ANNOUNCEMENT: Escape Clause by Jeffrey DeRego
June 19, 2012 Announcements Tags: Jeffrey DeRego
Its always nice when one of our contributors releases a book, especially when that contributor is three time TOWWZ contest winner Jeffrey DeRego. His book ‘Escape Clause’ is currently available through ENC Press, and is based in Jeff’s superb Superhero universe  of  ‘Union Dues’, where having a super power is not dream, but a nightmare of bureaucracy and control. I have followed Jeffs ‘Union Dues’ stories for a number of years now, and can’t recommend this enough.
America of superheroes and super villains is not the romanticized world of your childhood comic books. Here, people with superpowers—or, as they are known, Supers—are taken from their families and given a choice: they can get trained to become superheroes and live out their lives to mirror the comic books that share their likeness, or they can spend a lifetime of isolation in Antarctica. Those who choose training receive a new identity, get brainwashed, and live according to a complex set of rules designed to protect regular people, the Normals, from the Supers, and the Supers from the Normals. There’s no way out of the contract.
A mosaic novel that uses comic-book imagery in prose,Escape Clause tells the stories of the Supers who make up the Union of Superheroes; not the benign, PR-approved tales that American kids read in their comics but the grittier truth about the beginnings and goals of the Union, about superheroes who can’t catch a break whether they try to follow the rules or go rogue, and about what really happens to those who have the misfortune to be born with a little too much talent.
Set in the framework of our legalistic society, each tile of the mosaic shines a new light on the relationships between powerful lobbies and the government, between those who make the rules and those the rules are made for, between people who are different from one another. Superpowers or not, Union members have to cope with the same sort of frustrations that any employee or civil servant would instantly recognize.
And, as Supers and Normals alike learn again and again, when bureaucracy and superpowers collide, nobody wins.
Escape Clause is currently only available direct from ENC Press
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Comment by Anon on June 19, 2012 @ 6:02 pm
What, like me announcing my fantasy novel “Brother King” has just been posted to the Kindle bookstore? nahhhhhh. 🙂
Comment by T.J. McFadden on June 20, 2012 @ 4:46 am
Seriously tho, congrats to Jeff for making the leap towards Pro Writing. Sounds like there are deeper issues being addressed in the story, beneath the capes and cowls. Just hoping that he keeps posting to this site as well and doesn’t abandon us zombiephiles.
Comment by T.J. McFadden on June 20, 2012 @ 5:02 am
I won’t be abandoning you guys. I’m just working on some other stuff at the moment. I’ve a good start on the next Pleasant Hollow story. I do hope you guys are interested enough to check out Escape Clause. There is a sample story at goodreads and/or scribd called “Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw” in PDF format.
Also, congrats to the winners of the most recent contest. Each six months I see better and better stuff showing up here. TOTZW really is the best zombie fiction mag running today, a testament to Mr. West’s eye for good writing and the talent pool laboring over these zombie stories 🙂
Comment by Jeff DeRego on June 23, 2012 @ 9:28 am
Jeff, will your book be on Amazon? I can kill two birds with one stone by getting my copy of Escape Clause and leave a review for another author on there…
Comment by FubarFrank on June 23, 2012 @ 2:09 pm
Hi Frank, unfortunately due to the tremendous discount that Amazon demands from the cover price ENC Press does not distribute through them. You can order at from ENC Press though and get $3 off the cover price.
Amazon makes it very hard to earn any money without a big publishing house behind you, and even then they demand discounts that render the profit per book in the fractions of a penny.
Comment by Jeff DeRego on June 23, 2012 @ 9:44 pm
I discovered Jeff’s work here and really like his writing style. An internet search for other works of his led me to podcast readings of the Union Dues stories.
I am here to tell you that whether you think you like “super hero” stories or not, you need to read anything Union Dues related. You will not regret it… great work, Mr DeRego, keep it up!
Comment by BayouFunk on June 28, 2012 @ 1:39 pm