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The Write Stuff – Monday, June 10 – Christopher Barili Interview

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Christopher Barili has been writing since his teenage years, and wrote his first full-length novel longhand before transcribing into type using an old IBM Selectric II typewriter. That novel—which shall never see the light of day again—won him literary student of the year in his high school graduating class. Chris continued to write through his undergraduate studies, but met with little publishing luck until he enrolled in Western Colorado University’s MFA program in Creative Writing. That’s where a crafty professor forced him to write a western short story, a genre he’d never written in before. That story, “Yellow,” became Chris’s first fiction sale, and was followed by a dozen more short fiction sales. With the appearance of his noir story “Eighteen and Two” in the inaugural print edition of Toe Six Magazine, Chris has now published fiction in all the major genres: fantasy, science fiction, romance, western, and crime.

Chris also became the first student out of Western’s MFA program to sell his thesis for publication. His supernatural romance novel, Smothered, came out (under pen name B.T. Clearwater) from Permuted Press in 2016, one of two stories selected to trailblaze Permuted’s supernatural romance lineup. WordFire Press will release Chris’s second novel, a contemporary fantasy called Shadow Blade (the first in a trilogy) on June 26th of this year. It’s available for pre-order through the link at the bottom of this post. He is currently working on Book Two in that series, as well as revising a Supernatural Romance novel, and writing at least one short story.

I asked him to describe Shadow Blade and he handed me this:

Ashai Larish is an assassin from the brutal Denari Lai order. Religious zealots, Denari Lai train from childhood, and are kept loyal through an addiction to the same magic that makes them unstoppable. They have become the main weapon for the tiny, theocratic nation of Nishi’iti. They kill from inside their targets’ inner circle, they never kill innocents, and in a hundred years, they’ve never failed.

Until now. Ashai just has to kill the tyrannical Pushtani King Abadas Damar and his daughter/heir, Markari. He infiltrates the king’s inner circle, putting him in the perfect place to strike. He wins over Abadas so completely, that the king gives him Makari’s hand in marriage. Only the venerable Captain Bauti of the Royal Guard, whose love for Makari is well-known in the palace, suspects Ashai of anything.

Except Ashai has fallen for Makari and cannot complete the hit. When a second Denari Lai strikes, Ashai finds himself fighting for Makari’s life instead of taking it. To make matters worse, the order cuts him off from his magic, leaving him weakened and in a kind of magical withdrawal. In order to be able to fight the second assassin, Ashai is forced to turn to “back alley magic,” pills and potions that provide a power similar to his, but at a significant price to the user.

Meanwhile, far north, in the Pushtani mines that border Nishi’iti, a slave named Pachat learns that his love, a hand-slave to Makari, has been killed. His grief ignites a rebellion, with him as the leader of the other miners. Urged on by Nishi’iti special forces, the rebellion sweeps across the borderlands, threatening to erupt into all-out war. Yet all Pachat wants is to avenge his beloved’s death, so he walks away from the rebellion to seek his lover’s killer.

As Pachat makes off for Dar Tallus, Ashai is forced to rely on the capitol city’s organized crime gang. Despite his best efforts to hide it, Makari discovers Ashai’s true identity, and suddenly, he finds himself without her love, without his faith, and without the Denari Lai. He is alone and at rock bottom.

Can Ashai kill the second assassin and win back Makari’s love? Will he regain his faith and restore his magic?

What do you want readers to know about your book?

That it is the first book in a trilogy, and I am writing Book Two right now. It began life as a stand-alone fantasy, but it turned out that the characters have a much longer story to tell than I thought.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

The idea for this book—which was my backup thesis for my MFA—came during a creative writing class taught by Michaela Roessner at Western State. She gave us an exercise where we had to look up a term or object or character typically seen in the genre we primarily write in. I ended up looking up where “assassin” came from. Turns out, the word originated in Arabic, and translates as “Hash eater.” There was an assassin’s order in old Syria or Iraq, lead by someone known as The Old Man in the Mountain. He kept his killers faithful by getting them hooked on Hashish, and telling them that their highs were actually glimpses into heaven. He further convinced them that only he could give them that insight. It created very loyal, very effective killers. That assignment idea turned into a novel idea, which became the backup outline for my MFA thesis. I ultimately went with a different choice for thesis to allow more time for world-building in Shadow Blade.

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

Because I have a bit more of a romantic element in my book, for one thing. Obviously, Ashai falls in love with Makari early in the novel, and that conflict continues throughout the series. Also, I don’t necessarily adhere to the medieval western Europe model for my world building.

What was your path to publication?

For this book, pitched it to an Editor from a major, Big Five house at Superstars Writing Seminars. He told me it had strong world building and interesting characters, but that he already had an assassin series. Didn’t want them to compete. So using his comments as kind of blurbs, I was ready to pitch to someone else when a friend suggested WordFire might like the book. They didn’t have an assassin series, so I emailed Kevin Anderson, who referred me to Dave Butler, his acquisitions editor. Dave said it would be a couple of weeks, but Kevin emailed my acceptance two days later.

What are you working on now?

I am writing Book Two in the Denari Lai Series, tentatively titled “Shadow Masks.” I’m also working on Book Three in my Hell’s Butcher novella series, and a short story.

What else have you written?

I have published a paranormal romance novel as B.T. Clearwater through Permuted Press. I have published short fiction in every genre except thriller. And I self-publish a novella weird western series known as the Hell’s Butcher Series.

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

I don’t submit myself for awards, because I’m not in it for that. I’d rather have readers.

Do you create an outline before you write? 

Yes, definitely, though not always the same way, and not always the whole thing at once. For novel-length works, I use either the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (BS2), with colored sticky notes on a white board, or the software program Contour. Either way, I usually only outline one act at a time. So I’ll outline act 1, write it, outline act 2, etc. This allows me to make adjustments on the fly. If my characters take a plot line in a direction I didn’t foresee, I don’t have to rewrite the whole outline. It’s easier to may course changes that way.

How do you overcome writer’s block?

Never had it. In my opinion, writer’s block comes from lack of preparation. It means you’re not READY to write that thing you’re trying to write. Either you don’t know your characters well enough, haven’t thought out the conflict enough, or just plain aren’t excited about the story. And I always have multiple writing projects going on, so if I’m not ready on one, or just don’t want to work on it, I can work on something else.

At this stage in your career, what is your greatest challenge?

I have Parkinson’s disease, which causes a set of unique problems, including difficulty typing at times, fatigue, and so on. It means I have to work extra hard to get a story written, sometimes just 500 words at a time. And it means I spend a lot of time doing things to fight the disease (like mountain biking and karate), and those take away from writing.

Tell us about your writing community.

We have an amazing writing community here, and my involvement in it goes back to the early 2000s, when I joined a writer’s critique group with John Stith, Barbara Nickless, Sasha Miller, and more. That group disbanded, though, and I didn’t find another until July of 2016, when I met Marie Whittaker, Tony “Christopher” Katava, and Kevin Ikenberry. I’d just gotten diagnosed and divorced, and was having trouble dealing with it all. Those guys took me in and got me involved with the community. And of course, both Marie and Barb encouraged me to try Superstars Writing Seminars, and that has become a huge support net for me.

Do you have another job outside of writing?

Yes, I work as an imagery intelligence analyst for the DoD.

Describe a typical day.

Up at 4 a.m., at work by 5:30. Work in a dark, windowless room for 8.5 hours, then either go mountain biking or go to the dojo. Squeeze in meals and time for my incredible girlfriend, and the day is used up.

Do you have any pet projects?

I self-publish a dark fantasy/weird western series of novellas called the “Hell’s Butcher Series,” and while I’ll never make back the money I spend publishing them, they have a small, cult following that eats them up, so I keep writing them.

What is your greatest life lesson?

Nobody makes it alone. Let people help you. ASK for help. That’s the only way sometimes. Don’t let pride keep you from doing it.

Thanks, Chris, for taking the time to share with us. Before I close with an excerpt from Shadow Blade, followed by your social and book buy links, I’d like to conclude with the traditional Lightning Round. In as few words as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: fighter.

The one thing I cannot do without is: My bike.

The one thing I would change about my life: I’d have spent more time with my kids, especially my youngest.

My biggest peeve is: Lazy people. If you don’t want to work hard, get out of the way for those of us who do.

The person I’m most satisfied with is: My girlfriend. She’s my twin flame.

Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

Don’t put off writing. Do it. Do it now. Waiting for tomorrow sucks because there’s always another tomorrow. Until there’s not.

Excerpt from Chapter One:

No one ever noticed Ashai. In his business, being noticed got you killed. So he kept his black hair trimmed just below the ears, flowing free in the style popular with Pushtani men. His nose had been broken once, but its jagged bend was not unusual among these men, who often tussled over matters of honor or family. He wore the long, tan robe of a cloth merchant, nothing more. Though he could afford them, he didn’t wear expensive perfumes, nor did he allow himself the luxury of fine jewelry. A simple leather band wrapped around his right wrist—a plain adornment for a plain man. He looked like the average Pushtani, blending in despite having only lived in Dar Tallus two years. No one here knew his true identity. No one knew his plan.

They wouldn’t until he spilled blood.

The sun hung low in the eastern sky, but already, Central Square baked in its heat. Summers here oppressed a man, body and spirit, the heat baking the trash piles and sewage in the streets until the stench assailed the senses like a foul army. When it rained it merely made the heat muggy, and brought out mosquitoes as big as Ashai’s fingers, and biting, yellow flies. Yes, with its squat two-story buildings, dark cobble stones, and throngs of people, Central Square acted like a frying pan, grilling up merchants, beggars, and nobles alike.

Ashai slipped through the crowd, angling and sidling at a steady pace, not slowing, despite the packed street. He passed within a finger-length of rich merchants, commoners, and soldiers smelling of sweat inside their bulky armor. The last would have gutted him had they known his true identity. But they marched past, blissfully ignorant.

It helped that he drew lightly on the tiny stream of power his God provided him, taking in its strength and portioning it out to his mind, body, and face. He saw events before the average man, as if time had slowed for Ashai, so he moved through the crowd like it stood still. His features shifted slightly with every step, making it impossible for any two people to describe him exactly the same. Even the deep brown of his eyes—the mark of a Nishi’iti—changed every other step: blue, then green, then gray. Never brown. Not here, where Nishi’itis were beaten on-sight. Never brown eyes.

Nishi’s power also improved his senses, feeding him bits of conversations, detecting scents only dogs could smell, keeping him alert for any sign of danger.

He stopped outside a spice shop, breathing in the aromas of cinnamon, crushed hot pepper, and Nishi’iti Snow Spice, which made his mouth water. Ashai had grown up on Nishi’iti streets much like these, only without the heat. Or the wealth.

But he lived here now, in the capital city of Pushtan. He no longer slept under bridges or wagons, but in a small flat atop his humble fabric shop. A shop he’d paid for himself, with money he’d earned as a cloth merchant. All part of an elaborate cover story, years in the making.  And that cover was so perfect, it was like it had been fated since his birth. Even his Nishi’iti name, “Azha’i,” made the transition to the Pushtani version simple.

Nishi always provided.

The crowd milled about like sheep, ringing the fountain in the center of the square. Waiting. For her.

These fools ignored their gods and worshipped a mortal woman. A woman marked to die.

Ashai studied the street entering the square from the north. Princess Makari would come from there for her weekly bout of helping the poor from the safety of her carriage, where the filthy masses couldn’t touch her. On occasion, she would step from her coach onto the broiling cobblestones and mingle with her people. Today would be one such day, if her patterns held.

He’d seen her many times, and always from afar, yet her beauty always stunned him. He almost regretted that he would kill her.

Almost.

Out of nowhere, the stench of rotting flesh hit him like a wall of refuse. He glanced to his right, following the odor. There, weaving through the crowd, was a bent, filthy man, with hair like a  wet mop and rags on his back. When his gaze met Ashai’s, his eyes flashed silver.

“Nishi strike him.” Ashai risked the Nishi’iti curse out loud to protect himself from the foul creature. Shiners were people who fell prey to back alley magic—potions or powders or spells that gave them a kind of contaminated power that mimicked Nishi’s gift. But once the corrupted magic sunk its teeth into a victim, it never let go. Most went mad and killed themselves. Survivors were marked with the glow in their eyes for all to see. Abominations.

The first time Ashai had seen a shiner, he’d left the man’s corpse on the snow-swept side of a Nishi’iti mountain.

Those who would like to follow Chris online can do so here:

Website:  www.authorchrisbarili.ink
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/authorcbarili/

Twitter:  @authorcbarili

You can order a copy of Shadow Blade here: https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Blade-Denari-Chris-Barili/dp/1614759812/

 

The Write Stuff – Monday, May 27 – Jeffrey J. Mariotte Interview

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Jeffrey J. Mariotte has written more than seventy novels, including original supernatural thrillers River Runs Red, Missing White Girl, and Cold Black Hearts, the horror epic, The Slab, which I am featuring this week, and the Stoker Award-nominated teen horror quartet, Dark Vengeance. Other works include the acclaimed thrillers Empty Rooms and The Devil’s Bait, and—with his wife and writing partner Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell—the science fiction thriller, 7 SYKOS and Mafia III: Plain of Jars, the authorized prequel to the hit video game, as well as numerous shorter works. He has also written novels set in the worlds of Star Trek, CSI, NCIS, Narcos, Deadlands, 30 Days of Night, Spider-Man, Conan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and more.

He is also the author of many comic books and graphic novels, including the original Western series Desperadoes. Other comics work includes the horror series Fade to Black, action-adventure series  Garrison, and the original graphic novel Zombie Cop.

He is a member of the International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, the Western Writers of America, and the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. He has worked in virtually every aspect of the book businesses, as a bookseller, VP of Marketing for Image Comics/WildStorm, Senior Editor for DC Comics/WildStorm, and the first Editor-in-Chief for IDW Publishing. When he’s not writing, reading, or editing something, he’s probably out enjoying the desert landscape around the Arizona home he shares with his family and dog and cat.

Amazon describes The Slab as follows:

A skull in a fire pit.

A man who can’t remember his murders.

A woman snatched off the street, then set free only to be hunted down like an animal—until she becomes the hunter.

When these threads wind together, the result is unstoppable suspense and unforgettable horror. In the grim days following 9/11, three veterans of different wars are drawn together in one of the most remote, forbidding areas of the California desert. As serial killers ply their deadly trade and an ancient evil grows beneath desert sands, these three must discover the terrifying bond they share and learn to harness its power–before the darkness spreads and the world they know is gone forever.

Written in powerful prose as dangerous as its desert setting, The Slab is a true epic of horror and dark suspense.

What do you want readers to know about your book?

The Slab is a multi-character horror epic, loaded with surprising twists and turns and harrowing suspense.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

The Slab was my first original novel, after I wrote several tie-in books. I’d started it in early 2001, and then September 11 happened and I had to put it aside for a long time. When I took it up again, the world was a different place, and my novel was a different book. That time was awkward and confusing and sad and horrific, and that’s all reflected in the book. But when I recently re-edited and rewrote some of it for this author’s-preferred edition, I discovered that in many ways it’s as relevant now as it ever was.

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

I’ve been in the book business for more than 30 years, as a bookseller, bookstore manager, and bookstore owner, as an author, and as a publisher. Before, during, and since, I’ve also been a fan, and am widely read in multiple genres. I’ve also written in many different genres, because I love them all. So I’m not one of those horror writers who only writes horror—I write suspense, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, westerns, historical, superheroes, and occasional nonfiction. And I bring elements of all those different genres into everything I write. Blending genres in new and surprising ways is one of my favorite hobbies.

What was your path to publication?

Everybody’s path to publication is a little bit different, and I don’t think anybody can replicate mine exactly. My first professional sale was to a widely praised, influential anthology called Full Spectrum. The editor was someone I’d become acquainted with through my bookstore work, and when I saw that he was buying for a new book, I sent in a story. He said he was happy to find out that it didn’t suck, because that’s always a concern when an editor looks at a story from a friend he’s never read before. He bought it, suggested a couple of minor changes, and that became my first story. Years later, the regional bookstore chain I worked for shut down its southern California stores, and as I was in the process of putting together my own specialty store, my former assistant manager’s husband reached out to ask me if I’d write some trading card backs for him. He was Jim Lee, an artist who had left Marvel Comics to become one of the original founders of Image Comics. He had a growing business, and after that first set of trading cards, he had me write a few other things, then eventually brought me onto the staff. I became the company’s VP of Marketing, and when we sold the company to DC Comics, I became an editor there. But meanwhile, I was also writing comics, and I was asked by my friend Christopher Golden to collaborate on a novel about one of our superhero teams, Gen13. That became my first novel, 20 years ago this year. Then Chris introduced me to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer editor, and I wrote a Buffy novelization, then a bunch of Angel novels, and things just kind of took off from there.

What are you working on now?

I have a procedural thriller that I’m shopping, and am exploring various other projects, but haven’t decided yet which one I want to take all the way.

What else have you written?

So, so much. I’ve had seventy-some published novels, a couple dozen short stories, and about 175 comic books and graphic novels. I’ve written or contributed to five or six nonfiction books, written a CSI DVD game, and all sorts of other weird side projects. I’ve been a working novelist for 20 years, having published at least one and often several novels in each of those years.

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

I’ve won two Scribe Awards from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, and my most recent book, Narcos: The Jaguar’s Claw, is also a nominee. I’ve also been nominated for Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Awards in the horror field, the Spur Award in the western arena, and the Glyph award in comics. True West Magazine picked Desperadoes as the best western comic of the year, a few years back. And Comic-Con International: San Diego honored me with an Inkpot Award for my “contributions to the field of science fiction and fantasy.”

Do you create an outline before you write?

I usually work from an outline, though not always. In the world of tie-in fiction, a solid, thorough outline is a necessity, because it has to be approved by the licensor before I can start the book. And once it is approved, if I want to vary much from it, I’d better have a convincing reason. That experience taught me the value of a good outline. I use it as a roadmap—I need to get from my starting point to the final destination. I know what that destination is, and I know basically the route I’ll take to get there, including some of the high points along the way. While I’m traveling, if I see a sign directing me toward the world’s largest ball of string, I can go over there and check it out—because who doesn’t want to see that?—knowing that I can get back on the right path, because my map is solid. That said, sometimes I just like to dive in and see where a story takes me. I did not use an outline on The Slab, for instance, even though it has a lot of characters and different plotlines weaving in and out of each other.

At this stage in your career, what is your greatest challenge?

I’ve accomplished much of what I set out to do in my career—told lots of great stories, touched people’s lives in innumerable ways, and made many fast friends. What I haven’t had is a major breakout success. I’m not complaining—I’ve been published by all the Big 5 publishers, made plenty of money from my books, and have a loyal readership. But it’s a small one. In part, I blame my unwillingness to stick to a single genre, but that’s what I have to do to be true to myself. So my challenge, 70-some books in, is that my audience isn’t big enough to excite the ever-dwindling number of major publishing houses. My response to that challenge is to focus my efforts on smaller houses, like WordFire—places where the old ethos of publishing holds true, where I can be published by people who get what I’m doing and respect it. That’s why I brought The Slab to WordFire Press. They’re putting out five of my favorite novels this year, in celebration of my 20th year as a working novelist. And the editions they’re releasing are not only stunning to behold, but each one has been revised and re-edited to be as good as I can possibly make it.

Tell us about your thoughts on collaboration.

I’ve collaborated with many different writers, from my first novel throughout my career. And because I’m not an artist, every comic book of graphic novel I’ve written has been a collaboration. My favorite collaborator is my wife, Marsheila Rockwell, because she’s a fantastic writer and poet and we really enhance one another’s work. My theory on any collaboration is that the finished product should be something neither of us could possibly have done alone. My collaborator and I have different life experiences, different backgrounds, different hopes and fears and joys and regrets, so we’ll each bring a unique sensibility to the project.

What motivates or inspires you?

I find inspiration in countless ways throughout the day. I pay attention to the news—I subscribe to three different newspapers—and of course am bombarded by more through the internet and social media. I see people struggling, close to home and around the world, and I want to offer them some kind of hope, some bright spot in their day. I think I’m ultimately an optimist—maybe an optimistic realist, or a realistic optimist—and through my books and stories, I try to tell stories in which magic is real, in which hope is an option, and in which decency triumphs. It doesn’t seem like that is always true in real life, but it should be.

Do you have any pet projects?

Although I’ve worked on—at last count—37 different tie-in properties over the course of my career, one character I’ve never tackled, although I’d love to, is Batman. Specifically, I’d like to novelize the Daughter of the Demon storyline that introduced Ra’s Al Ghul to the world. That’s my favorite Batman story arc of all time, and I’d drop everything else to do it if the opportunity arose.

What is your greatest life lesson?

Don’t be a jerk. Really, that shouldn’t be that hard. If you’re not a jerk, if you treat people with honesty and respect, life can be pretty fulfilling.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Oh, it’s a long, long list. Spending decades selling books will do that to you. If you could see my book collection, you’d understand. Just to name a small handful: Marsheila Rockwell, Wallace Stegner, William Goldman, Stephen King, Laura Lippman, James Lee Burke, Don Winslow, Greg Iles, Joan Vinge, Graham Greene, Sue Grafton, Samuel R. Delany, John Connolly…want me to go on? Because I can…

Thank you Jeffrey for taking the time to share with us. I’d like you to know that a couple of your responses made me smile, and that isn’t always the case. Before I present an excerpt from The Slab, as well as links to where visitors can purchase it and follow you online, I’d like to conclude with a Lightning Round. In as few words as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: Chocolate chip cookie snob.

The one thing I cannot do without is: Iced tea.

The one thing I would change about my life: More time and money for travel.

My biggest peeve is: People who don’t understand simple grammar. Your/you’re, their/they’re/there, etc.

The person/thing I’m most satisfied with is: Probably a cliché, but my wife is my best friend, writing partner, and ideal reader. Doesn’t get better than that.

Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

Did I mention “Don’t be a jerk?” Because that’s really key. Also, you’ll be a better person if you read my books. More attractive to the gender of your choice, and probably wealthier and more satisfied with life. So there it is: forego jerkiness and read my books. Life can be great.

 

Excerpt:

 

Lucy nodded her understanding, shoveling in her last forkful of eggs. She ate fast, not knowing if they might at any moment decide she’d had enough time. She didn’t want to upset her stomach but she figured she would need the fuel. When she had downed the last of the coffee, she realized she still had the fork in her hand.

“Can I keep this?” she asked.

“A fork?” the guayabera man asked with a chuckle. Today he wore a military-style olive drab T‑shirt and camouflage pants, though, as did all the others, so she knew she’d have to come up with a different name for him. She noticed they’d been careful not to use their names in front of her. She took that as a positive sign—maybe they intended to let her live, after all. “You want to keep a fork?”

“You guys have the guns, so it seems only fair,” she said.

“Sure, darlin’” the curly guy said. He was definitely the decision-maker of the bunch, and the first one she’d plunge the fork into if she ever got the chance. “You can keep the fork. Enjoy it. You need to use the can before you get going?”

“Yes, please,” Lucy said, willing to delay the start any way she could. A few minutes sitting around in the shade while they stood outside in the sun, getting more and more anxious and disturbed—she would take that. She knew it wasn’t much of an advantage—it wouldn’t compensate, for instance, for the fact that her wedge sandals were just about impossible to run in. But it was something, and she had decided during the night that she would cling to any positives she could. Negative thinking was just going to get her dead.

When she got inside the outhouse, she realized, too late, that she should have asked for water instead of coffee for breakfast. Water would do her more good and stay with her longer. But it wasn’t like they’d offered her the choice—the coffee had just been put in front of her. If she hadn’t accepted it, she might well have gone thirsty.

Once again, she sat inside until they banged on the walls and insisted she come out. When she emerged, she was still cool, but the two guys who had escorted her out had already sweated through their T-shirts.

“Let’s go, bitch,” one of them snarled. He was the one with the drooping mustache that made him look perpetually miserable. Probably he is, she thought, or why would he participate in something like this?

She just gave him a smile. “Show some respect,” she said. “You don’t own me yet. Maybe you never will.”

“Oh, we own you, bitch,” he said. “Just like you were bought and paid for. You just don’t know it yet.”

“We’ll see.” Lucy said, trying to maintain a pleasant demeanor. It was fun to see how much it pissed this guy off when she was nice to him.

The other escort, the muscular one with the ponytail, seemed to understand her psychological warfare, though, because he grabbed the mustached guy’s arm. “Let it go,” he said. “She’ll find out soon enough.”

“There’s thirteen graves around here full of bitches didn’t think we owned them either,” the mustached guy said, ignoring his friend’s advice.

“Shut up, man,” the ponytailed guy said. “You too,” he said, directed at Lucy. “You just keep quiet.”

She nodded and smiled as they walked her back to the house.

The other men were scattered around the couches and chairs of the cabin’s main room, looking like they were ready to get going. “You know the rules,” the curly guy said. “You get away, you get away. You don’t, you’re ours. You get a twenty-minute head start. Any questions? Too bad. It’s really very simple.”

She had questions, but none that she would bother to ask. What the mustached one had let slip answered the most important one. If they brought her back here, not only would they use her but then they’d kill her. So she wasn’t coming back to this cabin, ever. Curly was right. It was very simple.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Nobody’s stopping you. Clock starts now.”

Lucy turned without a second look back and ran out the door. As soon as she was outside, she took off the sandals and looped them over her wrists. It would hurt to run on the bare dirt and rocks, but she’d make far better time barefoot. At the same time, she didn’t want to let go of the sandals, because they might come in handy later on.

She still had the fork, tucked into the rear pocket of her jeans.

Bare feet slapping the hot stones and fallen twigs and raw earth, Lucia Alvarez ran for her life.

You can follow Jeffrey J. Mariotte here:

Website: www.jeffmariotte.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JeffreyJMariotte

Twitter: @JeffMariotte

You can purchase The Slab here:

The Write Stuff – Monday, April 29 – Paul Di Filippo Interview

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Born in 1954 in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Paul Di Filippo has never felt the urge to leave behind his native land. He grew up mainly in two towns, North Providence and Lincoln. At the time, both afforded plenty of open land across which he could stage imaginary battles, odysseys and expeditions. He encountered “adult” science fiction in 1965, with Raymond Jones’sThe Year When Stardust Fell. Soon, he was reading a book a day—although it must be stated they were slimmer back then.

He discovered fandom in 1973 by attending his first convention, Torcon II. He went to Rhode Island College from 1974 through 1978, with a 4.0 GPA, yet dropped out short of his diploma. There in 1976 he met Deborah Newton, his life partner ever since.

He landed a job as a COBOL programmer in 1979, at which he remained until 1982, when his long-simmering desire to become a professional writer could no longer be denied. Leaving his secure income and adopting Ray Bradbury’s advice to write a story a week, he did so for a year or more without any offers. Then he began to click, landing two near-simultaneous sales: “Stone Lives” at F&SF and “Rescuing Andy” at Twilight Zone.

In the subsequent three decades he’s amassed over 200 short fiction sales, and accumulated them, plus his novels, into over forty books. His latest novel, still looking for a home, is titled The Summer Thieves, and is his tribute to Jack Vance. Meanwhile, his second crime novel, The Deadly Kiss-Off, is on the shelves of finer stores everywhere.

Today, we’ll be discussing his latest release, Infinite Fantastika, a collection of short stories that WordFire Press released on September 30th, 2018.

What do you want readers to know about your book?

I was lucky enough to have three books come out in the space of just six months. My first, Infinite Fantastika, is my latest collection of short stories, a nice variety of the myriad forms I work in. The second was Aeota, a novella that combines Philip K. Dick with Thomas Pynchon for some deep weirdness. The third is my second crime novel, The Deadly Kiss-Off, featuring my two scam-artist antiheroes. And with any luck, WordFire will release Plumage From Pegasus: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Collection in 2019. That’s the latest round-up of my humor columns, most of which appear in F&SF.

Is there common a story behind them?

There’s no real anecdotes about the composition of any of these books, alas. Except perhaps that I always intended Aeota to be a novel, but eventually realized I could say everything I wanted to at shorter length. That’s good, because every writer only has so many years to write, and if you can accomplish your goals at shorter lengths, you can write more in your allotted days!

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

I feel that my stories and novels span a much broader spectrum than those of my peers. Most of my fellow writers find a niche and stick to it. I like to bop around all over the map, mainly to keep my own curiosity alive. Also, I cannot be unrelievedly tragic. Despite the current condition of the world, I remain an optimist about the future.

What was your path to publication?

I followed what used to be the archetypical path. Start selling short stories, then move to novel-length work. Of course, nowadays, people often jump straight to book publication. But for myself, it was the classic route. After a couple of years of rejection, I sold my first two stories almost simultaneously. One to Ed Ferman at F&SF, and one to Ted Klein at Twilight Zone Magazine. That was a rush which all the subsequent sales could not equal.

What are you working on now?

I am composing my third crime novel, The Mezcal Crack-Up. The title and subject matter allow me to sample lots of booze under the guise of “research.” I don’t know if these characters have enough allure left for a fourth outing, but we’ll see when I reach the end of the third.

What else have you written?

I have over forty books available, a little of everything. And I continue to do a lot of review work. But the strangest stuff I ever did was articles on the drug industry for a magazine called Contract Pharma, when my pal Gil Roth was editor there. Despite lack of formal journalistic training, I think I did a pretty good job.

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

Although often nominated, I seldom win. When I did take home a trophy from the British SF Association, they misspelled my name on the base of the award. Awards are overrated, IMHO.

What is your writing routine?

I try to get going before noon, after fooling around on the internet and doing paperwork, etc. Then I write until four or six PM, until I hit my quota of prose, from 500 to 2000 words, whatever I feel is mandated by the project at hand.

Do you create an outline before you write? 

My outlines are very sketchy at best. I believe in letting the story develop organically, and trying to surprise myself.

How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?

I used to be more of a pure idea man, with less focus on the human emotions at play. Now I think my stories are better balanced between intellectual conceits and the lives of the characters.

At this stage in your career, what is your greatest challenge?

Earning enough money not to die in the gutter!

Do you have another job outside of writing?

My last day job was about 15-20 years ago, when I was a clerk at Brown University Bookstore. If I didn’t feel a compulsion to write, working in a bookstore would be my ideal job.

Would you care to share something about your home life?

My mate Deborah and I have three “clubs.” At the breakfast table, we have a “read-aloud” club, where we work our way through a non-fiction book a few pages at a time. In the late afternoon when work is done, we have the “music club,” where we try to listen to one new CD every day. And finally, in the final hours before bedtime, we have the “movie club,” where we try to watch something of variable length, depending on how tired we are. So one night, it could be a six-minute cartoon, then sleep! Another night it could be a three-hour movie!

How do you pick yourself up in the face of adversity?

For many years Deborah and I attended weekly sitting practice at a local zen monastery. Learning the rudiments of Buddhism, how to work with your anxious “monkey mind” was invaluable in dealing with life’s tragedies and obstacles.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

I am enormously indebted to all the Golden Age and Silver Age authors who formed my sensibilities, people like Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Simak, Anderson, Silverberg, Aldiss, Moorcock, Dick, Ballard, Norton—this list goes on and on. I owe them everything. Now, when I am at a convention, and someone tells me I was an influence on them, I feel a) very old and b) enormously gratified!

Paul, thank you for taking the time to share with us. Before I provide our visitors with a sample story from Infinite Fantastika, as well as book buy and social links, I’d like to conclude with a Lightning Round. In as few words as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: complete and utter joker.

The one thing I cannot do without is: coffee!

The one thing I would change about my life: I’d cure my back problems that derive from forty years of sitting down too long each day!

My biggest peeve is: writers whose egos are more magnificent than their prose.

The thing I’m most satisfied with is: the infinite capacity of nature to astonish us.

Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

I would encourage readers and writers of SF to remember that authors are not politicians, gurus, activists or rebels, but simply entertainers and artists. The work is its own justification and reward.

 

“Domotica Berserker!”

Here’s what a Mortenson Domotica house printer looks like.

Maybe you’ve seen an hydraulic gantry crane at a shipyard? A quartet of enormous vertical wheeled legs form the corner posts of an open rectangular framework. The legs are connected at their tops by four beams at right angles to those they touch. The crane can position itself over an object, send down its grapple from its cross beams, lift any cargo that fits within its footprint, and wheel it into a new location.

Well, there’s no hook for lifting in the house printer; the four horizontal cross beams—actually there are sometimes six or more girders—contain the myriad printheads, and the beams themselves move vertically up and down the leg framework, from ground level to two or three stories high, depositing the hotmelt plastic according to the instructions in the house printer’s brain. Add in a giant hopper holding the raw materials, and you’ve got the whole mechanism. Oh, yes, the beams and printheads can also adjust their relations to each other along many axes, assuming many different configurations, coming closer together or moving further apart.

A single Morentson Domotica Model 2040-X can build a one-thousand-square foot multi-story residence with all wiring, plumbing and HVAC installed in roughly twenty-four hours. They’re like house-laying hens, dropping a building and moving on.

My name is Steve Benchman, and I was in charge, during the seven-to-three day shift, of a flock of ten of these giant machines. My co-workers on the other shifts were Gloribell Shoop and Santiago Cruz, good and competent domotica techs, if not quite as talented as yours truly. Our assignment was to construct a new residential development of five hundred homes on two hundred acres of long-fallow land within the city limits of Detroit, a development that would house some of the many climate-change refugees arriving in the USA every day. The acreage had been cleared and turned into parkland thirty years ago, in the second decade of the century. But now it was needed for habitations again.

We three were the only humans on the project. The house printers ran themselves, as did the steady stream of self-driving trucks that resupplied the hoppers with fresh hotmelt plastic. About all I had to do was to patrol the construction site, keeping any curious tresspassers at a safe remove, and admire the machines as they worked. Oh, yes, I did have to install new dyepacks when the old cartridges sent a signal that they had run out. The design for the development involved a rainbow’s worth of colors, to make each identically shaped house unique. The floorplans could have been easily made unique as well, but the politicians had decided that each refugee family should get a dwelling identical to all the rest, so as not to encourage jealousy or bickering.

Watching the ten machines move at a snail’s pace across the open tract, depositing their houses precisely atop the pre-laid slabs arrayed on the new street grid above the buried infrastructure of sewers and gas pipes and electric cables, I felt inordinately proud, like the father of an industrious brood of giant workers. Sometimes I would climb the ladder on the side of a Domotica and ride up high in the failsafe control cab, admiring the view of rising walls below me, which heightened visibly as I watched, under the deposition of the dancing printheads. At such times, I felt like Tarzan guiding a herd of very slow tame elephants across the veldt.

One morning I showed up fifteen minutes ahead of my shift to take over from Gloribell, and found her extremely agitated. She grabbed my arm and said, “Look, in the dark—the colors went crazy!”

The entire worksite is not floodlit at night, just the faroff perimeter fence. The machines didn’t need to see. So Gloribell had not noticed that the exterior walls of her ten new buildings had been mis-painted. (The dyes were actually integral with the walls, of course.) Instead of the tasteful suburban color schemes, the buildings sported camouflage and circus stripes, checks and plaids, blots and splatters in eye-wrenching combinations.

I knew instantly what the trouble was. Ten machines could not have malfunctioned simultaneously. “We’ve been hacked.”

Sure enough, we later learned, the firewalls of the Domotica brains had been breached by a virus engineered by the Anti-Tickytacky League, guerilla architects.

But the next instant rendered any of my speculations about the sabotage moot.

The Domotica units all began to print the simplified forms of mini-cathedrals at an accelerated speed that would destroy the printheads before too long. Polychromatic buttresses and gargoyles began to sprout in crazy confusion.

“Call for help!” I shouted to Gloribell, then sprang for the nearest ladder.

In the high control cab I overrode the programming and shut the machine down. I leaped off the ladder when I was ten feet above the ground and raced to the next machine.

By the time I had climbed atop the third, I could hear sirens approaching.

But in the fifth cab things took a turn for the worse.

The remaining active Domoticas suddenly raced off in every direction, their churning wheels gouging the turf. I guessed we were only going twenty miles per hour, but in a machine that gigantic it felt like one hundred.

The printheads continued to spew undifferentiated streamers of hotmelt at prodigious rates far beyond the manufacturer specs.

After picking myself up, bruised and out of breath, from where I had been thrown by the sudden acceleration, I managed to stop the one I was riding.

But the other five were causing some serious trouble. One of the newly arrived police cars was covered in bright green plastic, as were several of the cops themselves.

The rampaging house printers were only stopped by a SWAT team shooting out their wheels. But not before one had breached the perimeter fence and coated two miles of Detroit streets in pink goop.

Millions of dollars and much adverse publicity later, though, the project was back on track. But each security-reinforced Domotica was now staffed by a human round the clock.

And if any of the techs were ever tempted to add a flourish to the plans, they were prevented by a smart guard dog stationed in the cab and ready to bite at the first sign of creativity.

If you’d like to follow Paul online, you can do it here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.d.filippo

You can purchase a copy of Infinite Fantastika here: https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Fantastika-Paul-Filippo/dp/1614756945/

The Write Stuff – Monday, March 18 – Keith DeCandido Interview

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The first thing you should know about this week’s guest author, Keith DeCandido—for the uninitiated, his surname is pronounced DeCANdido… so alright, this is the second thing—his books are fun. The third thing you should know: so is Keith.

Keith R.A. DeCandido is the author of more than fifty novels, as well as a ton of short fiction, comic books, and nonfiction in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and superhero genres. Some of it is in one of the thirty-plus licensed universes he’s worked in, from Alien to Zorro; others are in worlds of his own creation, taking place in the fictional cities of Cliff’s End and Super City or in the somewhat real locales of New York and Key West.

I’m breaking form in this interview. While I usually focus on one book and one book alone, today I’m featuring two: Mermaid Precinct and A Furnace Sealed.

Mermaid Precinct is the fifth novel in my high fantasy/police procedure series—kind of Law & Order meets Lord of the Rings. The setting is a medieval-style city-state with humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and wizards all living side by side, but the main characters are detectives who solve crimes named Danthres Tresyllione and Torin ban Wyvald. This novel features the death of the legendary Pirate Queen, a high-profile murder that has unexpected repercussions that extend all the way to the king and queen.

A Furnace Sealed is an urban fantasy set in New York City, the first in a new series featuring Bram Gold. Bram is a Courser, a for-hire hunter of monsters and supernatural creatures—if you need a unicorn wrangled, a dangerous ritual stopped, or a bunch of werewolves kept in line, Bram’s the person for you. Immortals keep turning up dead, and binding spells become unraveled all over town. Bram must find the links between these events before it leads to the destruction of the city.

What do you want readers to know about your books?

A Furnace Sealed was inspired by working for two years in the Bronx for the U.S. Census Bureau. It got me to explore parts of my home borough I hadn’t been to before, and also got me thinking a lot about the history of one of NYC’s forgotten parts, where I’ve lived most of my life. Mermaid Precinct is the first “Precinct” book in five years, and I’m jumping the timeline ahead a year. Among other things, that time jump will establish two new precincts in Cliff’s End, Manticore Precinct and Phoenix Precinct, which gives me two more novel titles to use…

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind them?

Mermaid Precinct is simply the next book in the series, and one that enables me to do a pirate story for the first time in my career. A Furnace Sealed grew out of a desire to do a New York City story that deals with a part of the city other than Manhattan south of 125th Street, which is usually all anyone thinks of when they imagine the Big Apple. The Bronx is particularly underrepresented in fiction.

What was your path to publication?

Unique. I was working as an editor for the late Byron Preiss, a book packager. We were putting together a Spider-Man anthology in 1994, and we had the thing mostly filled, but we needed a Venom story for two reasons: 1) It was 1994, and Venom was by far the most popular member of Spidey’s rogues gallery at the time and 2) Venom was on the cover of the book. We had sent six different proposals to Marvel, which were all rejected. Finally, we asked Marvel for a premise—they gave us a one-sentence pitch. We were past the eleventh hour at this point, so my co-editor, John Gregory Betancourt, and I wrote a story based on that premise. And that’s how I got my first short story sale, in the most non-replicable manner possible…

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a short story set in the “Precinct” universe for an anthology called Release the Virgins! After that, I’m collaborating on a novel with David Sherman, and I’ve also got a game tie-in to write—can’t say what game yet, as it hasn’t been announced. And there are more “Precinct” and Bram Gold books to write…

What else have you written?

A ton of stuff. As I said, I’ve written more than fifty novels and about a hundred pieces of short fiction, plus all the comics and nonfiction. Recent and upcoming work includes the Alien novel Isolation, which will be out from Titan in January 2019; the prose trilogy Marvel’s Tales of Asgard, novels featuring Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three; the Orphan Black coffee-table book Classified Clone Report; short stories in Aliens: Bug Hunt, Altered States of the Union, Baker Street Irregulars, Joe Ledger: Unstoppable, Limbus Inc. Book III, Mine!: A Celebration of Freedom and Liberty for All Benefitting Planned Parenthood, Nights of the Living Dead, They Keep Killing Glenn, TV Gods: Summer Programming, The X-Files: Trust No One, and two of the V-Wars anthologies; and nonfiction for Tor.com, kOZMIC Press, ATB Publishing, and my Patreon.

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

Just this past year, I received a Best Short Story Award from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers for “Ganbatte,” my story in the Joe Ledger: Unstoppable anthology. The IAMTW also favored me with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009, which is handy, as it means I never need to achieve anything ever again.

What is your writing routine?

BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! “Routine.” That’s funny…

Do you create an outline before you write?

Always. I started out doing tie-in work, and an outline is required for licensed fiction, as the plot has to be approved by the copyright-holder before you can write a single word. That habit has carried over into my other fiction, as I find it’s much easier and smoother to write the book if I already know the plot.

Why do you write?

I can’t possibly not write. I’ve been doing it since I was six, I can’t imagine any circumstance under which I would stop. (Actually, I can imagine a few, but they’re all really awful, so I don’t particularly want to dwell on them.)

How do you overcome writer’s block?

I remind myself that I have this eating habit I can’t kick, and my landlord insists we pay the rent once a month whether they need it or not…

What life experiences inspire or enrich your work?

All of them. Seriously, inspiration for writing comes from all around me. There are no life experiences that don’t inspire and enrich my work.

Do you have another job outside of writing?

I’m a full-time freelancer, so I have lots of jobs. I write, I edit, I teach martial arts to kids, and I do any number of other things as long as they pay me.

Describe a typical day.

Not really possible, as no days are typical. That’s why I love being a freelancer.

Would you care to share something about your home life?

My wife is also a full-time freelancer, so we’re both home together a lot. We’ve been living together like this for eight years now and—excepting an eighteen-month period when she had a contract job out of the house—that’s been our normal. We’ve been living together most of every day for all this time and haven’t killed each other, so it must be true love. It helps that we also have really affectionate cats.

How do you pick yourself up in the face of adversity?

A friend of mine, Marco Palmieri, once said, “Pessimism is a misuse of imagination.” I love that phrase. I prefer to be optimistic and happy, as being sad is depressing and being happy tends to have a cascade effect on other people. Better to smile at someone than frown at them. I’m lucky in that I don’t have any problems that prevent this from happening—I’m fully aware that depression is an issue for many, and I’m fortunate not to suffer from it, as it’s debilitating. I choose to be happy because that makes life better.

What is your greatest life lesson?

It’s not worth getting worked up about the opinions of people whose opinions you don’t respect.

Thanks, Keith, for sharing your thoughts with us. Before I present an excerpt from A Furnace Sealed, followed by links where readers can follow you online and purchase your books, I’d like to conclude with a Lightning Round. In as few word as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: Muppet.

The one thing I cannot do without is: coffee.

The one thing I would change about my life: I’d have more money.

My biggest peeve is: that I don’t have more money.

The thing I’m most satisfied with is: my homemade tomato sauce.

Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

I am firmly against the entire notion of the “guilty pleasure.” If something gives you pleasure, and nobody is getting hurt as a result of your enjoyment, then you shouldn’t feel even a little bit guilty about it. Everybody likes something and nobody likes everything, and it’s stupid to feel guilty about liking something even if lots of other people don’t.

 

Excerpt:

Downstairs was Ahondjon’s magick shop. The man himself wasn’t in—his nephew Medawe was, and he was talking on the cordless phone.

He waved at me as I came down the metal stairs. The place was dank, lit only by crummy fluorescent lights, since there weren’t any windows.

“Nah, he ain’t here,” Medawe was saying. Unlike his uncle, he was born in the Bronx, so he didn’t have Ahondjon’s thick west African accent. “It’s Sunday, he’s in church. … Nah, I ain’t telling you what church. … What, you telling me you found Jesus now? Bullshit. Just gimme the message, I’ll let him know when he gets back. … I don’t know when, I ain’t found no Jesus, neither. ’Sides, you know how he likes talking to folks. Could be hours. … Yeah, well, fuck you too.”

Shaking his head, Medawe pressed the end button on the phone.

“Another satisfied customer?”

Medawe snorted. “Yeah, somethin’ like that. What’cha need, Gold?”

“I need to talk to Ahondjon. He really in church?”

“Hell, no. Only time his ass goes into a church is to deliver their holy water.”

I blinked. “Wait, churches buy holy water from him?”

“They do if they want the shit that works.”

“Well, I hope his holy water smells better than his talisman to stop a unicorn.”

Medawe frowned. “What, it didn’t work?”

I smiled. “It worked fine.” Then I remembered how Siri described it. “When I activated it, it smelled like a moose fucking a dead octopus.”

“Yeah, well, you want shit that works, it’s gonna stink.”

I thought about reminding Medawe about what Velez had said, then decided it wasn’t worth it. Besides, Medawe was just the hired help—Ahondjon was the one who put the talismans together, so if I was gonna get them to not stink up the place, I’d need to talk to him.

“Still,” I finally said, “I’ve had some complaints. The first being from my hooter.” I pointed to my oversized schnozz.

Medawe chuckled. “Look, I’ll pass it on, but you know my uncle.”

“I do indeed.” I also noticed that Medawe hadn’t actually answered my question about when Ahondjon would be back, which led me to think he either didn’t know or couldn’t tell me.

Whatever, I had a binding spell to stop. “Hey, I wanna double check, what would the components be if you wanted to cast a binding spell on a loa?”

That got me another snort from Medawe. “A thing’a lipstick so you can kiss your ass goodbye. Who’d be stupid enough to do that?”

“Woman over in Seton Falls Park, apparently.”

Shaking his head, Medawe said, “Well, there’s lotsa binding spells, but if you want to bind a loa, you’re gonna need an Obsidian candle, thick rope, a red ribbon, and sandalwood.”

I winced. Except for the candle, that was stuff you could get over the counter anyplace. Hell, you could probably get all that at Target. “Does it have to be an Obsidian candle, or can any black candle do it?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“If you want the binding to work or not.”

Ask a stupid question… “Yeah, okay, thanks, Medawe. And tell your uncle—”

“Moose fuckin’ a dead octopus, you got it.”

I grinned. “Thanks.”

 

If you want to follow Keith DeCandido online, you can do it here:

Web site: DeCandido.net

Blog: DeCandido.wordpress.com

Facebook: fan page at Keith R.A. DeCandido

Twitter: @KRADeC

Instagram: krad418

 

You can purchase a copy of A Furnace Sealed  here:

https://www.amazon.com/Furnace-Sealed-Adventures-Bram-Gold-ebook/dp/B07NBKDKQ9/

You can purchase a copy of Mermaid Precinct  here:

https://www.amazon.com/Mermaid-Precinct-Keith-R-DeCandido-ebook/dp/B07N1X49J2/

 

The Write Stuff – Monday, March 4 – Julie Frost Interview

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This week’s featured author, Julie Frost, grew up an Army brat, traveling the globe. She thought she might settle down after she finished school, but then she married a pilot and moved six times in seven years. She’s finally put down roots in Utah with her family—six guinea pigs, three humans, a tripod calico cat, and a “kitten” who thinks she’s a warrior princess—and a collection of anteaters and Oaxacan carvings, some of which intersect. She enjoys birding and nature photography, which also intersect. She utilizes her degree in biology to write werewolf fiction while completely ignoring the physics of a protagonist who triples in mass. She writes other types of fiction, too, on occasion, from hard science fiction to space opera to secondary-world fantasy to urban fantasy to horror. Sometimes she mixes them. Her short stories have appeared in too many venues to count, including Writers of the Future 32, Monster Hunter Files, Enter the Aftermath, Stupefying Stories, Planetary Anthologies, StoryHack, and Astounding Frontiers. Her novel series, “Pack Dynamics”, is published by WordFire Press. In her words, she “whines about writing, a lot, at http://agilebrit.livejournal.com/, and you can visit her Amazon page here: https://www.amazon.com/Julie-Frost/e/B00WAK2UQU/”

I asked her about her urban fantasy, Pack Dynamics: A Price to Pay, published by WordFire Press in August, 2018. Julie described its unusual premise as follows:

Six months after a case gone bad infected him with lycanthropy, private eye Ben Lockwood hasn’t just come to terms with his new condition—he’s embraced it. The animal inside lets him just be instead of dwelling on past horrors, and he frequently sleeps better as a wolf. Ben thinks he’s fine… until a couple of supernatural law-enforcement agents inform him that if he wolfs too much, he’ll forget his humanity, and that will leave them with a mess to clean up.
Then one of those past horrors comes roaring back into Ben’s life. Rutger Ostheim, enraged by the death of his family, breaks out of prison to seek vengeance. He’s aided by a ruthless businessman with slippery ethics and a separate grudge, who has taken the werewolf nanotech to new and awful heights, determined to sell it to the highest bidder… no matter what they want to use Berserker Virus Murder-Wolf tech for.
However, when Ben is given the opportunity for some payback of his own, he may find his inner demons to be a far graver threat than a tech-enhanced werewolf nearly twice his size.

What do you want readers to know about your book?

It’s a fun, action-oriented tale about vengeance and what happens when you let it consume you.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

I am not a natural novelist, and Book One (Pack Dynamics) basically wrote itself. People were screaming for a sequel, but it took me a long time before I figured out that I’d seeded the next story in the first book by mentioning a brother of the bad guy, and by basically handing the lycanthrope nanotech to Alex’s business rivals. After noodling how those two elements could come together, I had my plot.

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

Urban fantasy is fairly dominated by female protagonists and first-person narrative. While I have no objection to lady protags, I’m a weirdo who prefers the guys. This probably dates back to my early reading habits–I loved the Hardy Boys, but Nancy Drew left me cold. Most of the books I devoured in my youth were boy-and-his-dog and boy-and-his-horse stories, and I’m thinking that kind of stuck. Most of my fiction features male main characters.

I also (in general) prefer to read and write in first person, but the Pack Dynamics novels just… don’t lend themselves to that. Third person allows me to delve more deeply into the other characters’ motivations and emotional states, along with all the action that my putative main character doesn’t know about.

What was your path to publication?

So there I was at Salt Lake ComicCon, shooting the breeze with Peter Wacks and Ramón Terrel after dinner. Peter was the acquisitions editor at WordFire, and he was talking about his urban fantasy, and Ramón was talking about hisurban fantasy, and I was thinking “this is right in my wheelhouse.” So I took a breath and said “So, Peter, this is where I ask you about your acquisitions process.” He said, “Pitch me your book.”

Well, I had an elevator pitch for the thing, but I hadn’t hauled it out in awhile. I took a couple of seconds to drag it to the forefront of my brain, put on my best radio-announcer voice, and said, “A private eye with PTSD—” and he said, “Stop. Send me a chapter.” Turns out he was a private eye for a year or so, and also works with a PTSD charity, so I hit two of his buttons in five words.

The next day, I was hanging out at the WordFire booth shooting the breeze with Larry Correia—we’ve been friends since right after his first Monster Hunter novel was published. He asked me if I knew Kevin J. Anderson, and I said I didn’t, and so he waved Kevin over and said “Hey, Kevin, this is Julie Frost, she’s awesome.” And Kevin said something about Peter telling him about me, and Larry said, “When her book hits your slush pile, move it to the top.” Kevin asked him if he’d blurb it, and Larry said, “Of course.” “Book bomb?” “You bet.” I nearly fell through the floor.
And then at LTUE (a Utah writing symposium) the next February, I was offered a contract. WordFire has been very, very good to me.

What are you working on now?

Oh, gosh, so many things. I’m expanding a novella called “Joy Shall Be in Heaven,” about a Guardian Angel to serial killers, into a novel. It’s Nachi’s job to be the conscience of killers and try to talk them out of doing terrible things, but he can’t mess with Free Will, and he’s never had a success with any of these guys in thousands of years. It’s wearing on him, justa little.

I wrote a short story called “Cry Havoc” about a werewolf alpha who loses his pack to hunters. He’s supposed to be their moral compass, but now that he’s lost them, he doesn’t have anyone left to be a moral compass for, so he goes off the rails a bit and starts slaughtering his own way through the hunters. And then he finds out who the actual architect of his loss is, and we close on him and the last hunter standing deciding to go after that puppet master together. Those two guys tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You know this is a novel, right?” So I’ve got that one outlined and am scribbling madly on it.

I’m also putting together a collection of Pack Dynamics short stories. Short fiction picked me, not the other way around, and so the characters in the novel keep running off and having smaller-sized adventures. I’m hoping to release that in mid-February at LTUE.

And then there’s the short I’m staring at for the Baen Adventure Fantasy contest, too, about a sorceress who creates orcish werewolf soldiers for the orc king. A rival sorcerer is unhappy about being ousted, and wackiness, as they say, ensues. I’ve barely started that one.

I’m also in the noodling stages of the third Pack Dynamics novel.

What else have you written?

I’ve had over forty short stories published in various places. The latest was a Pack Dynamics short in the Crazy Town anthology, and the one before that is a first-contact story in Fantasy for the Throne where the aliens come and accidentally abduct a werewolf. I wrote a riff on the song “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean (1961—I’m amazed at how many people have never even heard of this classic) where John is a werewolf in an asteroid mine, published in To Be Men. And one where the God of War and the Prince of Peace conspire to thwart the Father of Lies in Planetary: Mars. Yes, I used Jesus as a character, and I don’t even think I’m going to Hell for it!

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

“Cry Havoc,” mentioned above, won 3rd Place in the Writers of the Future contest in 2015. And my story “Give Up the Ghost,” about a spaceship crew hired to take a graveyard to the edge of the system and space it, won second place in the DragonComet contest last year. The dead are not as quiet as my crew would like.

Do you create an outline before you write?

I used to be an inveterate discovery writer. Then I decided to do my own January (because November is a stupid month for it, for me) version of NaNoWriMo with short stories rather than a novel, and I knew that if I didn’t outline them, I’d crash and burn. So I sat down with the seven-point plot structure and outlined seven stories. I ended up writing five of them across 53,000 words, and deemed that experiment a success. I still don’t always outline a short (sometimes they really do write themselves), but most of the time I do.

I’ve found that the seven-point structure is just a little inadequate for a novel if I just do it for one arc, so I modified it a bit for Pack Dynamics 2—I outlined Ben’s arc, and the villain’s arc, and the contagonist’s arc, and then did character arcs for all of them too. It made the actual writing process so much easier.

How do you overcome writer’s block?

If I get stuck, it’s usually because something is wrong with the story. So I have to sit down and figure out exactly what that is and how to fix it. Sometimes it’s because a story takes me in an unexpected direction and I’m fighting it instead of just letting it be what it wants to be. My secondary-world fantasy, for example, tends to go “funny” for some reason, and I didn’t want the story I’m writing for the Baen contest to be funny. However, I’ve recently decided that the story is what it is, and if Baen doesn’t want it, someone else will.

But, not always. Sometimes (like now, in my Guardian Angel novel) it’s just a matter of not wanting to spend a lot of time in a serial killer’s head, with a protagonist helpless to do anything but sit there and watch him be a terrible person. Oh, ha, see, writing this out has just made me figure out what my actual issue with it is…

Sometimes, all I have to do is write a blog post about how stuck I am, and it magically un-sticks me. And sometimes it’s just a matter of sitting down and forcing it, fifty or a hundred words at a time. And when I go back and look at the words I grind out versus the words that flow, I can’t tell the difference.

At this stage in your career, what is your greatest challenge?

Figuring out exactly where I want to publish. The publishing world is in a weird sort of flux right now. Back when I started, self-publishing was the Kiss of Death; now you have people making a six-figure income from it. The pace of Big Five publishing is positively glacial, and I don’t have the patience for that kind of thing, I don’t think—especially at the slow pace I write novels. That being said, I probably would not say no to someone who threw a giant advance at my head. I love WordFire and the fact that they get me great editors and covers and I don’t have to worry about those things. Going fully indy would be a little terrifying, I think, but I’m open to the possibility. I’m also open to the possibility of going traditional all the time. I’ll probably stay this weird sort of hybrid, though, where I go small press for the novels and indy for the short story collections.

Tell us about your thoughts on collaboration.

Collaboration is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I think the absolutely essential element for a successful collaboration is for both people to be on the same page as to what the story needs. I used to do a lot of online text-based roleplay (and most of it is still up, and you can read it if you know where to look), and it was basically online improvisational collaborative storytelling. My main partner, Aspen Hougen, and I played out a ton of scenarios that went really really well—so well that she and I eventually wrote a post-Armageddon short story together starring a couple of demons we created, called “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse,” which was published in the Enter the Aftermath anthology.

I also collaborated with Bryan Thomas Schmidt in a story for the Monster Hunter Files anthology called “Huffman Strikes Back.” He asked me to write the fight scene in that story, and the first iteration was “Too Easy, Drill Sergeant,” and the next one was too over-the-top difficult. Bryan helped me to find the balance between the two-—and that’s what the best collaborations do. You push each other to be better.

But I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t had a fiction collaboration go wrong (some of the roleplay ones did, and gah, the drama). I’ve heard some horror stories, so I think it’s really important that both authors know what they want out of the thing right up front so there are no misunderstandings later.

Do you have any pet projects?

“Joy Shall Be in Heaven” is a kind of pet project. My faith is a big part of my inner life, and while I don’t want to bludgeon people over the head with it, I think I can tell stories that incorporate it without being preachy.

The non-writing pet project for 2019 involves birds. Last year, I had a goal of photographing 200 Utah bird species. I ended up with 231 (which is exactly half of the birds on the Utah list, which incorporates a bunch of species that only show up in the state occasionally). This year, I’m taking that project nationwide, with the goal of 500 species in the US and Canada. At the time of this writing, I’m already at 122 across two states (Utah and Texas). But January generally starts with a bang (I got 91 Utah species in January last year), and then the rest of the year tapers off because you’ve already gotten the easy ones.

If you could do anything differently, what would it be?

I’d be more organized in general. Some things, I’m very organized about (you should see my bird spreadsheets; they are a thing of beauty), but the rest of my life… not so much. I have a lot of clutter I should do something about, but then I stare at it and get paralyzed by the scope of the thing instead of breaking it down into small bites and just doing it.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

I joke that I want to be Jim Butcher when I grow up, but I’m not really sure how much of a joke that is. His stories are amazingly brilliant, and he’s so gracious and funny and such a great teacher. I really do want to be more like him. I love Larry Correia’s books and the fact that he’s turned this monster hunting thing (which is silly on paper) into such a huge franchise, and that he’s branched out into other things that are just as good if not better. The way Rob Thurman writes the relationships between brothers and best friends is beautiful. Carrie Vaughn’s “Kitty” universe is one of the best things ever; it’s so nuanced and intricate. And there are so many others (we could be here all day), but I’ll also mention Patricia Briggs, Gail Carriger, Faith Hunter, and Anton Strout.

I have to say, Julie, this is one of the more enjoyable interviews I’ve ever conducted. (And as I approach my 120th interview over the course of six years, that’s saying a lot!) Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Before I present an excerpt from Pack Dynamics: A Price to Pay, followed by links where visitors can purchase it and follow you online, I’d like to conclude with a Lightning Round. In as few words as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: goofball.

The one thing I cannot do without is: my family.

The one thing I would change about my life: be more organized.

My biggest peeve is: Hollywood writers who do not do basic research.

The thing I’m most satisfied with is: my last novel.

Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

The choices you make determine the life you lead. Never give up, never surrender.

 

Excerpt:

Ben’s stomach lurched.

He considered his lycanthropy to be a feature, not a bug. In his line of work, being hard to kill was an asset. The case of PTSD he’d brought home from Afghanistan was easier to wrestle when he could lose himself in the animal and just be for a while. It slowed the wheel hamster, and he was still himself as a wolf, just … simpler.

This scene was a nasty reminder that not all werewolves dealt with their condition as well as he did.

Not that he could say that to Spence. As far as Ben knew, he was unaware of the wilder side of Los Angeles and would probably rather keep it that way. Someone handed Ben a pair of blue disposable gloves, and he pulled them on before crouching beside the body, not touching anything just yet.

A set of four somethings—Ben was betting claws because his own were two inches long and sharper than they had a right to be—had ripped down diagonally from left shoulder to right hip, tearing through the shirt and into the flesh beneath, exposing organs.

“This is a hell of a mess,” Spence said. “Witness heard screams and called 911, but by the time we got here, this was all that was left. No ID on him. What kind of weapon does that?”

“The kind I wouldn’t want to encounter in a dark alley,” Ben answered, which wasn’t a lie. Whatever wolf had done this was bigger than him, which wasn’t difficult, if he was being honest, and had slaughtered this man with ruthless efficiency. But hadn’t eaten—

Ben staggered a little when he realized what his nose had been telling him without consulting his brain. Their killer wolf was a female.

He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead. “So that’s awesome,” he muttered.

“Ben?” Spence said. “You all right?”

Ben took a breath. “As all right as I ever am. Sometimes it hits me wrong. You know.”

Spence nodded. Ben had once had a spectacular meltdown at a house where a guy had cut his girlfriend’s throat. Nobody had warned him, and that one pushed his Bad Buttons. “You need to sit down somewhere?” Spence asked.

“No, not this time.” Ben straightened and settled himself. “Those are some nasty wounds. I’d be interested to hear what your ME has to say.”

“What I have to say is that scruffy little PIs have no business at my crime scene,” the perpetually grouchy medical examiner said, pushing past him.

“Happy to see you too, as always, Schmidt.” Ben stepped out of his way. He knew what had killed the man and didn’t need a doctor to tell him.

“It looks like an animal attack,” Dr. Schmidt said. “See the punctures on his hands? He probably tried to fend it off and got bitten for his trouble. That being said, no dog can do that much damage, not even a pit bull. I’ll know more when I get him back to the lab.”

“What do you think, Ben?” Spence said.

“I think you were right to let me in on this one, is what I think.” Ben’s mouth pulled to one side as he pushed his hair up out of his face with the back of his wrist. He wondered how much he could or should say. “Might want to check and see if anyone reported an escaped bear tonight.” He held up a hand. “It’s not the way I’d bet, just covering bases.” Frowning down at the body, he said, “I’ve seen some spiked brass knuckles do damage sort of like that. There’s knuckle armor, with claws at the ends. Or maybe Freddy Krueger is in town and this guy pissed him off somehow.”

Ben needed to find the perp before the cops did. It would be way less awkward all around. He hoped like hell she’d had a good reason for this. “Keep me read in, if you don’t mind, Spence. Thanks.”

 

If you would like to purchase Pack Dynamics: A Price to Pay, you can do so here:

Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GSL7NWK/

You can follow Julie here:

Website: https://agilebrit.livejournal.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julie.frost.7967

 

The Write Stuff – Monday, February 18 – A. J. Mayall Interview

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By day, A.J. Mayall works in the indie publishing field and has quality checked nearly half a million manuscripts. He lives in California with his husband and his best friend. An avid gamer, A.J.got his writing start in the gaming industry with a focus on community events and content. As an LGBT author on the autism spectrum, he feels it is his duty to write diversity into his works, to ensure that readers have new and varied worlds to enjoy. The rumors that he is a menagerie of hive-minded sentient spiders wearing a human suit are sheer fallacy and should be ignored.

Today, we’re focusing on his latest release, The Art of Madness (The GearWitch Investigations), an urban fantasy published by WordFire Press on November 15, 2018. Its premise:

Phoenix McGee became a detective to show the world he was mature and reliable, capable of running his own life and business.

It’s just a shame he can’t adult his way out of a paper bag.

Being attuned to the clockwork nature of the universe and able to bend the fundamental laws of reality comes with the bonus that his powers don’t show up under any scans, leaving him in a loophole where he can use his powers without legal restriction… or protection.

On the verge of losing everything, he takes on a simple case of suspected adultery, something to keep the lights on and the creditors at bay. Little did he suspect his life would become a chaotic whirlwind of false leads, uneasy alliances, mob ties, and a woman who punches with a sedan.

Bodies pile up as he struggles to keep things normal for himself and his assistant, Suzette DiMarco. Phoenix will need his wits if he plans to solve the case and save himself, his livelihood, and everyone around him… because cosmic powers don’t pay the bills.

What do you want readers to know about your book?

There is more to come after it, and much to come before it. Also, I made a point of having my work pass the Bechdel Test. A world with diversity as a focus point, an urban fantasy without all the grimdark overcast.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

This is an idea I’ve had for the better part of 2 decades, a wide spanning non linear saga. The Art of Madness is the entry point, but it is NOT the beginning of the tale.

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

I’ve noticed a lot of urban fantasy authors go for more Noir inspiration, and I take mine more from comic books and graphic novels. I like worlds where you don’t have to hate the world to be the hero.

What was your path to publication?

As I work in indie publishing, I first did this on my own, but went with Wordfire Press to give me more time to write.

What are you working on now?

The next book in the series, The Always Machine.

What else have you written?

I have been in a couple anthologies, and the majority of my work was done for video games.

What is your writing routine?

I livestream the majority of my writing on Twitch, and I use dictation software.

Do you create an outline before you write?

Yes, I have every book broken down into chapters, with chapter breakdowns.

Why do you write?

Because I failed at being a ballerina. To be fair, I love storytelling, and with my job I can help others tell THEIR stories, but I have my own worlds in my head that I need to get out.

How do you overcome writer’s block?

To quote Jim Butcher, “I don’t have a muse. I have a mortgage.”

How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?

Story Structure and understanding the nuances of mythos was something I struggled with in the beginning, and now it’s sort of how I operate.

At this stage in your career, what is your greatest challenge?

Getting the time needed to write.

Tell us about your thoughts on collaboration.

I’m all for collaboration, and I think building communities is something that should be essential basics for getting in the industry

What life experiences inspire or enrich your work?

Being on the Autism spectrum means having a different perspective on a lot of things, so to me hearing people react to how I just see things is what inspires and enriches.

Do you have another job outside of writing? I am currently a Vetter for Smashwords, an indie e-book publisher

Describe a typical day.

I wake up, head downstairs, turn on the computer and proceed to vet about 200 to 250 manuscripts a day. When I’m done, after about 8 hours, I spend some time with my household, and then at the end of the day I do my livestreaming, which is both gaming and writing.

How do you pick yourself up in the face of adversity?

I was an autistic gay teen in the Bible Belt during the 80s and 90s, I dare you to throw something harder for me to survive.

Do you have any pet projects?

Currently I’m just wanting to get the GearWitch Investigations done, but I have things lined up for later, a cozy mystery and a story like Breaking Bad meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

What is your greatest life lesson?

Always have a Plan B. Life can throw you a curveball at anytime so make sure you have a way out should you need one.

Who are some of your favorite authors?Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett, Dan Wells, R. R. Virdi

A.J., thank you for shining light on the author behind the words. Before I present an excerpt from  The Art of Madness, followed by your book buy and social links, I like you to attempt a Lightning Round. In as few words as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: good sounding board.

The one thing I cannot do without is: Personal space.

The one thing I would change about my life: Being born shorter. I hate being 6’5”.

My biggest peeve is: Anything troublesome.

The thing I’m most satisfied with is: My friendships.

Excerpt:

“We have a case!” Phoenix exclaimed as he opened the front door to McGee investigations, raising his hand for a high five.

“About damn time, McGee,” said Suzette DiMarco, his assistant, confidante, and best friend, passing him by as she entered and leaving the hand hanging.

The slender, six-and-a-half-foot-tall redhead shrugged with a grin, sliding his hands into his pockets. His attire was simple: a white t-shirt, slightly baggy jeans, well-worn sneakers, and a little too much hair gel.

She had met plenty of guys like him in her brief stints as a model. Looking at what she was wearing, it was hard to imagine her on a catwalk; the high-collared gray dress was practically dowdy. Her appearance was only modernized by her thin-framed glasses and her hair in a haphazard bun.

Phoenix thought she resembled what angry librarians claim their final form to be.

“Come on. We’ll have a new investigation beyond the weekly insurance claims. Husband suspects an affair.”

“Oh, so you might be ruining a marriage? I’m in.”

Phoenix scowled, trying to lighten the mood, “We might save it, you know. At the very least, we could maybe make a new ad from a happy customer.”

Suzette looked at him, nonplussed.

“I’m still not giving you a high-five, not before my coffee.”

In his twenty-three years, Phoenix McGee had learned a few things. One: No matter what life handed you, try to find the positive. There were already plenty of people who were dark and dour in his line of work. Two: A friendly smile and a bit of wit could fix nearly any situation. Three: Suzette can’t be held responsible for manslaughter if it’s before her morning gallon of coffee.

“Fine, be that way. The client will be here in a few hours. Once we get his paperwork filed, put it to my B pile, after the insurance cases. We need to keep the lights on, after all. I’m certain your grandmother will understand.”

“I hope so. She’s been messaging me about when you’ll pay her back for the loans on this place.”

He looked around the office. Filing cabinets were half-extended out, plastered with sticky-note reminders about bills.

“When are you seeing her next?”

“Tonight,” Suzette said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Dinner at the hotel.”

“Tell her about the new case, and the insurance companies still need to cut me a check for last month. I’m not letting her take this place.”

“Will do, boss.”

He checked the time. It was nearly seven, which meant Genesis would have just opened up the combination bookstore and coffee shop across the street.

“I’m grabbing celebration donuts, Suzette, anything you want?”

“Bearclaw,” she said, sipping her coffee as she settled in for her day behind the desk. After a moment, she smiled, breaking her usual unimpressed expression. “Go celebrate your case, but keep it cheap.”

He scowled as he walked to the door.

“What? I do your banking, McGee. Until the checks clear, you need to keep a tight budget. You know, like a functional adult.”

“I’m a functional adult. Look at me. I’m running a business, I have my own place. I’m adulting fairly well. Hell, adultery is my specialty.”

“Adult, my ass. You sleep with a stuffed animal.”

“You leave Bouncer out of this.”

Suzette pointed to the door, chuckling, “Don’t forget my donut, you goddamned manchild.”

“I always thought of myself as more of a ‘rascal’,” he said, opening the door onto the streets of Rouge Mal, leaving McGee Investigations, and quickly crossing the street to The Books of Genesis.

He heard the familiar ring of the bell over the door as he entered, calling out to his friend and neighbor, curious what color her hair was today. When he turned to face the counter, he paled.

Two robbers had guns pointed at the rainbow-haired woman behind the counter. Genesis trembled.

Phoenix sighed, “And here I thought the morning was going so well.”

Those of you who would like to follow A.J. online can do so here:

Twitter: @ArbiterFabulous

Twitch: twitch.tv/Pound0fFlesh

You can purchase  The Art of Madness here:

 

 

 

 

The Write Stuff – Monday, February 4 – C. S. Ferguson Interview

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I asked this week’s guest, C. S. Ferguson, to tell us something about himself. This was his response:

I live in the Pacific NW with my wife, two sons, a cat who thinks she’s a dog (she plays fetch), and a dog who thinks he’s a cat (he stalks and pounces). I enjoy camping, diving, swimming, lifting weights, reading, and just about anything that can act as a creative outlet.

I more or less spend all day every day studying or creating. I’m constantly outlining new novels and writing them, drawing things, painting, designing tabletop games, or studying whatever interests me at the time. Mythology. Anthropology. Military history. Ninjas. Pirates. The histories of various pop culture phenomena, like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Typical guy stuff, I suppose. I have no a social life (99% I on the I-E continuum) so I have a lot of free time to do these things.

I prefer science fiction and fantasy because of the creative freedom afforded in the more speculative genres. How else could I write a story about a mute psychic special agent chasing a group of washed up space pirates trying to bribe their way through an FTL jumpgate during an interplanetary civil war?

WordFire Press released his latest science fiction release, Devils & Black Sheep, on January 23 of this year. Its premise is as follows:

In the distant Heracles system, at the edge of explored space, the last pirates of the once-infamous Crimson Star fleet are trapped. Civil war has broken out between the seven systems of human space and the jumpgates that supply interstellar travel are closed down to all but official traffic. The pirate leader, retired university math professor Tybalt, is desperate to escape the system and attempt an experimental cure for the degenerative condition that got him fired from the university. Their pilot, corpulent ex-gangster Falstaff, clings to the hope that he can reconstitute the pirate fleet and return them to their former glory. Their surgeon, ascetic psychic Tamora, has grown disillusioned with their lifestyle and wants to return home to her monastery and a simple life of meditation. Their enforcer, retired military android Nicodemus, never found further employment except as a janitor until a law enforcement agent approached him about infiltrating an infamous pirate group. He has spent years sabotaging their efforts and is nearly ready for the endgame that will bring down the last of the Crimson Star pirates for good.

Soured by the Bureau recently moving him from active status to a support role, legendary but aging lawman Neil Tesso wants to reinvigorate his career and convince his superiors to return him to active status with the elite Spacetrooper raid teams. With the increased pirate activity in his home system and the growing civil war, the Core government on old Earth threatens martial law. Desperate to avert the arrival of the insidious Inquisitors and the suffering that follows and seeing an opportunity to convince his superiors of his continued worth despite his age, he pursues the pirates with zealous determination.

What neither side knows is that among the Crimson Star’s most recently pirated cargo is a crate of almost immeasurable value.

What do you want readers to know about your book?

That it exists. After that, I’ll let the book tell them everything they want to know about it.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

I set out to write a story about people who think, instead of people who constantly act and react. That was my diamond-hard core of intent. I hope it’s apparent.

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

It would be astonishingly arrogant to claim that my work stands out. There are a lot of fantastic authors with a lot of fantastic ideas. That said, I’m more interested in thinking characters than action characters, and am more interested in the bungled mistakes people make than in their perfect decisions. So I guess I write stories about non-badasses, which is different.

What was your path to publication?

I submitted the first 10k words for consideration. About a month later, I got a reply asking for the whole manuscript. I submitted that, and a few months later the manuscript was selected for publication. The publisher assigned me an editor, and we collaboratively tumbled down the sharp corners over several months. The whole process from query to published novel took about a year and a half.

What are you working on now?

Gamewise, I’m working on a narrative role-playing system with campaign settings for D.J. Butler’s Rock Band Fights Evil urban fantasy series, Quincy J. Allen’s Blood War Chronicles western steampunk fantasy series, and Kevin J. Anderson’s Saga of Seven Suns space opera series.

Bookwise, I’m writing a sci-fi series about angels having lost Armageddon and being forced to integrate demons into their society. It’s told mostly from the angelic point of view, from an ensemble cast. The central theme is Nietzsche’s Warning.

What else have you written?

A whole lot of NaNoWriMo novels.

What is your writing routine?

The first thing I do is create characters. I write them out as an upbringing, achievements, traumas, personality, and goal. Then I imagine those characters telling me their story, and I write down the outline for the story that they would tell me. When I write, I aim for ~10,000 words per day. I dislike editing, so I write finished prose from beginning to end. When the manuscript is complete (complete and finished are different things), I do global searches for words I don’t like and find a better way to say them.

Do you create an outline before you write?

Yes, but my outline is quite loose. Sometimes the characters derail my outline and the story takes a different direction than intended, though. Pesky things, characters. They never do what they’re told.

Why do you write?

I can’t stand not to. Take away my computer and I’ll write stories by hand. Take away my paper and I’ll scratch stories into the dirt with a stick. I keep a notepad by my bed because I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night having dreamed a scene, or a character, or even an entire new story. I’ve dictated a story outline into my phone while grocery shopping. I’ve also typed one into my phone while at a rock concert.

At this stage in your career, what is your greatest challenge?

Balancing work with family. I tend to get lost in projects and become an absentee husband and father. I schedule an hour a day with each of my kids and with my wife to make sure I don’t become a total stranger.

Tell us about your thoughts on collaboration.

I love collaborations. I sent out a request for short fiction submissions for a game I was working on, and that’s how I started down this path. I met a lot of great writers who submitted a lot of great stories. I bought the best ones for the game, and those authors got excited and introduced me to their friends and collaborators. It grew from there. The best thing you can do for your career is be competent and cooperative. If you are, collaborators will actively seek you out.

What life experiences inspire or enrich your work?

I’m a boring person. Anything I’ve done, thousands of other people have also done. But I try to capture the experience in my writing. I’ve stood at the top of the highest peak for a thousand miles in every direction and watched the clouds sail past beneath me; I’ve writhed in agonizing pain and truly doubted whether I’d live long enough to make it to the emergency room; I’ve stood in the middle of a desert and wondered at the vast sea of sand extending to the horizon in every direction; twice, I’ve held a seconds-old newborn in my trembling hands and cried because I knew I wasn’t up to the job. Life is experiential. So I try to see what the character sees, feel what they feel, and describe the experience.

Do you have another job outside of writing?

I’m a game designer, digital and tabletop.

Describe a typical day.

Wake up 5:15 a.m, leave for gym at 5:30, lift weights from 5:45-6:45, back home by 7:00, clean up, eat breakfast at 7:15. Check email (10 minutes or two hours, depending on the day). Phone calls (also 10 minutes or two hours, depending on the day). Second breakfast at 9:00, brunch at 11:00, and lunch at 1:00 p.m.. By afternoon, I’m caught up on contacts and ready for nuts and bolts work. Writing. Drawing. Reading. Background research. Market studies. I eat again at 3:00 p.m. and break from work at 3:30 to play with my kids. Diablo with Dad is a thing in our house. I play an hour of multiplayer Diablo with each of my kids, and I make it a habit of ruining it by turning the whole thing into a series of life lessons. “We defeated Belial on Torment! High Five! Now, how do you think it would work out if you faced Belial as a level 1 character? Life is like that. You can sit around in town and stay a level 1 character forever, or you can go out, take some risks, get bloodied up, get stronger, level up, equip better gear, and go farther than any level 1 character could even dream of going. But if you just stay in the safety of town, you’ll live your entire life as a level 1 character.” Eat dinner at 5:00, then return to work. I stop at 7:00 to eat supper with my wife, and we watch one episode of whatever show she wants together. Then I work until 9:00, at which point I clean up again and go to bed around 9:15. Repeat, seven days a week. Saturday and Sunday mornings are for chores and errands instead of phone calls, but I still occasionally field a call.

What motivates or inspires you?

Watching documentaries about the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, and about World War 2. Those were iron men.

How do you pick yourself up in the face of adversity?

Ignore it. 90% of adversity is imaginary. Nothing in my life is hard. Omaha Beach was hard. This? This is nothing.

If you could do anything differently, what would it be?

I believe that kind of thinking is a pitfall of self-defeat. We make the best decisions we can, given the information we had at the time. Sure, there are things I could have done better. But that assumes I had different information than I had at the time. I didn’t, so if I was in the same position all over again, I’d make the same decision.

What is your greatest life lesson?

I believe that life lessons are experienced, not taught. My life lessons would be meaningless to anyone who hasn’t experienced my life.

What makes you laugh?

When my cat paws at my face in the middle of the night because she wants under the covers with me.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Stephen E. Ambrose, Antony Beevor, Robert Bloch, Philip K. Dick, Adam Makos, Andre Norton, Jeff VanderMeer, A.E. van Vogt, Kurt Vonnegut.

Thanks so much for sharing your time with us. Before I present our visitors with an excerpt from Devils & Black Sheep, followed by your book buy and social links, I’d like to conclude with a customary Lightning Round. In a few words as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: Loner

 The one thing I cannot do without is: A happy wife.

 The one thing I would change about my life: Nothing

My biggest peeve is: People talking loudly

 The person I’m most satisfied with is: My wife

 Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

 Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right A B Select Start

Excerpt:

He turned and looked at Leer. The officer was motionless, a skeletal game piece, a mute specter of a secret policeman whose mind Staff could only guess at.

“The silent treatment,” Staff said. “More silence. How do you get anything at all out of your detainees, if you stand there and stare at them? I’ve got bunny slippers that are more intimidating than you are.”

He snorted and looked away from the officer.

An odd sensation trickled into his mind, again. His mind became cold, as if something had been poured into his brain, icy, flowing, snaking along each crevice and dripping into mental caverns that he didn’t know existed. He clenched his teeth and groaned against the pain, but it didn’t help. He tried to blink away the discomfort, focus through the wavering, twisting images in front of his eyes. It didn’t work.

“Drugs?” he gasped. “Really? ISB isn’t happy with their secret police interrogation tactics, you have to resort to drugs, now? You’re pathetic.”

A frigid lance of pain stabbed through his mind and shot down his neck, and he curled in agony.

I will kill you, Staff thought. You’re Number One on my list, when I get out of here. You’re done. I will crush you, and I will laugh in your face as you fade to black. But most of all, I’ll stab you straight through that stupid mask.

Pounding pressure stomped through his head, but the cold sensation faded and Staff fell back onto the bed. The wraithy officer remained mute and still as a tombstone.

“Okay,” Staff said in between panting breaths. “That one was special. I liked that. Do it again.”

He focused his body on relaxing, each limb in its turn, and waited for the chilling sensation in his head. But it didn’t come. Instead, the sinister officer reached up with a long-fingered hand and triggered the handcuffs. They snapped open with an ominous ring and fell to the floor.

Staff launched himself out of the bed in a blur of motion, his face curled in a mask of rage, his hands reaching for Leer’s throat, that thin, skeletal neck that he was certain would snap like a stick in his grip. Leer stepped aside, the subtlest twist of body, and Staff smashed into the wall. Veteran of a hundred brawls and boarding actions, he was back on his feet in a blink and lunged at the officer again. Again, Leer took a single step away, and Staff crashed into the bed that, a moment ago, had imprisoned him.

“You’re a fast little bastard,” Staff said. “But all I need is one hit, and you’re going down. You’re dead. I may look fat, but I’ve got a hell of a lot of muscle underneath it.”

He’s fast. Damn fast. I need to take him seriously, wear him down, play the long game. I’m not as fast as I used to be in my younger years. Or in my leaner years.

Meaty fists held up on either side of his face, Staff took a steadying breath and settled into a fighting stance, high on the balls of his feet, every joint loose and ready to move. He expected his silent opponent to do the same. But Leer stood straight and tall, hands dangling loosely at his side, feet flat on the floor.

This guy’s an amateur.

One hammer-like fist shot out at Leer’s mirrored mask, and Staff smiled in anticipation of the victory. Leer stepped back, the slightest motion, but enough to stop outside of Staff’s reach. Still, the gaunt officer was infuriatingly balanced, in perfect posture, upright and absent any lean or tilt. Twice more, he jabbed out at Leer, and twice the officer stepped away.

I’ve got you now, Staff thought when Leer put his back to the wall. Nowhere to run, you dodgy little bastard. And if you’re a witch, I’ll kill you and everyone you know with my bare hands.

His next punch sailed through empty air as Leer stepped aside, almost before the fist began to move. He lunged in for a powerful tackle, arms spread wide to grab the officer and pull him to the ground … but Leer stepped aside and twisted away with the speed and grace of a swallow in flight, and once again Staff slammed into the ground empty-handed. And Leer’s arms remained at his side, having not yet moved since the melee started.

Those of you who would like to follow C. S. Ferguson online can do so here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darth.ferguson

You can purchase a copy of Devils & Black Sheep here:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07N1XV16J

 

 

 

 

 

The Write Stuff – Monday, January 21 – Paul Kane Interview

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Paul Kane is the award-winning, bestselling author and editor of over eighty books, including the Arrowhead trilogy (gathered together in the sellout Hooded Man omnibus, revolving around a post-apocalyptic version of Robin Hood), The Butterfly Man and Other Stories, Hellbound Hearts,The Mammoth Book of Body Horror andPain Cages(an Amazon #1 bestseller). His non-fiction books include The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark, and his genre journalism has appeared in the likes of SFX, Rue Morgue and DeathRay. He has been a Guest at Alt.Fiction five times, was a Guest at the first SFX Weekender, at Thought Bubble in 2011, Derbyshire Literary Festival and Off the Shelf in 2012, Monster Mash and Event Horizon in 2013, Edge-Lit in 2014, HorrorCon, HorrorFest and Grimm Up North in 2015, The Dublin Ghost Story Festival and Sledge-Lit in 2016, plus IMATS Olympia and Celluloid Screams in 2017, as well as being a panelist at FantasyCon and the World Fantasy Convention, and a fiction judge at the Sci-Fi London festival. A former British Fantasy Society Special Publications editor, he is currently serving as co-chair for the UK chapter of The Horror Writers Association. His work has been optioned and adapted for the big and small screen, including for US network primetime television, and his audio work includes the full cast drama adaptation of The Hellbound Heart for Bafflegab, starring Tom Meeten (The Ghoul), Neve McIntosh (Doctor Who) and Alice Lowe (Prevenge), and the Robin of Sherwood adventure, The Red Lord for Spiteful Puppet/ITV narrated by Ian Ogilvy (Return of the Saint). Paul’s latest novels are Lunar (set to be turned into a feature film), the Y.A. story The Rainbow Man (as P.B. Kane), the sequels to RED—Blood RED & Deep RED—the award-winning hit Sherlock Holmes & the Servants of Hell and Before (a recent Amazon Top 5 dark fantasy bestseller). He lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife Marie O’Regan and his family. Find out more at his site www.shadow-writer.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Robert Kirkman, Dean Koontz and Guillermo del Toro.

When I asked him to describe Arcana, Paul provided this:

Welcome to an alternate world where magic really exists, and where those who practice it are hunted down by a police division called The M-forcers. But some groups are fighting back! Callum McGuire is a new M-forcer who once worked the quiet streets of London (England’s capital is now Chelmsford, scene of the original Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins’ greatest victory). An orphan, Callum’s been brought up to believe all magic is evil. But the more he sees of The M-forcers’ cruel methods (implemented by General Nero Stark, and his second-in-command Sherman Pryce), the more he begins to question whether or not they are right. And when he unwittingly encounters a member of the rebel group called Arcana, he’s introduced to their world and realises that nothing will ever be the same again. Join award-winning and bestselling author Paul Kane (the sell-out phenomenon Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, the Hooded Man series and the bestselling Before) as he shows you a kind of magic you’ve never seen…

What do you want readers to know about your book?

Arcana is basically a book about the underdog, about people who are in a minority fighting back against a crooked system. It’s about how power can corrupt and how easily people can be controlled or the truth manipulated. I think that’s an important message, especially when you look at the world around us and what’s happening in it currently. Genres like SF, Dark Fantasy and Horror have always been a way to comment about things like that indirectly and this book is no different. At the same time it’s also got action, suspense, excitement and romance, so hopefully it ticks a lot of boxes for readers. I had a ball writing it and I think that comes across when you’re reading it.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

I think with Arcana I was trying to give readers who enjoyed books like the Harry Potter series something to move on to afterwards. There’s even a line in the novel where it’s referenced, that in another universe people who use magic like Harry are hailed as heroes. It’s also very much influenced by my love of Clive Barker’s book Cabal—famously filmed as Nightbreed—The X-Men, and even Dune. They’re filled with outsiders who are just trying to survive, but at the same time are forced by pretty serious events to stand up and be counted. Of course, in Cabal and Dune you also have the messiah aspect which I’ve carried across into Arcana, a legend that one day someone will come along to liberate the downtrodden, and it might not be whom you were expecting. As a fan of the more imaginative genres and as a writer, I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider myself, especially growing up. I didn’t really discover my ‘tribe’ until I started going to conventions and met other fans and writers. That’s really when I started to feel at home and accepted, I suppose. So Arcana is very much about that, drawing on those feelings.

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

I’m not sure I’m the right person to answer that. I’m probably too close to it. But people seem to like what I do, which makes me very happy. I’ve been compared in reviews to some amazing writers like Stephen King, Robert McCammon and, of course, Clive. It’s incredibly flattering and more than a little daunting. But I also like to think that, the same as with all writers, my writing’s unique to me. We all go through different things that we bring to the table in our fiction, have different experiences and points of view, which is one of the reasons we appeal to some folk but not others. There’s a point in a writer’s career where they find their own voice, though, and the influence of other fiction – though it still remains – lessens to some extent. That happened to me when I wrote a tale called ‘Eye of the Beholder’, one of my Controllers stories which is being reprinted in March, in The Controllers, a collection from Luna. It was a character study really, about a woman’s life from start to finish and how it was being messed about with by those pesky Controller creatures, but when I’d finished it and read it back I just thought to myself—yes, this is you. This is what your writing’s going to be like from now on. The main character just came alive in a way that none of the others had done before, and that’s when I knew I was on the right track basically.

What was your path to publication?

In general? I started writing stories when I was in my teens, but they weren’t very good. At university, I took a module in Professional Writing, which led to a career in journalism. But I’d still kept up with the fiction and having my articles and reviews published gave me the confidence to start sending some of my stories off to small press magazines. Some were accepted, some weren’t, but I carried on and in 2001 a number of them were gathered together in my first collection, Alone (In the Dark),published by BJM Press. And it all just stemmed from there. In this instance, with Arcana, I’d heard that Kevin J. Anderson had set up a publishing company and thought this book would fit with the kind of thing he was putting out. I’ve known Kevin for some time, so I thought it would be okay to sound him out about Arcana, and at least ask if he’d be willing to have a look. He was happy to and passed it on to Dave Butler at Acquisitions who loved it, and the rest is history. It’s a tough one because, like a lot of my fiction, it doesn’t easily fit into one category or another. Yes, it’s Dark Fantasy, but there are also elements of Horror, SF, Crime… Thankfully the people at WordFire got where I was coming from with it, which is a gift to an author. My experience with them has been a delight, I have to say—from edits to cover design. I couldn’t be happier with the finished product, and I’m over the moon that they’ve decided to bring it out as a limited hardback as well as paperback and ebook.

What are you working on now?

Several things at the same time, as always. My wife Marie—who’s an excellent writer and editor in her own right, which is how we met—and I are just putting the mass market crime anthology Exit Wounds to bed for Titan. That features stories by the likes of Lee Child, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Dennis Lehane, Jeffery Deaver and Dean Koontz, and is out in May. Writing-wise I’ve just finished a couple of shorts that I owed, one a seaside horror and the other another entry in my Life Cycle spin-off series about a female werewolf called Diana; the rest were collected last year in a publication from Black Shuck Books. I’m also going through edits on a novella for PS that’s crept into short novel territory. It’s a monster story, a siege story, and my homage to the old horror books from the 70s and 80s.

What else have you written?

Oh, so many things! I celebrated 20 years of being a published writer a couple of years ago with a “Best of…” collection released by SST called Shadow Casting. That contained stories which have been filmed, won awards or were just reader favourites, so I think that’s a good starting point for anyone wanting to check out my fiction. I’m probably most associated with the Hooded Man mass market books, though: a post-apocalyptic take on Robin Hood set within Abaddon/Rebellion’s Afterblight Chronicles. That led to quite a few other PA books, such as The Dead Trilogy– one story of which was filmed by Lionsgate/NBC for their primetime TV series Fear Itself– The Rot and my latest YA novella Coming of Age, as P.B. Kane. I’m also known for my association with the Hellraiser mythos: books like The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy, Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell—in which the world’s greatest detective meets the Cenobites—the anthology Hellbound Hearts, co-edited with Marie, and most recently an audio drama adaptation of The Hellbound Heart for Bafflegab.

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

Quite a few of my books have been bestsellers, including most recently the novel Before. I’ve been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award several times, have won the Editor’s Choice Dead of Night award, the Skaadi, the Karl Edward Wagner Award for my work on conventions, and the film of my story Life-O-Matic won best short at the LA Independent Film Festival Awards, the London Independent Film Awards and the Wayward Film Festival, plus it won the Silver at the Spotlight Horror Film Awards.

What is your writing routine?

I try to keep office hours, though that’s not always possible, especially if I’m juggling a few jobs at once. A number of times recently, for example, I’ve put in a full day’s work writing then spent the evenings editing stories for an anthology that’s due in. But one of the benefits of this kind of work is that you can do it at home, which is handy at this time of year when it tends to snow quite a bit. At least I don’t have to drag myself out of the house to go to work! I also don’t know from one week to the next what I’ll be doing on any given day. You can try and plan it, especially if you’ve got a big job like writing a novella or novel, where you need to set aside some days in a row; I average about 3,000 words a day on a good day, so in theory it should only take a couple of weeks, working Monday – Friday, to get a draft done of a novella. But then things crop up all the time, like today, for instance, I had a book come back to go through that’s due out soon and I’ve got to put aside what I’m working on to do that because it’s time sensitive. Or you might get invited to an event you don’t know about yet, which is always nice—or have signings and launches to organize or go to. I’m definitely not complaining though, because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.

Do you create an outline before you write? 

I’m a big believer in planning, yes. I’ll sit and work out an outline, or even chapter breakdown for a novel, before I start anything. I have to know where I’m heading or where I’m going to end up before I even set off on the journey. That doesn’t mean things can’t change along the way, and they always do, so I try to stay flexible. I think it comes from having to plan essays at uni and articles back when I first started writing and getting paid for it. And particularly when I have to do any work for hire or tie-in stuff, because publishers usually like to see outlines and breakdowns when you do that kind of thing before they commission you.

Why do you write?

I don’t think it’s something you can even explain, it’s just something you have to do. If you’re a writer you’ll do it no matter what, even if you’re not getting paid for it. There are times when things aren’t going right that I think about quitting altogether, but I don’t think I ever could. Then when things get back on track again, I don’t even want to! I was telling stories by drawing or with my toys before I even started writing, so I think it’s been in me right from the start. It’s also a way of processing the world around you, life and what’s happening in society like I was saying before about Arcana. If you’re a writer you can’t sit and watch what’s going on every day and not want to write about it, say something about it in some way. Of course the other answer is that it’s my job and how I pay the bills, and I’m very glad it is. I can’t imagine doing anything else now.

Tell us about your writing community and thoughts on collaboration.

I love being a part of the writing community. As I mentioned before, I felt like I’d come home when I found my “tribe”. I think getting out to events and meeting other writers is so important, because it’s quite a solitary job sitting at your keyboard tapping away. It’s also nice to know that people’s experiences in the industry, the highs and the lows, are all quite similar. We all have our insecurities and problems, no matter what level we’re at. Marie and I are actually running StokerCon™ in 2020 – www.stokercon-uk.com– and those kind of events are always fun to do. We’ve run or been involved in several FantasyCons, World Horror, World Fantasy, Alt.Fiction and various HWA UK events like our scripting day or the “Partners in Crime” day about crossover fiction. In terms of collaboration, I’ve only written a couple of things with other writers. The last one was a collaborative novella with bestselling author Simon Clark, Beneath the Surface, which worked well. But I should really do more, because I thoroughly enjoy the collaborative process. I think that’s why I like working in script form, for TV, films, comics, theatre and audio, because I like seeing what other people do with the material.

How do you pick yourself up in the face of adversity?

It’s difficult. As I say, there are times when I feel like quitting as I’m sure there are with a lot of writers. My wife Marie gets me through those times in all honesty, and gives me faith that things will work out. Mostly it’s just a case of hanging in there until the upswing comes around again.

Do you have any pet projects?

I do. My BA and MA are in film, so my pet projects tend to be connected with that medium. For example writing about the Hellraiser movies in Legacy was a bit of a labour of love for me, and I have a follow-up of sorts out now full of interviews with the creatives who worked on those films: Hellraisers from Avalard Books. I have a couple of other non-fiction film books in the pipeline that I’m fitting in around other projects, one of which I’ve been working on for a couple of years now, but I can’t really say too much about those. My other dream projects revolve around films being made from my scripts. I’m lucky enough to have had a few shorts made from those, and have a couple more on the horizon including The Torturer, which is being directed by Joe Manco at Little Spark Films. I’ve written features too, but have yet to see one get made—so that would be a huge buzz for me.

What is your greatest life lesson?

To just keep going, keep trying. Patience and perseverance are big ones in this line of work, you just won’t get anywhere without either of those.

What makes you laugh?

I’m lucky enough to have written comedy, one of my early collections gathered together a lot of those tales: FunnyBones. And I realised from the reaction to it that comedy is so subjective; different things tickle our own funnybones. But I do love the classics like Monty Python, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, Seinfeld, Frasier… At the last HWA event, both Mike Carey and Joe Hill were recommending The Good Place to us and I’m slightly obsessed with that show now. If you haven’t seen it, then drop everything and watch it immediately! And of course Marie cheers me up all the time, especially if I’m getting a bit too serious. We make each other laugh a lot, and I think that’s one of the keys to a happy marriage, or just a happy life in general.

Thanks, Paul, for taking the time to share with us. Before I provide our visitors with an excerpt from Arcana, as well as your social and book buy links, I’d like to conclude with a Lightning Round. In as few words as possible, please answer the following:

My best friend would tell you I’m: Her husband.

The one thing I cannot do without is: My wife.

The one thing I would change about my life: More hours in the day.

My biggest peeve is: Stickers on book covers.

The thing I’m most satisfied with is: My marriage.

Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

Just thanks to everyone who keeps buying the books, I’ll keep writing them if you keep picking them up!

 

Excerpt:

Callum looked around at the paintings that hung there. He didn’t know much about art, but bet they were worth a tidy sum. One showed a ship in a storm being battered about on the waves. Another had a knight in armour on a white charger, fighting a red dragon that was breathing fire.

“Cute,” said Gibson when he saw it.

“So, what exactly are we doing here?” Callum asked as they approached another receptionist.

“All in good time,” was the only answer he’d give. Gibson stepped up to the desk to talk to a woman who could have been a clone of the one downstairs, except for her blonde hair. “Mr. Temple, please.”

The secretary looked at him, puzzled. “He’s in a meeting … with a client.” It was exactly what they’d been told before.

“Oh, okay,” said Gibson, then made his way past into the foyer. The receptionist got up to stop him, but the policeman brushed her aside, reading the names on the doors to see which one belonged to Temple. He opened it and burst inside.

A tall man with pinched features wearing an immaculately cut suit rose from his desk, while the woman—middle-aged, wearing a black dress and hat with a veil—turned around in her leather seat. Surrounding them, on almost every wall of the room, were rows and rows of books.

“What’s the meaning of this?” shouted the man, who had to be Temple.

“Sir, I tried to stop them,” offered the receptionist.

“That’s right, she did,” Gibson confirmed. “But we kinda insisted.”

“It’s all right, Gloria,” Temple told her. “Go back to your desk.”

Gloria did as she was told, casting both Gibson and Callum a dirty look as she went.

“Now then,” Temple said, “I demand an explanation for this!”

Gibson walked further into the room. “What was the lure, Mr Temple? Was it boredom? Is that how you got into it?”

Temple frowned.

“Someone with your kind of money; drugs and drink not cutting it for you anymore?”

Temple’s distressed client looked up at him, seeking some sort of explanation.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, Officer. What I do know is that I can have you pulled up on charges at the drop of a hat. Let’s see, intimidation for a start, breaking and entering, abuse… Who’s your superior?”

“Does the name Zola Bates mean anything to you?” Gibson demanded, eyes narrowing. That certainly wasn’t his boss.

Temple appeared to think about this for a moment, then shook his head.

“Oh, come on—let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? We pulled Zola in a couple of weeks ago. She gave up all of her clients.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t—”

“We’ve been on to you ever since. You’ve been consorting with the wrong kind of people, Temple. You think nobody knows about your visits to the back room of that wine bar on Avon Street. But we have the rest of your lot, mate. And I’m here to take you in.”

“You have no right to—”

“Your fancy lawyer talk won’t save you this time. We have all the evidence we need.”

“This is absolutely preposterous,” announced Temple, rounding the desk, hands balled into fists. “What’s going on here, some kind of witch hunt?”

Gibson smiled. “Yes, that’s right. That’s exactly what this is.” The smile broadened. “I’m here under Section 27 of the James I of England Act, Temple.”

Then he pulled the canister from his belt and sprayed Temple with the liquid. Gibson aimed for the eyes first, and Temple howled, rubbing them with his knuckles. Then Gibson sprayed lower: into Temple’s mouth, covering his suit with the liquid. The smell was strong, even across the room.

Gibson then took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one.

Temple opened his eyes. “Oh sweet Heaven, no! Please…” His hands were clasped together.

“No good praying, I doubt whether He’ll help you now,” Gibson spat. Then he tossed the match. The little wooden stick seemed to spin over and over in slow motion. Callum watched it turn, the yellow, blue and white flame flickering as it did so. When it collided with Temple’s chest there was a fraction of a second’s pause. The next moment the lawyer himself was engulfed in flames. They spread all over the area Gibson had sprayed, down across his trousers, up into his face. The female client put her hands to her mouth, but that didn’t stifle her scream; though it was nothing compared to Temple’s cries while his flesh bubbled and seared. As Callum watched, shielding his face from the heat, the material of Temple’s suit stuck to its owner. Temple staggered around a little, then fell over. The plush carpet beneath caught fire too.

Callum looked around and saw an extinguisher by the door. He grabbed it and was about to move forward, when Gibson stopped him.

He shook his head. “Not yet. He’s still alive.”

Temple’s client was up out of the chair now, and seconds later out of the door. Callum couldn’t say that he blamed her. The sight of Temple’s eyeballs melting in his skull wasn’t exactly appealing. When the lawyer’s head dropped back and his arms—which had been reaching out even as he writhed on the floor—finally went slack, Gibson finally nodded for Callum to put out the fire. Wincing, the young officer sprayed the man, and the flames died down as suddenly as they’d sprung up.

Callum stood back from the blackened mess that had been a human being just a few minutes ago. Only the white of Temple’s teeth shone out, as what was left of his lips were pulled back over them.

“Best way for sparkies to go,” said Gibson from behind him. “Old-fashioned, but effective.”

Callum turned to face his partner, who was still smiling. He could think of nothing to say.

“You see, we’re the real knights on the chargers. They’re the dragons.” His smile faded. “And we fight fire with fire.”

If you’d like to follow Paul online, you may do so here:

Website: http://www.shadow-writer.co.uk

Twitter: @PaulKaneShadow

Instagram: @paul.kane.376

You may purchase Paul’s books here:

Amazon UK POD: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arcana-Paul-Kane/dp/1614759448/

Amazon UK Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MC142BR/

Amazon US POD: https://www.amazon.com/Arcana-Paul-Kane/dp/1614759448/

Amazon US Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MC142BR/

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/b5r9N6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Write Stuff – Monday, November 19 – Nathan Dodge Interview

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This week’s featured author, Nathan Dodge, began writing as a teen, completing several novels, all, in his words, of questionable quality. During the next decades, he wrote spasmodically, in the meantime earning a BS in electrical engineering from Southern Methodist University and MSEE and PHDEE degrees from The University of Texas at Austin. Although he continued to experiment with writing, mainly science fiction, Nathan served as an engineer and engineering manager in the industry for two decades before joining the University of Texas at Dallas faculty. He retired in 2014, although he still teaches half-time. He won several teaching awards at UTD.

Nathan began writing seriously in 2012 and has attended seven Superstars Writing Seminars. He has a story in the Purple Unicorn Anthology with daughter Sharon, a short story sale to Mike Resnick’s Galaxy’s Edge, and recently sold the a book series of young adult science fiction stories to WordFire Press. He and Sharon will soon release an anthology of SF stories entitled, To the Stars, on Amazon.

In his spare time, of which there is surprisingly little, he loves weight lifting, hiking in Colorado, and solving crossword puzzles with wife Faye Lynn.

This is the premise of his WordFire Press release, Shadow Warriors, Book 1 of the Shadow Warriors series:

Cal’s father is drinking himself to death over the passing of his wife. He has lost his job and spent himself into complete bankruptcy. Their home is posted for foreclosure. Letty’s parents started out poor, but the business they founded has made them rich. Now, though, they fight all the time, and it’s driving Letty crazy. Tony has lived on the street for months with his prostitute mother, but he woke up this morning to find her dead, OD’ed on drugs. Ophelia is the daughter of a billionaire, but her father died mysteriously and now her stepmother is plotting to take all her inheritance. Sasha lives in a foster home with an abusive family that feeds him scraps and threatens that if he complains, they will send him to jail.

All five have terrible personal problems—and then one day, they wake up aboard a spaceship, kidnapped. They must train as the crew of a galactic fighter to defend the very civilization that has abducted them. The enemy is a predatory, unstoppable enemy that threatens the entire galaxy, including their home planet Earth. Either they successfully train to become a capable fighter crew, or they will die in battle. A gripping new adventure series in the spirit of Ender’s Game!

What do you want readers to know about your book?

Shadow Warriors is a Young Adult space opera, about five teens who are kidnapped and forced to train as a fighter crew in a galactic war. The underlying theme is family. The five protagonists have never had close  family relationships, or if they had, they didn’t last for long. Thrown together in training, they are first hostile and angry, but quickly learn the value of close relationships. The real theme of book one is that family is where you find it, not necessarily just the group of individuals that are your blood kin.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

None other than that I wanted to write a “cracklin’-good” story. However, the characters, themselves very independent, took me where they wanted the story to go.

Why is your writing different from other authors in this genre?

I think my characters spend time exploring relations and learning the meaning of family to a greater degree than in many stories. But in addition, I believe that the story is a fun and exciting description of the beginnings of an epic galactic battle that will span five books.

What was your path to publication?

I spent nearly four years learning my craft after I finally started writing in earnest, with only one novel submission, which was rejected. I submitted MANY short stories, with a remarkable rejection rate, selling only one story in the Purple Unicorn Anthology with my daughter, and one story (a contest win) to Mike Resnick’s Galaxy’s Edge.

I shopped Shadow Warriors only to Baen’s Toni Weisskopf, which she rejected. Not surprising, since Baen doesn’t really do much YASF. I then sent it to Dave Butler at WordFire, more requesting an evaluation of where I should send it than really making it a submission, but Dave recommended that WordFire sign me to a contract. Since that time, WFP has agreed to publish all five books.

What are you working on now?

My first book series was a dystopian SF trilogy, which I have never finished. I am writing the third book now as I have time. It is slow going, as I am re-editing my other four Shadow Warriors books and getting ready to submit to WFP. The second book is already in process, and I hope to send in the third before Christmas.

What else have you written?

Two volumes of the dystopian trilogy, another YASF novel called The Freedom Conspiracy about a teenager living on the moon, and a novel about the first intelligent android, called I, One. It is currently submitted to a publisher other than WFP.

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

Not a lot of writing honors. I have previously received two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contests, and just this week I received a Silver Honorable Mention for a story in the latest contest.

Do you create an outline before you write? 

I ALWAYS complete a thorough, chapter-by-chapter outline before I write a single word of a novel. That is due entirely to Dave Wolverton (Dave Farland), who trained me well!

How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?

I’ve become a far more “complete” writer over the last six years. I’m better at dialogue, character evolution, and scene description. I still struggle, and I still, from time to time, change character point-of-view in a chapter or scene, which is a real no-no. To quote the famous painter, Degas (modified for writing rather than painting), “Writing fiction is really easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.”

Tell us about your writing community.

My writing community is the Superstars group, and I am friends with many of them. I would say without fear of contradiction that the writers in that group are all great folks, and I feel close to all of them. I have only collaborated with daughter Sharon, also a writer and Superstar. I think it’s hard, but frequently worth it.

If you could do anything differently, what would it be?

Definitely start writing a couple decades earlier!!

What is your greatest life lesson?

Don’t waste a single day! Our time on Earth is limited, and we need to make the most of it!

What makes you laugh?

I must confess to enjoying ironic jokes of most types. I love the TV show “Big Bang Theory,” which almost always gets a few belly laughs. And sadly, I often laugh bitterly at the attitudes and prejudices of many of our public officials at all levels.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Have you got an hour? Robert Heinlein, first of all, closely followed by Kevin J. Anderson, Dave Farland, Brandon Sanderson, J. R. R. Tolkien and Robert Jordan. So you see, I like fantasy as well as SF, but I usually write SF. I also love Nora Roberts’ Eve Dallas murder mysteries written under the name of J. D. Robb—which are also really a mild science fiction.

Before I present our visitors with a Shadow Warriorsexcerpt, followed by your social and book buy links, I’d like to conclude with a Lightning Round. Please answer the following in as few words as possible:

My best friend would tell you I’m a: Good guy basically, but can be grouchy if irritated, and not very tolerant of stupidity.

The one thing I cannot do without is: coffee in the morning! Or almost any time of day!

The one thing I would change about my life: I’d take a few more chances, and start serious investing a bit sooner.

My biggest peeve is: Traffic in general. And also, how many BAD drivers are out there!

The person or thing I’m most satisfied with is:

Person: My wife, and the way she has encouraged me to be a fiction writer. Even though she doesn’t like fiction!

Thing: My exercise routine, which has served me well for over 30 years.

Do you have a parting thought you would like to leave us with?

My favorite thought is a saying which I think of as applying to us writers, but can equally be for anyone who wants to lead a satisfied and useful life. It has credited been to sayings as far back as Confucius, although the earliest modern attribution is to something published in the “Princeton Alumni Weekly” in 1982 which quoted a Professor of Philosophy named Arthur Szathmary, who himself attributed the words to an unnamed “old-timer” who was not identified. That is: Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. I think I’ve been able consistently do that. I loved being a computer systems engineer and manager, and I fell in love with teaching at UTD. I probably love writing even more. I can truly say that I’ve NEVER had to “work.”

Excerpt:

 As they got their bearings, Tony sang out, “Formation sighted, sir. They are about to enter the system where we blasted the four ships last week.” He scratched his head. “They are very widely dispersed. It’s an unusual spread, approaching the planet. It stretches back in a cone-shaped formation nearly a thousand kilometers long.”

“Makes them harder to engage,” Cal observed. “They’re also probably looking for their four scouts. Opi?”

She raised her head from the portable. “We’re headed into an ambush, sir. They used this exact formation ten years ago and caught two dozen Warrior ships off-guard. Only one survived. We’re about to be trapped like foxes by the hounds.”

Cal got the point. They were preparing to attack; he had to move fast. He called out, “Red Seventeen to unit leader.”

A moment later, Valin’s voice snapped through their speakers, “Seventeen, Lead here.”

“Sir,” Cal said, “Our planner’s spotted a potential ambush.”

They could hear the sneer in Valin’s reply. “Seventeen, this is real war. Follow my lead, that’s an order.”

Cal almost screamed in frustration. “Lead, requesting permission to leap with engines hot.”

It took precious seconds to generate sufficient leap power. Going in “hot” would mean keeping leap power at maximum.

“Negative, Seventeen,” Valin said. “Form up for attack. Lead out.” The comms snapped off.

Cal swore under his breath. “Get Raj.”

In a few seconds Raj came on line. “Red Seventeen, Green Lead here.”

“Sir,” Cal almost shouted, “Opi’s spotted a trap. Heads up!”

A long silence followed. “Copy, Seventeen.”

“Go in engines hot, sir!” Cal persisted. “Warn your ships!”

Another long pause left Cal sweating. Then Raj said, “Roger that, Seventeen. Green Lead out.”

Cal blew out a sharp breath. “Everybody hold your breath.”

“I hope we’re wrong,” Opi muttered, “but I don’t think so.”

They waited in silence, Cal shifting uncomfortably in the pilot’s seat as though this were their first training exercise.

Shortly, Valin transmitted the signal to advance. Cal triggered Tony’s plotted leap, and a stretch of deep space lay before them. Silver dots scattered across their long-range displays.

They would micro-leap again to begin the attack.

Surveying their targets, the trailing section of the scout column, Cal identified about twenty ships. He and Red Eleven were closest, with the rest of the Red ships spread along the rear of the column.

As the Shadow Warrior ships appeared, Cal counted down, marking their attack points and exchanging target data with his fellow pilots. In seconds, Valin’s voice came through their comms, “On my mark. Three, two, one, leap.”

Cal initiated.

Directly ahead lay a Horde ship, with two more to port a few kilometers farther away.

Cal said, “Fire at will.”

Sasha opened up, and the Gatling cannon rumbled.

Under cover of its racket, Tony said softly, “Jump engines still hot, sir.”

The ship ahead disintegrated as they swept past. The other two moved directly ahead as Cal fired thrusters. He could see their blast cannons sparkling to life as Sasha fired again.

One ship exploded as the other fired at them, its weapons a combination of particle beam and laser blast, sparkling red as it crossed the gap to their ship. Their shields glowed red, absorbing the blast, and Sasha continued to fire. Sasha felt no contact from the beam, but the lights dimmed momentarily as the shield generator sucked power to absorb the energy of the blast.

Red Seventeen’s projectiles penetrated the skin of the enemy vessel, and the energy beam lit it up. Sasha had already targeted several other more distant ships.

Concentrating on tactical, Letty gasped. “Cal, ships coming in from six directions! Lot and lots of ships, maybe hundreds! Must have been hidden behind the planet.”

Watching the long-range display, Tony yelled, “Holy crap! She’s right, sir. Coming in from all over the place.”

Cal toggled his com line. “Red Unit, Red Seventeen! It’s an ambush! We’re in a trap!”

Valin’s angry voice came back. “What trap? What—?” He strangled into sudden silence.

Cal could identify at least twenty ships, the new type, small, fast, and sleek, zeroing in on his own.

“Bringing her about!” he warned the others, and leaned on the directional controls. “Sasha, you’ve got a straight shot.”

Thrusters flared and roared, and the ship swung toward the attackers. Sasha opened up, spraying bullets ahead as the ships came in. This time, Sasha felt buffeting from all the energy blasts as multiple ships began firing.

“Captain, we can’t take this beating long!” Sasha yelled. “Our shields are not going to last at this rate.”

Author Website:       https://www.nathanbdodge.com/

Amazon:                    https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Warriors-Nathan-B-Dodge-ebook/dp/B07J2SRYZ2/

Baen Books:              https://www.baen.com/wf201810-october-2018-wordfire-press-books.html

The Write Stuff – Monday, October 1 – Liz Colter Spotlight

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Today’s featured guest is WordFire Press author, Liz Colter. Due to a varied work background, Liz has harnessed, hitched, and worked draft horses, and worked in medicine, canoe expeditioning, and as a roller-skating waitress. She also knows more about concrete than you might suspect. Liz has followed her heart through a wide variety of careers, including farming with a team of draft horses, and working as a field paramedic, Outward Bound instructor, athletic trainer, and roller-skating waitress, among other curious choices. She also knows more about concrete than you might suspect. Her novels written under the name L. D. Colter explore contemporary and dark fantasy, and ones written as L. Deni Colter venture into epic fantasy realms. She’s an active SFWA member with multiple short story publications, and her debut novel, A Borrowed Hell, was the winner of the 2018 Colorado Book Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy.  I asked her about her recent epic fantasy novel, The Halfblood War, and she cited its underlying premise:

A sweeping story of love and war, prejudice and acceptance…

Tirren, heir to the ruler of Thiery, has raised his half-Elven son in a land that hates and fears the Elves, but his son’s struggle for acceptance is only one source of Tirren’s pain. The other is his unfading desire for Yslaaran, the Elven woman who eighteen years ago captured him in a spell, seduced him, and vanished. She returned only once more—to hand him his infant son.

When a neighboring ruler attacks the land of Thiery, Tirren rides to battle with his half-breed son at his side. Learning of the war, Yslaaran fears the conflict will unravel her long-laid plans for the boy. If she doesn’t interfere, he could die before his time, but if she reveals her hand by meddling, her own people could rise up against the humans they despise and trap the land between two deadly enemies.

The fate of two races hang in the balance, but only Yslaaran knows that both humans and Elves risk a future more devastating than war.

What do you want readers to know about your book?

This is a classic, Western European-based fantasy, like the ones I grew up reading and enjoying. While I love the new directions epic fantasy is taking, and while I may write something in the future that’s more of a departure as far as setting and culture, for this novel I poured into it everything I’ve loved over decades of reading epic fantasy. It’s a stand-alone novel, but packed with terrifying and powerful elves, romance and war, and the halfblood offspring of humans and elves who are caught in the middle of the conflicts.

Aside from the plot, is there a story behind it?

I’ve always loved the old stories and ballads of capricious fae: the fairy queen who abducted Thomas the Rhymer, or the one who wooed Tam Lin away from his mortal lover (according to scholars, both may be the same story but separated and changed by a few centuries). I also love the Celtic stories of the light and dark fae courts, and creatures so bound to their natures that they can hardly be judged by mortal standards of morals and behavior.

What are you working on now?

I write epic fantasy as L. Deni Colter but also contemporary/dark fantasy as L. D. Colter. Currently, L. D. Colter is neck-deep in a challenging set of books—a loosely-connected series of contemporary fantasies about gods from various cultures. Meanwhile, L. Deni Colter is planning a set of epic fantasy books about a court executioner.

What else have you written?

I’m thrilled to announce that my novel, While Gods Sleep (written as L. D. Colter) has also just released. The cover quote by Walter Jon Williams describes it as “The pleasures of Greek mythology mixed with the dark undercurrents of contemporary fantasy.” My debut novel, A Borrowed Hell (contemporary fantasy from L. D. Colter) was published by Digital Fiction Publishing at the beginning of 2018.

Are there any awards or honors you’d like to share?

A Borrowed Hell was the 2018 winner of the Colorado Book Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy from Colorado Humanities, and in 2014 I was selected as a winner in the international Writers of the Future contest for my short story “The Clouds in Her Eyes.”

Excerpt from The Halfblood War:

Chapter 1

“It’s too soon to risk it,” Erimar said.

Tirren stood, anticipating the rest of the objections his father would raise. It was an old argument but past time to revisit it. He paced to the library’s hearth and leaned an elbow on the fireplace mantle. “We’ve held off an extra year already. What will more waiting accomplish? It won’t alter my son’s heritage.” The heavy, gray stone of Thiery Hold seeped cold into his arm, despite the fire. Outside, a chilly, spring rain pelted the leaded windows with a sound like small pebbles hitting the thick glass.

“He would have more time to mature,” Erimar insisted.

“He’s seventeen,” Tirren said, striding back to the middle of the room, his volume increasing, “a year into his manhood.” Escalating this would accomplish nothing. He took a breath and began again. “The more we emphasize his differences, the harder we make this for him. Chayan has enough to overcome already. He has to be ready to be Beodan by the time he’s twenty, to be Bealdor when you and I are gone.”

“Gods, Tirren! Don’t you think I’ve thought of that every day since that woman brought him to us?”

That woman. Erimar had never once referred to Chayan’s mother by name.

Tirren had intentionally steered the conversation away from Yslaaran, as much for his own sake as to avoid his father’s bitterness, yet even the harsh and impersonal invocation of her triggered memories: His first sight of her through the open gate of the Hold eighteen years ago, as she stood at the edge of the woods that Winterfest night. A woman, nearly of a height with him, wearing a single, flowing gown that had shimmered in the dark like opals, so different from the layered, high-cut dresses of Heshan women. Her thick, red hair loose, spilling down her back to her hips. He asked if she was well, titling her “Iden,” as her graceful elegance bespoke a highborn woman. He hadn’t realized at the time how much he debased her.

Tirren dragged himself from the memories. “I’m sure you’ve thought of her daily.” He didn’t bite back the resentment that seeped into his words. Unfair of him, he knew, to criticize his father’s objections to her when he’d never reconciled his own conflict at loving the woman who stole his will and his seed for reasons he’d never understood. Leaving him with the complications of Chayan’s heritage heavy on his shoulders.

Their ancestors watched the argument even now, from tapestries covering the stone walls of the library. Men paused forever in the bloody battles that had won Thiery in the Conflicts, and paved the way for it to become the wealthiest of the four regions comprising their country of Hesh. Tirren’s father would have continued the family’s strong line, but his wife’s frail body had given them only one child. And Tirren had failed more grandly still; one bastard child, born to the Elven woman who abducted and seduced him eighteen years ago. A halfblood heir for a land that hated and feared the Elves.

“Don’t twist my meaning, Tirren. You know I love Chayan. I’ve raised him as my grandson despite his blood and his illegitimacy. But to let him travel the region, see the people, meet with the councils. We have no way to know the effect it will have.”

“We’ll never know if we keep him prisoner in the Hold.”

“Prisoner?” His father snorted. “Chayan has never been kept in the Hold and you know it. I’m saying we can’t let our plans outrun our caution.” His father stared into the fire. “The two of you are all I have,” he said, quietly.

In nearly twenty years since Tirren’s mother died, his father had never remarried, pinning his hopes on his son instead. Tirren had failed him there as well. He had been twenty-two the last time he saw Yslaaran, that following Winterfest eve, when she brought Chayan to him as an infant. At thirty-nine, he still couldn’t bear the thought of another woman. His obsession with her was wrong, and guilt plagued him for it, but year after year the feelings refused to fade.

“I know we are,” he said at last. “And I know the part I’ve played in that.”

BOOK LINKS:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FZ7496L/

Barnes and Noble (paperback): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-halfblood-war-l-deni-colter/1129191339?ean=9781614756620

Barnes and Noble (Nook): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-halfblood-war-l-deni-colter/1129191339?ean=2940161670965

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-halfblood-war

 

Author website: https://www.lizcolter.com/

Newsletter signup: https://mailchi.mp/bc969529fd5b/4tnr6lc28f_ldcolter