Stephen Smoke

Back Cover of the Novel

After briefly losing consciousness as the result of an automobile accident, Nick Sands feels lucky to be alive. A few hours later he’s not so sure.

Before the accident he was a successful San Francisco lawyer on his way to a deposition in Los Angeles. After the accident, he’s a 40-something faded rock star scheduled to headline a 90’s nostalgia concert later that week in LA. People know him in this alternate world as Nick Sands, the rock star. And while Nick remembers his “real” life in San Francisco, he also has all the memories of the rock star’s life.

Nick desperately wants to return to his life in San Francisco because his girlfriend is about to give birth to their first child. He doesn’t know where to turn for help without sounding like a lunatic.

During his bizarre odyssey in the alternate world, Nick meets people like Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, but they are not rock stars in the parallel world because they made different life choices. Nick is truly through the looking glass when he meets other eccentric characters, e.g., Rebecca, a psychiatrist—who also is a parapsychologist—specializing in “Parallel Reality Therapy”; and The Thin Man, a secretive tech genius and multi-billionaire who has devised a machine that projects virtual reality images created by the brain, simulating how the mind actually creates reality.

On his journey Nick receives assistance from many sources.

But nothing can prepare him for how that journey ends.

The novel Parallel will be released in the summer of 2025 along with a companion Music Album that will be available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and all other major music streaming platforms.

The novel and the album make up the “Parallel Project,” which is explained below.

The Story Behind the Parallel Project

About a year and a half ago I had a very discouraging thought. I’m not going to live forever. The thought had occurred to me before, but this time it was in the form of a stark reality that all the songs I had sitting on hard drives that I’d written and recorded over the years would simply wind up in a garbage dump somewhere.

Although my artistic career was spent mostly as a novelist and screenwriter, I originally came to Los Angeles to become a rock star. I think that when I crossed the California border, they were not letting in anyone who didn’t have a guitar in the backseat.

I had long ago accepted the fact that I was never going to become a rock star. And I was keenly aware that no one was waiting for the next Stephen Smoke album. I get that completely. What bothered me was that I had poured literally thousands of hours into these songs and there would be absolutely no chance that they would ever see the light of day.

I had recorded a couple of albums over the years, including “Trick of the Light,” that included an appearance by one of my heroes, Garth Hudson. He played keyboard (and other instruments) for The Band. Besides being Dylan’s backup band for a while, they recorded one of the Top Ten albums of all time: Music From Big Pink. It was a thrill to meet him and hear him play sax and accordion and sax on two of my songs (“Wild Child” and “Lemon Midnight”).

I knew that I could upload and “release” my songs on the streaming services, but in order to make myself self-sufficient now and moving forward, I would need to learn how to Mix and Master my own songs.

So, I decided to learn those skills. It took MUCH longer than I thought it would. I used YouTube instructional videos (see my Thank You Page), I joined groups dedicated to mixing and mastering, I hired a friend who, besides being an accomplished singer/songwriter in his own right, has more than 40 years of mixing and mastering experience for his own projects and hundreds of other artists. (Read More Here.)