Archives: News

Manuscripts and Tales

I’ve been going through a lot of… stuff lately, so I haven’t had time to update the site.

The good news is that I’ve turned over the final draft of the long-suffering project to my editor and agent. Here’s hoping that book 1 will be appearing next year or maybe even late this year, although we’re running short on time for that. I need to get to revising the second book, although I have to take a couple of weeks and assault the honey-do list.

The other good news is that there’s a new Dabir and Asim story available in the new issue of Skelos, available here. There’s also a whole bunch of other cool looking stuff in the issue that I look forward to reading just as soon as I finish outrunning this boulder.

Secret Projects and the Wish for Style

Monday I briefly touched upon some secret projects and sparked some speculation. Rather than answering thedarkman’s question on that older post, I thought I’d open by touching upon it today. Yes, one of those secret projects is rich with old school sword-and-sorcery. So much so that your socks are going to be blown off when you get it in your hands. I am grinning with delight every time I think about the quality of the work involved, and the art I’ve seen, and other components, and when the time comes I’ll shout about project x from the rooftops and hope that you’ll help me spread the word about it so it can reach as wide an audience as possible. With a little luck and hard work more and similar things will come to fruition.

Of Gates and Parachutes

Today’s the day my new Pathfinder book, Through the Gate in the Sea, gets released! Kind of a strange feeling. I wrote it in 2015 and made a final pass through it last summer, so it’s been off my radar for a long while. Now I’ll have to see if I recall how to add books to my book slider on my home page!

I’ve been doing a lot of WWII reading in the last few weeks, as I think I’ve mentioned. One of the true standouts is Parachute Infantry, by David Kenyon Webster. If you watched Band of Brothers, he’s the central character of one of the later episodes. He wrote his memoirs of his time in Easy company after the war but never found a publisher.

Long after Webster’s death Stephen Ambrose read the book and championed its publication. It has a wonderfully engaging, descriptive tone. An immediacy stemming both from emotional honesty and crystal clear prose. That guy could WRITE. The people from the company that he interacts with live again through his words. Don’t believe me? Check out the glowing reviews of the book, because they’re not hyperbole. Highly, highly recommended.

It’s a crime that no one wanted to publish the book in his lifetime.

Bear Power

My wife had “Mysteries of the Museum” on in the background last night. Usually I’m typing away or researching or reading while she runs the television in the evening, but I perked up during the story of Voytek the soldier bear. The details were so preposterous I had to stop what I was doing and look him up. I discovered that not only was the account true, there were even more stories about how awesome Voytek was. The bear so distinguished himself in the line of duty that his Polish unit actually changed their emblem to the image you see on the left.

I read several accounts of his life and adventures, and this was the most entertaining even if it employs ungentlemanly language. I think that’s the secret of some of its humor, but I’ve been kind of down on ungentlemanly conduct lately, so I thought I’d warn you. Here’s another article with a few additional details.

There’s apparently a documentary about Votyek as well. I swear, if I put this stuff in a story people would laugh at me for the sheer absurdity… But since it’s true, it’s pretty danged cool.

 

Through the Gate in the Sea

Author copies of my new book arrived the other day! Woo-hoo! There she be, the sequel to Beyond the Pool of Stars, right beside the Yellow Submarine.

It’s a good feeling. Now, time to get back to revising the final chapters of the first book of my new series… So very, very close…

My New Book

My friend Mick dropped me a line the other day asking for details on my new Pathfinder book, Through the Gate in the Sea. First off, I have to confess to me that it’s strange to think of it as “new” because I turned it over in 2015, and addressed some editorial feedback last summer. It’s felt over and done with for a while — except of course it’s never been released!

It’s the sequel to my third Pathinder novel, Beyond the Pool of Stars, which was my favorite of the Pathfinder novels published so far. I think I like this one at least as well, and there’s a new point-of-view character in it that I really enjoyed writing. Well, make that two, although one is new to the narrative.

If you liked what you saw in Beyond the Pool of Stars, with it’s Indiana Jones style search for missing treasure crossed with a Burroughsian jungle trek plus some pretty cool lizard folk characters, you’ll find more of it. I think the tension’s ratcheted up as our heroes track down clues to a lost city of Mirian’s lizard folk friend Jekka’s people, which may be fully inhabited. The problem is it lies through a mystical gate in the sea, and other people want to get there before them because of the sorcerous secrets that may lie behind.

Here’s the official descrip:

Computer Woes and Happy Holidays

My own computer’s in the shop, which makes posting to the web site a little problematic. Apparently some MacBook Pros, mine among them, develop keyboard malfunctions where bit by bit more and more of the keys randomly fail to respond. In my case it started with the n key, then moved onto the c and the b keys and the “command” key. I could get any of them to work if I struck them nine or ten times, but once that began to happen with multiple keys typing became one long act of frustration.

Until I get my faithful laptop back I’ve been using my old Dell to write on. The screen attachment is halfway pulled out of the laptop and it has to remain plugged in at all times or it dies instantly — and sometimes while you’re typing it randomly jumps lines — but it’s certainly better than nothing at all and even in this state is still an astonishing piece of technology that would have blown my mind when I was a kid.

New Story

In 2016 one of my short stories appeared in the Dungeon Crawl Classics 2016 Gen Con Program Guide. Joseph Goodman, sage of Goodman Games, enjoyed The Desert of Souls and contacted me to ask if I would be interested in crafting an Appendix N style tale. My answer was: “you bet!”

For a brief time, the 2016 Gen Con Program Guide — along with a whole bunch of great Dungeon Crawl Classics stuff — is on sale for 40 % off! That means you can go grab a copy, cheap, and in addition to all the cool Dungeon Crawl Classics stuff, enjoy the first-in-a-sequence tale of Hanuvar Cabera, my fantasy take on my favorite historical character, Hannibal of Carthage. It’s the first of two completed stories featuring him and hopefully the first of many more. He’s probably my personal favorite of all the serial characters I’ve created, even above Asim, and I have big plans for him, providing I have the time. I hope you’ll check out the story!

Pounds Hollow

At some point in junior high our school bussed us over to Turkey Run State Park. I wish I could remember the exact year or the teachers, or much else apart from me learning never to jump to a wet rock in the middle of a creek (feet went right out from under me, as I probably should have learned BEFORE that). My chief takeaway was that the park was quite pretty, particularly trail 3, which winds up a limestone river gorge.

Now, approximately forty years on, I’m better equipped to understand that many of the trails in Turkey Run State Park, near Marshall, IN, are among the prettiest American places you can see that don’t involve mountain vistas or trips west. And probably they’re comparable to even those, in a small scale way. My kids, who are considerably better travelled than I was at their age, name it one of their favorite places on Earth, primarily because of trails 3 and 10.

Three Cool Things

First, while checking the weather forecast this weekend I clicked through on an interesting headline to discover a pretty cool article. Just how many planets could fit in a star’s habitable zone, anyway?

Second, the spookiest story I’ve heard in a loooong time, courtesy of the folks at Snap Judgment. Definitely worth a listen if you’re in the mood for a good scare!

Third, in case you didn’t know, the election season is almost over. And wow, am I looking forward to seeing it in my rearview mirror. It’s even more annoying than my “n” key being so touchy on this computer that these days I have to click it three or four times before it works. Probably have to take it into the shop for repair. Blech. Which is a word that kind of describes how I feel about this whole election season. At least that should be over in two days, barring a court challenge or someone refusing to concede. My computer will probably be out for repairs for a week.