Craig Comer's Blog, page 9

Souldrifter by Garrett Calcaterra – Excerpt

Souldrifter, Garrett Calcaterra‘s follow-up to Dreamwielder, was released last week. Check out the excerpt posted over on Black Gate:

https://www.blackgate.com/2015/09/27/black-gate-online-fiction-souldrifter-by-garrett-calcaterra/

Souldrifter Excerpt

Souldrifter, Garrett Calcaterra‘s follow-up to Dreamwielder, was released last week. Check out the excerpt posted over on Black Gate:

https://www.blackgate.com/2015/09/27/black-gate-online-fiction-souldrifter-by-garrett-calcaterra/

Binge Reading & Soul Drifting

Thanks largely to enhanced streaming capabilities, the past few years have witnesses an increase in the amount of television binge watching. Not only is this method an addicting way to watch your favorite show, some shows have actually restructured their writing to meet this trend. HBO’s Programming President, Michael Lombardo, defended the second season of True Detective by saying viewers needed to, “watch the entirety of it,” before passing judgment, despite the episodes being released one at a time. Netflix and other distributors eschew the week-to-week delivery of content and release entire seasons of their shows in one go with the expectation that loyal fans will be discussing the final episode by the end of the day.

But binge consumption of genre related entertainment is nothing new. Readers have done the same for decades. Maybe not in one butt-numbing stretch, but in eagerly devouring everything an author can produce, and often as fast as the author can produce it. And the funny thing is, this trend occurs whether the author is a favorite or new to the reader. Readers will find out what the author has written before and grab it, even buying blocks of books on Amazon–hey, they’re discounted that way–before cracking open the first volume.

In fact, it is sometimes difficult for new authors to sell their first book solely because readers don’t want to invest in something they can’t read more of if they happen to get hooked. I have witnessed this first-hand at conventions. At GenCon’s Author Alley in 2011, I was hard-pressed to get readers to take a gamble on a single, slim-for-fantasy novel, The Roads to Baldairn Motte, but those authors pitching multiple volumes–who were just as unheard of as I was–continuously piqued readers’ interests not by their series tagline but by the sheer amount of content they were offering! Seven massive tomes always looks more enticing on a table than a single book.

Authors like Brian McClellan have adopted a clever strategy to grab the attention of modern readers and keep them sated. He released novellas surrounding the narrative of his main novels. These are short spin-offs cast from different character viewpoints or set at different points in time. (See Battleship Galactica for an example of how television has done the same thing while viewers waited for the next season.) The novellas give existing readers additional content delivered at a pace months (if not years, Mr. Martin) faster than waiting on a longer novel, and they also present new readers with an Author page filled with content. Even better, with ebook novellas offered as cheap as they are, it’s a financially viable solution for both parties. (McClellan’s novellas are roughly one-third the cost of his novels.)

Which brings me to Souldrifter, the second volume of Garrett Calcaterra’s Dreamwielder Chronicles. I’m excited for this book not just because it promises great adventure and an expansion to the vast, rich world first established by Dreamwielder, but because I know new readers will take a chance on the books marketed as a series where they might have passed on each individually. The door is open for a whole new readership to find Makarria, who, as Wendy Wagner, author of the Pathfinder Tales novel, Skinwalkers, points out, “…is a teenage heroine who does more than just kick butt: she’s smart, powerful, and surprisingly believable for a fourteen-year-old queen.”

Bruce McAllister, author of The Village Sang to the Sea, adds, “Souldrifter meets the promise of its predecessor with royal trumpets. Fine writing, magic, epic intrigue, a great cast, and a central character (Makarria) who mesmerizes—what more does a reader need to be happy?”

As much as they can consume, of course!

Spy v. Spy Had it Right

A great villain is more than someone for your hero to defeat, and

describing your villain as big and bad isn’t enough. They have to

have motivations and attainable goals, just like the hero. So instead

of thinking in terms of a protagonist and an antagonist, imagine

your story as one where two (or more) characters have conflicting

goals. How do the aims of each IMPACT the other? How do each

REACT to the actions of the other? This banter between opposing

sides should drive the cause and effect structure of the narrative.

Often when writers get lost on where their story goes next, it

is because they are only thinking about what one side—normally

the hero—should do. When plotting out a scene, a short story, or

even a novel, imagine yourself playing chess alone. Move your

first piece with a bit of action, then immediately turn the board

around and play from the other side. Ask yourself what move

this side would make in reaction, then flip the board around

again. Keep going in this fashion until there is a victor. Not all of

these moves have to be “visible” to the reader in the final story,

but knowing what they are and why they were made will help

tighten the narrative and add depth to those wicked doers out to

thwart your hero.

Are We There Yeti?

Share the travels of a vagabonding vegan, as Ahimsa Kerp travels the globe in search of beer, board games, and quite a few historical relics (not to mention racking up thousands of miles hiking, writing in some of the most inspiring places on Earth, and generally running from monkeys and rhinos…)

Blog: Are We There Yeti?

Ahimsa Kerp

And when you’re done having a laugh and seeing some really awesome pics, check out some of Ahimsa’s writing at his Amazon page.

A Slice of the Author – Creating Setting

It’s long been argued that all fictional characters contain some facet of the author. To what extent remains a debate, but what about setting? After all, in fantasy and science fiction, the where can be more important than the who or the what. Who is Robb Stark without the cold north of Westeros? Or Katniss Everdeen without Panem and the Hunger Games arena? But does that mean that without living through a Chicago winter, George R.R. Martin couldn’t have envisioned the lands beyond the Wall? Of course not. Yet it’s interesting that he has attributed the creation of his Wall to a trip to Hadrian’s Wall in England. His version is just a bit larger and colder.

I have also hiked along Hadrian’s Wall. In fact, I have hiked it from start to finish—all 84 miles of it—and believe me, there is no end to the amount of stories to be found there. From the amazing views to the castles and fortresses, every mile is ripe with details fit for a story.

And I think that is where an author creates a setting. It’s by taking details of places they know and adjusting them to create something new. Whether it’s from something they’ve seen, watched, or read about, every scrap becomes a thread that can be rewoven into a new tapestry. Or to extend the common forest and tree metaphor, creating setting is like taking the trees you know and rearranging them into a forest of wonder that no one has ever yet beheld.

Garrett Calcaterra, author of the novel, Dreamwielder, has never lived in a labyrinth of ice caves, but he drew upon his experiences hiking around Lake Chelan, in the Cascades, and around Scotland. As he explains, “I got to experience Edinburgh and do a little spelunking in search of Sawney Beane’s secret lair. These experiences melded together with images I’d seen in documentaries about cliff dwelling indigenous tribes and the earth-shaping powers of glaciers. I came up with this sprawling ice cavern [for Dreamwielder] where an ancient race of humans built a city into the living rocks of the mountain and lived beneath the azure hue of the glacier above them.”

“The Dream Thief of Kuthahaar,” my story in the October 2012 issue of Bards & Sages Quarterly, grew in the telling, as the saying goes. Only in this case, the telling was of another story altogether, my first in the setting of the Immortal City of Kuthahaar, “The Kultar’s Lost Hand.” For that story I created a place with palaces and bazaars, a congested city teeming with guilds and a harsh ruling class, where the dregs of society found solace only below ground, in deep caverns the rich considered fit only for the dead.

But why Sultans and robes and sandals? Why not trousers and frock coats and timber-framed lodges? I didn’t set out to write an “Arabian themed” tale. In fact, I don’t consider the story Arabian at all. The idea for the story spawned from a movie I grew up with, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Yes, that one. Laugh or groan all you like, I was fourteen and it was the coolest thing ever, next to Willow. And it was the scene at the start of the film, where the thief has his hand lopped off that left an impression with me and started the story. I wondered: what did the man do afterward? Did all society shun him? Had he been a villain before? Or had he been respected, maybe even someone of importance? So the man grew a back story and a personality, and all the time the dwellings and clothes and scents and sounds around him stuck in shades of sandstone, with oils and incense covering the stench created by a glaring sun and too many poor toiling in crowded streets.

It wasn’t difficult to fill in the details. A trip to the local farmer’s market may not yield the same foods, but the feeling of congestion is the same. There are any number of candle and incense shops out there, and as for the desert, Southern California is a great stand in for hot and dry! And so each scene was filled in as I needed it, with details summoned from a wide range of memories. I just needed to pick and place them in a context that made sense for this new society.

As the details were drawn in, other stories sprouted from the nooks and crannies. “The Dream Thief of Kuthahaar,” began as I started to wonder who these Seers were who watched the city (a group of sorcerers mentioned briefly in the first story.) They worked for the Sultan, but how did he win their loyalty? If they had such power, why did they not use it for their own aims? As I wondered, not only did new characters spring up, but new parts of the city as well. A temple, parts of the Sultan’s palace, the lands about the city, all became a part of the setting as young Akil, the protagonist, wandered toward his destiny.

Other stories followed full of assassins and heroines, desperate men and cunning scoundrels. Hopefully, many more will come. All will be a fabrication, holding the merest slices of the author, scrambled and contorted, fried and blended, until the place exists only in the imagination.

For those interested, here is a link to the Hadrian’s Wall National Trail site: http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/HadriansWall/index.asp.

You can read “The Kultar’s Lost Hand” for free here.

This post originally appeared on Tales From the Sith Witch, the blog of Julie Ann Dawson.

Tombs, Tomes, and Sages

Welcome back! It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, mostly because I’ve been updating my old website and posting on Realm Tramper. But it was time to consolidate, so I’ve moved this blog to my main craigcomer.com address (retiring the old site) and am looking to trail-off the Realm Tramper blog, or at least throttle back for a while.

On the writing front, my short story, “The Tomb of Jorem’bel”, was accepted by Bards & Sages Quarterly and will appear in their January 2016 issue! My story, “The Dream Thief of Kuthahaar”, appeared in the October 2012 issue and subsequently in the collected anthology Bardic Tales & Sage Advice Volume V. (Check it out here on Amazon.)

You might also want to check out the Bards and Sages Great Tomes anthology series that just kicked off. It promises relics, horrors, and a myriad of wondrous places within its volumes!

The One Path

Who are you, Thomas, and what do you want from me?���

Thomas said, ���You may find this hard to believe. I still find it hard to believe myself, but I am God���s last prophet.���

The pope looked at Thomas, scrutinizing him closely. Thomas could see that he was looking for a sign or some indication that what he claimed was either true or false.

His Holiness walked up to Thomas, reached into his robes, looked him in the eyes, and said, ���Forgive me, Thomas.��� He pulled a small ornate bat from under his robe, and he whacked Thomas squarely on top of his head. Thomas fell over and hit the ground like a dropped sack of potatoes.

When Thomas finally regained consciousness, he found himself lying on a very comfortable couch with the pope seated across from him still holding the ornate stick. As Thomas���s eyes began to focus, the pope held up the hand-carved wooden bat and said, ���It is a religious relic, given to Saint Peter by Christ.���

Thomas looked at the pope and said, ���Your Holiness, you could have just asked me, and I would have told you that I am not a demon.���

The pope eyed Thomas with a new respect as he asked, ���Why would you say that, Thomas?���

���I can only assume that you thought that I might be a demon, so you hit me over the head to see if I healed quickly like a demon or slowly like a man. Is that truly a religious relic of power?���

The pope laughed and said, ���Saint Peter called it daimon ksilo. I believe the term to be old Greek, and in translation, it would be called a demon stick. Apparently, Jesus had a sense of humor. Peter wrote in his memoirs: ���When I questioned Jesus on how I could tell if I were talking to a demon or a man, he gave me the ornate stick that I pass down to my successors. My Lord said, ���Hit the suspect demon over the head, and if he heals faster than a man, he is a demon.”��� You, Thomas, are obviously a man with information that only popes have possessed in the past.���

Thomas said, ���I am just glad you didn���t kill me to see if I disappeared into the nether.���

Larry S. Gerovac was born and raised in the Midwest. He is a first generation American, U.S. Navy Veteran, ex-Air Traffic Controller, and a retired nuclear worker. He loves science, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His goal is to entertain readers for many years with some truly out of this world stories.

http://www.larrygerovac.tateauthor.com

http://www.pinterest.com/larrygerovac

http://www.twitter.com/larrygerovac

http://www.facebook/larrygerovac

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24102197-the-one-path

The Portal & The Panther

My back was itching and burning.�� My arms and legs felt like I was being stretched out on a medieval torture rack.�� And I had a weird, tingling, pins-and-needles pain at the base of my spine.�� It traveled up and down my back like an electric current.

I opened my mouth to call out for help, but no sound came.�� I was lying on my back like an upside-down cockroach that couldn’t flip itself onto its legs again.

That was when I thought I started hallucinating.�� Of course, I wasn’t hallucinating, but I wouldn’t figure that out until later.�� Because right then, my right hand turned into a huge black cat’s paw.�� I would have screamed if I could.�� It turned back into a hand in the very next moment, so fast I knew I had to be imagining it, but then my left hand turned into cat’s paw.�� At the same time, I felt a horrible pressure in my jeans, as if they’d suddenly shrunk by five sizes, and I heard the sound of fabric ripping apart.�� The seams of my t-shirt popped, then the whole back of the shirt ripped up the middle.�� The pounding in my head kept getting worse and worse, my vision got watery, then really sharp, and instead of sounds coming from down a long tunnel, I felt like I could hear everything happening in the whole damn school.

Usually you can barely hear the announcements from inside the bathrooms, but I could hear them as if the volume was turned up to full blast and I had my ears pressed against the speakers.

“HEY MECKSVILLE HIGH!�� DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE’S STILL TIME TO JOIN THE YEARBOOK STAFF?!”

I could hear the voices coming from Mrs. Mullhooney’s room and from the room next door where the girl in the hall had come from.�� Despite distance and two doors between us, I heard them as if they were standing right next to me, shouting at me.

“DID YOU HEAR ABOUT JARED AND JADEN?�� I HEARD THEY GOT INTO IT AT THE GAME LAST WEEK…”

“AND THEN I SAID TO HER, ‘OMG! I KNOW YOU DIDN’T JUST CALL ME A’–”

“…ANYTHING THIS WEEKEND?�� ‘CAUSE, YOU KNOW, I MEAN IF YOU WANT, WE COULD…”

“…NO, THAT’S STUPID.�� SHE’S NOT LIKE HER FRIENDS…”

Somewhere in the girl’s room next to me, a toilet flushed and a stall door opened, then bounced twice.�� I tried to cover my ears with my hands, but my arms didn’t want to work.�� I kept trying to move them up towards my head, but they just wouldn’t cooperate.�� And my hands had turned into big cat’s paws again.

If the noise was unbearable, the smell was worse.�� The boy’s bathroom had smelled awful when I walked in; now it was as if someone had swabbed the floor and all the toilets with a q-tip and then stuck it under my nose.

That’s when I finally passed out.

Find out more about R.A. Marshall and The Portal & The Panther at the links below:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R8PMXCS

Website: http://ninja-writer.com

You can read the prologue here:���� http://ninja-writer.com/the-portal-and-the-panther/

Email sign-up: http://eepurl.com/SMrjX. If you sign up before March 15, you will get the third book for free.

��

Twitter: RAMarshall78

The Jewel of Kamara

She waited until the manor was asleep, and then she left, moving with stealth as she made her way on foot into the city. Another fight had broken out while she���d been dining at the palace.

Her hair was tucked tightly under her cap again, and she���d smeared her face with soot from the hearth. If she did stumble across Keane or Lindow, she was sure they wouldn���t recognize her.

By the time she���d reached the city, the fighting had died down. Wounded bodies littered the streets and were being carried off to safety by those who were able. One man struggled as he tried to drag another along. She rushed over and gripped the injured man���s legs. Together they carried him to a home where he was taken into a room and seen to by a healer.

She waved away the man���s thanks as she left them and returned to the street. There was a scream up ahead, and she broke into a run to see what was happening. When she got closer she slowed, and pressed herself against the shadows.

Under the light of the moon she saw a man on his knees, pleading to the Guard who had their swords pointed at his chest.

���Please,��� he cried. ���I didn���t do nothin���.���

���You were seen with a knife.��� A cold voice cut through, and Tempani gasped when Lord Ricton stepped towards the man. ���You are a traitor to the crown.���

���I���m a baker,��� he said. ���I need it for work.���

Ricton laughed, but it was a laugh devoid of humor. ���You lie.��� He raised his hands, and the baker���s body convulsed before bursting into flames.

A hand covered Tempani���s mouth, stifling her scream. The slight noise she did make was drowned out by the screams of agony from the baker.

Her eyes were wide as she watched the man die before her. When his screams ended, his body was doused with water.

���Leave him here,��� Ricton ordered the Guard. ���Let them see what we do to traitors.���

Tears ran from her eyes and dripped over the hand that was still clasped to her mouth. She was turned around and held tightly against someone. His coat was rough against her cheek, and he smelled of familiar spices.

His lips pressed against her head. ���Come.��� His arm remained around her shoulders as he guided her home.

���They���re monsters,��� she choked. ���Murderers.���

Rando looked down at her, and sighed. He offered no explanation as there was none to give. What they had witnessed was the way of the kingdom.

Bridie Blake is a writer and book lover based in Melbourne, Australia. She waited years for someone to write the story she had in her head, but it never happened. So fuelled with a lot of caffeine, and listening to movie soundtracks on repeat, she wrote it herself.

Her first book, The Jewel of Kamara, was released in October 2013.

http://bridieblake.com/

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7340867.Bridie_Blake

https://twitter.com/bridieblake

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBridieBlake?fref=nf