“Fans of the subgenre Southern Science Fiction will have a good time following Jimmy Stu as he literally stumbles from one mishap to the next, all while trying to figure out his own place in this confusing future time and win the heart of self-sufficient, self-defensive Connie Lee.” ~ Ophelia Julien, Amazon Review
Our book buzz segment today features Jimmy Stu Lives! by Kent McDaniel. This is the perfect book for readers who enjoy the Science Fiction, Futuristic fantasy, and satire genres. Jimmy Stu Sloan, minister of a nondenominational mega-church in Nashville, loses his faith in old age. He convinces his congregation and TV followers that God has a mission for him in the far future and wants Jimmy Stu preserved via cryonics after his death. 140 years after dying, Jimmy Stu is reanimated to find that his church has become a major faith, which views him as a prophet, churches have assumed the functions of political parties, and the US has fragmented into their spheres of influence. Further, his church controls seven states in the upper south, and its leaders, who had not wanted him reanimated, are itching to return him to “suspended animation.” He would prefer they not. Trying to survive involves him in mystery, conspiracy, and new love, as he tries to confront the church he founded, deal with his own guilt, and cope with the Twenty-second Century. Readers have given Jimmy Stu Lives! a rating of 4.6 stars on 14 reviews. Jimmy Stu Lives! is a “page turning adventure in the future” that will keep you interested till the last page.
“The novel adds to the answer for what happens when we lose faith; what happens when faith gets corrupted; and what happens when God works in mysterious ways, even among the faithless.” ~ Richard Dengrove, Amazon Review
“Jimmy Stu Lives evokes our nightmares of where the United States could be in those one hundred plus years in the future, the technology, the mindset, but most of all a government functioning without separation of church and state.” ~ Liz, Amazon Review
Book Description: Ten minutes before the televised Easter Sunday service for Nashville, Tennessee’s three-thousand-strong Church of the Living Lord, Reverend James Stuart Sloan finds himself unable to come up with a sermon. Despite the urging of his car-salesman second-in-command to add some pizzazz to today’s sermon, Jimmy Stu remains uninspired.
Over the years he has gradually lost his faith, and after suffering a heart attack and the passing of his beloved wife two years earlier, Jimmy Stu finds himself staring down the long and lonely road to old age and death with nothing to comfort him, not even his once unshakable belief in God and the hereafter. With that fear in mind and with minutes to spare, an idea comes to him. And so he preaches about the familiar story of the resurrection of Christ, then segues into a resurrection plea of sorts for himself – calling on his followers and viewers everywhere to help fund his cryogenic preservation so that he might continue to do God’s work in the far future. More than a hundred years later, Jimmy Stu wakes up, as if from a long dream – and the real nightmare begins… Read more on Amazon.
About the Author: Kent McDaniel lives in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, where he spends a lot of time playing music, writing prose, and walking around. He grew up down in the Ohio River Valley, but likes Chicago – except for the winters and the traffic. The music and the pizza are great. Sometimes the sports teams are okay, too. (Go Bulls!) The prologue for Jimmy Stu Lives! appeared in the January 2011 issue of Rambunctious Review as a short story. Kent’s short stories have also appeared in Downstate Story, Chaffin Journal, Palo Alto Review, Iconoclast, Allegory, M-Brane SF, and Wild Violet. He publishes the zine Dumbfounding Stories for Southern Fandom Press Alliance, a venerable bastion of southern science-fiction fandom. He’s a member of The Writers, a critique group in Glencoe, Illinois, and belongs to The Chicago Writers Association, for which he reviews books at their Windy City Reviews site.
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Visit the website: www.kentmcdanielwrites.
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“In this fun sci-fi story, the religious institutions of today completely take over the government of tomorrow. There’s a fast-paced story with plenty of chase scenes and twists and turns, but the essence of this book for me was the scary dominance of religion over all governmental bodies and decision-making. Though the future depicted in this book was somewhat bleak, I found hope in the central character’s “re-birth” into a brave and independent thinker. Hence, Jimmy Stu lives!” ~ Ruthie, Amazon Review
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