Award-winning TV writer and SFF author

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Bio (100 words)

David Anaxagoras is creator of the multi-award-winning Amazon series Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street. His middle grade mystery adventure novel, The Tower (Recorded Books), debuts March 4, 2025. David’s short fiction has appeared in acclaimed publications such as Lightspeed Magazine and The Dread Machine. Prior to his writing career, he worked in early childhood education for over 20 years as a teacher and administrator. A graduate of UCLA’s MFA screenwriting program, he now writes full-time from his home in Texas, fueled by cold brew coffee and his collection of 80s vinyl. David is represented by Emily van Beek at Folio Jr. for fiction and Noah Jones at FWRD Management for film/TV. Discover more about David’s work and upcoming projects at davidanaxagoras.com, subscribe to his newsletter, or follow him on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/davidanaxagoras.com.

The Tower

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The Tower Details

  • Title: The Tower
  • Author: David Anaxagoras
  • Genre: Middle Grade, Mystery Adventure, Horror
  • Listening Length: 7 hours 42 minutes
  • ISBN: 9798892746618
  • Publication date: March 4, 2025
  • Format: Audiobook
  • Available: Amazon, Audible, B&N, Libro.fm, Apple Books, and wherever audiobooks are sold.

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About The Tower

Logline

When 12-year-old Kolby finds himself captive in the penthouse of a 75-story skyscraper with no memory of who he is or how he got there, he must work together with other young captives to unravel the mysteries of the tower before its ultimate, terrifying purpose can be fulfilled.

Synopsis

When 12-year-old Kolby wakes up on the polished concrete floor of an empty white room, he has no memory, no clothes, and no idea where he is. Kolby soon discovers he’s one of a dozen kids living in an extravagant penthouse atop the tallest tower in the city. Adults are nowhere to be found and, like Kolby, all the kids are missing their memories. The kids in the tower spend their time scaling the climbing wall, riding the winding waterslide into an Olympic-sized swimming pool, or playing video games on the 105-inch 8K video screen. A mysterious “manifesting room” magically provides food and rewards. They have virtually everything a kid could want.

Except a way out.

None of the kids show much concern for each other, let alone new arrival Kolby. That is, except for irrepressible Elías, who helps Kolby find his way around the penthouse and informs him of the tower’s “rules”. Elías seems eager for a friend, but Kolby isn’t interested. Haunted by fragments of memories he can’t quite make sense of and driven by the feeling that somewhere out there he has a family that loves him, Kolby just wants to escape the penthouse and go home.

Unfortunately, the only way to get out is by participating in the tower’s enigmatic game—a kind of scavenger hunt that takes place in the surrounding city. Players are chosen for teams by the tower’s apparent leader, Gen. Gen has been in the penthouse longer than anyone else can remember and she’s way past caring much about anything. Unlike Kolby, she has no desire to escape—who’s to say their previous life was better, anyway? But beneath her glib detachment, Gen harbors a secret—she knows more about the tower than she lets on, including the dark, inevitable truth about all their fates. It’s a burden that grows increasingly difficult for her to bear.

When game time arrives, it looks like Kolby has found his ticket out of the tower—but escape isn’t so simple. For one, people outside the tower don’t see the kids as they actually are. Kolby’s pleas for help are either ignored or he’s perceived as a threat. Even more troubling are the gaunts—menacing creatures who may once have been human and whose faces are slowly fading into a mask of featureless flesh. They shadow the kids at the periphery. Watching. Waiting. Stray from the game and they begin to close in…

Determined to escape, Kolby attempts to rally the other kids and work together to unravel the tower’s mysteries. But the closer he comes to answers, the more he suspects that the tower is using them all for its own sinister purpose.