Any Minor World by Craig Schaefer

SPFBO8 SPSFC 2023

For Roy Mackey -- a recovering addict who makes his living as an unlicensed PI and occasional muscle for hire -- tracking down a dead writer's final manuscript should be a walk in the park. Too bad his client is a phony, the dead writer is a thief, and shadowy men are watching his every move. All clues lead to a canceled pulp-adventure comic, The Midnight Jury, and its mousy, reclusive author. Lucy Langenkamp is living a quiet life as an art restorer in Las Vegas; when Roy helps her escape from a crew of armed kidnappers, she's as baffled as he is. Then one of her own characters, a flamethrower-wielding "human exterminator," steps out of the pages of her comic book and into the real world. He's intent on hunting her down, and he isn't alone. The pulp villains spawned from Lucy's childhood imagination are coming to life, searching for their long-lost author. Her most sinister creation, the Illustrated Duke, has a dark plan in motion. This is a job for Lucy's two-fisted vigilante, the Midnight Jury. But the Jury is missing. To save the day, Lucy and Roy must descend into a noir-drenched nightmare city on a rescue mission. The walls between fiction and reality are shattered, there's wild magic in the air, and it's up to two unlikely heroes to risk it all and save the day.

Adult • Fantasy/Comic Fantasy • Fantasy/Superheroes • Science Fiction