https://youtube.com/shorts/uzB7gH_NEUo
⚠️ SPOILER WARNING for Books 1-2
Continue reading “Video Thursday: Mecha vs Dragon Edition”
Monster hunters, spaceships and comedy of manners by indie author Mel Dunay
https://youtube.com/shorts/uzB7gH_NEUo
⚠️ SPOILER WARNING for Books 1-2
Continue reading “Video Thursday: Mecha vs Dragon Edition” →Maxim os Storm was a young man away at university when a kallomancer and her leeches attacked the airship carrying his parents.
The creatures tore through passengers and crew, drinking blood and spreading terror. By the time it was over, Maxim had lost his parents and other family members to the monsters many hunters consider the most dangerous algomancers of all.
This is personal for him. And for the Stormcrows who survived that night, kallomancers represent a threat that can never be forgiven.
Continue reading “Kallomancers and Their Leeches: The Most Dangerous Algomancers in Hunter Healer King” →https://youtube.com/shorts/riN4_268kWw
Stormcrows (the people) are named after stormcrows (the birds) for good reason. Maxim’s stormcrow companion wants to ride aboard the luxury airship. Animal telepathy meets steampunk technology in Undead Flight, Book 2 of the Hunter Healer King trilogy.
What if Atlantis fell…but left behind liquid metal that could heal any wound, steel that defies gravity, and an energy source that could power engines for millennia?
Three thousand years ago, when Thule sank beneath the waves, the Stormcrows escaped with more than just their lives. They carried the secrets of three mysterious metals, created during the first Immortal War before mortals walked the earth. These metals, known as floatsteel, quicksteel, and burnsteel, are the backbone of this world’s technology.
Airships fly because of floatsteel. Dr. Maxim os Storm heals the wounded with quicksteel. And burnsteel powers steam engines that can run for centuries without fuel.
This is the lost technology of Thule, and it’s everywhere in the Hunter Healer King trilogy…once you know where to look.
Continue reading “The Three Mysterious Metals of Thule: the Secret Technology of Hunter Healer King” →They apparently very discreetly pushed a Terms of Service update back on 1/23/2026 stating that you couldn’t use its output for commercial purposes on the Free or Pro plans, and any stuff you uploaded to it “are belong to us.” the Nerdy Novelist has a good summary here. (If you don’t have time for a 12-minute video, the meat of the discussion starts around 1:30-1:40, and goes for maybe 3-4 minutes beyond that. A lot of the second half is him reflecting on his previously good experiences with this tool.)
This is a bummer for me because if Claude is my secretary and alpha reader, and sometimes my pet fanfic writer, Perplexity is (soon to be was) my research assistant and tech support. At least I don’t use AI for first draft fiction work, so there is that.
Greetings, insta-people and other visitors! I recent-ishly published the third book in a trilogy, so feel free to check that out as well.
The dead don’t rest easy in the Old World.
Necromancers summon evil spirits from the underworld and bind them into corpses, creating shambling servants called wights. And if a wight bites you? You might join their ranks.
They are a type of algomancer: feeding on pain and fear like other dark sorcerers. They bring their own particular horror to the world of the Hunter Healer King trilogy.
Continue reading “Necromancers and Their Wights: The Walking Dead in Hunter Healer King” →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!
Imagine 19th century Budapest, but with airships overhead, monsters in the shadows, and an elected emperor who’s mostly a figurehead.
Welcome to Noricum, the sprawling empire where the Hunter Healer King trilogy takes place. It’s a land of steam-powered innovation and ancient bloodlines, where Dr. Maxim os Storm hunts algomancers through gaslit streets and Chloe Fortebat discovers that the “Old World” is far stranger than she ever imagined.
Continue reading “The Empire of Noricum In Hunter Healer King: Where Monsters Walk and Airships Fly” →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.