“O’Keefe’s debut novel certainly serves up a unique blend of elements…a world made magical and strange, an ideal setting for such a strange tale.” —Booklist
Audiobook narration: Winner of the 2023 Voice Arts Awards (read by double Emmy winner Daniel Penz).
Published by BHC Press. Available from all major booksellers.
THE SPIRIT PHONE
A novel by Arthur Shattuck O’Keefe
“If we do persist upon the other side of the grave, then my apparatus, with its extraordinary delicacy, should one day give us proof of that persistence, and so of our own eternal life.”
—The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison Chapter VIII: “The Realms Beyond” (Omitted from subsequent editions)
It is August 1899, and Thomas Edison proclaims his most amazing invention yet: the Spirit Phone Model SP-1, a device to communicate with the dead. At nearly the same time, a cocksure young mage named Aleister Crowley inexplicably teleports into the Manhattan home of Edison’s archrival, renowned inventor Nikola Tesla.
As insanity and suicide multiply among spirit phone users, Crowley and Tesla combine their respective skills in “magick” and technology to investigate the strange device’s actual origin and ultimate purpose. Embarking upon an adventure of astral travel, demonic invocations, and high-speed airship journeys, they are soon embroiled in a desperate race to stop the spirit phone's use by an unknown adversary to inaugurate a hell on earth from which none shall escape.
Praise:
“A twisted, twisty and novel take on science, the supernatural and modern history. Surprising, engaging, thought-provoking and fun.”
—Ian R. MacLeod, author of R ed Snowe and winner of the World Fantasy, Sidewise, Locus, John W. Campbell, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards
“The Spirit Phone is a surreal time-warp of a story involving historical personages like Nikola Tesla, Thomas A. Edison, and Aleister Crowley in an imaginative debut novel by Arthur Shattuck O'Keefe, who marionettes his dramatis personae of famous characters with page-turning ease. Startlingly original and strangely engrossing, I kept thinking this is E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime on psychedelics. We are no doubt witness to a new talent in the speculative fiction genre, a writer who has a deep understanding of historical figures and events and knows the true meaning of creative fiction.”
—Rex Pickett, author of Sideways, basis for the Academy Award-winning screenplay
“If The X-Files had existed around the previous turn of the century, [episodes written by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells] might have resembled The Spirit Phone.”
—The Japan News
“[The plot is] filled with twists that are impossible to predict…there is nothing to do but enjoy the ride. The Spirit Phone is an inventive novel that’s moved by mysteries and magic.”
“The unlikely but exciting investigative duo [of Tesla and Crowley] are the perfect pair to involve in this who-done-it horror. O’Keefe’s novel is a historical look at the invention of the time. Filled with twists and turns, this thriller finds itself at the intersection of the scientific and the arcane.”
“This is a strong first novel and gripping read, with a neatly crafted plot that seamlessly blends weird technology and supernatural events. It’s well set up for both further adventures and a potential film adaptation. Watch this space!”
—Matthew Allen, screenwriter for the producers of such films as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Boondock Saints, and The Equalizer
“With his gripping, dreamlike debut novel The Spirit Phone, Arthur Shattuck O’Keefe establishes himself as an imaginative author of uncanny ability. Literary speculative fiction has long been overdue for a new writer to take a hammer to the form and make it better than it was. In creating a work that is part supernatural steampunk, part spellbinding alternate history, O’Keefe has done that and more.”
—David W. Brown, author of The Mission
“Thomas Edison once tried to invent an electrical device to communicate with the dead. In a freewheeling extrapolation from this fact, O’Keefe has conjured a fantastical and fascinating alternate history involving not only Edison, but Aleister Crowley, Nikola Tesla, Edgar Cayce, alchemist John Dee, architect Stanford White, and more. In this novel you will encounter mystery, suspense, adventure, whimsy, science, occultism, and teleportation through time and space, all in a very entertaining mix. I highly recommend The Spirit Phone for anyone who seeks a lively and intelligent read.”
—Bruce Boston, four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Dark Matters and The Guardener’s Tale
“O’Keefe’s The Spirit Phone is an intellectually adventurous, metaphysical, mysterious, magick-infused narrative. Sometimes non-linear, sometimes witty, the novel is populated with fascinating versions of Aleister Crowley, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. The plot is a demonic jigsaw that he masterfully drops in sizzling, sulfuric pieces, keeping the reader waiting for more revelations, until he presses that final answer into place.”
—Benjamin Kane Ethridge, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Black & Orange and Bottled Abyss
“For fans of alternative historical fiction, The Spirit Phone delivers. What a wild, entertaining romp, following Tesla, Edison, and Crowley through space and time. This tale unfolds with demonic glee.”
—Richard Thomas, author of Spontaneous Human Combustion and Bram Stoker / Shirley Jackson nominee
“This is a meeting of steampunk with 19th century esoterica, science with the occult. Prepare to be unsettled, challenged, and entertained.”
—P.C. Hodgell, Locus Award and Mythopoeic Fantasy Award-nominated author of The God Stalker Chronicles and The Chronicles of Kencyrath
“From the first page, O’Keefe hooks the reader with one hand and teleports them from Tibet to New York, to the astral plane and back, his speculative historical tale oscillating between turn of the century science and mysticism, all with the deft touch of a skilled alchemist.”
—Ben Adams, author or Relativity
“The Spirit Phone is an intellectual thrill ride. With relentless pacing and a once-in-a-generation premise, O'Keefe, through impeccable research, has brought Nikola Tesla and Aleister Crowley back to life just in time to battle a terrifying multi-dimensional entity. One read and you'll wonder, as Edison did: ‘Do we exist beyond the grave?’”
—Patrick Parr, author of The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age
“The Spirit Phone succeeds page by page, especially in the compelling interactions of two Victorian era geniuses, one of science and one of the occult. With relentlessly engaging dialogue and fantastic, gripping scenes, this book is a multifarious pleasure not to be missed.”
—Ryan Blacketter, author of Down in the River and Horses All Over Hell
“Both realistic and fantastic, this is an engrossing, complex, and compelling tale. The tension builds to an unexpected climax that layers threat upon threat, mystery upon mystery, detail upon detail, to make The Spirit Phone a thoroughly fascinating, fantasy-based story.”
—Michael Pronko, award-winning author of Azabu Gateway, Tokyo Zangyo, and Tokyo Traffic