I am making progress on Salient Dreams, a new fantasy novel, and it is progressing well if not quickly.

But more important than any of that, The Last Dragoon has been released on Kindle, should now be out for Nook, and paper copies are coming along shortly. So if you need a last minute gift, or last minute break from reality, I’ve got you covered.

When was the last time you believed someone who said: I will love you forever? What if they proved it?
What is forever in comparison to the power of love?
In the end, what is the raw power of the human soul?

The Ivy City is dying. It flails under a sea of the risen dead, the holy churches broken, the nobles largely destroyed, the population leaderless and alone, the city itself is bleeding and growing cold. Tattered crimson ribbons of blood fill the gutters. A despicable wizard, scion of the noble line, has shoved the Ivy City to the brink of death as he seeks what he sees as his rightful throne.

Doomed by his forbidden love, discarded by the crown, forgotten by the people, a disgraced hero rises from the ashes to combat the rising darkness. Accompanied by a novice of the god of death, this armored savior will crash headlong into the ranks of the undead. As the legions of the unliving surround and entrap him, he faces the dark truths of his own failures, and discovers the limits of his warrior will.

He will fight because of his oaths to the crown and because of his oaths to the city. But, in the end, he will fight against a horde of nightmares because he has sworn with the totality of his soul to the crown princess, whom he has vowed to love forever.

The only questions that remains are:
What is the raw power of the human soul?
And can it be enough against an army of the dead?

1) Answer the 10 questions below.

2) Spread the fun and tag 5 more awesome people to participate.

The undeniable force of parties and vengeful retribution, KT Pinto, asked me to be a part of this meme, and I have to say I am honored.

1. What is the title of your latest book/WIP?

The Last Dragoon from Dark Quest Books

Since the first fantasy novel I had written, I Know Not, did so well, the publisher asked  me for another. It is not a sequel, but is set in the same world.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

Honestly, after writing about a complete scoundrel in I Know Not, I wanted something softer, something honorable, even something that felt a bit like a fairy tale.
3. What genre does your book fall under?

It’s firmly in fantasy, but since there are lots of creepy crawlies I suppose dark fantasy, or even Gothic fantasy would be better.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Wow,

Matthias Reinhart: Viggo Mortensen would do an excellent tortured soul.

Sergeant Bilford: Oh we would have to rip Jerry Doyle from his radio microphone and get him back into acting for this one.

Cassildra: For the young novice of the God of Death, Wow that’s hard. Hailee Steinfeld would be good in the role, but Cassildra is described quite specifically as a very heavy girl. Finding someone willing to buck Hollywood standards of beauty (or getting them to leave it in the movie version in the first place) would be beyond belief.

Ansarin: For the deranged necromancer artist, I think Benedict Cumberbatch from BBCs new Sherlock adaptation.

5. What is the book blurb for your book?

The Ivy City is dying. It flails under a sea of the risen dead, the holy churches broken, the nobles largely destroyed, the population leaderless and alone, the city itself is bleeding and growing cold. Tattered crimson ribbons of blood fill the gutters. A despicable wizard, scion of the noble line, has shoved the Ivy City to the brink of death as he seeks what he sees as his rightful throne.

Doomed by his forbidden love, discarded by the crown, forgotten by the people, a disgraced hero rises from the ashes to combat the rising darkness. Accompanied by a novice of the god of death, this armored savior will crash headlong into the ranks of the undead. As the legions of the unliving surround and entrap him, he faces the dark truths of his own failures, and discovers the limits of his warrior will.

He will fight because of his oaths to the crown and because of his oaths to the city. But, in the end, he will fight against a horde of nightmares because he has sworn with the totality of his soul to the crown princess, whom he has vowed to love forever.

The only questions that remains are:

What is the raw power of the human soul?

And can it be enough against an army of the dead?

 
6. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Once you take out the lost few weeks for editing other projects, and writing a novella on a bet, I believe it was only a hair over 4 months.
7. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Wow, it’s a mix of Sleeping Beauty, The tale of Lancelot, and any given hopeless opera you care to name. I used to joke that it was the anti-twilight, but I’m not sure I can keep watch over my shoulder for that many angry soccer moms and substitute teachers.
8. Who or What inspired you to write this book?

It is full of things I want my children, my friends – and myself most of all- to know, to remember. It has at its heart that we are often too hard on ourselves. More often the hero we are looking for is inside of each of us.
9. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Lord knows I’m action oriented, but I really was able to ramp up the battle scenes in a way I’ve never been able to before. Once my hero was no longer mortal, or even possible, I had fun pushing the limits of impossible without ripping apart the world around him.
And now I choose these five authors to also do this Meme:

Jeff Young      -           invisible-tv.livejournal.com

Jon Sprunk      -           www.jonsprunk.com

Feo Amante    -           www.feoamante.com

And Elektra Hammond          -           www.facebook.com/elektra.hammond

If you are a gamer, or just want to give the next writer a chance to get in on the ground floor, there is something you can do, and all they need is the contents of your coin tray.

The name of the company is Harsh Realities

They have a new game system called Sixcess.

They even started a Kickstarter page to get the backing for what they need to start the company. They’ve been doing really well with it, but every little bit adds a little bit more insurance to a company starting out in a shaky market.

If you have a few bucks, they could use it to make a few dreams come to life.

Then, I was poking around and found a release for a game I’ve been looking forward to.

I watched it once. Then, filled with some uncontrollable storm, I wrote. Not what I was supposed to be working on, not even anything that is going to go anywhere. Might as well post it here.

                They say it was a time of flags and glory. They say a lot of things. They never tell you how there were nights where any one of us would have killed for a can of god damned beans. The memories of old men are too good to remember anything but the truth, but when they look down into the glittering eyes of grandchildren too young to remember the sound of artillery it is simply easier to stand tall before a flag than to remember leaning into a bayonet until it pierced the hollow of a throat.

                Maybe it is the need to wash the hands in the streams of time, sending the blood away even as clots hide in the fine hairs and under the nails. Everyone knows, at least almost everyone knows. We let the Beast in. We fed him tenderly. We gave credence to his words. We had long lost sight of nature red in tooth and claw. We had replaced help with dependence and reduced mathematics to a popularity contest. Words were twisted in their meaning. America had flown so high that we had lost contact with the very ground underfoot. And the sun was oh, so warm. We forgot that some words, no matter how professionally delivered, should not be heeded. That lies were still lies, no matter how dreamy and how spun from golden sunshine. I can hardly look my own children in the eyes and admit we did it to them, and they very well know. So why should it be any different for anyone else?

                We thought the lies built palaces, the lies bought prosperity, but all they did was silence the opposition while loans flowed like a tsunami in order to bring about a fool’s golden age. Pyrite crowns cracked and tarnished as everyone was told that need had replaced work. If you needed, you should not have to work for it, it should be given. If it was not given, it should be taken. That was the dangerous lie: That it could be taken.

                You can take any man’s money. What you cannot take is his wealth. Take cash from a rich man and he will be poor. Give it to a poor man, and he will soon be poor again, for he has nothing of real value. The wealthy man builds himself. He is the architect of his own destiny. No matter his level of treasure, the wealthy man will work, innovate, and adapt to build wealth for himself and anyone who knows enough to follow him into the world. That trait cannot be taken, stolen, or redistributed. It can only be crushed. And when Taxing wasn’t enough, and when stealing wasn’t enough, all they had left was to crush the wealthy.

                That’s when the guns were loaded. That’s when the knives were sharpened.

                At the time I hated them, for making me fight, for making it necessary. Now I think they were just as afraid as I was. But they had been told that when a man climbs a stair, he must, had to, push others back behind him to progress. Failure was a plot by unseen masters that sought to restrict access to the lofty heights of success. So attractive were the lies, so beautiful was this fairy tale that we could not convince them, even unto death, that the staircase was built of failures. Every step was a painful sacrifice. They would never believe that riches can be passed to any, but wealth can only come to the worthy. Least of all, that worthiness could be attained by any who tried, and failed, and tried again.

                We, who remembered the old days, who were weaned on the legends of the America That Was before the books were poisoned and leveled and fairnessed into casting us as a bloody handed giant of the world, we remembered being the shining city. At least we thought we did. Everyone knew that the tree of freedom must be watered with the blood of tyrants, but forgot also patriots. Maybe that war was like this one, whitewashed for the sanity of the men damned to its confines until their memories finally fled their broken minds. If we were the greatest evil, then why were we the dream of the world? Why were we once free, and wealthy? Why did evil increase with the number of cameras, the number of prisons, of rules and laws, regulations, billyclubs and bureaucrats if it was caused by freedom?

                Begging could be met, demands could be matched, taxes could be paid, but when they beat down our doors looking for what they were owed by right of breath, that was when we fought. And we were punished for fighting.

                And from that point, war was not an option, it was a religion. Freedom was our goddess. We who fought it were her priests. We took up weapons -suddenly so clear why they had fought to restrict them- we had nurtured for over two hundred years . We died by the millions. They died in numbers so great we walled up cities as tombs for them, with signs that they never be opened lest the beast be free again to ravage the land. All so a man might earn, might share, but not fear the theft by one or one million. For, in the end, all that is earned is paid for with life, with time. Property law is the basis of all law, for the first property one has is one’s self, one’s life, and one barters time for money. Thus, anything taken is a loss of life. To give one’s life in service, or charity, is noble.

                To have it stolen, even bit by bit, is a murder by inches.

                But now my children have the America That Was, again. And their children.

                And now we must sacrifice more, for we must write it all down. We must admit every lie, every failure, every cursed good intention that lead us to the place where lead rains from the sky and the clouds burn, for if they do not remember -  and remember with the clarity we were denied – then it will happen again.

                It will all happen again.

                                                                                                -Andre Adams

                                                                                                General, Ohio Fifth Militia (ret.)

Maybe it is the upcoming election, maybe fears of the coming economic trauma. Maybe the mention of gun control at the last debate. Maybe threats by some to riot if the election goes against them. Maybe all of that. But, for the curious, you are filled with the hopes and dreams, the fears and loves of people who never lived. They dance around in your brain until you tell their story.

That is what being a writer is like.

 This is the original song, which I don’t like as much as the blues-ey one.

Edit:

My Google Fu is getting stronger, I found it!

At the request of a fan, I have to lists out a bibliography, because the others are getting a bit dusty.

Radiation Angels: The Chimerium Gambit

Radiation Angels: The Key to Damocles

*currently out of print will be reprinted by Darkquest Soon

More Radiation Angels Short stories appear in:

Barbarians at the Jumpgates

So it Begins

Breach the Hull

By Other Means

Snow and Steel

Historical fiction novel set in WWII during the siege of Stalingrad.

The Last Ride of the Iron Cowboy

Steampunk, Novella, Kindle/Electronic only.

I Know Not

Fantasy Novel

Galactic Creatures
Short Story: Science fiction

In an Iron Cage

Steampunk Short Story

Dragons Lure

Science Fiction Short Story

More short fiction:

Bad Ass Faeries 2

Bad Ass Faeries 3

In addition, keep an eye out for The Last Dragoon, a new fantasy novel. As well as a few more shorts and a novella.

Updates when available.

Hopefully back to blogging soon.

I’ve been especially stymied in writing by a series of unfortunate events that would make Lemony Snickets wince in sympathetic ball-pain. Some of this is good pressure, others is bad pressure. No matter, it all must be borne and overcome. Most of it is professional, and most of it I can’t really talk about. One thing is only partially private, and I can talk about it if I want to .

So, let’s see if I can buy off my laziness of the last few months on this blog by letting you in on some juicy mental damage.

The Story of how I became BATMAN. Or: Pinched nerves on $0 a day!

I work at a sporting goods retailer,  normally spelled G-U-N S-T-O-R-E to most people in America. Don’t be surprised. Quite a few entertainers are gun enthusiasts, both living and dead. That being said, I actually sell firearms, and manage a gun range in Cincinnati, Oh.

A few days ago, I get a frantic call from a woman I’ll call Beth. Beth called in breathlessly, saying Clyde was coming in, Clyde had made threats against her and himself. He was armed, and was planning to shoot himself on the range.

We get this call once or twice a year. Never does the guy ever show. So I had no problem telling her that we would do all that we could, but that was very little. She needed to CALL THE POLICE. The police, after all, are the professionals. They are trained and paid to handle this kind of feces next to this particular brand of oscillating ventilator. I warned my coworkers and… yep, dude shows up.

I check the load in my 1911 just in case things get super hairy, make sure the safety is engaged – twice – and holster it with the firm knowledge that even a .45 is in no way a bullet proof vest. But all was for naught. I get up front and Clyde is… normal. Very normal. End of a long work day normal. As I explain that I can’t let him go out on the range, he is upset, but not unreasonably so, and he’s angry, but not anywhere near out of control, or at me. You see I have a fair bit of experience with abusive relationships. Abusers blame the person in front of them, begin crossing lines in an attempt to bully people into submission, and transfer responsibility for transgressions to the victim. This guy did none of this.

He just looked at me wryly and asked, “Do you have an ex-wife?”

It was then I was sure I had been hosed.  The facility where I worked had a contract with this guy. He had paid a tidy sum to be able to come in and shoot. He had self defense equipment he wanted to test. And he was a firefighter.

If you have read this blog a long, long time, you know I have a soft spot for firefighters. It takes a special kind of crazy to enter an inferno looking to pull people that can only be described as dead or deader on any kind of Schrödinger scale, cat or no. This was a guy that did the job of my Father. I kinda had to help if I could.

So I offered to go out on the range with him. In the interest of safety I would be there and in that way I could… well, I didn’t really think it that far ahead. So there we were, out on the range. He had a Glock 19, a black polymer pistol in a hybrid inside the waistband holster on one hip. He put his target out at seven yards – pretty far for emergency self defense practice, really – and started his routine of: Draw. Aim. Shoot. Shoot. Check. Holster.

Again and again, Draw. Aim. Shoot. Shoot. Check. Holster. Draw. Aim. Shoot. Shoot. Check. Holster. Draw-Aim-Shoot-Shoot-Check-Holster. Draw-Aim-Shoot-Shoot-Check-Holster. Draw-Aim-Shoot-Shoot-Check-Holster. Every time, I watch two empty pieces of brass arc out of the weapon, spent. All this time, I am not watching his target. I am not watching the holes appear. I am watching the gun.

And every tendon in my body is thrumming as if conducting 10,000 volts.

Because from the very first moment, I realize that the motion that brings a gun out of the holster and snaps it onto target needs so little modification to put it into a mouth, or under a chin. Or even point it backwards to lame the chubby little manager behind him so that he can continue to Valhalla unimpeded.

Faster than a set of flash-bumper scenes out of a cheesy action movie, I had begun gaming the situation. How to grab the gun, where to wrestle it, how to disable it, where in the hell I would point it!

Before his second set of shots I realized that I had judged the man, then allowed him entry onto an active range with dozens of men, women, and children who were all merrily practicing the shooting sports, no idea why the fat guy on lane two was staring so intently, sweat pouring off of him.

Then a call from the range counter over the industrial strength P.A.

DID THESE GUYS NOT KNOW THAT I WAS ON THE FREAKING LANE WITH A GUY WHO MIGHT AT ANY TIME KILL HIMSELF OR OTHERS?!

I ran outside. Exwife had called again. Hysterical.

To hell with her.

I was with the guy with a gun.

My orders were simple: She calls the cop and fills out a report like a civilized person or she shuts the f#@k up. They were not to call me again. Get the other manager.

If something happens tell my wife and kids I love them.

“Wait-” You say? “You said he was all sane and some junk? So why so much worry?”

Yes, of course! Yes, he was sane, yes, I thought he was getting screwed by his ex (especially as the minutes dragged on and the police never showed). But sure in the store, and sure where the lead was flying is something entirely different. Reminds me of the old saw about no Atheists in foxholes.

In any case, I went back out there, and groaned inwardly as Linden (I thought his name was Clyde? SHUT UP! NOT IMPORTANT!) The firefighter was pulling four more boxes of ammunition from his plastic bag.

I did engage in a little mental slight of hand. I gave him pointers to getting better shots, bringing them down and back onto the target. Drawing and firing is not as easy as you have ever seen it in the movies, even on a range. He listened, and his groups moved downward and began to shrink. (To non gun fans: this is good.)

Him taking the advice was a good sign. I was making a connection with him, lessening the chance of him plugging me. He was trying, making the idea of him ending it all just now even more remote.

But as the bullets counted down, I was reminded that sometimes it takes time to build up the courage to do something. Especially the last something. If it was going to happen, every bullet made it more inevitable, more immediate, rather. Of course I had a gun, but it wasn’t as if shooting the poor guy was the best way to stop him from shooting himself. Keano Reeves aside, it was a cave man solution without a hint of elegance.

Still, I was there, knees bent, hands relaxed, away from the body, breathing shallow – the smell of burnt gunpowder everywhere as the snap and crack of a dozen guns providing the soundtrack to my heart.

I am certain I have mentioned once or twice that I am an author. This job is basically to come up with worst case scenarios. Of course, right now worse could be pretty damn bad. And then I thought up worse, and worse.

And then, just like that, he was done.

He shook my hand, we chatted for a few minutes. (the man equivalent of: women, what can you do?… which now that I think of it is exactly: women, what can you do?) I went home and had a few stiff drinks, as sore as if I had been wresting with the entire cast of whatever mutated collection of W’s and F’s now represent Hulk Hogan and his ilk.

And then he left. A current search reveals no murder-suicides, no messy car crashes, no arrests, nothing. But the next morning. I was batman.

Nope, no the cool gadgets. No superpowers, megacomputers, or tank like jumping cars. I couldn’t turn my head. My whole torso had to turn to bring my head around without blinding pain. In fact this has just stopped about 5 days later. Still tender. Stress still there.

I realize on some level that I risked a room full of innocent people on my judgment. I’m the manager on duty. Maybe I had that right, maybe I didn’t. I just hated the idea that some faceless (CENSORED) robbing a good guy of what he wanted to do with his evening simply due to a factless, baseless charge is a big part of what’s wrong with societies.

Societies justify. Societies play the numbers. Groups limit the individual based on odds, on rumor, on hearsay. They use nonsense terms like “The greater good”. There is no greater good. There is only good. Only evil. Only personal good and personal evil.  Being in a group does not magnify nor spread the blame. Everyone must answer for their own actions.

I believe this with every fiber of my being.

In order to continue believing it, I put myself in harms way.

I would not have let him hurt anyone without action. I would have put myself in the way of the bullets to keep him, to keep everyone around him, safe. That’s a hard thing to admit, because no matter how true, or how humble, it sounds like absolute bullshit in the light of day. It sounds like bragging.

All I can say is its been most of a week, and only now can I move my neck. It doesn’t feel like bragging. It feels like one of the most terrifying hours of my life. It feels like sour sweat and sore muscles.

But today, tonight, tomorrow and for the rest of my life, I know where I stood.

Just like I know that some stupid (CENSORED) will one day answer for calling the fat guy at the gun store, lying to him, and taking years off his life.

I haven’t blogged in weeks. I’m not sure why I tell this, other than it’s the story I have. I have to pass it on.

I’m not sure what that says about me.

I have been referring for months to my latest novel, The Last Dragoon, and since I’ve been silent the novel has been submitted, and has been accepted for publication through Dark Quest Books. Editing has started, and I am taking even greater care than on past projects to avoid any grammatical travesties that may have crept into the manuscript. I’ve got a few cover art ideas to the publisher – though that kind of thing is largely up to the artist – and the back cover text first draft.

                The Ivy City is dying. It flails under a sea of the risen dead, the holy churches broken, the nobles largely destroyed, the population leaderless and alone. A despicable wizard, scion of the noble line, has shoved the Ivy City to the brink of death as he seeks what he sees as his rightful throne. The city itself is bleeding and growing cold. Tattered crimson ribbons of blood fill the gutters.

                Doomed by his forbidden love, discarded by the crown, forgotten by the people, a disgraced hero rises from the ashes to combat the rising darkness. Accompanied by a novice of the god of death, this armored savior will crash headlong into the ranks of the undead. As the legions of the unliving surround and entrap him, he faces the dark truths of his own failures, and discovers the limits of his warrior will.

                He will fight because of his oaths to the crown and because of his oaths to the city. But, in the end, he will fight against a horde of nightmares because he has sworn with the totality of his soul to the crown princess, whom he has vowed to love forever.

                The only questions that remains are:

                What if ‘I will love you’ forever meant forever?

                What is the raw power of the human soul?

                And can it be enough against an army of the dead?

And I picked out the teaser text from the main manuscript:

                Again I adjusted the helmet, hefted the axe, and met up with Bilford. He nodded to me as we walked, shoulder to shoulder, through the ranks of men toward the front line.

                “Shouldn’t you stay back to direct the battle?”

                He snorted, “Have you ever seen a man lead from the back that was worth a dead dog’s danglies?”

                Despite myself, I chuckled at the ribald soldier, “You have a point.”

                We took a few more steps, progress slowed in the crush of men. The closer to the front we got, the more the electric currents of fear and rage thrummed from soldier to soldier. The sergeant looked me up and down. “Beautiful armor. Family heirloom?”

                I shook my head. “It belongs to my order, who entrusted to me.”

                He frowned, puffing on the stub of the harsh tube of leafs, “Have you ever actually seen battle, nobleman?”

                I simply nodded. “Many times.”

                “Anywhere I may have heard of?”

                “Some of us have been fighting these things all night already without benefit of a gate or an army,” I shot back.

                That put a rock in his shoe, and he hefted his axe and turned to face me pugnaciously, “Who did you say you fought with?”

                “The dragoons,” I said.

                The sergeant, all warmth gone, growled, “You think you are a Silver Dragoon?”

                I nodded, feeling a chill run across the crowd at my back, “Yes. I am the last.”

                “Wait, you think you are Reinhart? That Reinhart?”

                “I am.”

                “You are a madman!”

                And then the next blow came, and it was too much for the venerated shields of the people. The doors cracked, and hinges screamed in protest as they twisted under titanic forces. They fell slowly, too grand and prideful to admit their time had finally come. They slammed into the ground with a reverberating slap that nearly deafened everyone for a block in every direction. Beyond, restrained by two man-thick crossbars, was a nauseating giant. The fires seemed to die back in fear, hiding from the sky-rattling noise of the beast.

                Four times the height of a man, greasy and leaking blood, with blackened juices oozing from every exposed muscle, the cobbled together thing leaned heavily on lower arms made of the desecrated statues of two of the holy gods. The heavy stone rams were what had felled the mighty gates, and even now it contemplated the bars that imprisoned it and prepared to smash them to pieces. Beneath the barrier, sewn together out of man-sized shapes, pieces and parts, the dead hissed and shrieked.

                I pointed to the colossal monstrosity with my axe, feeling my whole being suffuse with the very essence of battle. I roared, “You had better hope I am a sane man, Sergeant!”

                Then the dead charged.

 A new editing pass for I Know Not has just been completed, a new cover has been designed, and even more exciting plans are in place for the re-release. I’m starting on the sequel now that Dragoon is largely done. Even more, Galactic Creatures has gone to press and shown up in stores! If you are in the area, come to Balticon and join in the launch party! I get to hobnob with a lot of more accomplished authors, and beg work from publishers.

Wish me luck!

The Last Dragoon, my next fantasy novel, is done. Heart of a Lion, a post apocalyptic short, is through editing. Her Majesty’s Executrix (fantasy short) has been accepted for publication. I Know Not is getting a facelift and another editing pass. Sales are good. And yet, I can’t stop. Legacy of Fox Crow Book 2: The Opus Discordia needs to start next week. 95,000 words behind me, edited and submitted, another 5,000 edited, and another 100,000 ahead. I have to have this one finished before November at the latest. Slewep is for the dead.

Let me give the same advice I know has been given over and over, by authors to writers everywhere:

Do it because not doing it will kill you. Otherwise doing it surely will.

Stop Censorship.

Take action .

Or forever hold your peace.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

I’m actually nominatable (nominable? Nomi-? Nom-? I am eligible) for several categories. I am asking – well begging – for votes in order to try to claim any of these areas.

The process is simple, well simple-ish. Click on the link, look for my name or the title for I Know Not, click the bubble, then at the bottom fill out your name and  email address. Once you hit the submit button, you will get an email confirmation. Click the link in the confirmation, and your vote is then cast (this last to prevent spamming).

I am overjoyed at the performance of I Know Not. I adore my fans. I love readers. But moving forward, I need some recognition from official channels, which will lead to more conventions, more interviews, exposure. It is one small part of my next step, and to take it I need the help of you, your friends, your mom, her coffee klatch, your school mates, my school mates, and so on.

The polls are open only for seven more days, and thank you for your support.