"Sunrise"

Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mullin juggled bottles at a wine shop, sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really glad this writing thing seems to be working out.

Mullin holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats. Sunrise is his third novel.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Sunrise and reported the following:

My latest novel, Sunrise, is the conclusion of the trilogy that began with Ashfall and Ashen Winter. So I was worried about sharing part of page 69—would it be too spoilery, I wondered? No, as it turns out—here’s a paragraph:

Several hundred yards past the gate, I saw a panel van slewed diagonally across the road. Behind it, the top of a semi was visible. Dozens of figures were clustered around the van and spread out to either side, aiming rifles back down the road toward us.

This paragraph is fairly representative of the trilogy. My protagonists, Alex and Darla, are trying to survive in a world transformed by the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Their biggest challenges, however, don’t relate to the volcano, but to the people around them. They’re constantly finding themselves on the wrong end of a gun. For example, on page 69 of Ashfall, Alex is fleeing violence, hoping that his high school will provide a safe place to weather the apocalypse. He’s wrong, of course. On page 69 of Ashen Winter, he’s submitting to an eighteenth-century-style medical procedure, getting wounds made by shotgun pellets cleaned and debrided. Not fun.

If you love apocalyptic novels packed with action give Ashfall a try. Here’s a free sample. Thanks!

Learn more about the book and author at Mike Mullin's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ashfall.

Writers Read: Mike Mullin.

--Marshal Zeringue