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Dreamcast 2

Dreamcast 2 is a four part book:

A Different Animal

Travis finds himself under attack by a sadistic killer with psychic powers. Asked by the police to help with the case, Travis uses all his skills to track down the killer and engineer a dramatic confrontation.

In Time

Travis tries to prevent a tragic accident by attempting to go back in time. However, he gets stuck in-between and the caretaker 10 percent that remains has to learn to function for the missing personality parts.

The Assignment

Travis is commissioned to paint a portrait of a family matriarch who turns out to be the boss of a criminal enterprise. She demands the impossible from Travis and he has to find a way out of the peril to himself and his family.

Fault Lines

Travis assists Amanda in her private practice as she struggles with a difficult multiple-personality patient, who is paralyzed by his inner conflicts. During the course of therapy, they uncover more than they had expected and Travis has to again solve problems that deal with repressed memory and childhood trauma.

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Commentary

There are a number of problems with Dreamcast and its spinoffs. Throughout, I tried to focus on the story to the exclusion of all else. I didn't allow myself a sideways glance but kept forging ahead. I was pleasantly surprised by the brevity I achieved. I was thus able to squeeze two stand-alone stories into Dreamcast and four into Dreamcast 2 and four again into Dreamcast 3.

As I got into the swing of it, I conceptualized the stories as a sequence of TV series episodes, complete in themselves. The offshot was that, particularly in Dreamcast 2 and 3, the stories became so intense that the effect was often overpowering, like fruit concentrate, much too potent to enjoy without diluting. Anyone reading the 4 episodes in one sitting would find the experience overpowering.

In his journey, Travis repeatedly collides with really evil characters, which forced me to dig into the psychological makeup of my villains. I didn't feel comfortable with the darkness I found there nor with the degree of violence that was unleashed. It seemed to me, however, that the trend today is to put such things under the microscope, to dissect them, to experience them. Quite frankly I got goosebumps when describing some of the incidents and wondered if I would lose readership along the way because it was so extreme.

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