Morgan Nyberg
Morgan Nyberg is the author of the popular Raincoast Saga series of post-apocalyptic novels, as well as mainstream fiction and fiction for younger readers.
The books of The Raincoast Saga - The Fixer, Since Tomorrow, Birds of Passage, Medicine and Blood of the Inheritor - are set on the West Coast of Canada following a global economic collapse and pandemic. All the trappings of civilization have vanished. There is no law, no education, no medicine. The decimated population survives by scavenging, bartering and primitive agriculture. Some cling to values inherited from the “Good Times”. Others prosper through plain ruthlessness.
Reviewers have said of the Raincoast novels:
"Mr. Nyberg's writing is clear, concise, terrifyingly beautiful ..."
“One of the best series in the post-apocalyptic genre, hands down.”
“An exquisitely formed vision of a broken world.”
“On a par with McCarthy's The Road.”
“The best I’ve read in a post-apocalyptic setting.”
“This book (Since Tomorrow) stunned me with its power and richness.”
“Without question the cream of the crop of the genre.”
Morgan Nyberg’s two literary novels, El Dorado Shuffle and Mr. Millennium, are more ironic in tone. El Dorado Shuffle is a portrait, both harrowing and funny, of Mac McKnight. Wracked by guilt over his son’s drug addiction, driven by reckless courage, counseled by alcohol, Mac comes to the city of Esperanza in the high Andes hoping to find an El Dorado of the spirit. He leaves it on the run. His other literary novel, Mr. Millennium, follows the misadventures of Gabor Esterhazy, a bright, young but troubled manual laborer who is taken under the very shady wing of a secret society. Their claim: that he is descended from Jesus Christ by way of Hungarian aristocracy. But Gabor goes determinedly off the rails, and his journey toward happiness becomes a dark and comic shambles of lust, deceit and mortal danger.
Nyberg’s first children’s novel, Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army, is about a boy who must leave his native South American jungleto live with his grandfather in a North American slum. In this alien and fascinating world Galahad encounters both evil and magic. Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army won Canada’s highest literary honor, the Governor General’s Award.
Bad Day in Gladland, another children's novel, is as entertaining for adults as it is for middle grade readers. The story takes place in a time of strange “plagues”. An old butler, Bentley D. Kreppit, two children, acrobatic Athena and brainy Odysseus, and a pet rat, Defoe, travel from town to town, hoping to find the children’s parents, who have vanished in a Plague of Daytime Darkness.
The books of The Raincoast Saga - The Fixer, Since Tomorrow, Birds of Passage, Medicine and Blood of the Inheritor - are set on the West Coast of Canada following a global economic collapse and pandemic. All the trappings of civilization have vanished. There is no law, no education, no medicine. The decimated population survives by scavenging, bartering and primitive agriculture. Some cling to values inherited from the “Good Times”. Others prosper through plain ruthlessness.
Reviewers have said of the Raincoast novels:
"Mr. Nyberg's writing is clear, concise, terrifyingly beautiful ..."
“One of the best series in the post-apocalyptic genre, hands down.”
“An exquisitely formed vision of a broken world.”
“On a par with McCarthy's The Road.”
“The best I’ve read in a post-apocalyptic setting.”
“This book (Since Tomorrow) stunned me with its power and richness.”
“Without question the cream of the crop of the genre.”
Morgan Nyberg’s two literary novels, El Dorado Shuffle and Mr. Millennium, are more ironic in tone. El Dorado Shuffle is a portrait, both harrowing and funny, of Mac McKnight. Wracked by guilt over his son’s drug addiction, driven by reckless courage, counseled by alcohol, Mac comes to the city of Esperanza in the high Andes hoping to find an El Dorado of the spirit. He leaves it on the run. His other literary novel, Mr. Millennium, follows the misadventures of Gabor Esterhazy, a bright, young but troubled manual laborer who is taken under the very shady wing of a secret society. Their claim: that he is descended from Jesus Christ by way of Hungarian aristocracy. But Gabor goes determinedly off the rails, and his journey toward happiness becomes a dark and comic shambles of lust, deceit and mortal danger.
Nyberg’s first children’s novel, Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army, is about a boy who must leave his native South American jungleto live with his grandfather in a North American slum. In this alien and fascinating world Galahad encounters both evil and magic. Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army won Canada’s highest literary honor, the Governor General’s Award.
Bad Day in Gladland, another children's novel, is as entertaining for adults as it is for middle grade readers. The story takes place in a time of strange “plagues”. An old butler, Bentley D. Kreppit, two children, acrobatic Athena and brainy Odysseus, and a pet rat, Defoe, travel from town to town, hoping to find the children’s parents, who have vanished in a Plague of Daytime Darkness.
|
|
|
THE FIXER (The Raincoast Saga, Book 1)
Post-apocalyptic
THE FIXER chronicles the year leading up to the global collapse upon which The Raincoast Saga is based. A man who works for a powerful investment firm travels the world attempting to fix financial problems. In the process he is caught up in a relentless downward spiral toward the death of civilization.
Amazon.com
THE FIXER chronicles the year leading up to the global collapse upon which The Raincoast Saga is based. A man who works for a powerful investment firm travels the world attempting to fix financial problems. In the process he is caught up in a relentless downward spiral toward the death of civilization.
Amazon.com
SINCE TOMORROW (The Raincoast Saga, Book 2)
Post-apocalyptic
An old man rides a workhorse through the night, across mudslides, past stores abandoned for decades, past the rotted corpses of automobiles invisible under mounds of blackberry. Rain courses from his rabbit skin poncho. He carries a sword and a spear. He knows where to find the murderer. He will face him alone.” SINCE TOMORROW, a novel of people struggling to retain their humanity among the post-apocalyptic ruins of Vancouver, Canada, has been compared to Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD.
Amazon.com
An old man rides a workhorse through the night, across mudslides, past stores abandoned for decades, past the rotted corpses of automobiles invisible under mounds of blackberry. Rain courses from his rabbit skin poncho. He carries a sword and a spear. He knows where to find the murderer. He will face him alone.” SINCE TOMORROW, a novel of people struggling to retain their humanity among the post-apocalyptic ruins of Vancouver, Canada, has been compared to Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD.
Amazon.com
BIRDS OF PASSAGE (The Raincoast Saga, Book 3)
Post-apocalyptic
Frost’s farm has endured for six decades, ever since a global pandemic and economic collapse put an end to the “Good Times”. But, faced with a new surge of diseases sweeping through the post-apocalyptic ruins of nearby Town, the few remaining residents will not be able to survive for much longer.
Fraser, a sentimental giant of a man, heads with a few friends into the mountains north of the farm, hoping to find a site to which they can relocate. But the murder of two members of his group, and capture by a cult based on human sacrifice soon turn the expedition into a nightmare.
Looming like a sinister force over the whole story is the figure of Fraser’s father. Alcoholic, syphilitic, wildly deranged, he follows Fraser through the wilderness, determined in his delusional way to protect him - right up to the astonishing climax.
Amazon.com
Frost’s farm has endured for six decades, ever since a global pandemic and economic collapse put an end to the “Good Times”. But, faced with a new surge of diseases sweeping through the post-apocalyptic ruins of nearby Town, the few remaining residents will not be able to survive for much longer.
Fraser, a sentimental giant of a man, heads with a few friends into the mountains north of the farm, hoping to find a site to which they can relocate. But the murder of two members of his group, and capture by a cult based on human sacrifice soon turn the expedition into a nightmare.
Looming like a sinister force over the whole story is the figure of Fraser’s father. Alcoholic, syphilitic, wildly deranged, he follows Fraser through the wilderness, determined in his delusional way to protect him - right up to the astonishing climax.
Amazon.com
MEDICINE (The Raincoast Saga, Book 4)
Post-apocalyptic
It is sixty years since a catastrophic global collapse and pandemic plunged the world into a new Dark Age, which is becoming progressively darker. In this setting violent conflict is inevitable. But Fraser, a huge man with a huge heart, is troubled by the violence of his recent past. Nevertheless, conflict becomes inevitable when he realizes that that his mother’s mind is deteriorating due to syphilis contracted from her late husband. Without medication to halt the progress of the disease, total insanity is inevitable. But does medicine even exist any more?
Into the post-apocalyptic ruins of “Town”, past office towers deserted for decades, through forested streets ravaged by earthquake and reeking of death this giant of a man ventures in search of medicine for his mother.
Waiting for Fraser in the heart of Town is a certain underground shopping mall, once a glittering commercial hub but now a shabby and makeshift dystopia where cannibalism is the norm and where prisoners fight to the death to entertain Cultus, their pitiless master.
Hidden somewhere in the depths of this lightless realm is the medicine that Fraser so desperately seeks but which Cultus guards with equal fervour and with immense power.
The odds are staggering, the dangers overwhelming, but a stubborn and perhaps fatal determination drives Fraser ever deeper into the very mouth of danger.
In the shocking climax, when Fraser finally understands the horrific cost of his resolve, it is too late to do anything but forge ahead, no matter the consequences.
Amazon.com
It is sixty years since a catastrophic global collapse and pandemic plunged the world into a new Dark Age, which is becoming progressively darker. In this setting violent conflict is inevitable. But Fraser, a huge man with a huge heart, is troubled by the violence of his recent past. Nevertheless, conflict becomes inevitable when he realizes that that his mother’s mind is deteriorating due to syphilis contracted from her late husband. Without medication to halt the progress of the disease, total insanity is inevitable. But does medicine even exist any more?
Into the post-apocalyptic ruins of “Town”, past office towers deserted for decades, through forested streets ravaged by earthquake and reeking of death this giant of a man ventures in search of medicine for his mother.
Waiting for Fraser in the heart of Town is a certain underground shopping mall, once a glittering commercial hub but now a shabby and makeshift dystopia where cannibalism is the norm and where prisoners fight to the death to entertain Cultus, their pitiless master.
Hidden somewhere in the depths of this lightless realm is the medicine that Fraser so desperately seeks but which Cultus guards with equal fervour and with immense power.
The odds are staggering, the dangers overwhelming, but a stubborn and perhaps fatal determination drives Fraser ever deeper into the very mouth of danger.
In the shocking climax, when Fraser finally understands the horrific cost of his resolve, it is too late to do anything but forge ahead, no matter the consequences.
Amazon.com
El Dorado Shuffle
Here is Mac McKnight, the narrator of EL DORADO SHUFFLE:
I would get off the bus in disreputable barrios, places adorned with the names of saints and the odour of urine, and wander into tiny dark bars, saying “All right, you pack of degenerates - I am buying!”
- Poor Mac! Wracked by guilt, driven by reckless courage, counseled by alcohol.
“I can forgive you, Mac.”
“Forgive!” She stepped back as I spun to face her. “Damn you! Don’t you ever try to forgive me! Don’t you ever try it! I won’t be accused, and I won’t be forgiven! Not by the likes of you and not by the likes of anyone!”
She was crying finally. And I was glad to see that her bullshit composure was gone, and her bullshit accusing and her bullshit forgiving and her bullshit about love.
- Making all the wrong choices. Leaving a trail of emotional carnage.
“Señor McKnight,” he said, “of course I know that your son is a drug addict. It was not hard to find out. But this is so bad - that you are wanting murder the president.” He dropped his glass and reached around and grasped the knife sheath and slid the knife out. It had a six inch blade.
- Assailing the evil-doers even if it means tearing down his own world.
“You stay there, Ken, okay? You stay with your mom.”
“Daddy! Where you going! I wanna come!”
“Mac, how can you do this!” She screamed “Go away! I hate you! I hate you!” She shrieked in Spanish as Ken twisted around in her grip and his little fists struck out and he cried, “Don’t shout my dad!”
- Mac came to the city of Esperanza in the high Andes hoping to find an El Dorado of the spirit. He leaves it on the run. In the process does he abandon his only hope for peace?
"From the American School of Esperanza into this drug-infested little republic in Latin America, you'll follow the unprofessional, un-Canadian activities of Maquito as he walks his own tightrope between decency and disgust. McKnight in shining armour he is not; Morgan Nyberg knows how to drag a Canadian through the muck and make him grow from a bruised and bollixy "no" to the big-hearted "yes". ~ George McWhirter, winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, former Poet Laureate of Vancouver
Let Mac McKnight haul you along on his own warped tour of the colour, spice, danger and black laughter of Latin America. EL DORADO SHUFFLE is a read you will remember.
Amazon.com
I would get off the bus in disreputable barrios, places adorned with the names of saints and the odour of urine, and wander into tiny dark bars, saying “All right, you pack of degenerates - I am buying!”
- Poor Mac! Wracked by guilt, driven by reckless courage, counseled by alcohol.
“I can forgive you, Mac.”
“Forgive!” She stepped back as I spun to face her. “Damn you! Don’t you ever try to forgive me! Don’t you ever try it! I won’t be accused, and I won’t be forgiven! Not by the likes of you and not by the likes of anyone!”
She was crying finally. And I was glad to see that her bullshit composure was gone, and her bullshit accusing and her bullshit forgiving and her bullshit about love.
- Making all the wrong choices. Leaving a trail of emotional carnage.
“Señor McKnight,” he said, “of course I know that your son is a drug addict. It was not hard to find out. But this is so bad - that you are wanting murder the president.” He dropped his glass and reached around and grasped the knife sheath and slid the knife out. It had a six inch blade.
- Assailing the evil-doers even if it means tearing down his own world.
“You stay there, Ken, okay? You stay with your mom.”
“Daddy! Where you going! I wanna come!”
“Mac, how can you do this!” She screamed “Go away! I hate you! I hate you!” She shrieked in Spanish as Ken twisted around in her grip and his little fists struck out and he cried, “Don’t shout my dad!”
- Mac came to the city of Esperanza in the high Andes hoping to find an El Dorado of the spirit. He leaves it on the run. In the process does he abandon his only hope for peace?
"From the American School of Esperanza into this drug-infested little republic in Latin America, you'll follow the unprofessional, un-Canadian activities of Maquito as he walks his own tightrope between decency and disgust. McKnight in shining armour he is not; Morgan Nyberg knows how to drag a Canadian through the muck and make him grow from a bruised and bollixy "no" to the big-hearted "yes". ~ George McWhirter, winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, former Poet Laureate of Vancouver
Let Mac McKnight haul you along on his own warped tour of the colour, spice, danger and black laughter of Latin America. EL DORADO SHUFFLE is a read you will remember.
Amazon.com
Mr. Millennium
Literary
"Sex with fervent strangers, however, still seemed novel, so Gabor continued to review the troops outside the fence. There was Maria Rosário of Ponte de Lima; Catarina, who had lush lips and lost eyes; Joana; Mariana; Felisberta; Fátima, who walked on her knees and with hands clasped in prayer into his bedroom; Dulce from Guimarães; Katja from a far land, who in the light of the street lamp had stuck out her tongue, and through the tip of it there was fixed a tiny silver crucifix. Ângela was let through the gate, and Marta, and Raquel and her mother Celestina, who wore bifocals, and Susana from Angola, who was tall and strong and had breath like cinnamon."
The above excerpt will leave no doubt that, although situated in the same thematic territory as The Da Vinci Code, Mr. Millennium has very little in common with Dan Brown's novel.
Gabor Esterhazy is Mr. MILLENNIUM, a bright, young but troubled manual laborer who is taken under the very shady wing of a secret society. Their claim: that he is descended from Jesus Christ by way of Hungarian aristocracy. Surely the resulting fame, power, money and adulation will bring him the peace he needs? Or will he find, too late, that he is merely a puppet, placed on a false throne to satisfy the insidious aims of those who claim to care for him?
Follow Gabor Esterhazy as he goes determinedly off the rails, and his journey toward happiness becomes a dark and comic shambles of lust, deceit and mortal danger.
Amazon.com
"Sex with fervent strangers, however, still seemed novel, so Gabor continued to review the troops outside the fence. There was Maria Rosário of Ponte de Lima; Catarina, who had lush lips and lost eyes; Joana; Mariana; Felisberta; Fátima, who walked on her knees and with hands clasped in prayer into his bedroom; Dulce from Guimarães; Katja from a far land, who in the light of the street lamp had stuck out her tongue, and through the tip of it there was fixed a tiny silver crucifix. Ângela was let through the gate, and Marta, and Raquel and her mother Celestina, who wore bifocals, and Susana from Angola, who was tall and strong and had breath like cinnamon."
The above excerpt will leave no doubt that, although situated in the same thematic territory as The Da Vinci Code, Mr. Millennium has very little in common with Dan Brown's novel.
Gabor Esterhazy is Mr. MILLENNIUM, a bright, young but troubled manual laborer who is taken under the very shady wing of a secret society. Their claim: that he is descended from Jesus Christ by way of Hungarian aristocracy. Surely the resulting fame, power, money and adulation will bring him the peace he needs? Or will he find, too late, that he is merely a puppet, placed on a false throne to satisfy the insidious aims of those who claim to care for him?
Follow Gabor Esterhazy as he goes determinedly off the rails, and his journey toward happiness becomes a dark and comic shambles of lust, deceit and mortal danger.
Amazon.com
Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army
Children (Middle Grades)
"In this warm and graceful story, the author achieves an artful blend of the mythological and the earthly." From the citation for the Governor General's Literary Awards (Canada)
Young Galahad lives in the South American jungle, where he plays with snakes and crocodiles. His parents are adventurers and Nobel Prize-winning authors. But when they fail to return from an expedition in their hot-air balloon Galahad must leave the jungle to live with his grandfather in a North American slum. In this alien and fascinating world he encounters both evil and magic.
Join Galahad and the other main characters - his street-musician grandfather; blind and wheelchair-bound Wheels; Slim, who owns a tattoo parlour - as they confront the power-hungry exterminator, Creetch, who has invented a spray that makes people disappear. Boo the city's mayor, who would rather juggle on television than face the threat of Creetch. Cheer for the unlikely army of cockroaches, flies and pigeons who fight for our hero in his darkest hour.
Amazon.com Smashwords
"In this warm and graceful story, the author achieves an artful blend of the mythological and the earthly." From the citation for the Governor General's Literary Awards (Canada)
Young Galahad lives in the South American jungle, where he plays with snakes and crocodiles. His parents are adventurers and Nobel Prize-winning authors. But when they fail to return from an expedition in their hot-air balloon Galahad must leave the jungle to live with his grandfather in a North American slum. In this alien and fascinating world he encounters both evil and magic.
Join Galahad and the other main characters - his street-musician grandfather; blind and wheelchair-bound Wheels; Slim, who owns a tattoo parlour - as they confront the power-hungry exterminator, Creetch, who has invented a spray that makes people disappear. Boo the city's mayor, who would rather juggle on television than face the threat of Creetch. Cheer for the unlikely army of cockroaches, flies and pigeons who fight for our hero in his darkest hour.
Amazon.com Smashwords
Bad Day in Gladland
Children (Middle Grades)
The events of "Bad Day in Gladland" take place during a time of strange “plagues”. Glitterville, where the Bugg family resides, completely disappears, consumed in a Plague of Daytime Darkness. The family’s old butler, Bentley D. Kreppit, and the 2 children, acrobatic Athena and brainy Odysseus, along with Odysseus’ pet rat, Defoe, narrowly escape. They travel from town to town, hoping to find the children’s parents. To earn money they put on shows featuring the acrobatic skills of Athena.
Bentley keeps a journal as they travel, relating one particular adventure: the making of the film "Bad Day in Gladland" by Prodigious Productions. At Prodigious Productions they learn of other plagues, such as the Plague of Getting Lost, the Plague of Anti-Gravity and the Plague of Flying Fish. Events turn dangerous (and hilarious) when the greedy director of the film company, J. Metropolitan Nash, and his scheming assistant, Perfidia, become convinced that one of the actors knows a recipe for creating gold. It is up to Bentley, Odysseus, Athena and Defoe to save the day.
"Bad Day in Gladland", like the books of "A Series of Unfortunate Events", stands out among the predictable offerings in the Young Adult genre, both for its originality and its infectious vitality. Parents will enjoy the story at least as much as their children.
Amazon.com
The events of "Bad Day in Gladland" take place during a time of strange “plagues”. Glitterville, where the Bugg family resides, completely disappears, consumed in a Plague of Daytime Darkness. The family’s old butler, Bentley D. Kreppit, and the 2 children, acrobatic Athena and brainy Odysseus, along with Odysseus’ pet rat, Defoe, narrowly escape. They travel from town to town, hoping to find the children’s parents. To earn money they put on shows featuring the acrobatic skills of Athena.
Bentley keeps a journal as they travel, relating one particular adventure: the making of the film "Bad Day in Gladland" by Prodigious Productions. At Prodigious Productions they learn of other plagues, such as the Plague of Getting Lost, the Plague of Anti-Gravity and the Plague of Flying Fish. Events turn dangerous (and hilarious) when the greedy director of the film company, J. Metropolitan Nash, and his scheming assistant, Perfidia, become convinced that one of the actors knows a recipe for creating gold. It is up to Bentley, Odysseus, Athena and Defoe to save the day.
"Bad Day in Gladland", like the books of "A Series of Unfortunate Events", stands out among the predictable offerings in the Young Adult genre, both for its originality and its infectious vitality. Parents will enjoy the story at least as much as their children.
Amazon.com
Blood of the Inheritor
Post-apocalyptic/Adventure
400 years after the death of civilization it is a world of superstition and bloodshed!
But one man still believes in human decency.
Will he find the courage to fight for it?
Dwarfed by malevolent forces, can the Inheritor even survive?
The Bear Clan is powerful and ruthless. Fear-mongering, slavery, lies and murder ensure their dominance. But a tiny opposing clan still cling to the ancient values of our own time. From these Inheritors an unlikely hero emerges to challenge the cruelty and oppression of the Bear Clan. Success is unthinkable. Or is it?
Sample Blood of the Inheritor
Amazon.com
400 years after the death of civilization it is a world of superstition and bloodshed!
But one man still believes in human decency.
Will he find the courage to fight for it?
Dwarfed by malevolent forces, can the Inheritor even survive?
The Bear Clan is powerful and ruthless. Fear-mongering, slavery, lies and murder ensure their dominance. But a tiny opposing clan still cling to the ancient values of our own time. From these Inheritors an unlikely hero emerges to challenge the cruelty and oppression of the Bear Clan. Success is unthinkable. Or is it?
Sample Blood of the Inheritor
Amazon.com
