The Electric God and Other Shorts Is Now Available!

Oh, happy day! My latest book, The Electric God and Other Shorts, is at last available on Amazon! As is usually the case, it takes Barnes & Noble longer to upload the book on their website for some reason, and there will be a separate announcement when that happens (see a future blog). As mentioned before, The Electric God and Other Shorts is a collection of the best short stories I’ve written over the years.

Believe it or not, even though I’ve written two novels, I consider myself more a short story writer than a novelist. That’s one of the reasons why I write in the Young Adult genre; Adult books tend to be longer. In fact, my first two books, Danger Peak and Déjà View, were originally based on short stories I wrote as a kid. I knew the ideas behind those stories were big enough to afford a full-length novel. Plus, I had ways to extrapolate those plots into other areas and subplots, especially in the case of Déjà View. But what happens when a story idea can’t sustain itself beyond 40 pages or so? You get these stories in my latest book. That’s not to say the stories are bad or even inferior; in fact, you may like the ideas for these stories more. It just means if I were to try to get these stories to novel length, they would become monotonous and boring. These tales are more like quick hits: Boom, you go in, you establish the plot/problem, you take it as far as you can go, and Bang, you get out. Call it Michael Thomas Perone’s Greatest Hits. And as I’ve written before, if you don’t like one story, it’s only a few dozen pages or so until the next one—or you can just skip it.

Once again, here is the order of the stories as they appear in the book, followed by a brief description:

The Electric God: A small town becomes obsessed with television—to the point of madness.

How to Save a Drowning Butterfly: A cheerful innocent confronts the harsh reality of the world and is forever changed by the experience.

Paper Language: A struggling author begins receiving strange messages on the paper he uses to write.

Investigating the Future’s End: A detective of the future discovers he may be investigating his own untimely demise—and that of the world’s.

The Shovel: A bullied, brilliant teen is put through the wringer of his high school and comes out the other side insane.

School Spirit: The less said about this story, the better—not because I don’t like it (hey, it made the book!), but because explaining too much would give away all the twists. (There’s a reason why this is the only story in the collection without a synopsis on the back cover.) Let’s just say this is my twisted take on the old haunted-house trope.

Think of these stories as little Twilight Zone episodes, filled with twists, dark turns, and unexpected morals. Now, just for fun, here’s the order of the stories in which I like them (with the first being the best and the last being the worst, though I still like it—again, it made the book):

Investigating the Future’s End

School Spirit

How to Save a Drowning Butterfly

The Electric God

Paper Language

The Shovel

You may be wondering why I titled the book after the story I like the fourth most, and that’s because it was my favorite title in the bunch. A friend told me he prefers the title How to Save a Drowning Butterfly, and I would agree with him if it wasn’t so long. To me, The Electric God is catchier and punchier.

So that’s it! I hope you enjoy these little slices of adventure/sci-fi/mystery/madness. “Madness?” you say. Well, yes. I was happy that these stories fit nicely together into a theme: trying to remain sane in an insane world, something that’s unfortunately relevant today. (btw, for no particular reason, I just wanted to remind everyone to vote next month!) The one exception of the book’s theme is Paper Language, which is merely a tale of macabre horror and, at a little over 20 pages, also the shortest story here; I needed a palate cleanser.

So click that Amazon button below to get your short story fix:

• Amazon

I’ve also updated the book’s homepage here:

As I’ve alluded to earlier, this may be my final book…at least for a while. I don’t want to write another book just so I can say I wrote another book; I want to make sure it’s one of quality.

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In other MTP news, I recently made the Wikipedia page of my hometown (West Islip, Long Island). Apparently, I’m considered a “Notable Person,” along with actors Ken Marino (Wet Hot American Summer) and Edie Falco (The Sopranos). Hey, that’s good company! You can check out the page in the link below. (I’m currently the last person listed.)

This honestly came as a shock to me. Even though I’ve been cited on Wikipedia before (for a review of a Toad the Wet Sprocket album), I never thought I’d be considered a pseudo-celebrity of my hometown. West Islip has been around for over 340 years, but currently, there are only 25 people from there worth mentioning as “notable,” including lil’ ol’ me (at least according to Wikipedia). That’s the size of a classroom! But like I’ve written before (quoting from another author whose name escapes me), I don’t want to be famous; I want my books to be famous. In other words, I want my books to outlive me. When I die, I want people to be like, “Michael Thomas who?” but I want those same people to think, “Man, Danger Peak and Déjà View were really good books.” (And hopefully, The Electric God and Other Shorts will be added to that list.) While I’m at it, I should take this opportunity to thank anyone who’s picked up a book from me so far. You’ve made my indie author dreams come true (and you’re mentioned in the Acknowledgments).

MTP

P.S.: Next blog: The Electric God and Other Shorts Photo Essay