If you were given an object that let you see the future, what would you ask?
Would you be prepared to pay the price of forbidden knowledge?
The Artifact is an LGBTQ-friendly contemporary young adult speculative
fiction story set in the mostly real world of Louisville, Kentucky, and
surrounding areas. Seventeen-year-old Linc is a fan of old movies,
Egyptology, and pyramids. Raised by a single mom who works as an
environmental lawyer, he spends a lot of time watching old movies with
his very close friends Lonnie and Julie. Linc is unwittingly drafted to take
possession of a mysterious artifact, a high-tech electronic device
with connections to ancient Egypt. The artifact allows the possessor
to have visions of the future, but, Linc and his friends soon discover, at a
high cost. Linc and his friends are young people dealing with issues that
speak to readers of diverse ages and backgrounds. Books with similarities
include Jennifer Egan’s The Keep, Jodi Picoult’s Where There’s Smoke,
Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, Mindwalker by A. J. Steiger, and
Stephen King’s Later.
David Rogers was a reader before he became a writer, so he
learned to appreciate Elmore Leonard’s rule to leave out the parts
readers skip anyway. The Artifact is all story, all the time, and is
intended to accomplish two tasks above all else–allow the reader to
identify with the characters, and keep the reader curious about what
happens next.
