Kenny Howell ran into his share of frightening scenes in three decades as a cop. Life-or-death situations. People who might be telling you the truth or not, or part of the truth. Allies who turn out to be enemies. None of those situations compared to the latest call he responded to. This call came from a land called Hereorgone with five regions. (Or maybe more than five regions?) A rebellion is brewing on the outskirts. Survivors of a deadly virus that wiped out most of the planet try to make sense of scenes that looked real, then turned out to be holograms. Caped cave-dwelling creatures called Shadow Jumpers emerge to snatch people. Other troublemakers (or righteous subversives?) of uncertain provenance called Nightcrawlers flit in and out of view, changing shape along the way. A guarded magic orb holds the secret to existence. Meanwhile, a reluctant hero named Cyrus finds his footing as a leader, barely escaping death while trying to save his family’s lives. Howell — a 57-year-old attorney and retired New Haven police lieutenant — responded to this call not as a representative of law enforcement. He responded as an author. He made up the story. He has now published the story in the form of a dystopian novel called Hereorgone: Awake (Mindstir Media). He spent six years writing and rewriting it in between running police forces and representing legal clients. The.story propels the reader on a bare-knuckle 336-page ride through nonstop Hunger Games-inspired action sequences, feeding themes of loyalty, leadership, heroism, and societal conflict, culminating in a battle almost-to-the-end against the military dictatorship that rules from Hereorgone’s Region 1. (Howell published the book under the pen name “Kenneth Carter,” the first names of his two sons.) Suffice it to say, law enforcement agents are not necessarily the good guys in this story. (Promotional blurb hint: “In a world built on obedience, the courage to question is revolution.”) But neither are they all tools of villainy; lines blur throughout the book. Howell began developing the story during the first year of the Covid pandemic, imagining the aftermath of a near-extinction-level viral outbreak. He said during a conversation Thursday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven'” that he learned early in the writing process that he’s not an “outliner” author like, say, J.K. Rowling, who maps out a story (or seven-volume story) before writing. He’s more of a “pantser” like Stephen King, who starts writing with a germ of an idea, then follows where the characters lead him (metaphorically shooting from the hip). “it’s a little bit scary, because you don’t know where the story is going. The characters speak to me,” Howell said. He had to find time to craft and rework the chapters between taxing duties of running his own law firm and, from 2024-2025, the Hartford police department. (He had previously served as police chief of Millbury, Mass., from 2013-2016 after retiring from the NHPD.) “Late at night, after work, I would do a lot of my writing in coffee shops. I like ambient noise, low noise. Weekends I would go up north. Sometimes I would go into a hotel room; I might go up to Boston, just somewhere very, very nice, quaint.” His first 100,000-word draft turned out so “horrible, I wouldn’t show it to my mother,” he recalled. He kept developing the case — er, novel — until he had 82,000 tightly crafted words, broken into 34 crisp chapters. “Writing,” Howell learned, “is rewriting.” “I don’t know what’s true anymore,” the novel’s reluctant hero, Cyrus, the son of an underground leader who has disappeared, states at pivotal point in the story: Lies dressed as reasoning, handed over as if I should simply accept them. No compassion for the one who carries the weight. Just deception, wrapped in logic, forced down like medicine that never heals. That’s my curse. I overthink, always weighing right against wrong, never certain which is which. But overthink won’t save anyone now. If I falter, my mother and Sari will pay for it. That much is clear — even if everything else isn’t. So right and wrong blur into something simpler. Survival. Family. Hereorgone. If I’m going to protect them, I have to change. Not into the man my father has become — but into someone who can stand beside him. Someone who can act when the moment demands it.  Befitting the first installment of a trilogy, the story ends with a thrilling surprise denouement that leaves important questions hanging — and leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. Howell is already 10 chapters into a second installment. This one will flesh out the role of the Dyamese, a group of characters introduced late in the first book who may or may not hail from other planets. Meanwhile you can order the first Hereorgone novel here. You can also catch the author at a book-signing at Cheshire’s Ciron Rondo Osteria (1721 Highland Ave.) on Wednesday, Oct. 7, from 8-9 p.m. Click on the video below to listen to the full conversation with author Kenny Howell (aka Kenneth Carter) on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of “Dateline New Haven.” Click here to download the WNHH FM app. The post Kenny Howell Writes To The Dystopian Rescue appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less