book in her CHRONOS Files series, won the Grand Prize in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. Her career had its beginnings in a childhood on a cattle ranch, where she read every book she could find, watched Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, and let her imagination soar into the future and to distant worlds. Her diverse path has spanned roles such as lifeguard, waitress, actress, digital developer, and professor—and through it all, she has pursued her passion for writing the sorts of stories she imagined in her youth.Walker applied the Page 69 Test to The Delphi Revolution and reported the following:
From page 69:Visit Rysa Walker's website.
“You still need to find Pfeifer,” Stan repeats. “You just can’t bring him back here. At least not until the other paths close.”The Delphi Revolution is the third and final book in my Delphi Trilogy, so I wasn’t sure if page 69 would fit the rest of the book or the series as a whole. In one way, it fits quite well. The excerpt above gives a good sense of the psychic abilities the various Delphi adepts possess and their efforts to defeat the presidential candidate who is fanning public fears of psychic terrorism for his own political gain. So, in that sense, it gives a taste of the overall themes of not just this book, but the entire series.
I stare at him incredulously. “What other paths? This isn’t making any sense!”
Stan exhales and turns to Maria. “Show them. It’s easier.”
Then Maria is in my head again, pushing that same scene. The image keeps flipping, flickering, like one of the old movie projectors my hitcher Emily used when she was a teacher. White office building, maybe ten stories high, with tall recessed windows. Construction cones and a barrier emblazoned with the word STOP in bright red blocks the street.
This time, however, Maria doesn’t pull back and things get even stranger. I kind of hear the gunshot again and the scream. At the same time, I also kind of hear the sound of a horn and the squeal of brakes. It’s not that I hear all of these things, layered on top of each other. It’s more that I hear (and don’t hear) the gunshot and the scream. And I hear (but also don’t hear) the horn and the tires screeching on the pavement.
In addition, the video feed, if you can call it that, is split into different layers. Two men in dark suits—one of them vaguely familiar—push a third man toward shelter, but then the group splits into two separate sets of three men. Set #1 pushes the man in the center toward a blue shed between the building and a parking lot across the street. My first thought is that it’s a phone booth or the TARDIS. But since neither of those things currently exist in downtown DC, it must be a portapotty.
The second set of men that split off in the vision dives behind a concrete barrier, which is barely knee-high. But before they can reach it, another shot rings out and the man they’re escorting crumples to the ground.
What doesn’t really come through on this page, however, are the relationships that are as central to the story as psychic abilities and government conspiracies. Anna’s concern for her foster brother, Deo, and for the other adepts--many of them small children--who are in danger through no fault of their own, is really the heart of the book. Stan and Maria, who are featured heavily in the excerpt above, do play an important role in the plot, but they’re more peripheral than the core characters we follow throughout the series.
--Marshal Zeringue
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