Hal Aetus's Blog: Hal Aetus, page 2

Join me at the “Mother of All Crawls” on May 4th!

Come on out for the Waukesha Art Crawl in downtown Waukesha. Art Links has kindly offered to host my Popup Art Gallery at 333 W Main St, from 2-8pm where I’ll be selling my original artwork items and novels.

Save the date, April 20, 2024! Meet the Author Event!

Join me on Saturday April 20, 2024 from 1-3pm at Half Price Books in Brookfield, Wisconsin. I’ll be selling and signing copies of my novels and taking pre-orders on the egg-citing new edition of The Sky Calls. I’ll also have prints of my art on display and for sale. I’ll be thrilled to share my latest news with you all in person, so stop in and say Hello!

The Sky Calls 2nd Edition

I’m happy to announce that I completed editing and reformatting The Sky Calls. For those that loved the first edition, take heart, I have not substantially changed the story. The updates are primarily to smooth out my writing (I’ve gotten better in the past 5 years) and change the publishing imprint over to my own. Thurston Howl Publishing did well but they are merging with another publisher now and, well, TSC is special to me so I really wanted to bring it under my own label. Just to make it a sweeter deal, if you are considering purchasing another hard copy, I’ll be adding artwork inside, featuring myself and a few other artists I’m in the process of contacting now. But, for now, enjoy this updated cover prototype!

Coming soon, The Sky Calls 2nd Edition!

It’s Valentine’s Day! The Sky Calls is the perfect topic since it is not just about a guy turning into a bird, but also about love.

It’s a pretty exciting time for me with The Sky Calls 2nd edition currently in the editing phase. The story will remain the same, just updating the writing, possibly adding some artwork, and getting it moved over to my own publishing imprint. Once complete, it will be available at numerous bookstores; both in-person sales and for online ordering via IngramSpark distribution (e.g., Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other local book stores). I’m working on new cover art too!

Mark your calendar! Furry Migration in September!

I applied to be a dealer at Furry Migration in September. Hopefully I can bring my bird stuff to a new venue! Stay posted for further updates…

The Adler Chronicles and The Sky Calls available now at the Woodland Pattern Bookstore!

The Woodland Pattern Book Center is a Milwaukee cultural treasure that hosts events in poetry, performance art, sound works, and films. They even have a fine arts gallery where one can enjoy visual art by local and nationally known artists. I’m excited to announce, both of my novels, The Sky Calls and The Adler Chronicles are residing on the shelves among nationally recognized authors. Woodland Pattern has a collection of over 25,000 small-press titles ensuring a great read for everyone. You can visit Woodland Pattern at 720 E Locust St in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The Sky Calls

New Release! The Adler Chronicles

By Hal Aetus, November 20, 2023

Hey there! I’m dropping my new book, The Adler Chronicles. If you’re into stories about people turning into birds at will, you’ll love this one. It features Phil Adler, an American football player, who has been hiding a family secret his whole life– the ability to turn into a humanoid or full-on natural bald eagle, at will. His secret is forced into the open by family rivals, right in the middle of a televised game. In the investigation that follows, Phil learns that his enemies have hauntingly similar abilities, but with dark aspirations of world domination.

I hope you’ll check out my page for the book and order up a copy. If you order through me, I’ll sign it for you!

Visit The Adler Chronicles Page

Kleptic Reference Sheet

A reference sheet for Kleptic, a magpie kenku. Kleptic commissioned this ref sheet a couple of months ago and asked for the character to be based on a black-billed magpie with a few small adjustments (e.g., starling-like dots), plus a feral version and some other details, such as a hood, for other types of roleplay.

What’s a kenku, you may ask? Kenku are anthropomorphic corvid characters from the fantasy roleplaying universe, particularly Dungeons and Dragons. Usually they are based on crows or ravens, but there’s nothing that says you can’t utilize other corvid, or even other non-corvid species. There have been various iterations of them in D&D sourcebooks, but they are best known for being excellent pickpockets and thieves with a high degree of cunning and stealth, as well as some resistance to magic. Their alignment is generally neutral/chaotic.

There are some excellent cosplay suits based on kenku, particularly since they became available as a playable species around 2009 with D&D Fourth Edition (Monster Manual 2), and further tweaked in 2014 (D&D Fifth Edition). One of my all-time favorite suits is made by Rah-Bop and you can see photos of her wearing it on her Tumblr. For a quick summary on kenkus, check out Wikipedia’s article on the subject, which has links to other resources.

The Council Will Decide Your Fate

The four of us that manage my Discord server together. There’s me (bald eagle), Colin (bald eagle with blue eyes), Barnibu (green-winged macaw), and Silver (Eurasian eagle owl). Don’t worry, we’re actually pretty friendly. :>

Whiterock if PS/2 Made a Game of it (by Silver)

My friend Silver made this wonderful fan-art poster for Whiterock, my upcoming novel about a post-apocalyptic world where birds have taken over. It was a really cool surprise gift and I have a copy hanging on my wall. If you would like a 13×19 printed poster, let me know as I’m considering having prints at future cons or selling through my store. There’s also this non-PS/2 version…