Monster hunters, spaceships and comedy of manners by indie author Mel Dunay
https://youtube.com/shorts/R4meKyRdvYU
Maxim offers Chloe a box, and asks her to keep the artifact inside safe. She holds up the necklace inside and wonders “what has he gotten me into now?” Their relationship isn’t built on grand gestures. It’s built on trust forged while fighting monsters side by side. A romantic moment from Undead Flight, Book 2 of the Hunter Healer King trilogy. Which, by the way, is on sale now as part of Hans G. Schantz’s Spring Book Sale!
This is the official title of the space regency, first draft just completed at 58,000 words. I had the basic idea for this a long time ago. I skimmed down a list of lost Jane Austen tv adaptations. I spotted a name I knew very well, from a couple of non-Austen contexts, in the cast for the 1952 Pride and Prejudice. And I thought to myself: “What if Mr. Darcy went around exploding planets?” But I only started brainstorming the idea somewhere in the past three years or so. I started writing it sometime in late 2024, around the time I wrapped up Undead Flight. It continued as a background project in 2025, while I was writing Dragon’s Teeth. It picked up speed when I finished that book.
Pride and Planetoids has been a guinea pig for many of my experiments in using AI, including playing with the trial periods of Sudowrite and Novelcrafter. It will soon be a guinea pig for some automations I built to help with revisions. The actual prose and storyline are human creations, as with my other works.
https://youtube.com/shorts/LiePsSvFpqo
Maxim and Chloe face a blood-drinking leech, a horrifying monster created by the most dangerous type of dark sorcerer. Inspired by a scene from Undead Flight, Book 2 of the Hunter Healer King trilogy.
https://youtube.com/shorts/1ZY9JAab5uc
Dr. Maxim os Storm can talk to animals telepathically, a gift of his Stormcrow bloodline. Here he rides Scrimshaw, Chloe’s fierce white stallion, in a vignette inspired by Wolf’s Trail, Book 1 of the Hunter Healer King trilogy. The Stormcrows are descended from survivors of a fallen Atlantis, and their abilities make them formidable monster hunters.
This part below was more or less the first thing I wrote on this book, but took place very late in the book’s chronology, kind of an “All is Lost” moment. By the time I reached this part of the manuscript, writing through the story in mostly chronological order, it became clear that I needed to change a lot of things around. Some character beats and dialogue remain the same in the final version, but this first draft was different enough to where I thought it would be worth sharing now that the book is released. Warning: contains SPOILERS for a key plot twist; I advise against reading this post if you plan to read Hunter Healer King 3 and have not done so yet.
Continue reading “An Outtake from Hunter Healer King 3” →
https://youtube.com/shorts/ReUQaFI6FZ8
Chloe awakens in the snow and tells Maxim about her vision, where she saw him shining like lightning. A moment from Wolf’s Trail, Book 1 of the Hunter Healer King trilogy. Sometimes the most powerful scenes are the quietest ones.
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