Flashback Books

Roadkill . . . A funny thing happened to Roger and Savanna Aldiss on the Interstate--they hit a dinosaur. But that's nothing compared to what awaits them down the road. For something is at work to reverse time itself, something which makes the clouds boil, glowing with strange lights, and ancient trees to appear out of nowhere. Something against which Roger, Savanna, a motorcycle gang, and a handful of others will make their final stand. Prehistory lives as ferocious dinosaurs run amok! Science-fiction and horror fans (and especially B-movie lovers) will enjoy this gory, action-packed thriller in the tradition of Roger Corman and George Romero.

The complete sequel to Flashback (originally published as a serial), non-illustrated. Naaygi found them waiting for her—as she somehow knew they would be—as the cage doors opened, their forward-facing eyes glinting the same hue as the lights in the sky and their dark, storm-colored bodies held absolutely still (even as another animal joined them and brought their number to four). She even knew somehow what they were; that they were a breed of carnosaur the “evolved” humans had called nanotyrannosaurs, the “Pygmy Tyrants,” and that one of them, the one with the brand upon its tail, the leader, even had a name—Napoleon, for he had been bounced forward and back in time via another alien species well before the Flashback and still bore the scars of his sojourn among the humans. She didn’t know how she knew these things, no more than she knew just where, within herself, Naaygi ended—and they, the lights in the sky, began. She just did; just as she knew that the Nano-Ts represented a queer offshoot of the dinosaur population that was altogether fleeter and deadlier and cannier than anything that had come before it. And thus she bowed to them, her avengers, her killers—their killers, the lights in the sky—the rain running in rivulets down her body as she dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the pavement, a pavement which ran red with blood and was strewn with the dismembered, disemboweled corpses of at least fifty men and women. And then she whispered to them in a language older than words, Follow me.

Five new tales from the Flashback, from its initial outbreak to its effects months down the road. Featuring characters and situations that will feature prominently later in the saga, Tales is both a prologue and supplement to Flashback Twilight. Essential reading for fans of the saga ... She couldn’t help but to think, as they climbed the stairs to the top: How many times can you splash down the same stupid slide before it finally loses its appeal? I don’t know, she asked herself, as Alex launched himself into the jet stream. How many times can your mother fall in love with the same type of guy? She sat down on the slide carefully and eased herself off. The type of guy who is all presents and attention at first but then disappears like the wind? She blew down the slide, rocking between the berms alarmingly in spite of her attempt to take it slow, and had a sudden vision of a great white shark waiting for her at the bottom—its spiny-toothed maw opened wide as a manhole, its pink palate gleaming. Then she exploded out the slide and was beneath the water again—waving her arms and legs for balance desperately—and when she surfaced, fully expecting Alex to pounce upon her immediately, she was surprised to find him nowhere in sight. And that was odd, considering she’d gone immediately after him. She scanned the water around her even as the late afternoon sun, which had been pouring in through the windows, seemed to disappear completely. She peered outside and saw clouds stacking up in what had been a pure azure dome. Ah, she thought, it’s dipped behind a cloud. It’ll be back, unlike your long line of stepdads. That’s when she noticed the blood beginning to spread in the water all around her … and was gripped with terror. Omigod. Omigod, just … no. And such was her terror and embarrassment at starting her first period in public that she nearly fainted—but instead backed toward the edge of the pool, groping for the concrete while thinking, How could there be so much? How could all that possibly be coming from me? Her fingers touched a face—Alex, of course; he’d been under the water after all—Omigod, omigod, what would he say? Would he tell the others? Would it be all over school the very next day? And that’s when she realized his head was no longer connected to his body. That it had been completely severed and was bobbing in the intake filter. And then there were screams—others as well as her own—and she turned in time to see someone yanked below the surface not twenty feet away, as well as a fin, black as an orca’s, which rolled like a log in the deep end of the pool. And she screamed until her voice went raw even as she started to climb from the water—until she saw the velociraptor crouched on the wet concrete with its eyes rolled back in its skull (Mr. Stiller said that predators did that right before striking, to protect their eyes) and its sickle-clawed toes tapping, and knew there would be no escape for her.

The new Flashback thriller ... With just hours to go before the Flashback, L.A. explodes in racial unrest. From Sun-Dogs: It happens so fast we barely have time to notice how wrong everything it is, how incongruous—how empty the intersection at Florence and Normandie feels, how the palms and other vegetation—the grass itself—all seem to have grown and multiplied. Or that the streets are now full of abandoned cars and trucks—as though everyone has just gotten up and wandered off, wandered into the smoke—or that we are being triangulated from the instant we touch down: triangulated and set upon—all of it before we’ve even unloaded our equipment or Peter has shut off the engine. All of it in a virtual eyeblink. All of it, in short, in a perfect whirlwind—as the jackals, the wolves, the fucking emus (only with lashing tails and monitor lizard teeth), descend on us like flies, like marauders. As Peter takes the helicopter up and I do the only thing I can; which is pretty much to drag Sunny into the nearby Chevron (even as the engine whines and the animals scatter), and, ultimately, watch her bleed out and die in my arms. And then it’s over, and I’m alone, and there is nothing but the television squawking and a lone siren. Then it’s just me and Bizarro L.A. and Patty Severinsen-Wood—the eleven o’clock news anchor—who apparently hasn’t gotten the memo. “It is, ah, now eleven o’clock and, ah, tonight a community is venting its fury over the verdicts in the Troy Harper beating trial. Fires are raging in South Central Los Angeles at this hour—a testament to the anger and frustration felt by many of its residents. It began just a few hours after the verdicts were announced, with people looting stores and setting them on fire, but quickly escalated to assaults and beatings; four drivers, at least, pulled from their vehicles and attacked. Chaos also erupted at the downtown Parker Center, L.A.’s police headquarters, where scuffles broke out throughout the evening. Meanwhile, police in riot gear can mostly just stand by, hoping by their presence to somehow keep a grasp on order. We’re going live to one of our news …” But I’m no longer listening, only tittering uncontrollably. I’m no longer doing much of anything but marveling at the absurdity of it all—the futility. And then I’m not even doing that; but just staring at Sunny. Then I’m crying as the tv drones on and the whump-whump of the helicopter slowly remanifests.