William A. Hainline

William Andy Hainline currently lives in New Albany, Indiana with a big old lazy tomcat named Kitty-Boy, where in his spare time he practices being a supervillain and an English major. He is constantly coming up with new and exciting ways to butcher the English language, but his favorite way to do so is writing novels. He enjoys science-fiction, fantasy, and horror, and is a sucker for grand, romantic musicals. When he isn't plotting to take over the world, he spends most of his free time reading, writing, hanging out with friends, and tinkering with his Mac. (Which is totally not a euphemism for something else.) Some of his favorite toys include Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Pro X, and the best writing program in the world, Scrivener. He is a big fan of Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe, and Doctor Who, and he is active on both Facebook and Twitter, where his handle is @wahainline.

His novel, The Reality Engineers: Volume 1: What Happens At Con Stays At Con, is now available from Amazon.com and Smashwords.com. It's a lighthearted romp through the darkness of mental illness and the fun of being a geek that pits an alien invasion force against a gang of nerdy protagonists who are just trying to enjoy their favorite annual sci-fi convention. The book is the first in a planned series, and is offered free of charge on Smashwords.com; subsequent installments are priced at just $4.99 each.

"When you watch a show like Big Bang Theory," says Hainline, "you get the feeling that the geeks are still the outsiders, even though the show is really all about them and their world. I wanted to turn all that on its head. Plus, I love the idea of asking, 'What if a bunch of geeks actually got their hands on the technology that they've been dreaming about for years? Would they become heroes, or villains? Would they freak out, or would they rise to the challenge of dealing with it? Also, I wanted to write about what it's like being bipolar, to let other people who are suffering know that, in the words of General Zod: 'You are not alone.'"
Hainline decided to pursue self-publishing after traditional publishers balked at the book's unusual style and center of literary gravity. "The mainstream folks were like, 'This is too 'niche'; it's not mainstream enough,' and the small-press folks were like, 'this is too genre, too mainstream!'" he said. "I figured what the heck--at least the book will be out there, right? And if my work only ever touches one other person, then all the suffering and trials and tribulations have been totally worth it. I genuinely love writing, and I genuinely love these characters; they inspire me to keep going, despite being mentally ill, despite everything. They and their geeky, nerdy world are my refuge. And if I can share that with someone else, even just one person, then my life's work has been worth it, I have been a success."

You can find his blog at http://williamahainline.squarespace.com
Or his Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/subgeniuszero
Or, follow his Twitter feed at @wahainline

What Happens At Con Stays At Con: The Reality Engineers, Volume 1

Science Fiction

Lonely inventor Terry “Gadget” Anders spends most of his time in his garage nerding out and creating real-life versions of the stuff he reads about in his comic books, with mixed results. What he needed was a little adventure in his life, but when his cosplaying friends “Buffy” and “Angelus" drag him out of the house to a local sci-fi convention, he runs into more adventure than he bargained for, in the form of the beautiful and equally nerdy Dizzy, and sparks fly like there’s an overloaded Tesla Coil somewhere. But Gadget’s new crush is full of secrets, and some of them are dangerous. When people start dying at the con, Gadget gets sucked into Dizzy’s crazy-chaotic world of aliens, time travel, and mind-melting psionic powers. If he can’t put the truth together fast, then the mysteries his femme fatale hides might wind up killing him and his friends, too! Hey, nobody said relationships are easy . . . but if he plays his Magic cards right, Gadget might be able to win the girl and help save the world just in time to catch the big celebrity panel at the con. Don your best cosplay and tune-up your guitars folks, ‘cause this is gonna be the best RetCon EVER!

Sample The Reality Engineers Volume 1

The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth: The Reality Engineers, Volume 2

Science Fiction

Strap on your exoskeleton and prepare to blast-off on an adventure unlike any other in this, the rocket-ride of a sequel to William A. Hainline’s instant cult-classic, The Reality Engineers: Volume 1: What Happens At Con Stays At Con. Three years after the events of RetCon XVIII, Dizzy and her friends—Gadget the inventor, Angelus the cosplaying vampire, his girlfriend Buffy, and Dizzy’s mentor, Misto—have settled into their new lives in a world where alien invaders are a reality, but where the government is as clueless as ever. Dizzy is now a professor at Wenzel U, and Misto is her right-hand-man at Mjolnir Technologies, the mad-science weapons contractor she inherited from her father Walther. Gadget is hard at work on his Geist-Verstärker Helm, a device which enables him to read others’ thoughts and manipulate physical reality with his mind. And as for Buffy, she’s still stripping her way through school . . . and is busy in the lab, trying to find a cure for Angelus’s vampirism—and her own cursed gift of pyrokinesis—induced by a mystic formula invented by Walther years before. Meanwhile, Angelus has become Dizzy’s superhero sidekick whenever she’s out fighting crime, a fact that renders both Buffy and Gadget jealous. And as for supervillain Noonian Harkonnen? Well, he and his mild-mannered alter-ego Victor are busy trying to find a way to bring Victor’s fiancé back from the nearly dead. To that end, Noonian has made an infernal deal of epic proportions with creatures from another dimension, one that bodes ill for the entire human race . . . so naturally, it’s up to Dizzy and her geeky pals to save the day once more. Prepare yourself for this far-darker chapter in the tale of The Reality Engineers. Prepare yourself . . . for The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth!


Sample The Reality Engineers Volume 2
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