Tag Archives: fantasy

Excerpt from My Novella “Ice”

iceIf you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

As I’m sure my regular readers know by now, my self-published novella “Ice” has been available for nearly two weeks now. Since I’m the publisher as well as the author, I’m doing all of the marketing for the book myself. While I’ve written summaries and discussed the book on one podcast so far, I still plan to promote the daylights out of it.

To that end, I’m putting up an excerpt of the story. It’s adventure and mutiny on the high seas, but these seas and the ships that sail upon them exist at the farthest reaches of human history where magic and science co-exist. The state of things on the merchant vessel “The Star of Jindo” have gone from bad to worse following a devastating storm that has crippled the ship and killed most of the crew. Captain Ki-Moon Yong has lost control of his command of his vessel for the first time in his career. Here’s what follows:

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My Short Story “The Unreal Man” Now Appearing in Discordia


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My short story The Unreal Man, really one of my oldest concepts, is finally being featured in Discordia: Stories of A World In Chaos, published by Dastaan World, whose website isn’t particularly current, but whose Facebook page is a tad more kept up.

What is Dastaan World?

In Central Asia, a ‘dastaan’ – Persian for ‘story’ – is oral history told in the form of an ornate story. Dastaan World is a platform through which you can achieve visibility, credibility, and success. Each month, we feature short stories, poetry, art, photography, and more – helping creators showcase their talent to the world. It is our sincerest hope that we can help create opportunities for success for everyone who submits their work to us. So reach out, tell us what you do or can do, and let us together explore new avenues.

Admittedly, I haven’t heard from the publisher for months. I did find out that one of the things holding up “Discordia” was the cover art. I’m pleased that “The Unreal Man” is in print at last, but I just wish the journey was a bit more “typical” of my experiences with the publishing industry.

Who is the Unreal Man?

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“Blood Heir” and Beyond

blood heir

Cover art for the novel “Blood Heir” by Amélie Wen Zhao

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Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao is not the sort of novel I’d read, but as I’ve said once, twice, and most recently a third time, I hate bullies, especially those who pretend to be workers of “justice”.

Over absolutely unjustified allegations of racism (the book hadn’t even been published yet), the author herself voluntarily “apologized” for her racism in her book and withdrew it from publication.

Horrible mistake. Grievous error.

Fortunately, not long later she realized this was all part of some ridiculous campaign against her that had nothing to do with racist themes in her story (the story was based on elements of the author’s ethnic and national past) and everything to do with the bad character of her opponents. She went ahead and released her book for publication. That was November 2019.

So how did the book do when real people read and reviewed it:

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Update on Amélie Wen Zhao’s “Blood Heir”

blood heir

Cover art for the novel “Blood Heir” by Amélie Wen Zhao

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In reviewing my blog stats today, I saw someone had read an article I wrote back in February 2019 called Amélie Wen Zhao, “Blood Heir,” and Social Justice (or is it vengeance).

Apparently, even before Amélie Wen Zhao’s book was published, a whole bunch of self-righteous online pundits accused Zhao of writing an anti-black tome which should, from their perspective, be shunned and never see the light of day. You can click the link I provided for the details, but among the bullies I was was able to find on twitter were Ellen 오 Oh and Paige Cee (Cee had made her twitter page private during the backlash against her, but I see now it’s available).

Unfortunately, after being brutally and unjustly attacked, Zhao did the worst thing she could do. She apologized to her abusers. Metaphorically speaking, this is like the victim of domestic violence apologizing to the person who has beaten her black and blue with their fists.

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Three Weeks Until “Theo Klaagorn, Private Eye”

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Three weeks until “Theo Klaagorn, Private Eye”.

I’ll post the pre-order link when available. Just three weeks until the 2021 edition of Fall Into Fantasy is available.

In 2019, my short story “The Demon in the Mask” appeared in this edition. When I went back to Amazon, I found out that one reviewer last year put my tale in the top five that she enjoyed. It was, what I consider, a traditional fantasy tale of dark demons and fallen heroes, a story of redemption in the face of unbelievable loss.

By contrast, “Theo Klaagorn, Private Eye” or “private detective,” I can’t decide which, is whimsical urban fantasy, a world where fantasy creatures escape a horrendous war in the dragon realms to certain places on Earth, like Las Vegas in 1974. Theo is a dwarf who, with his friends, a giant, a werewolf, and a fairy, try to solve the murder of an elven prince and free his half-elf wife who was framed for the crime.

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To Be Published in “Fall into Fantasy 2021”

fall

Proposed cover art for “Fall into Fantasy 2021”

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Since 2019, my short stories have appeared more or less regularly in the Cloaked Press anthologies Spring into SciFi and Fall into Fantasy.

I’m proud to announce that my urban fantasy tale “Theo Klaaggorn, Private Eye” will be appearing in the upcoming “Fall into Fantasy 2021.”

Here’s a small preview:

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Rejection and Feedback

typing

Found at typinglounge.com – No image credit given

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Random stuff.

I haven’t been writing much lately. Okay, I haven’t been writing anything new at all. I do technical writing for my day job of course, and I just finished yet another freelance job updating/refreshing test questions at the back a technology book (it’s actually more interesting than it sounds, pays pretty well, and has a quick turnaround).

What I have  been doing is submitting previously rejected short stories to different publishers, actually trying for more “mainstream” periodicals.

This is where the rejection part comes in. One story is basically urban fantasy/crime story (I’ve just submitted it yet again, so we’ll see) and the other is a sort of “pirates in space” tale, complete with oppressive colonizers, revenge, and swashbuckling. I even included a fictionalized version of a famous author.

The vast, vast majority of time when you get those rejection emails, they’re pretty standard fare and offer no feedback good, bad, or indifferent. This last one did:

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Revisiting the Fantastic Schools Anthologies

fs

Promotional materials for the Fantastic Schools series.

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You may remember that my fantasy short story “Sorcery’s Preschool” was published last fall in Wisecraft Publishing’s anthology Fantastic Schools, Volume 2. It’s the tale of a four-year-old girl and the day her grandmother takes her to a very unusual pre-school, one for gifted and very young (and potentially dangerous) magicians.

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Return of the Space Princess

dejah

Promotional image for the “Dejah Thoris” comic book series by Amy Chu (Author) – Based on a character from the Edgar Rice Burroughs “Barsoom” series.

space princess

Screenshot from the comments section of the Mallard Fillmore comic strip.

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Just so you don’t miss the important quote in the above conversation:

The Superversive Literary Movement is in opposition to wokism, saying that any politics in a work of storytelling should serve the story, rather than the woke commandment to ensure that the story serves woke politics. The Space Princess Movement is a subset thereof.

That exchange occurred in the comments section of the conservative comic strip Mallard Fillmore written and penned these days by Loren Fishman but occasionally featuring the work of its creator Bruce Tinsley.

You can find the comic strip at ComicsKingdom.com though I warn you that the topics are indeed supportive of a conservative viewpoint and the comments are from pro-conservatives with pushback delivered by counterprotesting trolls “under-the-bridge-dwellers.”

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Interviewed by Blackbird Publishing for my story: “No Place Like Home”

wild magic

Promotional image for Blackbird Publishing’s “Wild Magic Story Bundle”

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As part of the Wild Magic Bundle promotion from Blackbird Publishing, I was interviewed by Jamie Ferguson. You can find the interview on their website, twitter account and Facebook page.

The interview starts out:

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