Brian Keene writes novels, comic books, short stories, and nonfiction. He is the author of over fifty books, mostly in the horror, crime, fantasy, and non-fiction genres. They have been translated into over a dozen different languages and have won numerous awards. His 2003 novel, The Rising, is credited (along with Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later film) with inspiring pop culture's recurrent interest in zombies. He has also written for such media properties as Doctor Who, Thor, Aliens, Harley Quinn, The X-Files, Doom Patrol, Justice League, Hellboy, Superman, and Masters of the Universe.

The Lost Level 1: The Lost Level by Brian Keene

Brian Keene crafts an imaginative and fascinating lost world fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of Burrough's Pellucidar, Howard's Almuric, and Lansdale's The Drive-in.

When modern-day occultist Aaron Pace discovers the secrets of inter-dimensional travel via a mystical pathway called The Labyrinth, he wastes no time in exploring a multitude of strange new worlds and alternate realities. But then, Aaron finds himself trapped in the most bizarre dimension of all — a place where dinosaurs coexist with giant robots, where cowboys fight reptilian lizard people, and where even the grass can kill you. This is a world populated by the missing and the disappeared, a world where myth is reality and where the extinct is reborn. Now, side-by-side with his new companions Kasheena and Bloop, Aaron must learn to navigate its dangers and survive long enough to escape... THE LOST LEVEL.

CURATOR'S NOTE

The king of horror turns his attention to a fantastical world filled with breathless adventure, excitement, lost worlds and high-octane thrills! Will you too explore the Lost Level? – Lavie Tidhar

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

MY NAME IS AARON PACE, and I'm writing this by hand in a spiral-bound, college-ruled notebook that I found in a student's backpack inside of an abandoned school bus. All three—the notebook, the backpack, and the school bus—have seen better days. For that matter, so have I.

The notebook paper is wrinkled and curled, and many of the pages are water stained or smudged with dirt. The backpack is one of those vinyl and canvas kinds you can buy at Wal-Mart, emblazoned with cartoon characters on the back. I don't recognize any of the cartoon characters, but there are a lot of things in this place that I don't recognize, because they're not originally from this world. The backpack is one of those things. I found it attached to a child's skeleton in the back of the bus. It is still in relatively good shape—the backpack, rather than the skeleton—but both shoulder straps have been slashed, rendering it useless and impractical for my purposes. The skeleton is missing its lower half. The hips and pelvis are shattered. I have no way of knowing if that happened before or after the child died, but I suspect it was the former. The bus has some broken windows, four flat tires, and a giant gash in the side where something clawed through the metal to get at the kids inside. There are dried brown smudges splashed all over the vehicle's interior. The splashes could be old dirt, but dirt doesn't usually have a spray pattern. More likely, they're blood.

There is a lot of it, but then again, that's also not uncommon to this place. This is the Lost Level. This is where things become lost. Why should blood be any different?

It's impossible to know how long the bus, the backpack, or the skeleton have been here, because there is no time in the Lost Level. The sun—if that's what it is, and I have strong suspicions that it's not—never changes position in the sky. We live in a perpetual state of high noon. If we have a moon or stars here (or things masquerading as moons and stars) then I've never seen them. The only visible body in the heavens above is that ever-present sun, mocking us with its cruel, unforgiving light. But despite the constant illumination, it is easy to find darkness here. There are deep canyons and a massive, spiraling network of caves and tunnels below ground where the light never reaches, and there are sections of the forests and jungles where the vegetation grows so thick that the sun's rays can't penetrate it. Go look in any of those places, and you will find darkness.

And if you can't find it there, then all you have to do is look inside yourself.

There is a darkness inside of me. I have lost everyone that I care about—from both before I came here, and after. Especially after. They are lost, and I am lost.

Lost here in the darkness of an eternal sunshine.

Lost in the Lost Level.