Dominant Species Volume One – Natural Selection
by David Coy
About The Author:
I’ve had a lifetime love of science fiction and horror. I suspect it started in puberty since most obsessions do. My passion for it was so strong as a penniless youth, I resorted to boosting copies of my favorite authors’ works off the shelves of the book section of the local Federal’s department store. My friends and I soon had a collection of great sci-fi at discounted prices to read and read again. But I’m not wholly without conscience about those shifty activities as a scrawny youth. I’ll shake my head from side to side and mumble “Crap, that was stupid” once ever decade or so. But that’s about it.
I consider myself a sci-fi film Nazi. I’m sure I’ve seen every sci-fi movie ever made – certainly the vast majority of them. I can’t pass up even the worst of it. All those god-awful, black and white B flicks of the 40’s onward, with their outrageous and ham-handed themes of science vs. ignorance and good vs. evil, wrapped in whatever pseudo-scientific covering was popular that year, transfixed me, entertained me, and like the works pinched then stashed in my friend’s basement, made me think. When pivotal films like “Alien” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing” elevated sci-fi film up out of the gutter with all those glorious and expensive production values, I was im himmel.
I attended Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Like so many of my peers at the time, I left Wayne State with an utterly useless BA with a major in psychology. I’ve cleaned tractor cranes for money and worked as a steel mill laborer when the last one of those plants in Michigan still existed. I’ve worked as a night janitor. I moved to southern California when I was 30 years old and sold cars for a while. Shortly thereafter I worked for what used to be called the Hughes Aircraft Company as an in-house photographer. For the last 10 years of my work-a-day life I worked as a senior project manager for Computer Sciences Corporation. I now live in Oregon where I started and recently sold a fitness gym. I relate this choppy history to drive home my favorite maxim relating to life and the living of it: you never know where in the fuck you’ll end up. You’ll find my books laced through with that persistent theme. I hope you find the journey of reading them, should you attempt it, if not straight and linear, at least interesting.
Publisher David Coy
Publication Date Digital editions – June 2012
Purchase At Amazon: Dominant Species Volume One – Natural Selection Dominant Species Volume Two – Edge Effects Dominant Species Volume Three – Acquired Traits
Book Description: Imagine an alien science where tissue, bone, nerves, and muscle are used like we use iron, wood, rubber and wire. Now imagine yourself held captive with hundreds of others by beings who wield this grisly technology as easily as we do hammer and saw; beings whose lineage can be traced through the morally hollow, parasitic branches of nature's evolutionary tree. What would you do to survive? Would you re-draw the boundaries of your own morality to stay alive? What would you compromise? How might you escape? This is the context of NaturalSelection, the first of three volumes of the Dominant Species series of books. What distinguishes Dominant Species from other stories in its genre is its visceral imagery and more importantly, its rich subtext. The story can appeal to those fascinated and drawn to horror and strong drama, and at the same time will fascinate those who can tune into its broader message about our relationship to the natural world. Taken as a whole, the series is a puzzle linked together with genetic threads that unravel like a double helix. Viewers intrigued by mystery and dramatic puzzles will find a fascinating playground for guesswork, thought and discussion. The first volume sets the stage for the ongoing conflict between Homo sapiens and a visiting alien race. Like all successful serial drama, the story poses many questions to be answered, each one carefully laced into a central theme about human survival, the action driven by antagonists both alien and human. The story is character driven, each character fully developed and rich, providing the colorful characterization required by serial drama. Central to the first volume is teacher Phil Lynch. The story starts as a peaceful visit to his weekend getaway in the Sierra foothills. Hours later he finds himself living an unthinkable nightmare. Paralyzed and taken prisoner, his body is used as an unwilling host in a bizarre and grisly series of parasitic infections. On board the alien vessel within which he is imprisoned are more than a hundred other humans – and like Phil – just as confused and terrified – their bodies subject to unfathomable violence for a dark and malevolent purpose. As the terrible truth about the alien visitation unfolds, a small group of captives must first understand – and then fight for escape from the terror that holds them captive. That struggle will stretch razor-thin the limits of the human will to survive. There is strong language in the story because humans under stress often use such language. There are no puppy love or adolescent motifs of intimacy in the story. Instead there are very many mature, psychosexual themes that run through all three books. Some are represented symbolically, others described explicitly. There is violence. The story is not PG-13. The story is a human drama that will be appreciated by most adult demographics. It is strong, unflinching theater played through characters who repulse us, fascinate us, and often, appeal to our better natures; ones who continually remind us of our human strengths—and weaknesses.
Excerpt
Ned woke up with a long, low groan and twisted his bulk around slowly. "Welcome back to the land of the living," Phil said. "Is that what it is?" Ned replied, wincing. "Something like it," Mary added. "Would you like to eat?" "Sure." He sat up and ate some canned vegetables and most of a can of beef barley soup. He still looked pale and clammy and Phil saw that his appetite was lack-luster. He only ate a bite or two of one of the chocolate-chip cookies Mary offered him. Ned normally would have eaten the whole bag of chocolate chip cookies. "How are you feeling?" Phil asked. "Better. Lots better," he said and tried to smile. Mary and Phil exchanged looks. It was apparent he wasn't doing well at all. Mary reached over and placed her hand on his forehead. "A little warm," she said to Phil as if Ned was asleep. "Not too bad." "I guess I'll live for a while yet, eh?" "You bet." "Yep." They munched for a while longer in silence as if Ned's lack of appetite had infected them all. Looking at Mary and Ned sitting in the dim little alien cell, eating out of cans and bags, suddenly took on an unreal quality for Phil. He watched them eat and move and mindlessly read the words on the packaging and stare and chew some more. He could hear each crackle of plastic and clink of spoon against tin as if the sounds were coming from inside his skull. Behind Mary's head was the round arch of the cell's opening and beyond that the dark wall of the alien tube they found themselves in. No nightmare he'd ever had was more bizarre than the images and sounds that now entered his eyes and ears. He realized then that he was merely seeing their situation for the first time as it really was. He got up and went out into the tube and looked down it. A human head popped out of one of the cells like a mechanical thing, looked at him, then disappeared in a blink. Wake up. He could hear voices, small, chattering human voices drifting out of one of the holes and the sound grated on him. It was the sound of small animals trapped and without hope.
Ned woke up with a long, low groan and twisted his bulk around slowly. "Welcome back to the land of the living," Phil said. "Is that what it is?" Ned replied, wincing. "Something like it," Mary added. "Would you like to eat?" "Sure." He sat up and ate some canned vegetables and most of a can of beef barley soup. He still looked pale and clammy and Phil saw that his appetite was lack-luster. He only ate a bite or two of one of the chocolate-chip cookies Mary offered him. Ned normally would have eaten the whole bag of chocolate chip cookies. "How are you feeling?" Phil asked. "Better. Lots better," he said and tried to smile. Mary and Phil exchanged looks. It was apparent he wasn't doing well at all. Mary reached over and placed her hand on his forehead. "A little warm," she said to Phil as if Ned was asleep. "Not too bad." "I guess I'll live for a while yet, eh?" "You bet." "Yep." They munched for a while longer in silence as if Ned's lack of appetite had infected them all. Looking at Mary and Ned sitting in the dim little alien cell, eating out of cans and bags, suddenly took on an unreal quality for Phil. He watched them eat and move and mindlessly read the words on the packaging and stare and chew some more. He could hear each crackle of plastic and clink of spoon against tin as if the sounds were coming from inside his skull. Behind Mary's head was the round arch of the cell's opening and beyond that the dark wall of the alien tube they found themselves in. No nightmare he'd ever had was more bizarre than the images and sounds that now entered his eyes and ears. He realized then that he was merely seeing their situation for the first time as it really was. He got up and went out into the tube and looked down it. A human head popped out of one of the cells like a mechanical thing, looked at him, then disappeared in a blink. Wake up. He could hear voices, small, chattering human voices drifting out of one of the holes and the sound grated on him. It was the sound of small animals trapped and without hope.
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