"When I was a boy I was the hero in comic books and movies. I grew up believing in a dream. Now I've lived it out. That's all a man can ask for."
In case you're confused by the development of the Demon Download Cycle, here's an order of chronology and a taste of things to come. Though Demon Download is the first in the series, Krokodil Tears takes place slightly earlier, with Comeback Tour following on directly from the latter. A forthcoming book will go back to the beginning and deal with 'Route 666', the path taken through the wilderness by the founders of Deseret, and the intertwining adventures of Jessamyn Bonney, Chantal Juillerat, Nathan Stack, Hawk-That-Settles, Redd Harvest and Elvis Presley. These will continue until the apocalyptic conclusion of United States Calvary.
But there's a long and surprising road to travel before then. Interestingly, when this alternate future was originally mapped out in 1989, we made several elements - the premiership of Boris Yeltsin, the casting of Drew Barrymore in sex Goddess roles - that have since come to take place in the real world. Let's just hope that most of the rest of the cycle remains on an alternate timeline.
In writing this book, I owe a great debt to the various people who've written about Elvis Presley and related subjects. I'd like especially to credit Dirk Vallenga and Mick Farren's scarifying Elvis and the Colonel (1988), for the low-down on Colonel Parker, Fred L. Worth and Steven D. Tamerius's Elvis: His Life from A to Z (1988), for everything from details of Elvis's favourite foods to movies and songs, Luis Valdez's film La Bamba (1987), for the subtitle, and, especially, Greil Marcus's Mystery Train (1977), the best thing I've ever read about rock 'n' roll. Thanks also to Brian Craig