Vegas Then Rome

Nate, an eighteen-year-old working class atheist and retrenched pyrotechnics apprentice is in need of money to pay his rent. In a bar in 2042 he meets a nouveaux riche cougar from the leafy north shore of Sydney who enlists his services as a lothario for her tennis club for the next three years. From the tennis club ladies Nate learns Italian, sword fighting, expands his knowledge of ancient history, and is implanted with birth control and disease control (antibot) devices.

At the end of the three years, twenty-one and with money in his pocket, Nate sets off to travel the world to find himself. When in Rome a global nuclear war breaks out, and a bomb explodes over the city. He is sucked back 2,000 years in time to ancient Rome and sold into slavery.

Nate discovers that the Rome he is in is not the Rome of history; famous figures and events are occurring outside their timelines, Italian is spoken not Latin, his cell phone maintains a connection to a future where time is running fifty times faster than the past, and small statured people fly on shields of crystal, the Leluuwahn.

Nate is determined to catch a girl who is far above his new social station, a Vestal Virgin and sister to the emperor. He will need social connections, wealth and his freedom to win her. Leluuwahn elders, who used the nuclear explosion to disguise their transportation of the atheist through time, are determined Nate will perform the will of God.

If he fails in his personal aim to win the girl, Nate could remain a slave for life. If he fails to embrace God’s will, he could be damned to hell for eternity.

Vegas then Rome - speech patterns

Characters from the future have a faster speech pattern; they will say for example wouldn’t, or couldn’t. Characters from the past have a more precise, slower speech pattern; they will say would not, or could not.

The Leluuwahn often finish their sentences with ‘yes’, and less often with ‘no’.

Nate, the main character, has a speech pattern that changes over time, not in the first book as the timeframe is too short, but over the course of the four planned books in the series. His simple, working class vocabulary will expand under the influence of the eloquent people who surround him. As he becomes more articulate, Nate's intelligence shines through, although the rough edges of his upbringing are never completely polished away.

In the second book, a character from the future is introduced who also has his own speech pattern. Because of this, when he, Nate and the Leluuwahn Glade have a three way conversation, there is no need to identify the speaker with a 'he said'.

Vegas then Rome is the first novel in the four part Sex, Blood & Glory series. The second installment, The Hand of Lucifer, is due out in January / February 2015.