Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck

Welcome to Rapacia, where the greedy kids go. When Milton escapes from Heck in a soul balloon made of old clothes, Marlo is the only Fauster child left to take the blame. Bea "Elsa" Bubb, the Principal of Darkness, sends her straight to Rapacia, the circle where greedy kids are tormented by glimpses of a just-out-of-reach, glittering shopper's paradise called Mallvana. Marlo soon falls under the sway of Rapacia's assistant principal, a grinning metal rabbit known as the Grabbit that seems to have plans of its own. Meanwhile, back on the Surface, Milton has his own problems. He is determined to get in touch with Marlo and help her find a way out of Heck. But it's hard to concentrate when his body and soul don't seem to hold together the way they used to. Will Milton ever reach Marlo? And if he does, will they both end up as pawns in the Grabbit's mysterious game? From the Hardcover edition.

Dale E. Basye has written stories, screenplays, essays, reviews, and lies for many publications and organizations. He was a film critic, winning several national journalism awards, and published an arts and entertainment newspaper called Tonic. He was also the driving musical force behind a series of bands, very few of which sported names suitable for a respectable Web site. To be perfectly frank (or whoever), if any of those bands had been any good, you would probably be reading this biography on the back of a CD instead.


Here's what Dale has to say about his second book: "There is a time where you don't fully know what you have, though there is no lack of models, celebrities, and the inexplicably famous rubbing your face in what you don't have. You'd give anything to have what they have, and that yearning gnaws at you from the inside as if you had swallowed a small, vicious shrew—which, to the best of your knowledge, you haven't. Heck is like that. And no matter what anyone tells you, Heck is real. This story is real. Or as real as anything like this can be."


Dale E. Basye lives in Portland, Oregon, where he must, on a daily basis, wage life-or-death struggles with grizzly bears, nettled beavers, and inconsistent Wi-Fi signals.