Blog Tour: Review & Guest Post - Persistence of Vision by Liesel K. Hill

In a world where collective hives are enslaving the population and individuals have been hunted to the verge of extinction, Maggie Harper, and independent 21st Century woman, must find the strength to preserve the freedom of the future, but without the aid of her memories.

After experiencing a traumatic time loss, Maggie is plagued by a barrage of images she can't explain. When she's attacked by a creep with a spider's web tattoo, she is saved by Marcus, a man she's never met, but somehow remembers. He tells her that both he and her creepy attacker are from a future in which individuals are being murdered by collectives, and Marcus is part of the rebellion. The collectives have acquired time travel and they plan to enslave the human race throughout all of history. The flashes Maggie has been seeing are echoes of lost memories, and the information buried deep within them is instrumental in defeating the collective hives.

In order to preserve the individuality of mankind, Maggie must try to re-discover stolen memories, re-kindle friendships she has no recollection of, and wade through her feelings for the mysterious Marcus, all while dodging the tattooed assassins the collectives keep sending her way.

If Maggie can't fill the holes in her memory and find the answers to stop the collectives, the world both in her time and in all ages past and future will be doomed to enslavement in the grey, mediocre collectives. As the danger swirls around her and the collectives close in, Maggie realizes she must make a choice: stand out or fade away...

The description sounds reminiscent of Terminator. A bad guy and a good guy come back from the future. One to find Maggie and harm her. The other to protect her. Reading the story I kept thinking of The Matrix. That's what it reminded me of. Persistence of Vision by Liesel K. Hill is an amazingly thrilling story full of sadness, suspense, and in the end... hope.

I started reading this story as I was finishing another, so it took me a day or two to really get in to it but once I did I couldn't get enough of it. If devouring a book is possible that's what I was doing. If my computer was open and I had time, I was reading. And reading and reading and reading. When I finished The Lens and the Looker by Lory S. Kaufman, I wasn't sure that I would find another story or series of stories that would captivate me as much as The Verona Trilogy had. I was delightfully wrong. The only problem is that now I have to wait for what seems like FOREVER to read the second book in the series.

Because yes, this story is the first in a series. The Interchron Series. I feel like I can't say enough good things about it. It was phenomenal. RIGHT from the beginning (even if it took me a couple of days to get started).

I loved Marcus right from the start. Even in the few seconds he appeared at the beginning of the story I loved him. And Maggie was a wonderful main character and just an overall amazing person. She was strong and vulnerable at the same time. She was thoughtful, decisive, smart.... all of the things that a leading lady should be. There was no stupid love triangle drama to wade through. Thank GOSH. All of the characters that Maggie runs in to after meeting Marcus (with the exception of the Arachnimen and the Trepids) are incredibly likeable and loyal to Maggie and to the cause they're all fighting for. Doc seems a little shady, but it seems to be that he's keeping things to himself for good reason.

The snippets we're given throughout the first half of the book of David's life are fantastic as well. At first it's like "Who is this character? What in the world is he doing?" But as you read more and more of the story, even if you haven't been told everything about him yet, you start to piece it together and figure it out on your own. Not in a "That's so predictable" way. In a "Oh, so THAT'S what's going on" kind of way.

There's a moment in the story where I truly connected with Maggie. As she feels her memories slipping away from her my heart just sunk and I really felt sad and like I could put myself in her shoes. Looking at the man that she loves knowing that she could lose, not him, but all memory of him just broke my heart. Can you imagine being around the person that you love more than anything, the person who completes you and is basically the other half of your soul... and not remembering who they are or what they are to you? While that person is left to remember EVERYTHING but act like nothing ever happened because that's what seems best for you?

Persistence of Vision is one of the best stories I think I've ever read. The world Ms. Hill paints is exceptionally intriguing and the background of the characters and their different abilities was so interesting it really got me wondering if things like that could ever be truly possible in the future. There's so much untapped potential in the human brain and Persistence of Vision makes it seem like there's a way to finally realize that potential.

It was a thought provoking story and I LOVE a story that doesn't do all the thinking for me. I highly, enthusiastically, EMPHATICALLY recommend this book to EVERYONE. Hats off to Liesel K. Hill for a fantastic first installment in this series.

On to the guest post!

Hello Everyone! A special thanks to Tara for hosting me here today! While corresponding with Tara, she mentioned how much she liked the fact that my book’s cover has a bad guy on it.  

I was glad to hear that that, as it is an unconventional cover image. In keeping with it, I thought I might discuss how I came up with my villains.  

On my blog, I did a series on villains a few months past. I talked about great main villains (which must have range and compelling motivation) and also side-kick villains, which don’t need as much depth and can be more quirky. 

For Persistence of Vision, I knew I wouldn’t be showing much of my main villain in book 1. He’s a mysterious sort that will only gradually come to light. Of course, there must be a villain to make a great story, so I had to make them compelling. 

I tried to think of something that scares lots of people. The two most obvious answers are spiders and clowns. Clowns didn’t fit with the tone or plot of the story, so I drew from spiders. I wanted these men to be goons that recruit for the collective, so I made them physically imposing. That way, abuse and rape would always be the elephant in the room. I gave them spider’s web tattoos to make the creepy-looking, and made their appearance generally distasteful. (Bad hygiene, etc.)

And voila! The Arachnimen were born! A slightly larger, nastier version with a slightly different look, I called Trepids. 

When my publisher’s art department called me, they asked me to bat around cover image ideas. I figured the spider’s web tattoo was a pretty vivid image and said so. They agreed heartily.  

I love the cover image! The spider’s web tattoo is supposed to be directly over the eye, so its location is a bit off, but that’s only a detail. I thought it turned out wonderfully and has the perfect dark tone to go with the book. 

Here’s to creepy bad guys! What do YOU think of the cover?


 

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