Cover art for my fantasy novelette “Ice”
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This is it!!!
Read my fantasy novelette Ice for absolutely FREE starting today, August 5th. From today through the 9th, it’s a free ebook download from Amazon to your kindle device.
Here’s a “blurb”
Scene from Star Trek Strange New Worlds ep8 The Elysian Kingdom
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What can I say? Episode 8 The Elysian Kingdom of Star Trek Strange New Worlds is my absolute favorite. I loved that everyone got to play different, and quite frankly, far more interesting characters than they normally do on the show.
Actually Ortegas (Melissa Navia) played pretty much the same character as the warrior fiercely loyal to the King (M’Benga). Pike as the foppish Chamberlain was perfect and I loved that his hair was different. He was a coward and a traitor or, more or less, as ineffectual as Pike is as a Captain most of the time.
Uhura as the evil queen was delicious as was Spock as her Wizard.
It was implied that Ortegas’ character and Number One as the Druid archer were lesbian lovers, but that was momentary and played for comedy.
Cover art for “Sworn to the Light”
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Yes, I’ve been remiss in reviewing my (online) friend Denton Salle’s novelette Sworn to the Light: The Avatar Wizard – Book 1 (of four).
However, I did download it onto my Kindle Fire last month and last night I finished it.
Excellent work. A very compelling YA Fantasy work that I think my grandson would enjoy (although he prefers audio books).
A lot of Denton’s works are based on Slavonic wonder tales he learned from his grandfather, so you need to know that going in. The local is rather “Russian” in its architecture at least.
Eleven-year-old Jeremy visits his father’s homeland with his parents, in part because Jeremy has a problem. He spontaneously turns into a panda bear cub. He can’t control the change and he can’t control the bear once he’s transformed.
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After my last two books and especially Nnedi Okorafor’s missive and it’s aftermath, I decided to “play it safe” and revisit some old ground.
I remember reading Roger Zelazny’s Jack of Shadows soon after it was originally published in the early 1970s and recalled enjoying it.
After so many years, that’s all I recalled, but apparently this Hugo and Locus Award nominee had gone out of print for some years. Nor could I find a copy in my local library system. Finally, it was republished as part of the “Recovered Classics Book Series number 23”. I downloaded it from Amazon to my Kindle Fire and there it waited for me.
Cover art for Binti: The Complete Trilogy
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I previously mentioned that as part of Women in SciFi Month and in response to the twitter hashtag #FiveSFFWritersWhoArentBlokes, I collected the names of some female authors I’ve never read to essentially broaden my horizons.
Today, I just finished Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti: The Complete Trilogy. As it’s a collected trilogy (plus one additional short story), it’s publication history is from 2015 through 2019.
To understand my review and the work in general, I’ll present a few bits of info. First, the author’s bio as presented on Amazon:
Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and was a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University. She has been the winner of many awards for her short stories and young adult books, and won a World Fantasy Award. Nnedi’s books are inspired by her Nigerian heritage and her many trips to Africa.
That’s the short version. Now the professional reviews of this trilogy posted on Amazon:
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Hooray! Frankly, I’ll take just about any sort of review on “Ice” just so it’s noticed, but I love how all three (so far) are five-stars on Amazon.
Click on the link to find the review and read it. If you’ve read “Ice” and haven’t reviewed it on Amazon and Goodreads, please, please, please do so. Even if the review is less than complementary, I’ll learn more about how to improve my writing.
Here’s my “blurb:”
I just saw that the blog shared by Anita Dawes and Jaye Marie has reviewed my SciFi/Fantasy novella Ice.
I actually saw it in my twitter notifications. I was checking social media one last time before settling down into bed with a good book and a cup of tea.
Yes, I am an old guy. Sue me.
It’s a very nice review, too. I don’t want to spoil it by quoting it here, but they do use words like “exciting,” “dramatic,” and “gripping” so I’m feeling pretty good about it (please write the same thing on Amazon and Goodreads).
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© James Pyles
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
I’ve noticed other indie authors doing this sort of thing, creating a graphic representation of the books and stories that were published in the past year. Sounded like an interesting idea, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I’ve already posted the graphic on social media, but thought I’d add some details for my blog readers.
Here’s a list of my publications from the beginning of 2021 to the end:
Cover art for the mass market paperback edition of “Hounded”
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I admit that I only read Kevin Hearne’s novel Hounded because my twelve-year-old grandson enjoyed it along with the rest of the Iron Druid Chronicles.
Actually, for a long time, my grandson and I have played a two-person “role playing” game of one sort or another just for the run of it. In our current game, he based his character very heavily on Hearne’s protagonist Atticus O’Sullivan, a two-thousand year old man and last of the Druids posing as a twenty-year-old bookstore owner in Tempe, Arizona.
I can’t swear to the lore in Hearne’s book, but he did add more than a little whimsy to his tale. Speaking of “tail,” Atticus also has a rather intelligent wolfhound named Oberon who likes sausages and French poodles and the two manage some interesting conversations.
Starting midnight Pacific Time on December 21 through Christmas, my SciFi/Fantasy novella Ice will be free to download onto your kindle device. That’s right, just in time for the holidays, give yourself the gift of this unique tale of adventure on the high seas, of magic, science, and dinosaurs, or make it a present for a friend.
I first announced the release of this book at the beginning of the month and published an excerpt just a few days ago.
All that, plus I was interviewed on a podcast about “Ice”, Time’s Abyss, my two short stories published in the Meteor Fall anthology and other projects soon to come.
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