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Entertainment, Fantasy, Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Independent Author’s Toolbag: Reviews and Book Sales

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This post is as much addressed to readers as it is to authors.  Many readers might feel that they are pestered, one might even say harassed, to provide reviews.  Why is that?  Well, it’s simple.  As a reader, when I browse through books on Amazon or B&N, I’ll take a few minutes to glance at what other people said.  Especially if it’s a book from a new or unfamiliar author.  I’ll check what the 5 star raters say and I’ll check what the 1 star raters said.  Why?  Because what irritated someone else about the novel often says more about the author than what someone who loved it might have said.  Also, especially in the era of self-publishing, if I see complaints about poor grammar, awkward sentence structure, or bad plot, I can steer clear.

Apparently, from various market research, ebook sales are highly driven by reviews and ratings.  There are a variety of readers, high consumption readers, who filter by number of reviews.  There is also a prohibition, from Amazon, on ‘reveiw farms’ of authors giving one another incestual reviews.  As an independent author, receiving reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and other locations can be the difference between selling well and not selling at all.  Full reviews at blogs and websites also help to channel some traffic, but the impulse buyers, the ones who need their reading fix, are browsing for their next fix right now… and does your ebook have the reviews to garner their attention?

The other part of this is sales ranking.  Amazon does this most visibly and has the highest volume of ebook sales in the US, so I’ll use it as the primary example.  As an author, you want your sales ranking high for a number of reasons.  The first reason, of course, is high sales means more people buying your book.  This is good for a variety of reasons.  The next reason is that high sales means that your book will appear higher on the lists when someone searches for ebooks in your genre.  That’s less of other people’s stuff that someone has to filter through before they find your work.  paradoxically, this means that in order to sell well… you need to sell well.  However, there are ways to ‘game’ the system.  Amazon tracks sales over time rather than total sales.  The good part about this is that if you can sell even a relatively small number of books in a short period of time, you can books yourself higher on the book sales ranking… which is good, because when a reader sees your book is #23 on some listing versus #230,000, they’re more likely to read what you’re putting out.

How do you do that?  Larry Correia uses a term called a ‘book bomb.’  When an author releases their new book, the author has everyone they know, who’s interested, buy the book around the same time.  The author’s book sales spikes and their book rises up the charts.  How effective is that?  A solid spike can guarantee that other people will see your book.  They might not buy it, but they’ll at least have the opportunity to make the decision… whereas if they never see it, they’re never given the opportunity.  This is an area where networking, developing loyal readers, and communication are essential.  You can seriously help your book sales by organizing loyal readers (also known as herding cats) to get them to buy your stuff.

What does that mean for readers in general?  Well, keep in mind that the authors you read and enjoy don’t just publish out of the goodness of their hearts.  Authors want their works to be appreciated.  We spend thousands and tens of thousands of hours on writing something to entertain you for a day or two.  We also like to eat, so getting paid for it is a nice form of appreciation.  If you really like what someone wrote, post that, write what you liked and didn’t in a review on Amazon or Goodreads or whatever.  A detailed synopsis like your teachers wanted in high school isn’t necessary.  A one liner “I liked this book, author X is my favoritist person EVAR!” isn’t particularly helpful, either.  A couple sentences such as “X writes with strong characters and a vivid setting.  His story hooked me with the first words.  I really enjoyed the dynamic between Character X and Character Y” tells a potential reader much more, without giving away anything that might spoil the read.  Ideally, if you really liked something, you can take five minutes to write three or four sentences about what you liked.  The same goes for something you didn’t like.  If you bought a book and it was the skunkiest piece of drivel you ever stumbled across, post a review about what you didn’t like.  If the author clearly wrote about a subject they didn’t understand, they had “teh worts grammer evar,” or if they wrote a preachy diatribe about some subject in which you disagree… give warning some other folks.  There’s nothing I hate more than spending some of my hard earned money on a book that isn’t worth the time spent in reading it.  And, believe it or not, some authors want that kind of feedback, so we know what to improve upon.

Here’s a link to Larry Correia who wrote a better article on the ‘book bomb’ subject:

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/book-bomb-variant-today-get-a-good-book-for-a-good-reason/

And he’s apparently doing a book bomb for an author right now as well, so check it out:

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/next-book-bomb-chuck-dixon-feb-18th/

 

 

Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

The Fallen Race cover and upcoming release

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The cover for my upcoming release, due on Saturday, 1 Feb 2014
The cover for my upcoming release, due on Saturday, 1 Feb 2014

The Fallen Race, my Military SF / Space Opera novel will be released tomorrow at noon on Amazon and Smashwords.

Blurb below:

Baron Lucius Giovanni, Captain of the battleship War Shrike, finds himself without a home or nation, his ship heavily damaged, and crew in bad shape. The odds against their personal survival are slim. The time of humanity has come to a close. The great nations have all fallen, either to the encroaching alien threats or to internal fighting and civil war. The aliens who seek to supplant humanity, however, have not taken one thing into account: Lucius Giovanni. He and his crew will not give up – not while they still draw breath. If this is to be the fall of humanity, then the crew of the War Shrike will go down fighting…and in the heat of that fight, they may just light a new fire for humanity….

Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

The Fallen Race upcoming release and sample

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The Fallen Race, my Military Science Fiction/Space Opera novel, will be released on 1 February on Amazon as both an ebook and a paper copy.  The ebook will be $ 4.99, the paper copy will be significantly more.

Here is the back-cover synopsis:

Baron Lucius Giovanni, captain of the battleship War Shrike, finds himself without a home or nation, his ship heavily damaged, and crew in bad shape. The odds against their personal survival are slim. The time of humanity has come to a close. The great nations have all fallen, either to the encroaching alien threats or to internal fighting and civil war. The aliens who seek to supplant humanity, however, have not taken one thing into account: Lucius Giovanni. He and his crew will not give up, not while they still draw breath. If this is to be the fall of humanity, then the crew of the War Shrike will go down fighting… and in the heat of that fight, they might just light a new fire for humanity….

And here is a section from teh beginning:

June 1, 2402 Earth Standard Time

Venture System

Nova Roma Empire

 The seven remaining ships of Convoy 142 writhed at the heart of a maelstrom.

 Baron Lucius Giovanni clutched at the arms of his command chair as the enemy fire battered the War Shrike yet again.  The short, dark haired man peered at his displays with dark, almost black, eyes.  His black and silver vac suit bore the eagle symbol of Captain’s rank on the collar, and his shoulder bore a patch with the snarling wolf’s head of Nova Roma.  He acknowledged the fresh round of damage reports.   His eyes went to his Executive Officer, “Tony, can you get anything past their cruiser screen?”

Commander Doko shook his head.  The confines of the battleship’s bridge seemed even tighter with the acrid stench of ozone and shorted electronics.  “No, sir.  Their cruiser’s firefly systems are too strong.”

Lucius rolled his tongue around a mouth that felt dusty and tasted like ash.  His eyes went to the sensor plot that showed what remained of the ships of the convoy.  As he watched, the destroyer Sicarius dropped out of the formation in a broad cloud of debris and far too few escape pods.  “Very well, keep hammering their cruisers.”

Lucius looked over at his brother in law, “Any new orders from Commodore Torrelli?”

“No, sir,” Commander Reese Giovanni-Leone said from the communications section.  Everyone on the bridge had expected one command from Torrelli ever since the initial ambush.  One battleship couldn’t take on six dreadnoughts, not with any chance of survival.  But if they charged into the enemy formation they would disrupt it.  That might save the convoy.

The hell of it was, Lucius would rather take that chance than watch the convoy slowly vanish under the enemy guns.  Soon enough they’d loose enough sensors or weapons and the enemy missiles would get through.  They already had the bad luck to jump in on the Chxor force in close vicinity to Venture’s refueling station.  The escorts couldn’t survive that firepower much longer and the merchant ships would not survive after that.

 “Don’t know why he’s waiting,” Lucius muttered.  His ship rocked again under multiple impacts.  “Not like the bastard can’t be happy at the chance to give that order.”

***

 

 Commodore Vito Torrelli grimaced as the Augustus shuddered.  The elderly dreadnought had held up far better than the convoy’s other escorts.   The forty year old dreadnought had far more resilience and armor than any other ship in the convoy.  Even so, an early hit had opened the bridge to vacuum and slaughtered most of his navigation section.  Other hits had wrought serious damage on the old ship.  Commodore Torrelli was well aware that his ship was bound to Nova Roma for extensive refits even before all of that damage.  “Order the War Shrike to close in on Regal‘s aft quarter.”  He grimaced as he saw Lucius Giovanni’s ship swing into position immediately.

 He could almost see the aloof expression of the other ship’s commander.  He wants me to send his ship into the throat of the guns, want’s to die a hero’s death, Torrelli thought… as if that could ever make up for what his father did.  “I won’t give him that honor,” Torrelli muttered.  He noticed a flicker on one of the enemy cruiser’s firefly systems.  “Guns, focus on cruiser three, hammer me a gap so we can hit these bastards!”

The enemy dreadnoughts hid behind the massive, pancake-shaped defense screens of the cruisers.  Those overlapped screens and the massive jamming of the cruiser’s firefly systems counteracted the better targeting systems of the Nova Roma warships.

As Vito Torrelli watched the displays, he could hear the unvoiced criticisms from his rival.  It felt like he could feel Lucius’s breath on the back of his neck.  “Dammit, get me a shot!”

***

 

 “That bastard can fight,” Lucius said.  The Augustus had received the brunt of the enemy’s fire.  A comet’s trail of debris, air, and water vapor trailed behind the battered dreadnought, but Commodore Torrelli continued to fight.

“Cruiser three just went down, sir, I’ve got a shot!” Commander Doko shouted.  A moment later both warships poured their fire through the suddenly opened gap and into the dreadnought left exposed.  Every remaining gun and missile tube aboard the War Shrike  fired into the gap. 

Lucius snarled as explosions rocked the enemy vessel.  A massive cloud of debris enveloped the lead Chxor dreadnought.  “Looks like we gave them something to remember us by!”  The Chxor formation adjusted though, and a moment later the damaged dreadnought disappeared again behind the defense screen of another cruiser.

 “Sir! Augustus just sent Code Black!” Reese said.

Lucius felt his stomach drop.  The other warship lay only a hundred kilometers distant, close enough for visual.  He looked at his sensor repeater just in time to see the dreadnought’s port side engines erupt in a chain of explosions.  The massive ship began to rotate as its starboard engines threw it into a spin.  The stresses over-taxed the ship’s frame and the midships section ripped apart in a slow-motion avalanche of sheering steel.

Lucius watched as four thousand crew died… and he could do nothing.

Lucius let out a tight breath.  Only five ships left remained and Convoy 142 had a new commander.  His eyes raked across his navigation display.  The civilian ships didn’t have the acceleration to escape the Chxor.  They didn’t have the time to calculate a jump through shadow space to take them elsewhere.  Even if he threw his ship at the Chxor, the remaining transports couldn’t elude the enemy, not without someone to screen them.

“Message to all ships,” Lucius said, his voice suddenly hoarse.  “Prepare and execute blind jump immediately.”

There was a sudden silence on the bridge.

 “Solarius Endeavor, Unicorn, and Trade Enterprise acknowledge,” Lucius’s brother in law said.  “Regal reports damage to their jump drive and that they’ll have it up as soon as they can.”

 Lucius felt a cold mask settle over his face.  The War Shrike couldn’t take the full firepower of the Chxor, not for long.  “Tell them to expedite and that we’ll cover them until they jump.”  He watched as the other three civilian ships jumped away into shadow.  He wondered if any of them would emerge again.

 As if on cue, a fresh barrage swept in from the Chxor ships.  Alarms wailed and Lucius felt the deck heave as multiple beams tore into his ship.  His eyes focused on the inbound missile tracks.  Without the Augustus, they’d lost most of their interceptor fire.

Lieutenant Livianus’s hands flew across his station.  He took the sensor data and picked off the missiles one after the other.  His precise shots almost stopped them all.

 Two missiles slipped past his fire.  One swept past as the helmsman continued his evasive maneuvers.  The proximity fuse detonated only five kilometers in front of the War Shrike.  The Chxor used missiles based off of captured human munitions.  Fundamentally identical to the pilum ship-killer missiles, they packed a sixty megaton fusion warhead.

 The sudden burst of radiation hammered into the War Shrike’s magnetic fields that held the plasma defense screen in place.  The massive induction coils exploded like bombs at the massive surge of power.

One exploded out into Engine Room Three and killed fifty-eight crew.  The other detonated only fifty meters away from the bridge.  The four armored bulkheads between there and the bridge absorbed some of the effect.  The aft bulkhead of the bridge shattered. 

Shards of steel whipped through crew members and equipment alike. Half the weapons techs died before they knew what hit them.  The concussion ripped Lieutenant Livianus out of his shock chair and smashed him against the forward bulkhead hard enough to leave a red smear.

One shard flew like a spear and slammed into the back of the communications officer’s chair.  Lucius’s brother-in-law let out a scream of agony as it bit through his left shoulder. 

Lucius’s gaze locked on the shard of metal that pinned Reese to his seat.  He felt something twist in his own guts as he heard Reese’s scream. 

The explosion itself vaporized fifty meters of armored hull and opened the ship’s entire forward section to vacuum.  The hard radiation and the wave superheated plasma took the lives of two hundred more of Lucius’s crew in an instant. 

 The first missile’s simple tracking system lost the War Shrike and continued past.

 The Regal had no countermeasure systems to prevent that missile from acquisition.  The missile detonated on top of the unarmored transport.  It vaporized the aft end of the vessel and sent the ship’s fusion plant into overload.  Lucius grunted in anguish as the seventy five civilians aboard died almost instantly.

Luicus shook his head.  His sensors told him that only his ship remained.  He cut his seat restraints and staggered through the smoke and noise of the bridge.  He shoved a corpse off the top of the navigation station.  Lucius flipped up the clear plastic cover, the surface slick with blood.

His fist hammered down on the jump initiation.

Hope you enjoyed!

Fantasy, Reading, Writing

Steampunk World Building

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So, there I was… knee deep in dead vampires and choking on coal smoke when it hit me… what was the name of this country again?

Come to think of it, why was it named that, what was its history, and why are they still playing around with steam engines in the 1950’s???

I’ve something of a confession to make: I’m a world builder.  I love to put together a vibrant, expansive world, populated by people, organizations, nations, and machines that are interconnected and that make sense.  I’ll spend days, weeks, sometimes even months thinking about the economic systems, technology, and culture.  What does that get me?  In theory, it means I know what motivates characters and what has shaped them.

This gets a little more complicated when you’re writing alternate history… especially steampunk alternate history.  There’s a certain expectation in steampunk for larger than life characters along with odd, sometimes absurd, contrasts between our own world and the created one.  That requires a mix of attention to detail, quirky humor, and enjoyment for building that sort of structure.

So where do you start?  Well, it depends on you, really.  I tend to like to start with whatever big thing is different in that other world than here.  Was some genius born who developed air ships and steam engines?   Did some major event change the course of history?  Why is this so important… and what impact did that have on the world, from the bottom rungs of society to the mightiest nations?

For me, it’s important to explore those changes even before I really start writing.  There’s nothing more annoying to me than to be mid sentence and realize I don’t know why something isn’t possible or where something comes from.  If something is different in this other world, there should be a reason it is different… and sometimes ‘just cause it’s cool’ isn’t good enough.

So, in example, I’ll give a run down of how I started my world building.  In my universe, there was an inventor in England who discovered aetherium, a substance that, when heated with steam, produces power for use in weapons and aircraft.  This discovery came just before the outbreak of the American Civil War.. and the British Empire intervened in favor of their trade partners within the Confederacy.  After they conquered the North, the British appointed a Grand Duke to govern their wayward colonies and turned their attention to other lands.  The Confederacy has since split up into several independent nations, all of whom have abolished slavery, mostly from pressure from their allies, the British.  The Americas have become something of a back water, while Europe has remained the center of technology.  This has changed just recently, as some bright new minds have come up with new, refined aetherium powered weapons which threaten the balance of power yet again.

This gives me a rough basis of the world, in broad strokes.  It’s not perfect, but it gets me started.  From there, I’ll go into the details of what individual nations are up to, the societal pressures which have crafted the conflicts between characters, and the setting itself, from the technologies that they use commonly every day to the way they talk and interact.

For anyone else with steampunk on the mind, hopefully this helps out in making your story work.

Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Renegades: Ghost Story out tomorrow

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Here is the cover art from the awesome Robert Brockman

Renegades: Ghost Story will be out tomorrow.  It is the fourth novella in the Renegades series.  This one follows the perspective of Eric and if I had to pick favorites, it would probably be the novella I enjoyed writing the most.  I’ll be doing a book bomb for it tomorrow (Tuesday) at noon, MST.  So if you plan on buying it, buy it then.  If you haven’t read any of the Renegades novellas yet, you can pick them all up individually for a dollar.  Yes, just a dollar.  Each one is good for a few hours of light, enjoyable reading, or (at least through Amazon, so I’m told) you can return the book.  So why not give them a try?

Here’s the short synopsis:

Erik Stryker is a former Centauri Commando; highly lethal and experienced in combat on a dozen worlds. He’s had almost everything taken from him, his family, his career, and his team. He and his companions have broken out of an alien prison, hijacked a ship, and are en route to human civilization. A chance encounter with a derelict ship brings up ghosts of Erik’s past and awakens something which preys on ships and crews. Erik will have to face his own ghosts if he wants to save his new team.

Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Renegades: Ghost Story is coming!

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Renegades: Ghost Story will arrive on Tuesday the 21st.    Here is the synopsis:

Eric Stryker is a man on the run with a past that haunts him, which has led him to his current rag-tag companions. They’ve escaped from the xenocidal alien Chxor, hijacked a ship, are headed for human space, and they’ve even selected a captain for their motley crew. Yet on the edge of human space, the margin of survival is as thin as the blade of a razor.

When they encounter a ghost ship, the crew awakens a threat. Something awaits them, something that preys upon ships and crews as they ply the void. It will test the fragile alliances of the crew to the breaking point and beyond. Eric will have to bury the ghosts of his past to face that danger… or his past will bury him.

Renegades: Ghost Story will be available on Tuesday (21 January) on Amazon and Smashwords.

I’ll be doing a book bomb for it on the 21st, at 12 noon, mountain standard time.

Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Free Short Story! (and an update)

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I’ve added a short story to the Free Fiction area.  The story is called “Runner” and it is something of an origin story on Run from the Renegades series.  It was interesting and challenging writing from his perspective, and I hope that you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  Feel free to make any comments about the short story on this post, I’d love to hear your input.

As far as other updates, Renegades: Ghost Story is set to come out early next week.  I’ll be planning a book bomb when it comes out, so if you plan on picking it up from Amazon, please do so on or around Tuesday, 21 Jan, around noon Mountain Standard Time.  It’ll also go up on Smashwords, and from there to B&N, Kobo and the rest.  I’ll post the Blurb and Cover for Renegades: Ghost Story this Friday (17 January).

My novel, The Fallen Race, is on track to come out at the end of that week.  Right now it is forecasted for Friday, 24 January.  Again, I’ll be trying a book bomb, looking at 12 noon (MST) on Saturday, 25 January.  While the Renegades series is more of an exploration/adventure SF story, the Fallen Race is military science fiction.  I discussed it with Jason Cordova in my interview at  Shiny Book Review.  The interview is here for those who want to read it.

Lastly, for those who enjoyed the Echo of the High Kings previews, I have good news.  The novel will be coming out on Amazon next month, and for the first three days, it will be free to purchase.  I’ll have to make it exclusive to Amazon to do so, but I’m conducting a kind of experiment to see if that will allow me to boost sales, and compare it to my sales of other books.  Look for Echo of the High Kings to come out in mid February of 2014.

Fantasy, Reading, Writing

Free Stuff: Preview from Echo of the High Kings, Part 3

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A third installment from Echo of the High Kings.  The section covers a skirmish between Lady Katarina’s followers and some of Duke Hector’s men.

Aerion set his back against the tree and took a deep breath.  Through the trees, the squeal of pigs and the rumble of wagons carried.  He listened to that sound, and he waited.  For a moment, he remembered his home.  Aerion remembered Old Taggart’s voice, rough and low, filled with caution, as if every word were some precious coin to spend.  He remembered the smell of his mother’s apron, the scent of stew and bread, and of smoke from the wood fireplace in the inn. 

And then he remembered the fire, and the screams.

At that moment, a clear trumpet clarion sounded as Gerlin signaled the attack.

Aerion leaped from behind his tree, and immediately spotted the wagons, only thirty feet away.  He ran forward, hands clenched on the greatsword.  One of the guards on foot, raised a drawn bow, arrow pointed at Aerion.  The guard released just as Aerion stumbled.  Aerion felt the arrow’s fletching kiss his neck.

The guard reached for another arrow.  Aerion felt his world narrow, as everything but that guard and his bow vanished.  He felt his legs pump him forward.  His heart raced, a steady drumbeat that drowned all else out.  Aerion felt a cry of rage and fear open his mouth, but he couldn’t hear it, couldn’t hear anything.

The guard, knocked another arrow.  The mercenary seemed to move in slow motion.  He raised the bow, drew it back.

And then Aerion had closed the distance.  He swung the sword downward, all memory of his training lost, he swung the four foot blade like an axe.

The sword struck the mercenary between his right shoulder and his neck.  The blade chopped down through his simple leather armor, and a fountain of blood erupted.

Aerion stumbled back, spitting blood and suddenly sickened.  He had to tug hard, foot pressed against the corpse to pull his sword free.  Some motion sensed as much as seen caused him to turn.  He ducked under a spear thrust and caught the shaft just behind the barbed head.  Aerion pulled hard, and suddenly stood, face to face with a blonde bearded mercenary, his eyes wide, pupils dilated.

Aerion saw him release the spear, hands going for a dagger at his waist.  He brought the pommel of his sword up into his opponent’s face.   The mercenary stumbled back with a cry.

A shout made him turn, and he saw one of the Jasen on the ground, a brutish looking warrior above him with an axe.  Aerion lunged forward, sword extended.

The iron tip of his sword skidded off of the axeman’s chainmail.  Aerion continued his move and slammed his shoulder into the larger man’s back.  The axeman stumbled away, and Aerion stumbled back.

Another man, his face drawn in a rictus of hate, swung a sword at him.  Aerion brought up his sword to parry, and a shock went down his arm.  The beserk warrior swung again, and again Aerion blocked.  He kicked out, desperate to get some room to move, but his opponent caught the blow on his shield and continued his wild attack.

Again and again the madman battered at him, Aerion desperately swung his larger sword to block blow after blow.  He backed away, tried to gain some space, but his attacker didn’t slow his own pace, and continued to press him.

His feet caught on something.  Aerion fell back over a still body.  Aerion hit the hardpacked road on the flat of his back.  The impact drove all the air out of his lungs.  Aerion brought his sword up to block as his opponent swung a powerful overhand blow. 

The sword struck just inches above the crossguard with a sound like a hammer striking glass, the brittle iron of his sword snapped.

Aerion held the stump of his blade up in shock as the berserk warrior above him raised his own blade for the finishing blow.  Aerion kicked out hard.  His leg struck his attacker’s knee, which bent backwards with a horrific crackle.

The warrior dropped with a scream, and Aerion stood, still clutching the stump of a sword.  The beserker still swung his sword at Aerion.  He crawled towards him, maimed leg dragging.  Aerion saw Jasen, a bloody gash down the side of his face, drive a spear down into the beserker from behind.

“Grab his sword, boy!” Jasen shouted.  He pointed over Aerion’s shoulder.  “There’s more of them, ancestors know where they came from, but they’re attacking lady Katarina!”

Aerion felt a jolt of ice water pump through his veins.  He looked over, just in time to see eight horsemen push through a cluster of fighting.

He saw her then.  She stood in the middle of the road, only twenty feet away.  She had her sword in her left hand, something else in her right.  She looked like a scene from a story.  She stood like a savage warrior princess, her dark hair back in a braid, her chain shirt spattered with blood.

Aerion blindly reached down.  His fingers found the hilt of the sword that had nearly taken his life.  He charged forward.  Jasen had already run ahead, but Aerion’s longer legs easily outpaced him.

He sprinted past Lady Katarina, just as she raised her right hand.  He heard her shout something as he raced past.  He couldn’t hear her words over the roaring in his ears and his own labored breathing.

One of the horsemen reared before him, and swung down with a blade.

Aerion ducked under the horse’s head, then thrust up on the horseman’s left side.  He felt the lighter blade skitter off the horseman’s greaves, then catch and plunge up under his breastplate.

The horseman sagged, just as the frightened horse sidestepped.

Aerion jerked the blade free and turned, just in time to see two more behind him.  Time slowed again as he saw the nearest had his hammer raised, about to descend upon Aerion.  Aerion tried to force his body to move out of the path, but he didn’t have time.

He heard Lady Katarina shout something, her high, clear voice cut through the shouts and screams.

Aerion watched the hammer descend, saw his death in that swing, with no time to move out of the way or block it.

Then the world flared white.

Fantasy, Introductions and Greetings, Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Kal’s New Year of Writing

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So, this is more of an update on my current writing schedule than anything else.  I’m a bit behind on getting things out (for which I deeply apologize).  On the other hand, I have the minor disclaimer that life has been extremely busy, between me transitioning from one duty station to another in the Army, getting married, the honeymoon, and a variety of other things.  Frankly, I’ve had to prioritize, and since my wife is very well armed and knows how to handle knives, swords, guns, and other dangerous items, naturally, my priorities have focused on the wedding and honeymoon planning.

Thankfully, she also reads science fiction and fantasy, so she’s understanding and tolerant of my writing.

That said, here’s what I’m working on, and my best guess as to when I’ll have it out, as far as I can see over the next year.

Renegades: Ghost Story is the fourth novella of the Renegades series.  I should have that out in early January.  Right now I’m waiting on a cover from the awesome Robert Brockman, who somehow finds time for that kind of thing on top of his normal job.

Echo of the High Kings is an epic fantasy novel, set on the world of Eoriel.  I’m doing the final(ish) rewrites on it right now.  My goal is to release that in February.  As something of an experiment, I’ll enroll it in one of Amazon’s programs and do a free release, so if you’re looking for an epic fantasy to get your teeth into, well, it’s hard to beat free, right?

The Fallen Race is the science fiction novel set in the same universe as The Renegades.  I’ll be releasing it once I complete the final edits, hopefully in the next month, possibly as early as mid January.

I’m also working a compendium of the Renegades novellas, complete with some additional content which I’d like to release sometime in February.  This will include the first four Renegades Novellas as well as three new short stories (to include one set from the perspective of Anubus) and will be released as paperback and ebook.

The next novella in the series, currently titled “Renegades: A Murder of Crowe’s” will be out not long after that.

The next three Renegades Novellas after that aren’t written yet, but they are outlined as “Out of the Cold”, “Assassin”, and “Privateer” and will be arriving between March and August of 2014.

I’ve projected the novel Fenris Unchained for a summer release, though that may shift dependent upon the rewriting I’ve got to do on that.

The sequels for Echo of the High Kings and the Fallen Race will finish up the year, and if I find the time, some additional Renegades novellas.

So, that’s what I’m up to.  Along the way, I’ll be moving, transitioning to yet another job in the Army, and generally trying to balance everything.

Fantasy, Reading, Writing

Free stuff: Preview from Echo of the High Kings, part 2

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And, to continue sections from Echo of the High Kings, here we have a brief piece with Katarina, daughter to Duke Peter of the Duchy of Masov.  This section comes a year after the events of the first preview section.

Katarina moved with quiet feet down the dusty passage.   She hiked up her dress as much as she could, even as she worried that the hem would catch the dust and suggest that she hadn’t spent the afternoon at her studies.

Not my fault that the scholar fell asleep, she thought, though she felt a twinge of remorse that she’d eluded her newly assigned Armsman.  Then again, as rare as free time had become, she felt far better for the opportunity to explore the hidden passages below the castle… and for the opportunity to slip into the nursery and apologize to her little brother.

As if on cue, she came to the intersection of the hidden passages.  One way led deeper into the maze of corridors and the other led up to a door that opened into the nursery.  “Best to talk to my brother, first,” Katarina muttered to herself.  She gave a slight sigh, though, before she started up the corridor.

She hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings.  She knew that, for some reason, he looked upon her with some envy.  As the eldest, she had some privileges that he must think marvelous.  In truth, however, she envied him.  At eight, he had already been introduced into the martial chamber.  The Master of Arms had already begun his training and as a boy, he would train every day until combat became something of reflex and muscle memory.  He had already begun to learn sufficient runic magic to operate various relics and weapons of the Ducal House.

As a girl, even a nobly born girl of thirteen years, the Duke allowed her only the basic arts of self defense and studies of runic magic sufficient to operate only the most basic runic items.  I’m the heir, but I’m still only a female, and little Peter doesn’t realize how much I envy him.

That still didn’t excuse her mistreatment of him earlier in the day.  She’d no cause for her words, despite her frustration.  She dearly loved her little brother, and her recent movement from the nursery had only made her realize how much.  Her father, always so distant, spoke with her only in passing.  Her mother had seemed to withdraw into herself even more after her old armsman was sent away… and had ceased to take any visitors not long after Katarina moved into the woman’s quarters of the castle.

Little Peter was the only one who cared for her and she knew that her angry words had hurt him more than his childish petulance deserved.  So Katarina would make it right.

She reached the hidden door and paused a moment to listen.  This one opened into the small storage room at the end of the corridor, she knew.  Katarina had discovered it first, when she’d needed some place to hide from her tutors.  Her explorations had led her deep beneath Castle Emberhill in the five years since.

She paused as she heard what sounded like a muffled cry.  Katarina frowned, and her fingers dropped to the two wands tucked inside her dress skirts.  Technically, they were her mother’s, but Katarina had learned to use the two wands last year, and her mother had never realized that Katarina had kept them rather than putting them back.

She’d practiced with them too, though she’d had to find a quiet spot out in the countryside to do so, and timed it with thunderstorms so that it didn’t attract attention.  Well, other than the time I missed, she thought sheepishly, and it’s not like the entire forest would have burned down.

She shook her head and pushed the concealed door open.  Whatever the noise she’d heard, she didn’t hear anything else.  She set her lantern to the side and moved through the small storage room.  She paused again at the heavy wooden door.  She opened it just a bit, and then froze when she saw movement.

Her fear at discovery turned to something else as she felt the blood freeze in her veins.  A tall man stood with drawn blade just down the corridor, his back to her.  At his feet lay Maran, the old nurse who had changed her diapers and brought her her meals.  Her mouth and eyes were wide and she lay still in death, her face twisted into an experssion of pain.  The broad spill of bright red blood and the red stains across her simple dress made it clear how she’d died.

Two of her father’s armsmen lay further down the corridor.  Katarina bit into her knuckle to hold back a shriek when she saw several more armed men.  All of them wore strange scale armor, and the cut of their clothes seemed odd to her, as did their golden skin and strangely curved blades.

And then she saw one of the men step out of the open door to her brother’s room.  He grunted something in an odd language even as he wiped blood from his sword with what looked like a stained boy’s tunic.

The cold ice in her blood flashed into white hot heat in a heartbeat.  Her light thirteen year old body could not have kicked the heavy wooden door hard enough to knock down the warrior beyond.  Yet a moment later she stood over his prone body and leveled her wand with a scream.

A wave of fire and destruction swept down the narrow corridor.  For a moment, the image lay seared into her brain, burned into the back of her eyelids as her brother’s murderers burned to ash.

The moment passed and Katarina blinked away tears as her eyes tried to adjust.

She felt an iron-hard hand clamp around her mouth.  Her hand went to her second wand, but her attacker’s other hand grasped it and held her still.  The man I knocked down, he must have captured me, she thought.  Still, she struggled, she would not let this assassin kill her, not without a fight.

“Hold still, damn you, girl,” a gravelly voice spoke.  “I’m not one of them, I’m here to help!”  The voice teased at her memory, until she recognized it as her new armsman.  She hadn’t heard Bulmor speak more than twice in the past week, but it sounded like him.

She froze and when she ceased to fight, the hands pulled her back into the storage room.  The hand over her mouth let go long enough to pull the door closed.

“What’s happening?  Is… Is my brother dead?” Katarina asked.  She hated how her voice broke, yet in her mind she saw Peter still and cold in a pool of blood like poor old Maran.

“I think so, lass,” Bulmor grated.  He released her and she turned to face him.  “Those were Vendakar, probably paid mercenaries.”  His face, when she looked at him in the small dark room, looked to have been carved of stone.  “Do you know a passage that leads out?”  He took up her lantern in one hand.

“Yes…” Katarina frowned.  “Shouldn’t we head up, though?  Find my father… my mother!”  She turned back towards the door, ready to run to warn her mother, but his iron strong hands locked on her shoulders.  “Let me go!  I have to warn them!”

“Stop and think, lass- my Lady, I beg you, think!” For a moment his voice broke from the gravel strength and some raw emotion leaked through.  Katarina realized then that Bulmor feared for her.  All of a week on the job, and her new armsman already viewed her survival as essential.

That realization bored through her and forced her to stop and consider.  The nursery lay at the center of the keep itself.  It was the most heavily defended area and any attackers would have to fight their way through the other living areas to get here first.  Any warriors who had arrived here must have already fought through her father’s armsmen…

“No…”  Katarina froze.  “That can’t be, it’s not possible.”

“My lady, until we know more, we have to assume they’ve already overrun the entire castle.  We must leave.  You seem to know these passages… how do we exit?”

Katarina felt an icy hand clench on her heart.  Her brother was dead… and her last words to him had been cruel and childish.  Her parents were dead… everyone she had ever known, Erik, her father’s armsman, Tomus, her mother’s armsman… had the old scholar Mattews been murdered as well?  Had they killed him as he dozed in the library, surrounded by his old scrolls?

Why had they died… and why did she still live?