O Fortuna: Lower Heaven, Episode 2
O Fortuna, by Benjamin Loomis (Lower Heaven, Episode 2)
ISBN: 978-1078010818 | Published by Free Radical Books
Considering their present situation, Felix, Regina, Jimmy, and Vic need to get out of the jungle, and quick. As darkness sets in, they scramble to find their way downriver, back to Heaven’s gray safety.
Episode II, “O Fortuna” jumps in right where Episode I left off, giving the four would-be friends no room to breathe as they circle downwards to the beat of their own drums. Semi-united, they confront many things unspoken, or better left that way, battling back to the streets they call home. A syncing feeling arises: that only more questions await them there. First and foremost: who will unravel first, they or their city?
O Fortuna continues the Lower Heaven arc, exploring cultural myth and reality in a speculative, solarpunk universe. In short, it’s a fantasy novel for disenchanted millennials. It’s the second episode of the debut novel by author Benjamin Loomis. Available as an ebook on Smashwords and Amazon as well!
Read the Lower Heaven Episode 1 here to get started: ebook | paperback, or download Component 5: A Lower Heaven short story for free by signing up for the Free Rad Books newsletter!
About the Author:
Author Ben Loomis lives in Portland, Oregon and can’t afford to do anything, so he literally writes all day. Half is writing nonprofits in PDX, for whom Ben produces grants and other documents in order to (sometimes) pay his bills. The other portion is devoted to Lower Heaven, Free Radical Books, and exploring the cognitively-dissonant space between how fucked the world is and what potential it still has. There is a lot of space in that abyss, so he stays pretty busy. This indicates the abyss has been getting busy inside him as well.
That is something he is going to have to work on, but in the meantime, novels are being created in a serial fashion.
Lower Heaven:
Loomis’s first book, Lower Heaven, sets up a detailed universe far removed from postmodern America, as means to both run away from his problems and cut deeper into them. The island city of Heaven has gone off the rails, but to the children born there, their present day isn’t that much worse than yesterday’s. The four characters move through a labyrinth of social and economic structures that make the sense of a tower built too tall, twisting in the wind. They struggle to keep up, to not become outcasts in their own land, and find something to actually like about each of their broken personalities.
To not to be consumed by the mechanisms baked into their cityscape or fall prey to the jungle everywhere beyond. To try to get better in a civilization working hard to get worse. To get home without becoming divided, or drawn, or quartered.
Lower Heaven Episode 1 is available right now as a .99 cent ebook or paperback here. Buy direct from freeradbooks.com to support the full series as it rolls out.
You can also:
Preorder Episode 2 or sign up as a Free Radical Beta Reader to read it for free right now
Sign up for the Free Radical Newsletter
Check out Ben’s Portfolio Page
Thanks all, happy reading! More soon.
-Ben
#KnowYourNME