I finally managed to publish Spider Star, the second book in the Star Master Duology. Spider Star will be in Kindle Unlimited until early June, so I encourage anyone with a KU subscription to check it out in the next three months. Shadow Captain, the first book in the series, has cycled out of KU but is only $0.99. Happy reading!
Category: Cool Books
Weird Wednesday: Hot Rodding the Silmarillion
Many people are aware that the published Silmarillion was compiled by J. R. R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, with an eye towards consistency and concision at the expense of poetic detail, from a wide-ranging variety of incomplete (and often mutually contradictory) manuscripts left by JRRT. I have read some volumes (not all) of the History of Middle Earth, which includes many of the source texts Christopher Tolkien used, but I have only recently become aware of the third-party scholarship showing how it all came together, in books like Arda Reconstructed. Also interesting are the fan attempts to construct more comprehensive and poetic-sounding Silmarillions than the one published by Tolkien’s son. These can seem a little dry, because for copyright reasons, they are basically citations to texts compiled in the History of Middle Earth.
This one is a “finished” one-fan project: http://tasarinan.atwebpages.com/silmap.html
This one, the work of many hands, has been ongoing for twenty years: https://forum.barrowdowns.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16
Weird Wednesday: The Pride & Prejudice Comparison Videos are Back!
In 2021, Mistress of Pemberley created a series of comparison videos on youtube for the many surviving* film and TV versions of Jane Austen’s most famous novel, and I had great fun following along. She’s run into some account troubles, and had to restart the series from scratch, now with improved video quality and chapters. I encourage you all to like and subscribe!
* There are around four or five lost hour-length “digest” TV versions of P&P, including a Canadian version which featured Patrick MacNee as Darcy, plus two lost miniseries length versions broadcast by the BBC in 1952 and 1958 (with Peter Cushing and Alan Badel, respectively, as Darcy) plus a lost Castilian-language miniseries from 1966 (with Pedro Becco as Darcy). If you have copies of any of these lurking in your parents’ attic, please digitize them and put them up on Youtube, Vimeo, Rumble and Bitchute before handing the originals over to the rightful owners at the BBC, CBC, or TVE. My inner P&P completist would thank you for any of them, and one of my many inner fangirls would be particularly grateful for the 1952 version.
AetherCzar’s Black Friday Sale
AetherCzar (Hans G. Schantz) has graciously included Shadow Captain in his Black Friday Sale. With over 190 books free or $0.99, I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
Weird Wednesday: Why is It Furry?
I generally like Moleskine notebooks. I don’t have any good reason for it. They feel right in the hand (do you know that bit in Princess Bride, the book, about a sword’s balance? Like that). The fancy limited editions make easier for me to keep tabs on where particular ideas might be: alot of the early concept work for Star Master is in the yellowish orange Gundam notebook, my initial reactions to seeing Orgoglio e Preguidizio for the first time are in the green and beige Oz notebook, but also some of them were later transcribed to the blue 007 notebook, which also houses an awful lot of fantasy mystery brainstorming, and so on. I’ve even found a velvet-covered one at a price I could live with. Even so, I find myself asking, why is there a furry moleskine? And why is it sold out?
Weird Wednesday: Audiobooks!
Thanks to the auto-narrator function at Google Play, I now have audio book versions of four of my novels available:
Shadow Captain
Marrying a Monster
Waking the Dreamlost
Loving a Deathseer
Right now I am working on polishing Shadow Captain’s sequel. I hope to have it published by late December of this year, at which point it will spend 90 days in Kindle Unlimited so that the KU readers of the first book can enjoy it. The audiobook for the sequel will be made available around the time it comes to Google Play, sometime in 2023. Once I have Shadow Captain’s sequel completed, the focus will be on re-editing the Ancestors of Jaiya novels in preparation for their audiobook release, and on a new project to be announced later.
Happy Listening!
Where Did THAT Come From: Why Such a Jumble of Influences
I began making up stories at a fairly young age, 5 or 6 years old, I think. At that age, my family moved around a fair amount, lived out of hotels from time to time, and some of our videotapes didn’t necessarily have the whole movie on them.
Continue reading “Where Did THAT Come From: Why Such a Jumble of Influences”August 2021 SF&F Book Book Bonanza!
Hello, there!
Dean F. Wilson has pulled together an impressive sale of science fiction and fantasy books: all on Amazon, each for just $0.99!
He has graciously agreed to include my ownrelease, Waking the Dreamlost, in this sale. It is the second book in the Jaiya series of urban fantasy/paranormal romance novels, and the first book is free on all vendors. You can find Waking the Dreamlost under the fantasy and paranormal romance heading, when you click on this link to check out all the discounted books!
You may be hearing from me about these promotions a few more times this year, possibly as often as once a month. I hope you can find some new reading material at a price you can afford. Happy Shopping!
Kindle Vella is Here!
Mauti and her brother Embo have had their memories damaged by an evil psychic. Now Embo is desperately traveling from planet to planet in search of his missing fiancee, and Mauti is trapped in a dead-end job working for a shady politician. The mysterious duelist Roukazor may be Mauti’s only chance of escape, but Embo thinks Roukazor is the one who attacked Mauti’s mind. Can they trust him? They may have no choice if they want to survive….
Vella is a new piece of the Amazon/Kindle family, geared towards serialized fiction. I’ve started a serial called Thorn Master, set in the Star Master universe. It deals with the adventures of Roukazor and Mauti, the parents of Shenti, the mysterious spy from the Star Master series. This takes place about 27-30 years before the events of the first Star Master book. You can read the first couple of episodes for free here. I am currently working simultaneously on Thorn Master and Star Master Book 2, and hope to have the first draft of Star Master Book 2 completed later this summer, with an eye towards publication somewhere between December 2021 and February 2022.
February SFF Book Bonanza
Hello, there!
Dean F. Wilson has pulled together a massive sale of science fiction and fantasy books: all on Amazon, each for just $0.99!
He has graciously agreed to include my own new release, Waking the Dreamlost, in this sale. It is the second book in the Jaiya series of urban fantasy/paranormal romance novels, and the first book is free on all vendors. You can find Waking the Dreamlost under the fantasy and paranormal romance heading, when you click on this link to check out all the discounted books!
You may be hearing from me about these sales opportunities several times this year, possibly as often as once a month. I hope I can help you find some new reading material at a price you can afford. Happy Shopping!
Jaglion Press 