Steven R. Boyett – författare

Twenty-seven years ago, technology died. The fundamental laws of the universe had inexplicably changed. Now, Fred Garey''s best friend Yan believes he''s found a way to reverse the Change. But Fred fears the repercussions of such drastic, irreversible steps.

"Part post-apocalypse, part road-trip, part sword-and-sorcery . . . One of my favorite adventure novels of all time." —Cory DoctorowAt four-thirty one Saturday afternoon the laws of physics as we know them underwent a change. Electronic devices, cars, industries stopped. The lights went out. Any technology more complicated than a lever or pulley simply wouldn''t work. A new set of rules took its place—laws that could only be called magic. Ninety-nine percent of humanity has simply vanished. Cities lie abandoned. Supernatural creatures wander the silenced achievements of a halted civilization.Pete Garey has survived the Change and its ensuing chaos. He wanders the southeastern United States, scavenging, lying low. Learning. One day he makes an unexpected friend: a smartassed unicorn with serious attitude. Pete names her Ariel and teaches her how to talk, how to read, and how to survive in a world in which a unicorn horn has become a highly prized commodity.When they learn that there is a price quite literally on Ariel''s head, the two unlikely companions set out from Atlanta to Manhattan to confront the sorcerer who wants her horn. And so begins a haunting, epic, and surprisingly funny journey through the remnants of a halted civilization in a desolated world.

"Niko''s race through Hell is one of the greatest supernatural adventure stories of recent memory. . . . A damned good story" (Cory Doctorow).Decades ago, a young rock and blues guitarist and junkie named Niko signed in blood on the dotted line and in return became the stuff of music legend. But when the love of his damned life grows mortally and mysteriously ill, he realizes he has lost more than he bargained for—and that was not part of the deal. So Niko sets out on a harrowing journey from the streets of Los Angeles through the downtown subway tunnels and across the red-lit plain of the most vividly realized hell since Dante to play the gig of his mortgaged life and win back the purloined soul of his lost love.Mortality Bridge remixes Orpheus, Dante, Faust, the Crossroads legend, and more in a beautiful, brutal, and surprisingly funny quest across a Hieronymus Bosch landscape of myth, music, and mayhem, and across an inner terrain of addiction, damnation, and redemption. Winner of the 2011 Emperor Norton Award for best novel by a San Francisco Bay Area writer.