Hard Times

From Emmy Award-winning, Grammy-nominated performer Wayne Brady and acclaimed Afrofuturist Maurice Broaddus, a time-bending, near-future, sci-fi thriller about a father and son fighting to escape a prison beyond time—and the brutal legacy it represents—for readers of Chain Gang All-Stars and Octavia Butler’s Kindred.

Nazareth Anthony Scott the Second—divorced, former PI, and retired Marine—never saw eye-to-eye with his son, Jalen. Estranged, Jalen never measured up to his expectations, especially after getting kicked out of boot camp for mouthing off. And Jalen thinks Naz is nothing but a corporate cog, working as Head of Security at VesMet, a top-tier research and development firm.

But after a mysterious email from Jalen arrives containing his case against VesMet, followed by a frantic call from Jalen’s girlfriend that he’s gone missing in North Carolina, Naz knows that he must head south to find his son. But things aren’t what they seem in Maysville: Naz learns Jalen was part of a community protest against VesMet’s proposed AI data center, and he disappeared while investigating the whereabouts of several local Black men.

Meanwhile, Jalen wakes up on “The Farm,” not knowing how he got there. His life and those of the incarcerated are ruled by the heartless whip of warden and monitored by the red-eyed gaze of robotic guards. Jalen feels like he’s been trapped outside of time, defending himself from the cruelties of a prison seemingly drawn from history books and science fiction alike.

Meanwhile, Naz must fight to break out his son before he becomes lost forever. But soon each man learns that The Farm’s location lies beyond time itself. Somehow, father and son must find a way back to each other, but breaking out—or in—will test everything Naz and Jalen have ever known.

Adrenaline-charged and culturally timely, HARD TIMES takes on the history of incarceration in the United States, and sets it to a hip-hop beat, shaking up the idea of how past injustices permeate into our present—and how we can stop them from becoming a threat to all of our futures.