Dear Sir:
Continue reading “Happy Centedecenary, Mr. Cushing”Category: Steampunk
Weird Wednesday: Every Effing Vampire Movie in the World Tried to Warn You
Seriously though, to any powerful old people reading that story and searching for access to young blood, just don’t. You’ll find out just how fast the peasants can pick up their torches and pitchforks. The video below is not an introduction but a warning:
Weird Wednesday: State of the Author, April 2023
Here’s where I am at these days:
–Spider Star, aka Star Master Book 2: this has been released and is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers right now. It will leave KU on June 3, so if you are a KU subscriber, I would advise you to download it before then and read at your leisure. When it leaves KU, I will be raising the price on Shadow Captain (the first book in the series), so keep that in mind as well. Later in June, I will work on putting Spider Star up on the other ebook vendors and setting up an AI-voiced audiobook at Google Play.
-Hunter Healer King, Book 1: Currently a shade under 10K words of a projected 70K, so I think it’s safe to call this an actual work in progress. If you frequent some of the other places I visit online, you may have seen me call this one “the Gothic Dunedain project” or “the Steampunk Dunedain project.” Basically this is a monster-hunting gothic fantasy with a steampunk angle and some Tolkienian tropes thrown in, like an ancient line of kingly monster-hunters who come from a lost civilization. No Elves or Dwarves so far. The plan is to serialize it on Vella, once completed, and then use any feedback to help in turning it into a conventional ebook.
-Regency Sleuth: At 4K of a projected 70K, this is still in the exploratory stages. Call it an “almost-WIP.” It’s not set in the actual Regency, just in a vaguely British Regency like place with minor fantasy elements (so far consisting of a single empath, whose abilities are not so far very useful in solving mysteries). I’m finding that writing a mystery calls for a very different approach so I’m kind of feeling my way through the process. I do like new challenges though, which is why I switch up genres when I finish with a particular setting. If completed, this one will possibly cycle through Vella as well.
-Ancestors of Jaiya: I may get some help stomping typos for these, and if so, I will set up AI-voiced audiobooks for them on Google Play.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at in the writing process. Feel free to share your opinions below.
Weird Wednesday: Thawing 48500-Year-old Viruses
https://www.livescience.com/zombie-viruses-permafrost-siberia
Professor Sexton and Dr Wells say hi.
The Hildern Brothers also say hi, but Creeping Flesh is kind of a downer, and I don’t feel like linking to it.
Crossdomain “Transmedium” Threats
The Pentagon would have you believe that the truth is out there, although I am not entirely clear on when we started taking the Pentagon’s word for this stuff. I don’t know whether the truth is out there or not, but some days I suspect Robur the Conqueror is.
(Please Note: the film version of Master of the World features Robur’s much more generic airship from the prequel, Clipper of the Clouds. If you watch the film, you will get to see both Vincent Price and Charles Bronson doing their thing, but you won’t get to see any Steampunk Triple Changer that can function as an aircraft, automobile, and submarine.)
That Moment When…
You can’t sleep so you work on the back story for your gaslamp fantasy idea, and realize that you need to invent an extra daughter for Queen Victoria, in the 20-month gap between Princess Helena and Princess Louise, to be the mother of one of the characters in the gaslamp fantasy.
Real Estate Website That Lists Castles For Sale
I suspect I am the last one to find out about this site, but it’s still cool. Great place to research castles for your fantasy novel, or just daydream about how to spend your hypothetical lottery winnings.
Also, here’s an interesting study from 2018 of how Lake Powell in Colorado suffers from water management rules that favor keeping Lake Mead (downstream of Lake Powell) filled, and by extension favors the lawns, swimming pools and delta smelt of California, the most populous area supplied by Lake Mead.
Saving a Queen Now Available!
Journey to the country of Jaiya, in a world not quite like ours. Here the humans wield magical powers and fight against an Empire which seeks to enslave them, but they share their world with insect people and trollfolk, and stranger things lurk in the shadows…
Queen Prasa escapes from her city as it falls to the Empire. Her only hope of survival lies in traveling with Nirav, a smuggler who pilots a type of balloon called a skyboat. Caught between her sense of duty and her attraction to the smuggler, Prasa must listen to her heart in order to find the best way to save her people. But what is the secret cargo that Nirav carries…and why is a flying monster out of the old stories hunting his skyboat?
Hope everyone is having a great November!
I just published the Ancestors of Jaiya series, the prequel series to my Jaiya series of urban fantasy/paranormal romance novels. The Ancestors of Jaiya series starts out nearly two hundred years before the events of Marrying a Monster and the other books in the Jaiya series, and ends about 35-40 years before the Jaiya series starts. Book 2 in the series, Saving a Queen, is now available on all the major ebook stores, including Amazon, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Google Play.
More Books On Sale, Hosted by Dean Wilson!
Dean had the clever of idea of doing a followup sale to last week’s Science Fiction/Fantasy giveaway on Instafreebie. A number of authors, myself included, have taken the books associated with last week’s giveaway, and set them to 0.99 on Amazon. The sale runs through tomorrow (October 22), so click here for the full list!
Meanwhile, back on Instafreebie, Oliver Cohen has organized an interesting giveaway for clean romances, which you can check out here.
Light Urban Fantasies On Sale! Plus An Instafreebie Giveaway!
Do you like your urban fantasies on the lighter side? Less grimdark, less harsh language? Maybe with a bit of romance, maybe without? Regina Welling, author of twelve books across three series, has put together a promotion showcasing a number of books in that “vein,” all on sale for $0.99 on Amazon. My latest novel, Loving a Deathseer, is part of the promotion, but there are quite a few other books available as well. Just click here if you feel like checking out the sale!
Steampunk writer Dean F. Wilson has also put together an Instafreebie giveaways of free novels, short stories and sample chapters in the science fiction and fantasy genres, running until tomorrow (October 15). You can click here to check out the giveaway page.
Jaglion Press 