Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 322

I recommend Jutoh Ebook Editor

If you’re familiar with the business of ebooks, you’ve probably heard of Smashwords. Smashwords sells ebooks, but it also acts as an ebook aggregator, which means it provides ebooks to other online stores to sell. Apple’s iBookstore is probably the most prominent example. You can put books into the iBookstore yourself, but the software for doing so runs only on a Mac, so instead of shelling out, at a minimum, $600 for a Mac, I use Smashwords.

The tricky part is that Smashwords requires a custom-formatted Microsoft Word file, which it then converts into the various ebook formats. Creating this Word file is, to be perfectly candid, tedious work. I use a free program called Sigil to build my ebooks in EPUB format, and another free program called Calibre to convert the book to MOBI format for Amazon, but I would build the Smashwords Word file by hand, because Smashwords has a bunch of specific requirements and I couldn’t automate the process. (In fact, Smashwords has so many specific requirements that Smashwords has an entire book on its formatting process.)

But I had been hearing good things about a program called Jutoh Ebook Editor, and I was having formatting troubles with GHOST IN THE FORGE, so I decided to give it a go. It’s designed to comprehensively manage ebook creation from beginning to end – you create a project file, and then the program produces MOBI files, EPUB files, and – most importantly to me – a Smashwords-ready file. But it lets you import files, and I was able to import my old EPUB files and convert them to Smashwords-ready DOC files.

They uploaded and converted flawlessly. It even helped fix a consistent formatting problem with GHOST IN THE STORM I had never been able to resolve.

The program cost $39, and in the amount of time and hassle it has saved me, it was well-worth the money. If you use Smashwords a lot, I recommend Jutoh.

Now if I could only find a way to automate CreateSpace book creation…

-JM

choose your own adventure, a terminal episode

You race for the spiderling, drawing upon the power of your bond with Heartwarden for strength and speed.

“Swordbearer!” shouts Ulacht, fighting one of the urvaalg. “No!”

The spiderling is faster. Her pincers yawn wide, and a glob of green venom erupts from her lips and slams into your face. You flinch, blinking, and for moment you think the venom has had no ill effects.

Then you see the monkeys.

Hundreds of purple monkeys suddenly fill the hall, watching you with beady red eyes, their wide smiles revealing rows of gleaming white fangs. Their tails sway back and forth like serpents, and you see the poisoned barbs rising from the purple fur.

Sudden terror strikes you. The monkeys can hear your thoughts! They’ve been plotting against you your entire life, scheming to bring you here. Your father, the Master of the Order of the Soulblade, even the High King himself – all have been part of this diabolical conspiracy.

But you are a Knight of the Soulblade, a Swordbearer, and you will not surrender without a fight!

Screaming, you charge the monkeys, brandishing Heartwarden, and you are so distracted by their insidious evil that you do not notice the spiderling until she steps behind you and tears out your throat.

The last thing you hear is the spiderling’s voice.

“So easy,” she murmurs. “Mother was correct. The Order has decayed. That the herd animals remember anything of importance at all is astonishing.”

Everything goes black.

Don’t worry – Ridmark may be dead, but in the grand tradition of “Choose Your Own Adventure”, the story shall continue! What should Ridmark have done instead?

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THE THIRD SOUL is coming back this month

I am pleased to report that THE THIRD SOUL will be returning this month with three new books – a novella called THE OUTLAW ADEPT, and two short novels (50k words and 60k words, respectively) named THE BLACK PALADIN and THE TOMB OF BALIGANT. I will release all three simultaneously, and they should be out by the end of the month. So if you’re traveling over Easter, you’ll have something to read.

Cover art below. I’ll have some sample chapters up soon.

Cover image copyright Bliznetsov | istockphoto.com

Cover image copyright Dmitriy Cherevko | Dreamstime.com

Cover image copyright baytunc | istockphoto.com

-JM

don’t forget your free book

Tom Simon’s excellent THE END OF EARTH AND SKY is free on Amazon through March 16th. I urge you to pick it up, but if you need further persuading, you can read my review of the book here.

-JM

choose your own adventure, episode 10

You decided to investigate the laughter of children coming from the ruin’s great hall.

“Follow me,” you tell the others. You draw Heartwarden, and after a moment’s hesitation, Sir Thomas draws his own blade. Ulacht, of course, has been carrying his club the entire time.

The doors to the hall have long since rotted away, but the interior is gloomy, despite being built of white stone. The only light comes from narrow windows high above, throwing pale shafts of light through the murk. There is no furniture, save for a massive stone throw upon a dais at the far end of the hall. Once a dark elven lord sat there, ruling over his vassals and slaves. Sacks of grain and corn rest against the walls, and you realize that the villagers do indeed store their seed crops here.

“There’s no one here,” says Thomas.

Ulacht growls. “It does not smell right.”

“I think…” you begin to say, and a woman walks into sight around one of the piles of heaped sacks.

The first thing you notice about her is that she is naked. The second thing you notice is how gaunt and pale she is, her ribs flexing against her skin as she draws breath, the joints of her hips clenching and unclenching as she walks. She looks about twenty, with stringy red hair and eyes that are glittering green slits in her emaciated face.

She stops twenty paces away, before the throne, and gazes at you, head titled. You would expect a naked woman to show fear of three armed men, but she only looks curious. For an instant she reminds you of a wolf regarding a deer.

“Madam,” says Thomas, “clearly, you are not well. Come with us and we shall find you some clothing and food.”

The woman opens her mouth…and the sound of four or five laughing children comes out.

Ulacht raises his club, and for the first time you see a hint of fear on the old orc’s face.

“I am very hungry,” says the woman in Latin, her melodious voice a contrast to her wasted appearance, “but I’m not really one of the true people yet. Soon, but not today, sadly. I’ve been very faithful. If I’m obedient and faithful and keep secrets, then I’ll become a goddess and get to keep pets of my own.”

“I do not understand,” says Thomas.

The woman snaps her bony fingers. “Oh, yes, of course. I forget what you really are. It must be horrible, to be as stupid as you are all the time. But it won’t worry you for much longer.”

She takes a step forward, and Heartwarden begins to glow blue in your hand.

“Swordbearer,” says Ulacht, voice thick, “I think…”

The woman makes a childish sound of glee, like a girl presented with a sweet. “Oh, you’re the one! Mother said you might stop by! She’ll reward me for this.”

Her face ripples, and all at once her features change. Six additional shining green eyes appear on her forehead and temples, and a pair of black pincers erupt from the side of her mouth. Blood-colored talons, long as daggers, erupt from her fingers.

You realize that you are in deadly danger. The woman is not human but a spiderling, an offspring of a human man and an urdmordar in human form. She will have supernatural strength and speed, along with the ability to use venoms of varying kinds – which perhaps explains Magistrius Richard’s hallucinations.

“We were supposed to save the pets for the final culling of the herd,” says the spiderling, “but I suppose Mother won’t mind. Kill them!”

The air ripples, and two hulking urvaalg appear on either side of the spiderling. They spring forward with terrible speed, one making for Sir Thomas, the other heading for Ulacht. The spiderling woman herself begins to whisper, gesturing in front her.

Like she’s casting a spell.

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free ebook – THE END OF EARTH AND SKY, by Tom Simon

Tom Simon’s excellent THE END OF EARTH AND SKY is free on Amazon from March 12th until March 16th. I urge you to pick it up, but if you need further persuading, you can read my review of the book here.

-JM

Reader Question Day #58 – the Tower of Endless Worlds, TV drama, and Soul of Swords

Ciphas asks:

Will there be a new book/series for the Tower of Endless Worlds series?

I don’t know. I have a couple of ideas, but I haven’t really fixed on them. The thing is that the world of Carlisan will be very different, because Marugon brought so much stuff over from Earth, and technology can be reverse-engineered. So I think Ally, Lithon, and Arran will return to find that people have figured out at least an early industrial level of technology – steam engines, single-shot rifles, locomotives, and so forth. And I’ve always found the idea of technological change coming to a fantasy world to be an interesting one (hence the Tower of Endless World series), especially since you have supernatural creatures like the winged demons that can use the technology effectively. For that matter, Marugon’s soldiers could have brought ideas back with them from Earth – democracy or fascism or Marxism or whatever, and those could show up as well.

So there are any number of potential plots, but I need to think up a overarching plot to link them together first.

Aaaaaaaand…as I was typing this, I figured out how I could return to the series. So I might do that at some point, but probably not until 2014. I am in the happy position of having more writing to do than I actually have time to do it.

Manwe asks:

If you could have another tv drama set in a past setting, what would it be?

And the same goes for a fantasy series (including those based off books)? It can be more than one of course.

For a historical setting, I would choose either the Roman civil war in the Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD) or the Battle of Adrianople (378 AD). The Year of the Four Emperors had an quantity of skulduggery, battles, and intrigues that would make GAME OF THRONES look positively tame. The Battle of Adrianople, I think, would make for a more epic story, and some of the details are sketchy enough that there’s room for fictional embellishment without historical inaccuracy.

Quentin asks:

Hi there. I’m addicted to the Demonsouled series. When will Soul of swords be released on kindle? Finished all the rest.

Thanks for the kind words about the books! I’m glad you liked them.

I’m going to start writing Soul of Swords in April, after I finish up a few other things (specifically, more books in THE THIRD SOUL series, see below). So if all goes well, the book should be out in mid-summer or so.

Edward asks:

So when is your next book coming out (of any series)? Obviously, I am a little impatient. Also, I understand that there are short stories about Caina. How can I go about reading those?

I’m having one THE THIRD SOUL novella and two short novels coming out towards the end of March or the beginning of April. I thought about releasing them sequentially every month, but after I read this blog post pointing out that most people binge on digital content (whether ebooks or TV shows or whatever), I realized there would be no good reason not to release them all at once. So those will be coming soon.

As for the Caina short stories, they are in the SWORD & SORCERESS anthologies – specifically, SWORD & SORCERESS 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 & 27. I actually wrote most of the short stories before I began writing the novels, so there’s a bit of a continuity shift. At the end of GHOST IN THE FORGE, the latest Caina novel, she’s only twenty-one, but by the end of the last short story, she’s almost thirty. Eventually the novels will catch up to the short stories and they’ll harmonize, but we’re not quite there yet.

-JM

choose your own adventure, episode 9

“I wish to investigate the dark elven ruin atop the hill,” you say.

Sir Thomas frowns. “Why? It has been since the urdmordar were overthrown and the Frostborn defeated. Horrors lurk in such ruins, I know, but this one has been empty for years. Sometimes the villagers store seed crops there.”

“The Magistrius Richard was poisoned,” you say. “The last thing he remembers is walking near that ruin several weeks past.”

“I thought he seemed more lucid than usual,” says Thomas. “Very well. I have no other ideas, so we might as well look there. I shall accompany you.”

“And Ulacht,” growls Ulacht.

“Magistrius, Father, stay here, please,” says Thomas. “If the villagers get riled up, we’ll need someone to calm them.”

Father Linus looks embarrassed, no doubt remembering his argument with Ulacht outside the village, but Richard offers a grave nod.

You leave the keep’s great hall, Sir Hamus’s snores and Gotha’s incoherent rambling filling your ears. With the headman and the knight, you climb the rocky hill towards the dark elven ruin, gazing at it. For long millennia, your tutors told you, the dark elves warred against the high elves in wars that lasted thousands of years. Then the urdmordar came, destroyed the high elven kingdoms, and made vassals of the dark elves and the pagan orcs.

And then humans came from Old Earth and overthrew the urdmordar, and now dark elven ruins stand scattered throughout Andomhaim.

“Here we are,” says Thomas as you reach the crest of the hill.

The ruin had once been a castle of white stone, with delicate, soaring towers and graceful arches. Yet it looks…wrong to you, the angles and proportions strange, and you suspect if you stare at it for too long you will develop a headache. The dark elven sense of aesthetics seems alien and unsettling to human minds.

“Long ago,” says Ulacht, “the orcs of Khaluusk served the dark elven lord who lived here, and that lord in turn served the urdmordar, and we prayed to their gods of shadow and death. Then the High King and his Christ came, and we follow them instead.”

“But this place has been empty for centuries,” says Thomas, “and even the last of the treasures were carted off long ago.”

“Then why,” says Ulacht, “does Ulacht see so many tracks?”

You don’t have the orcish headman’s skill as a tracker, but you see that he’s right. Dozens of tracks in the dirt go back and forth to an entrance at the base of the central tower.

Thomas shrugged. “The peasants made them, no doubt, when they came to get the seed crop stored here. That doorway goes to the cellars below the tower.”

“It’s early spring,” you say. “The weather is not yet ripe for planting.”

“And why,” says Ulacht, “did the peasants not wear their shoes? Barefoot humans made these tracks, Ulacht thinks.”

Sir Thomas blinks in astonishment, and you see that he is right. Bare human feet made those tracks, and you cannot imagine why so many people would come here barefoot.

“Perhaps they’re left over from the summer,” says Thomas, but you hear the doubt in his voice.

“The winter would have blown the tracks away,” you say, looking up at the sky to think.

And as you do, you see the blue light flash in the highest window of the central tower.

“Look,” you say.

The others follow your gaze, and the light flashes again. And as it does, you hear a peculiar sound coming from the doors to the ruin’s great hall.

The laughter of children at play.

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choose your own adventure, episode 8

“Ah,” you say, taking a step back. For a moment you consider pushing Lady Gwenaelle away, but decide you might enjoy touching her too much. “Yes. Very good. Well. My horse. I need to see to my horse.”

Gwenaelle frowns, puzzled. “But surely the grooms can attend…”

“No!” you say. “A true Knight of the Soulblade does not entrust the care of his horse to another man. Otherwise I’ll have to walk, and for a knight to walk is simply undignified…”

You realize you are babbling, turn, and make for the great hall just short of a run. A nagging voice in your head (and, well, other regions) urges you to go back, kiss her, and see what happens next. Nevertheless, you have the most peculiar feeling that you have just escaped from some deadly danger.

You return to the great hall, and see Sir Hamus slumped on the high seat, snoring. Sir Thomas gazes at his father with annoyed contempt, while Ulacht, Father Linus, and Richard wait nearby. Old Gotha wanders along the wall, muttering to herself and brushing at the tapestries.

“Flies,” she says, “flies everywhere! The flies breed like flies!”

“I see you have realized,” says Sir Thomas, “that my father is not up to the task of dealing with these disappearances.”

You look at the snoring old man. “Apparently not.”

“As much as it galls me to ask for help from a southern noble,” says Thomas, “we need your help. We need the help of a Knight of the Soulblade. My villagers and the orcs are ready to tear each other apart. If one more child disappears, it will be a bloodbath.”

“So you don’t think,” you say, glancing at Linus, “that the orcs are behind the disappearances.”

“Don’t be absurd,” says Thomas. “This is the Northerland. All the old horrors might have been hunted to extinction in the south, but this is the edge of the High King’s lands. There are so many things that prey upon both men and orcs here.”

“Bacon!” announces Gotha to no one, brushing dust from a tapestry showing the first High King’s duel with his treacherous nephew Mordred. “Fresh bacon! With some cheese and biscuits, please. Yes, lovely, thank you.”

“Then you have a suspicion?” you say.

“Aye,” says Sir Thomas. “I think the orcs tunneled too far in their mines and reached the Deep, and something has come up from the underworld. Maybe a skinchanger, or perhaps a shadowcrawler.”

Ulacht growls. “We are not fools. We would know if we dug into the Deep.”

“Aye,” says Thomas. “But a skinchanger can wear the forms of its victims, and a shadowcrawler can be invisible when it wants to be. The thing could be lurking in the mines unnoticed, feeding on the children and sowing discord among us.” He shakes his head. “There is another possibility. A sister of one of the disappeared children reported seeing ghosts in the graveyard. I thought it a childish fancy…but I suppose someone among, human or orc, is dabbling in forbidding arts, and has called up some horror from beyond the grave.” He spreads his hands. “I leave it to your judgment, sir knight. Something preys upon my people, and where shall we hunt for it?”

You consider. Both possibilities seem likely.

But the last thing the Magistrius Richard remembers before his poisoning is walking near the dark elven ruin atop the hill.

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choose your own adventure, episode 7

“I would be honored,” you say, “to meet Sir Hamus Norsegard.”

Sir Thomas relaxes, just a bit, and you realize he is afraid of you. Or, at least, he did not want to fight you. Understandable, given that you are a Knight of the Soulblade. “Thank you, sir knight. Please, follow me.” He looks at Linus and Ulacht and Richard. “Father, headman, Magistrius, you might as well accompany us.”

Sir Thomas leads you through the village of Victrix to his father’s keep. Victrix looks prosperous enough, but you can see the pall that hangs over the village. People keep to themselves, and mothers pull their children close as Ulacht passes. The aura of fear is plain, and you wonder how long it will be until the villagers do something drastic.

Sir Hamus’s keep is stout and grim, and Thomas leads you to the great hall. Fires blaze merrily in twin hearths, and tapestries on the wall show scenes of Arthur and Lancelot, Garain and the Green Knight, and other legends of Old Earth. Sir Hamus himself, a man of about sixty, sits upon the high seat. He does not look well.  If Thomas abandoned exercise, stuffed himself with pastries every day, and aged thirty years, he might look like Hamus.

But you barely notice the old knight.

The two women standing at his side capture your attention.

The first is an old, old woman in a loose black dress, so old that her skin looks like parchment and her hair like tufts of white thread. Her green eyes are amiable and unfocused, and she is humming to herself.

The second woman is quite probably the most beautiful woman you have ever seen. She’s only a few years older than you, clad in a rich green gown, with long red hair and brilliant green eyes. Her features and skin are perfect, absolutely perfect. You realize that you are staring, and it is only with difficulty that you make yourself stop.

“Sir Ridmark Arban,” says Thomas, clearing his throat, “my father and lord of this village, Sir Hamus Norsegard. His wife and my stepmother the Lady Gwenaelle,” he gestures at the stunning woman, who is at least ten years his junior, “and her mother, the Lady Gotha.”

Vaguely you wonder why on earth a woman like Gwenaelle agreed to marry a man like Hamus. Perhaps she is a commoner who married up? But surely she could have captured the eye of a Comes, even a Dux. Or at least a guild merchant with a great deal of gold.

“Thomas!” says Lady Gotha, squinting at you. She totters forward, leaning on her cane. “Is that the man from the village who delivers the bacon? The last batch was spoiled! Young fellow, if you do not deliver my bacon, I shall beat you with my cane.”

“Mother,” murmurs Gwenaelle, taking the old woman’s sleeve, “that man is a Knight of the Soulblade, and our guest.”

“I know that, girl!” says Gotha. “And he sells us poor bacon!”

You notice Thomas’s lips thinning with contempt as he looks at his stepmother and his mother.

“You are welcome here, Sir Ridmark,” says Hamus, his voice weak and watery. “Your aid…your aid would be welcome. You are here about the disappearances, yes? I do not to know what to think. One man says one thing and I believe him, and then another says something else.”

Thomas’s look of contempt does not waver as he glances at his father.

“Thomas,” says Hamus, oblivious or indifferent, “take Sir Ridmark to my solar. I would speak with him in private. Father, headman – you may wait here.”

Thomas takes you to the solar and then leaves you. The room was a good view of the village and of Rzoldur on its hill, and the furniture looks comfortable. There is a carafe of wine upon a sideboard, and you reach for it…

The door opens, and you look up, expecting to see Sir Hamus.

Instead, it is Lady Gwenaelle, and she is alone.

Your throat goes dry, and suddenly your world seems to focus upon her.

“Do you know what it is like,” she says, her rich voice full of pain, “being married to that indolent old fool? Of having to share a bed with that fat slug?” She steps closer, and the smell of her perfume fills your nostrils.

“We’re alone,” you manage to say, “this is not appropriate…”

“I’ve dreamed of a knight coming to take me away from all this,” says Gwenaelle, and she puts her hands upon your shoulders, the touch making your heartbeat hammer like a drum. “Please, take me with you. Do you know how much I’ve wanted a man, a real man, and not that pompous old fool?”

Her lips part, and you realize that she is going to kiss you.

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