Kevin L. O'Brien's Blog: Songs of the Seanchaí, page 36

Existentialism and the Irish Charater

The dichotomy in the character of the Irish peoples derives from an existentialistic worldview that recognizes the futility of fame and fortune, but strives after it anyway.

The Nature of Existentialism

A worldview is the basic framework by which people interpret and interact with the world around them. It is not empirical; rather, it is a philosophical construct, and as such neither right nor wrong. It is simply what people believe to be true, regardless of any empirical evidence. Though there are many different kinds of worldviews, the five mot important to Western Civilization began with Theism. This worldview assumes that God not only created the universe, but that He has taken an active role in its operation, and especially in the lives of people.

The major flaw with Theism, however, is the problem of evil, which is the question of why evil exists in a universe created by a benevolent god. This led to the development of Deism, which assumes that God is still the creator, but that He no longer takes an active role in the operation of the universe or the lives of people.

The problem with Deism, however, is that if God has removed Himself from his creation, is he really necessary? This line of thought led to Naturalism, which assumes that God is not necessary, and therefore can be ignored.

However, if God is unnecessary, then does life, the universe, or anything have any value, meaning, purpose, or worth? Nihilism assumes not. It further assumes that there is no objective morality, that human accomplishment is transitory, and that any endeavor is futile. At best, Nihilism assumes the universe is indifferent to Mankind; at worst, it is openly hostile to humanity. The problem with this view, however, is that, if existence has no purpose or meaning and is futile, and the universe doesn't care if we live or die and may even act against us, why bother to live at all? As such, any true Nihilist should commit suicide.

The fact that they tend not to suggests that they really do not believe existence is worthless and futile, or at least they somehow manage to discover or invent worth and meaning in their lives. Existentialism grew out the need to explain this tendency. Existentialism begins by accepting that life, the universe, and everything is without value, purpose, or worth, and that existence is futile. It then goes on to argue that, more than this, existence is actually Absurd. Absurdity goes beyond futility and meaninglessness by accepting that existence is also amoral, which is to say unfair. In other words, Absurdity is the opposite of karma. Karma assumes there are people who are intrinsically good or bad, such that the good are rewarded and the bad are punished. Absurdity assumes there are no intrinsically good or bad people, and that things just happen for no reason, so bad things are just as likely to happen to good people as bad. For the most part, our daily experiences appear to be karmic, yet this is just an illusion. Karma is not a necessary feature of existence and it is certainly not a property of existence. Anything can happen to anyone, so that at some point everyone has an experience that brings them face to face with the Absurd.

It is at this point, however, that Existentialism departs from Nihilism. Nihilism accepts the premise, implicit in all other worldviews before it, that meaning, purpose, and worth are intrinsic to existence, such that if they are absent they cannot be created by human endeavors. Similarly, Nihilism, and by implication the other worldviews as well, assumes that life, the universe, and everything are defined by predetermined essences, whether these are established by God or nature. In other words, the essence of a person precedes his existence, so that this essence determines what kind of person he will be, and establishes whatever meaning, purpose, and worth his life will have. Nihilism simply assumes that essence cannot convey any meaning, purpose, or worth to existence.

Existentialism, however, proposes that Existence precedes Essence; that is, the essence of a person is determined by his subjective actions and not some objective standard imposed upon him. In other words, people are defined by who they are, not what they are. A person is defined as a cruel man because he acts in a cruel manner, not because he is intrinsically cruel. Similarly, a person is defined as benevolent because he acts in a benevolent manner, not because he is intrinsically benevolent. The implication is that people have no intrinsic nature, that they can be whatever they choose to be by acting like it.

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Next eBook: The Beast of Exmoor

The next story in my schedule to be published through Smashwords will be:

The Beast of Exmoor

The Queen has ordered Sir Differel Van Helsing to hunt down and destroy the Beast of Exmoor, a legendary phantom big cat that haunts the moors of Devon, after it took a child. But Differel soon learns she may be hunting the wrong monster....

A rousing adventure involving a famous English cryptid.

This will be another free ebook.

New eBook: The Steel Gazelle

I have just published my latest ebook:

The Steel Gazelle

Eile and Sunny first learn of the Land of the Dreams of Men when the Cats of Ulthar kidnap and force them to help Medb hErenn save it from an eldritch threat. Afterwards, back in the Waking World, Medb offers them a way to return to the Dreamlands whenever they wish. So, the next night they decide to check it out for themselves....

The Girls are relative newcomers, and while they can take care of themselves, there is much they need to learn before they can go off exploring on their own. Medb takes the responsibility to mentor them, to educate them on the ways and nature of the Dreamworld and train them in armed combat with Medieval weapons. Part of this includes taking them on tours to familiarize them with the people, communities, and landscape, and to introduce them to potential friends and warn them of potential enemies.

However, if she feels they are not yet experienced enough to handle encounters she must face, she leaves them in the care of friends with instructions to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, trouble follows them like a love-starved puppy, so often times it isn't long before they find themselves neck-deep in some kind of disaster, even if it isn't their fault.

This ebook is free and can be downloaded from Smashwords.

Medieval Bras

Because of the 1500-cut off for technology in the Dreamlands, I have to research carefully to avoid anachronisms, but sometimes I'm surprised by just how old some things are, like eyeglasses, or...

Medieval Brassieres

Time in the Dreamlands

The way time operates in the Dreamlands is somewhat wonky. For one thing, it just seems to endlessly repeat itself with no discernible progress. Day becomes night, summer becomes winter, the moon progresses through its phases, and the sun rises higher then lower in the sky as the year passes. But it feels like the same day, the same month, the same year recycled over and over again. This doesn't mean there is no growth or entropic change; rather, it seems as if something simply turns a cosmic hourglass whenever the sand run out to start time all over again.

Time in the Dreamlands also flows at a faster rate: for every week that passes, only an hour passes in the Waking World. As a result a standard 8-hour night translates into two months of Dreaming time.

Few non-Dreamers can truly understand the impact this can have on the human psyche. Eile and Sunny, Team Girl, traveled to the Dreamworld for 75 nights straight before their Dream-deaths prevented them from returning. With an average Dreaming time of 9 weeks per night, that meant they spent 13 years in the Dreamlands, even though they had only known each other for 18 months in the Waking World by that time. The result was that their relationship was able to grow, develop, and mature to a point not otherwise possible in the Waking World.

Before they started going to the Dreamlands, they were for all intents and purposes "friends with benefits" who might have eventually broken up, but by the time they were unable to return they were ready to settle down and spend the rest of their lives together as a married couple. In any practical sense, their "short" sojourn in the Dreamworld determined the remainder of their lives.

However, this can create a serious problem. People spend so much time in the Dreamlands compared to the Waking World -- 56 days as opposed to only 16 hours -- that they can come to believe their Dream-lives are reality and their Waking-lives the "dream". More than one Dreamer has moved to the Dreamlands permanently with the help of a bottle of sleeping pills.

Another wonky aspect of time is that, while people age, they can live an extremely long time; hundreds, even thousands of Dream-years, unless killed in some fashion. Differel's husband, Victor, was killed in the Waking World in 2004. By the time she met him again in the Dreamlands in 2010, he had lived there for 1000 Dream-years and had barely aged a day. By the time Differel finely died in 2051 and moved to the Dreamlands permanently, Victor would live for another 7000 Dream-years and show no signs of old age.

Part of what makes this bearable is that the perception of time shifts in the Dreamlands. A life of 10,000 Dream-years can feel like only 100 Waking-years, but the Dreamer can remember things from thousands of years past as if they had happened yesterday. He can focus on the moment so that yesterday and tomorrow blur almost out of existence, then tomorrow comes and the new yesterday fades just as quickly. Yet he can instantly recall details from it as if he were reliving them.

A task of several hours can feel like only minutes, while another of only a few minutes can seem like hours. A journey of 10 days can feel like a mere hour's stroll, while a stroll around town can seem to last for days. Yet a Dreamer can accept this fluidity of perception as normal the moment he arrives in the Dreamlands.

Finally, there are the cities of Celephais and Ilek-Vad, where time does not seem to exist. The inhabitants of these municipalities can live forever, never aging or dying, and Dreamers can live there for as long as they wish and never awaken, but this is because while time progresses normally outside the cities, no time passes in the Waking World.

One Old Battleaxe

Helena Victoria Widget, née Walters, Sir Differel's Housekeeper

Like her brother, Aelfraed, Mrs. Widget (NEVER Helena, unless you want a broken arm) was born at Differel's ancestral manor. Until modern times, English manor houses were as much the homes of the servants as they were that the masters, sometimes even more so. The Walters family had been senior servants for the Churchills before the manor was acquired by the Van Helsings. However, Aelfraed and Mrs. Widget were part of the last generation born in the house, and the only members of that generation to accept service roles; the others went to college and made independent careers. During Differel's tenure as Master of the house, there were no servant families except for the groundskeeper's family (who live in their own house), and very few servants who lived in the manor. The rest lived in Denver or Downham Market and commuted in every shift.

Like Aelfraed, Mrs. Widget began her training when she turned 12, as a "between maid" who waited on the senior servants. She progressed through the ranks to scullery maid, kitchen maid, laundry maid, chamber maid, and parlour maid, finally becoming Head House Maid. When Sir Henry married Gwendolyn Pendragon, she was assigned to be her lady's maid, and would have stayed in that role the rest of her life had Gwendolyn not died. Afterwards, Sir Henry made Mrs. Widget the housekeeper, and she excelled in that role even if she was something of a tyrant, unlike her more diplomatic brother.

While Aelfraed didn't marry (until much later in life), she fell in love with an RAF fighter pilot she met while the Van Helsings were on vacation at Torquay; this was while she was still a parlour maid. His name was Colin Widget. They married, but by mutual agreement they lived apart, he on the RAF bases he was assigned to, she at the manor. Despite the fact they saw each other maybe only six times a year, they wrote to each other constantly and by all accounts their marriage was very happy and loving. However, they never had any children, and Colin was killed when his fighter plane was shot down just a few months after she was made housekeeper. She mourned briefly, then devoted herself to discharging her duties faithfully and efficiently. She did, however, redirect her maternal instincts towards Differel, and along with Aunt Mandy became her surrogate mother.

Though Mrs. Widget was a tough disciplinarian, Differel looked to her as a role model for what a proper British lady should be like. Unfortunately, Mrs. Widget was forced to compete with Dracula and Mr. Holt who were training Differel to be the leader of the Caerleon Order, so she had limited success. Nonetheless, she became Differel's confidant in matters of puberty and social interactions, and she was able to smooth out some of her mistress's rough edges. The only area in which she failed Differel was sex; her advice was always the same: abstinence and cold showers. Differel had to learn about sex and masturbation from her frenemy, Lady Margaret Chesham.

Mrs. Widget is the soul of British propriety, always prim and proper and self-controlled. Nonetheless, she is more outspoken than her brother, more impulsive, and more earthy; she has been heard to swear when she thinks she is alone. She also has an iron will that makes her stubborn and rigid, but it does allow her to face some of the worst horrors that have attacked her mistress and home. For example, she is one of the very very few people, other than Differel, who can look Dracula in the eye, take the full force of his personality, and make him back down. Not even Aelfraed or Mr. Holt can do that (Victor could, but that was because Dracula deferred to him as his Master's Consort). It's almost as if the Master Vampire knows she is no mere woman and someone not to be trifled with.

Bio of Marseilles Sheraton

WARNING: This profile deals with subjects some people may find offensive.

Marseilles Dione Sheraton was born in 1979 to Bailey Sheraton and Fabienne Sheraton née Deneuve. Her grandfather is Françoise Sheraton, President and CEO of Sheraton Global, and her great-grandfather was Jacques Luis André Sheraton, the founder of the Sheraton hotel and resort empire. Her mother is heir to the Deneuve fashion, accessory, cosmetic, and perfume empire. The oldest of six children — sisters Françoise, Sylvie, and Danielle, and brothers Christian and Pierre — she has been groomed from an early age by her father and grandfather to take over the business when she turned 25. As a result, she grew into an intelligent, strong-willed, confident, and capable young girl, with just enough ruthlessness to carry the corporation well into the 21st century. However, her mother, who didn't believe that wealthy ladies of social standing should be involved in sordid business affairs, groomed her to be a debutante like her sisters. As a result, she grew up to be a cultured, sophisticated, charming, and alluring young lady. Unfortunately, she also fell victim to the power struggle between her parents and their families. She had little love and little contact with her family as she was shunted from one boarding school, prep school, and college to another, as one or the other parent gained temporary advantage. As a result, she developed into a cold, calculating, manipulative, and avaricious young woman.

During this time she learned three lessons that would have a major influence in shaping her life. The first was that financial and political power meant control over her destiny. The second was that an education was less important than the ability to use what she knew to her best advantage. And the third was that money and sex could get her whatever she desired. She had no friends, but she could buy as large a retinue of hangers-on as she wanted. She didn't attend classes, but she could buy whatever passing grades she needed. Yet she was a ravenous reader, consuming books and magazines at a prodigious rate, and her interests were eclectic, everything from the lightest of pop fluff to the most esoteric of mathematical, scientific, and philosophical treatises. To hide this side of her, she deliberately cultivated an image of the quintessential partying playgirl, including alcohol, drugs, and sexual escapades. Yet she only did just enough of anything to maintain the deception, and never so much that she lost control. The few times she was arrested she set up the episodes to establish a bad-girl persona, yet she carefully choreographed each incident so that her involvement was always minor and could be easily dealt with by paying a fine or a bribe.

When she turned twenty-one, she realized that her status as an adult freed her from her parents' control. She left the college she was currently attending, moved into her own apartment, and embarked on her own life. Her parents made several attempts to reign her in, but each time a combination of tearful public appeals and private legal maneuvers stopped them cold. They even tried to disown her, but she got an injunction against them, and then negotiated a settlement in which she would receive a guaranteed income of a billion dollars over her lifetime. Her fortune assured, she decided to play the celebutante for all it was worth. Taking advantage of the power of the pejorative description "famous for being famous", she continued her playgirl lifestyle but in a more public setting. She also understood the power of the paparazzi. At first, while feigning hysterical outrage over their excesses, she nonetheless staged numerous episodes which would guarantee the ability of the paparazzi to obtain "candid" embarrassing, even scandalous, photographs. She brought lawsuits against some, but only for circumstances that she knew would be decided against her. Soon, however, she began to work through agents to pass along tips to certain paparazzi, then leaked photos and videos directly to tabloid news agencies, so that she could better control the image she wanted to generate. She even secretly taped herself having sex with a gigolo, then had it posted on YouTube as if it had been taken by a paparazzo. Though she publicly tried to have it blocked, she privately had "bootlegged" copies created and sold over the Internet. She considered it delicious irony that she won her court case and managed to extract millions from YouTube while also making a fortune selling the video online.

She then cashed in on the fame that resulted to do celebrity appearances. This led to modeling contracts, song recording deals, and television and film appearances. She even signed a book deal for a super trilogy (a set of three trilogies) for a fantasy series. Though she manufactured scandals by arranging to have her accused of lip-syncing to an unknown professional singer, having her books ghostwritten, and arranging for negative reviews of her acting, she actually did sing on her own and write the books, and most people after the fact considered her acting to be quite good. These in turn led to product endorsements, which she promoted in some cases by posing nude and/or in erotic or risque circumstances. And she created her own lines of clothes, accessories, jewelry, perfume, shoes, wines, liqueurs, candies, bath products, candles, linens, dinnerware, etc. Her most famous venture was Studio Dione, a nightclub that doubled as a strip club, drug club, and sex club. Most of these ventures failed, however, and even her most successful, Studio Dione, had to be sold to pay off other losses.

In point of fact, Marseilles designed these ventures to fail, to serve as tax shelters and write offs. Most of her "income" was instead coming from investments. She found the returns of the standard safe investments too meager and too slow, and while more risky ventures paid more, she lost her shirt enough times that she gave up on them in disgust. Then she discovered, quite by accident, that certain illicit investments could give high returns while being safer, if she ignored the questionable morality and the possible jail time. The former she could easily manage, and she was willing to risk the latter, since she believed that her fame and fortune could protect her (that, and a high-powered, rapacious law firm with fewer scruples than her). At a point when her fame began slipping, she created another sex video, this time with a woman, and offered it to a pay porn website. Though she wasn't interested in the payment, she became curious as to how much the site would make off it. She hacked into their database and discovered that in a single day the site had made over $10,000 in subscriptions just off the video alone. She realized then that she had missed out on a windfall. She created a third video, of her in a threesome with a man and a woman, to premier on her own site, and watched the money roll in.

She realized that she couldn't keep making sex videos of herself, because the novelty would quickly wear off, but she had to offer new material to keep the revenue high. She could film all sorts of prostitutes having sex, as well as various acts performed by her "friends", which she did to provide the bulk of the material she offered, but what really brought people in was the voyeur factor, being able to see a celebrity in an erotic setting. She had slept with enough to know which she could count on to perform, and she filmed them without their knowledge. She even persuaded her brothers and sisters to perform, again filming them in secret. That could not last, however, because if they ever saw the videos, they would know she had provided them to the site, and that might lead to them uncovering that the site was hers. Then she hit upon the idea of forcing them to perform without knowledge of her involvement. She arranged to have one of her fellow celebutantes kidnapped, then filmed her being raped by two men. She was later dumped, tied, blindfolded, and naked, in a park and the police alerted. Marseilles particularly enjoyed being part of the media circus that followed, playing the supportive friend.

When she put the video on her site, however, it became wildly popular, even more so than her own videos. At first perplexed, she realized it wasn't the woman that attracted the viewers, but the rape. Unfortunately, her site was shut down and very nearly traced back to her before she was able to sever her links to it. But she had hit upon a bonanza and she wouldn't be deterred. She had a dozen women and a half-dozen men kidnapped in sequence, some celebrities, but most of them nobodies, and filmed them being assaulted and brutalized. She even had photos taken of them, especially after they were dumped in various public settings. Then she posted samples of the photos and excerpts of the videos on temporary sites, with forms that allowed viewers to order the complete package. The sites were only up for a few days, a week at most, but she learned how to advertise them for best effect. To protect herself, she maintained the most tenuous of links to the operation, but she maintained constant supervision and full control through her proxies.

In order to produce and distribute the videos, she had to have professional help, and that put her in league with the illicit porn industry, which in turn put her in touch with organized crime. She began investing in porno films, even produced a few of her own. When she discovered that child pornography was big business, she became involved with that as well. She made one last video of herself, wearing a mask and having sex with a fifteen year old boy, but through her mob contacts was able to create more material for sale using other adults and children. Meanwhile, her rape films became progressively more violent as she discovered how popular they were. She progressed to torture as well as rape, of both men and women, then of children. She began creating bondage films, then sadomasochistic films, many of them stopping just short of killing the victim. Then, she had her youngest sister Danielle kidnapped for what she hoped would be a blockbuster, her biggest film yet. In the final scene, when the rapist was to strangle his victim to unconsciousness, he went too far and killed her. Marseilles was understandably upset, but not about the death of her sister; she felt no remorse or sadness. Instead, her worry was how to dispose of the body. In the end, she simply had it dumped in the river. However, when she posted the video excerpt after the body was found, sales went through the roof. That was when she understood the most money was to be had in snuff films, and she began producing them at frequent intervals. Meanwhile, she branched out, investing in prostitution, drugs, racketeering, and protection. It wasn't long, however, before she began running her own operations. Her mob partners tried to stop her, but she had some of them killed while the rest accepted a payoff. That was when she learned that sex and money may be able to get her anything, but a bullet through the brain was the best way to ensure silence or cooperation.

It should be noted that, during this time, to her "credit", she never tried to justify her activities by claiming she was only providing a service. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she didn't care, as long as it made her money.

The bottom dropped out in 2009 when her grandfather announced that he had pledged 95% of his estate to charity. An immediate pledge of $1.5 billion was made, with a further $1.5 billion to be paid after his death. The rest was to be divided between his heirs, with half going to his son and the rest evenly split between his grandchildren. Marseilles did some quick calculations and discovered that, after taxes and other fees, she could expect only $10 million. To make matters worse, every penny of the family money that she spent before his death would be deducted from her inheritance! The problem was, her combined income from all her ventures, legitimate and otherwise, was only $300,000, whereas her yearly expenses were close to a million. Had she taken over Sheraton Global at 25 she would have been guaranteed an annual income of $12 million, but it was too late now. She couldn't support herself, not living the lifestyle she was accustomed to, but her inheritance, even if she received it all, would barely last a decade. Her only legitimate choice was to change her lifestyle, but she flat rejected that. Thus, the only option she could come up with was to kidnap her grandfather and hold him for ransom. She could even have the pleasure of killing him after the money was paid. But the problem was getting a hold of him. No matter how she figured it, she just couldn't see a way to do it safely. Then she hit upon a better idea: she would kidnap herself. She could ask for $500 million; that would give her more than enough money to live on in the way she wanted for her entire life, no matter how long she lived.

She arranged with her gang members to have her abducted at Cherry Creek Mall in Denver. She would hide away until after the money was paid, then fake her escape. Afterward, she could transfer the ransom into a dozen different banks under assumed names and go back to living her life. Unfortunately, she did not account for Eile and Sunny, not that she knew who they were at the time. They had spotted her at the mall and were following her around, trying get up the nerve to approach her for an autograph. When the "kidnapping" occurred, they rushed in and actually thwarted it, much to Marseilles's consternation. She restaged it later, but as soon as they heard about it, the Girls started investigating. They tracked her to the "kidnappers" lair, only to discover her in the lap of luxury. Even so, they still tried to get her away, but Marseilles had them captured. In a fit of pique, she explained about her life and why she had faked her own kidnapping, but before she could have the Girls killed, the police broke in, having been led to the hideout by Snowshoe Kitty. Marseilles took Sunny hostage, but she took her down with her pankration skills, much to Marseilles's surprise and chagrin. She was arrested and the Girls made a statement, revealing all that she had told them, but when she was released on bail, she went underground. Later, she blackmailed her family into paying her $100 million to keep from revealing everything about her activities. She considers it poetic justice that in the end it all came out anyways, and her family was virtually ruined settling lawsuits by victims and their families.

Marseilles now lives as a fugitive, but it is by no means a hard life. There are any number of countries where she can live safe from extradition, in the lifestyle to which she is accustom. Being no longer concerned about secrecy, she has become more open in her involvement with her illegal activities. She has also branched out into gunrunning and weapons deals, extortion, smuggling, piracy, white slavery, blood diamonds, state secrets, assassinations, and terrorism. She has set up her organization to mimic the fictional SPECTRE from the James Bond novels and films. She even has a pet cat, a ruddy Abyssinian who has betrayed his own kind to side with her in hopes of world domination. He has revealed to her that cats are self-aware beings, which has earned him and her the enmity of felinekind. She is attracting criminals and renegades from all walks of life and across the political spectrum to work for her, and she is beginning to see a large return on her initial investments. She is even contemplating buying her own island. Though many people consider her insane, she is in fact simply amoral and evil. If anything, however, this has increased her celebrity status, which she takes full advantage of. She even appears at social and celebrity events, nightclubs, and state functions as herself, but always manages to escape before she can be apprehended.

She hates Eile and Sunny with a grand passion. Nothing would please her more than to capture the Girls and either star them in a rape/torture/snuff video, or addict them to drugs and sell then as sex slaves. Only two things stop her. The first is that Medb hErenn has made it clear to her that if she harms the Girls in any way, nothing will be able to stop her from barbecuing Marseilles live over a slow fire while she carves her up and feeds her to Medb's Ghoul friends. The second is that her Abyssinian cat has told her that the Girls are under feline protection, and that if Medb doesn't get her, the cats will. As such, Marseilles is seeking any opportunity to eliminate the girls without implicating herself. She has, however, taken on powerful allies: in addition to the Abyssinian who can call upon other traitorous cats, she is aided by renegade Ghouls and Vampires, Fomorians, and Serpent People. She has become Team Girl's most formidable enemy and implacable foe. Though she bears no grudge against any of the Girls' friends, she will not hesitate to kill any of them if they get in her way.

The Society of Ancient Ireland

Ireland had what could be called a sophisticated primitive society. This is a society that is otherwise quite advanced culturally and technologically, but lacks several key features that are normally associated with a non-primitive society. For the Irish, these features were a written language, urban centers (e.g., cities and towns), and money (e.g., currency). This essay describes what is currently known about ancient Irish society. Where necessary, singular and plural forms of Irish words are indicated by the following code: singular form / plural form. Please see the Pronunciation Guide for a key on how to pronounce the various word sounds.

The ancient Irish social structure was stratified, though not as heavily stratified as other sophisticated primitives. Its hierarchy was established by three separate, yet superimposed, organizations. One was based on blood and kinship, another on profession, and the last on class.

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Next eBook: The Steel Gazelle

The next story in my schedule to be published through Smashwords will be:

The Steel Gazelle

Eile and Sunny are newbies to the Dreamworld, inexperienced and vulnerable. Their Waking World mentor, Medb hErenn, is teaching them the facts of Dream-life, but she can only do so much, and trouble seems to follow the Girls like a love-starved puppy. So when she leaves them in the care of a friend who owns a tavern while she runs an errand, it isn't long before all hell breaks loose.

This will be another free ebook.

New eBook: Adventurer's Honeymoon

I have just published my latest ebook:

Adventurer's Honeymoon

Differel Van Helsing had been married to Victor Plunkett in the Waking World for four years before he was killed by an assassin seeking to kill her. The loss devastated her, and she very nearly resigned as Director of the Caerleon Order as a result.

Years later, when she learned how to sojourn to the Dreamlands each night, she discovered that he had been a Dreamer himself, and that after his death he had retired there to live out the rest of his Dream-life. By the time they were reunited, he had become a diplomatic troubleshooter for the Island Nation of Punica, and had been made the Marquis of Elissa. They discovered that their love for each other was just as strong as ever, and he proposed to her. At first she was not certain if she should remarry him because of the time they would be separated when she awakens each morning, but finally she yielded to her heart and said yes.

They wed between crises, so they never had a proper honeymoon, but then an opportunity presented itself that allowed them to spend a week alone on a tiny deserted island. They jumped at it, and spent six days in connubial bliss, doing little beyond eating, sleeping, the occasional swim in the ocean, and making love.

On the seventh and last day, however, an old enemy, bent on revenge, crashes their party. Taking them prisoner, he intends to sell them as toys for others' amusement: Victor to a wealthy matron, Differel to the Moonbeasts. In both cases, they are unlikely to survive for long with either their lives or sanity intact.

Differel and Victor have no weapons or retainers to help them, but they are far from helpless.

This ebook is free and can be downloaded from Smashwords.