begins having strange dreams. He knows he has to make some personal changes if he hopes to get his life in order. Except change is exactly what’s happening to those around him. His roommate’s personality suddenly shifts. Jill, his closest single friend, retroactively has a long-term partner. And why doesn’t anyone remember what a wristplex is? Disoriented by these alterations, and suffering from panic attacks and lapses in memory, Jason tries to convince his friends that something is off, and it might have to do with the enigmatic Progress Pilgrims — a mysterious order who can travel microseconds into the future. But if that wasn’t enough, a flyer labeled only EQUIMEDIAN leads Jason to a meditative selfNo. 122 improvement service that seems to know a little too much about Jason for comfort. With his walls closing in and nowhere else to turn, Jason must decide where and how to finally make a stand. If he does, he might just change the world — if the world doesn’t change him first. [Excerpt from EQUIMEDIAN: ] SATURDAY MORNING I wake up feeling weirdly hung over, not from alcohol, but from my trapdoor nightmares. I leave the apartment in a hurry, making my way to a Brooklyn dump called Jackson’s in search of literary bargains. They have none. From there I visit an antique shop that sometimes carries old magazines, and I score three issues of Vertex. One of these has a rubber-stamped address of another shop I’ve never heard of. Something about the address — 106a Court — calls out to me, and the name of the store, The Curio, immediately appeals, so I decide to venture forth and explore. As I head over, I wonder if the place is still in business; the magazine with the stamped address is over ten years old. My speculative excitement grows with each step, and I recall a plethora of “magic shop” stories I read as a teen. When I reach the address, I find that the place still very much exists. I’m both underwhelmed and completely satisfied by its dingy exterior.
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