Dan Ronco

UNHOLY DOMAIN

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"Top rate adventure sparkling with ideas."
Piers Anthony--- Bestselling author of dozens of fantastic novels

"Dan Ronco is a social visionary on a par with William Gibson and Robert Sawyer"

Scott Nicholson--- Bestselling author of many thrillers

"A cross between Blade Runner and Angels and Demons"

R. Douglass Weber--- Author of Solomon's Key: The CODIS Project

It’s 2022, a decade after a devastating computer virus was unleashed upon America and the world. Civilization has crumbled in an economic collapse that rivals the Great Depression of the previous century. During this harsh decade, the schism between those who think technology will save the world and those who believe it to be the tool of Lucifer has reached a boiling point. The Church of Natural Humans, led by the charismatic ADAM JORDAN, is determined to roll civilization back to a pre-computer era. His beautiful African-American lover, MOESHA JEFFERSON, leads the Army of God, a cult of fanatics within the Church, in a series of murders of anyone they consider a technologist.

DAVID BROWN, the gifted but troubled son of one of the most hated of criminals, receives a delayed email from his long dead father, the software genius RAY BROWN. The world believes that David’s father unleashed the computer virus that caused the death of more than a million people and led to the global depression, but the email suggests that his father was on the trail of the real criminals. David has grown up in a hostile atmosphere due to his father’s crimes, so he resolves to discover who his father was, and if he really was to blame for the virus. His only memories are of a man made erratic by too much alcohol and driven by his passion for technology.

DIANNE MORGAN is a ruthless woman. She leads the Domain, a secret society of technologists developing Sentinel, an artificial intelligence with the ability to seize control of the Internet and all other computers. Needing money and muscle to achieve her obsession for power, Dianne enters into a partnership with organized crime, led by MARIA VITULLO. Vitullo, it is rumored, seized power within the Families by murdering her uncle, the former Don. Vitullo controls the technology black market for the Domain, as well as providing soldiers in the war against the Army of God.

As David tracks through his father’s startling history, he stumbles into this hidden war. Fearing that he will expose the Domain, Dianne orders Vitullo to kill him. However, Moesha has her own plan: to keep David alive so she can follow his trail to the Domain and then eliminate all the technologists. Hunted by killers from both organizations, David unravels his father’s secrets, comes to terms with his own life, and then falls in love with a woman from his father’s past.

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MY BIO

I was raised in Newark, NJ, then and now a tough place to grow up. My parents were hard-working people who wanted the best for my sister and me. I was in and out of trouble, but somehow did well enough to be accepted into the local college (now New Jersey Institute of Technology). I had great friends --- like brothers --- and we still remain close after all these years.

After graduating college with a degree in chemical engineering, I attended Columbia University on a fellowship and earned a masters degree in nuclear engineering. It was my ticket out of Newark; I went to work for GE in Schenectady designing nuclear reactors for submarines, but it did not fit my temperment. On the other hand, developing computer programs to support the design effort was great fun. I had found my calling.

I also found the love of my life in Schenectady. By sheer dumb luck, I moved to a garden apartment complex and took an apartment below two pretty girls. One invited me up for a drink; the other girl I married.

1972 was a busy year: Lin and I were married, I earned a masters in computer science at RPI and accepted a job as a consultant with Arthur Andersen. Lin and I traveled the country as Andersen sent me out on consulting assignments over the next four years. I loved the work and we both enjoyed the traveling, but when our first daughter was born in San Diego, we decided it was time to put down roots.

We moved to north Jersey, had our second daughter, then moved to south Jersey, where our son was born. I continued working as a consultant for the next twenty years, traveling maybe 25% of the time. These were busy years, but I loved my family and enjoyed my work. I became a partner at one of the large accounting/consulting firms, managed a software consulting business for five years with two partners, and then joined Microsoft to build a consulting business along the east coast.

As much as I enjoyed helping clients build better software, something was missing. For years, I had been thinking about writing novels, but there was never any time. I wasn't getting any younger, so I left the consulting business and dedicated myself to becoming a novelist.

And I had an idea.

What if a great (fictional) software company lost an anti-trust lawsuit and was ripped apart by the DOJ? What if the leaders of this once-great company decided to have their revenge by building an intelligent, deadly software predator into their flagship software product? That's the premise of PeaceMaker, my first novel.

Having an idea is one thing, but writing a novel is a whole different issue. It's a marathon, especially for a first-time novelist. I lost count of the time I put into PeaceMaker, but I'm proud of the final product. When Winterwolf decided to publish it, I was thrilled. The critics reviewed it favorably, and the vast majority of readers enjoyed it as well.

My second novel, Unholy Domain, will be released in the spring by Kunati Publishing. Here's the concept: David Brown, a brilliant but troubled young man, was raised in the dark shadow of his long-dead father, a software genius who unleashed a computer virus that murdered thousands. When David receives a decade-old email that indicates his father may have been framed, he plunges into a gut-wrenching race with the real killers to discover the truth about his father … and himself.

I'm currently at work on my third novel, tentatively titled Tomorrows Children. The first draft is complete, but I have months of rewriting in front of me.

This section turned out to be longer than I planned, but I hope you found it interesting.

And there won't be a rewrite.