The Pains

Here comes "The Pains," by me, John Damien Sundman, with illustrations by Cheeseburger Brown. The HTML version is below; the PDF version that will be used to create the printed book will be along soon. Feel free to read, save, print, copy and share among your friends.

The book will be going to press in November, 2008, and printed books will be in hand sometime in early-to-mid December, 2008.

This book is way off schedule. Sometimes stuff happens, and since I announced The Pains, stuff has happened in giant bucketsfull. However, the book essentially done. Originally I promised it for Summer, 2006, then I said March 2007. Thank you to those of you who have waited, (sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently) and encouraged me to finish writing the book. Well, I have finished. Selah. I hope you like it.

Starting with Chapter 3, attentive readers may notice some allusions to, and borrowing from, the work of the late Chis McKinstry, creator of the Mindpixel project. As far as I've been able to determine, there is no copyright holder. I'll have more to say about this when the final book is prepared for publication, but for now I just want to make this acknowledgement.

I have made fair-use use of songs by Kate Bush, Leonard Cohen and Social Distortion, and I have borrowed themes, characters, and even a bit of prose here and there from George Orwell's 1984. Proper attribution will be given in the printed version.

I hope that if you like the book, you'll buy a printed copy or make a donation using Paypal. Cheeseburger and I could really use the money. Really.

This little story is dedicated to the memory of my late brother Paul Damien Sundman and of my late sister Maureen Sundman Angevine. I know that Paul liked the early chapters, and I think he would have liked the finished book. Maureen probably would have hated it--she didn't approve of blasphemy. But I like to think she's in heaven now, putting in a good word for me on the grounds that I'm too stupid to know any better.