From Publishers Weekly
In New Mexico, in the year 2434, 16-year-old Glendyl Fenderwell has rather unwillingly embarked on a quest to discover the Last Nevergate, a "mechanism which made possible travel between a virtually infinite number of parallax universes." Though the 249 seekers before her failed, Glendyl bears a resemblance to Madonna 13 - who might be a clone of the original Madonna - and therefore might share her powers and "remarkable" good fortune in E.T. ellison's highly imaginative The Luck of Madonna 13 (the first in a series).
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From the Publisher
Every once in a while, even jaded publishers encounter something that stands tall above the crowd. If we live long enough and have enough luck, that is. The manuscript for E. T. Ellison’s The Luck of Madonna 13 was one of those rare encounters; an author and a first novel that are both true originals. The early prepublication reviews are confirming what we saw in that stack of paper: an entertaining and imaginative thrill ride through an engaging future populated with wonderful characters and a gazillion ideas. Amazingly, it’s the kind of genre-spanning novel that works for all sorts of readers in widely disparate age groups.
The early praise makes us believe that maybe we weren’t completely crazy to celebrate this remarkable first novel with a special first edition loaded with features you just don’t see much in these publishing-by-the-numbers times. Like an old-fashioned frontispiece illustration; like special full-color endpapers from an illustration created by the author himself; like Smyth-sewn case binding; like environmentally friendly, acid-free recycled paper. The Chronicler’s Edition is also a real limited edition: exactly 2,434 individually signed and numbered copies. When they're gone, they're gone: only one first edition of this first novel.
From the Author
Most stories grow in the telling. Some go nova. This story falls in the latter category. It began modestly as a sixteenth birthday tale for my youngest daughter. Since that innocent beginning it has dragged me through twenty-one chapters, a history of that odd IsoTown called St. Coriander and a website loaded with "informatives" of both verbal and visual natures. And the story didn’t even have the decency to end after all that and has now lured me into the second of the Last Nevergate Chronicles. My daughter, of course, never asked for all this: she just wanted a story. So please don’t hold her responsible for the author’s verbal and visual excesses. Excesses aside, it’s been a fun ride so far: making stuff up is more delicious than "reality" any day.
About the Author
Professing an interest in almost everything, E. T. Ellison claims to be a generalist by current profession. His formal schooling — which went as far as an MBA — took place in Oregon and California. Ellison is and has been a planner, a business consultant, an entrepreneur, an art director and designer, a student, an executive, a musician, a traveler, a father of four marvelous children, an inventor, a copywriter, a cook, a futurist, an evoluter, an editor and a storyteller. Ellison’s literary hero is Jack Vance and he agrees with those who regard Vance as one of the great novelists of our time in any genre.
In addition to subsequent volumes of the Last Nevergate Chronicles, Ellison is also coauthoring of two forthcoming Wynderry Press nonfiction (mostly) titles: a collection of recipe trading adventures (and maps, recipes and more) from around the western U.S. called Recipe Rangers in the West, and Roseberry Hill, a collection of exurbanites’ tales from Bear Mountain, where all the animals are above average. During the 1990s he was a frequent contributor to Acoustic Guitar and Acoustic Musician magazines. The author currently lives with the ghost of a cat named Madonnawanna on a mountain near Tehachapi, California. Whenever possible he travels, rides motorcycles, builds or plants things and plays guitar.
