Billy Orton

In my fourth novel -- "No One Cries for Monå Lizé" -- the June 2020 story features Riley Beach, who is friends with the Roccé brothers. Now, I am working on my fifth novel, and I released the first two chapters in February 2022, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine. The new book -- "Riley Beach on the Rocks... Finding Marble for Mr. Zelensky" -- will be finished by the end of the year. It takes place in June 2028. Those Bustling 20s. Riley and his friends are now high school graduates. There is another cold war, and the book shows that it ripples to the calmest waters. The opening chapters appear to be the first novel on Smashwords to use the phrase "BUSTLING 20s." A century ago, there were the Roaring 20s, which was a time of American optimism amidst an economic boom. Now, it is not a roaring optimism, but the economic is still bustling, even in the face of inflation and the uncertainty of a cold war. THOSE BUSTLING TWENTIES could become how this decade gets known as, so these opening chapters may offer the birth of that phrase.

"Riley Beach on the Rocks" will be my fifth book, which I aim to complete at the end of 2022. The first four novels are described as "Post Gender" fiction, which is to say that gender shouldn't be the focus of characters. The interview features explanations about the current novel, "No One Cries for Monå Lizé.... 'A Fantastic Piece of Sh_t!' -- Arnold Spankergrüber." In all four of these novels, a pair of women -- Lori and December -- fall in love, and their best friend is a complete dork who cares enough to be their boneheaded ally. Lori Lewis is an athlete and soldier. Courage and honor define her. December Carrera is a dancer and web-cam diva. She offers the optimism of youth and the meaning of love and devotion. In today's age, people are debating the tiniest details of how to define life, but "post gender" says to let go of such concerns. Let characters define themselves. Sadly, the "post gender" genre seems mostly an act of fiction, as people seem to care more about pronouns and the clothing one wears then the value of courage and honor and love and devotion. So my five books are not the only fiction of a genre that differs from the social justice war, and I'll leave it to the woke crowd to debate such things. I'm just writing books, and hope that they add up to a new phrase -- post gender -- for a genre that later will rise as an alternative to thin-skinned unbending political correctness.