About Paragon of the Eccentric by Terry Kroenung
What if the Martians in ‘War of the Worlds’ had help…human help?
When he is attacked by ferocious beast-men and a ray gun-wielding aviator while aiding a tentacled prostitute, Shakespearean actor and government agent Montague Paragon knows something weird and threatening is afoot.
Does it involve the mysterious Dr. Moreau and his fiendish genetic experiments? Why are winged gargoyles abducting people in broad daylight? Who killed a corrupt Member of Parliament with black smoke? What are the deadly little tripods that are stalking Paragon with heat rays? What secret is the saintly Dr. Jekyll keeping? And how is all of this connected to the small cylinders falling from space?
Wounded in body and mind by the Zulu War and a dreadful childhood experience, Paragon must overcome his many demons on the way to saving the world…again. With his partners, Aesthete author Oscar Wilde and famed male impersonator Vesta Tilley, along with his oh-so-proper brass valet Mervyn, he ventures into a world of genetically-modified assassins, rogue automatons, ornithopter dogfights, four-armed white apes, and human traitors aiding an unimaginably foreign enemy in the subjugation of mankind.
At the top of Paragon’s worries: is the impossibly-seductive Lady Ambergris Kalmaar as helpful as she seems, or is she leading him by the trousers into a deadly trap?
‘Paragon of the Eccentric’ is a witty, fast-paced Steampunk adventure. Imagine Dr. Frankenstein creating a Penny Dreadful hero from parts of James Bond, Lord Peter Whimsy, and the Scarlet Pimpernel.
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Author Bio:
Terry Kroenung has leapt out of perfectly functioning U.S. Army aircraft, taught Crips & Bloods on a wagon train, and been paid actual money to portray both William Shakespeare and Chuck E. Cheese (thankfully, not at the same time). Oh, a side note: they cut his heart out and slapped in a used one. But at least he got a book out of it (‘HeartSnark’).
He teaches Bartitsu, Sherlock Holmes’ martial art, because if you can’t kill someone with an umbrella, are you even civilized?
‘Paragon of the Eccentric’ won the Colorado Gold Literary Award for Speculative Fiction, and the Incite Denver contest for best first sentence (“When a Whitechapel whore waves her tentacles at you, attention must be paid”).
He is a retired literature teacher, supported by his wife Janet and a completely whack-a-doodle basset hound.