The Plain Man

by Englehart, Steve

• ISBN13: 9780765364272
• ISBN10: 0765364271
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-31
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy

Summary

Magick and reality collide in a new, fast-paced Max August thriller Max August is not invulnerable, but he never agesa gift he earned while studying under the legendary alchemist Cornelius Agrippa. August, now an alchemist himself, is using his magickal abilities to fight the right-wing conspiracy known as the FRC, which seeks to control all aspects of society. At the top of the FRC is a nine-member cabal, each member of which is a powerful force in one area of society, such as media, politics, finance...and wizardry. When Max learns that two members of the cabal are en route to Wickr, a Burning Manlike festival held in the American Southwest, he stages a plan to gather information from them and, he hopes turn one member against the others. Max has been careful not to leave a trail, but the cabal sees all, and an "accident" at a nuclear waste facility just 100 miles from the festival would send a clear message to those who oppose the FRC. Max may be timeless, but he is running out of time to stop the FRC and save millions of lives.

Author Biography

STEVE ENGLEHART is best known for writing for such comics series as Spider-Man, Captain America, Superman, The Fantastic Four, and Batman for DC and Marvel Comics, and for his novels The Point Man and The Long Man. He has been named Favorite Writer at the Eagle Awards, and has also won an Inkpot Award for his comics work. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where he is currently working on a new Max August novel. 

Table of Contents

Praise for The Plain Man

"Long before Buffy and Angel took up the good fight, long before Dresden began his Files, Max August was out there all alone, our point man in keeping the mundane world safe from the supernatural one. Now, after too long a hiatus, Max August is back with a vengeance!"

––Bill Willingham, bestselling author of Fables

 

“Max August isn’t invincible but he never ages, a handy side-effect he picked up from studying alchemy under a 500-year old Master who’s now dead. Pam Blackwell is new to alchemy and is just learning the range of her magickal abilities. Max and Pam – along with others who have strong magickal talents – have dedicated themselves to fighting the FRC, a nine-member assembly bent on controlling the world.  When they get word that two members of the FRC plan on attending Wickr – a Burning Man-like festival held in the Nevada desert – Max and Pam set out, determined to get information from them. Little do they know that the FRC has already planned their own deadly fireworks show and Max and Pam are running out of time to stop them.

The Plain Man is the third novel in the Max August series and although it references events and characters from the first two books, the flashbacks are more for flavor and color as Englehart’s latest novel is perfectly capable of standing on its own. With a well-developed magickal system and a cast of intriguing (and sometimes bizarre) characters, Englehart provides the perfect vehicle for a rambunctious and enjoyable joyride.”

––San Francisco Book Review

 

“This is a worthy successor to the first Max August books. Steve Englehart has created a series of rip-roaring, page turning, pulp tomes that function as teaching tools about the current state of incipient fascism in American politics and the uses of the imagination and the occult therein.

Think “Carolyn Casey meets Jeff Sharlet.” Think “J.K. Rowling meets Ian Fleming.” What if the hippy radicals really could have levitated the Pentagon during the 1968 ritual exorcism, and the Pentagon fought back with warlocks of their own? This is radical, impassioned, intelligent, fun stuff. Become an Alchemist! Read Max August!”

––Brad Rader, Emmy Award-winning animation artist

“Steve Englehart crams it all in his latest urban fantasy novel The Plain Man, including wizards/alchemists, demons, shape-shifters, totems, an ageless gypsy, telepaths, astral bodies, world conspirators, and other assorted beings.”

—SFRevu

Praise for The Long Man:

 

“For an almost superhuman span of time Steve Englehart has been blowing the minds of readers around the world—including my own. The Long Man adds another dazzling burst of storytelling power to the ongoing display of his brilliance.”

—Michael Chabon, New York Times bestselling author

 

“Steve Englehart was one of the first authors I ever read. With The Long Man, he proves that even thirty years later, he still has the touch. I'm young again.”

—Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author

 

“Englehart, one of the best writers in comics, brings all his imagination and flair to this exciting tale of mystery, magic and suspense.”

—Max Allan Collins, bestselling author of Road To Perdition

 

“Steve Englehart has finally continued the story of the Point Man, and it's about damned time.  A crackling mystical thriller.”

—Peter David, bestselling author of the Dark Tower comics

 

Praise for The Point Man:

“The writing is solid and compelling, evidencing all the skill of a craftsman who has spent the last decade learning how to build an episodic story in the “To Be Continued” environs of comic books, yet never giving in to cartoony excess. In The Point Man, Englehart never lets the absence of pictures slow his story. It’s a shame he hasn’t written more prose since.”

—Bookgasm.com

 

“I haven't read a novel like this since The Exorcist.”

—Robert Anton Wilson, co-author of the Illuminatus! Trilogy

 

“Full of reach and astonishment....Few working writers alive have [Steve Englehart's] sense of sound and of scene.”

 

—Theodore Sturgeon, author of More Than Human

“Englehart comes up out of nowhere, or the Bay area or some place, to explode on us with a first novel that places itself way up there with some of the finest in the genre. The Point Man is as exciting a slam-banger as you’ll find this year. But it’s much more than that. The magic is most magical, and enormous to boot, and the mystery and the tension will not release you.”

—Twilight Zone Magazine