John R. Phythyon Jr.'s Blog, page 17

ROSES ARE WHITE Cover Reveal

I’m very pleased to unveil the cover for my new book, Roses Are White. The third book in the Wolf Dasher fantasy-thriller mash-up series is due out April 29. Here’s the awesome Jill Jess cover:

Here’s the book description:

Death wears white. . . .

Dexter Rose, the world’s greatest assassin, has come to Alfar – legendary land of the elves – on a singular mission: topple the government, paving the way for a takeover by rival nation Jifan. He’s impossible to catch. A master magician, Rose can look like anyone with a simple spell. With a flick of his wand, his target is petrified, unable to escape or even move while he slits their throat. And he always leaves his signature calling card – a pristine, white rose – to remind others he cannot be stopped.

His plan is simple: three perfect murders of key officials, culminating with President Spellbinder herself. The only way to prevent the killing is for the coalition government to abdicate.

Only one man has all the right skills to go head to head with the infamous assassin and defeat him before he can complete his gruesome assignment. In a land of elves and magic, it will take a human Shadow to unmask Dexter Rose before it’s too late.

But Wolf Dasher is recalled to Urland. Control feels it’s time for him to move to a different theater. In Alfar, he’s become a liability.

May Honeyflower – Captain of the Elite Guard and Wolf’s love – doesn’t believe his replacement can save the president. She’ll have to find a way to get Wolf one more job in Alfar and keep him with her forever.

But is even Wolf Dasher good enough to stop a killer who’s never failed? And if he isn’t, what will be the cost?

Roses Are White is the third book in the exciting Wolf Dasher series. Following the action of State of Grace and Red Dragon Five, this fantasy-thriller mash-up blends super-spy action with magic and elves in an electric brew that will keep you turning pages. Love and bigotry, loss and redemption, sacrifice and savagery all collide in a pulse-pounding tale you won’t want to put down.

Now is the perfect time to catch up on Wolf’s previous adventures. Pick up a copy of State of Grace and Red Dragon Five before Roses Are White releases at the end of the month!

Click here to purchase State of Grace from Amazon.com.

Click here to purchase Red Dragon Five from Amazon.com.

Click here to sign up for John’s mailing list to get exclusive first looks and other specials on Roses Are White!

Filed under: Roses Are White Tagged: John Phythyon, Roses Are White, Wolf Dasher

Blog Tour: What Wolf Dasher Is All About

My apologies to Lynne Cantwell. I promised to participate in a blog tour on the writing process, and my post was supposed to appear Monday. Life interfered on a number of levels – not the least of which is me madly editing my next book, so it will release on time at the end of the month. Anyway, this post was supposed to appear Monday instead of today. Hopefully Lynne, who recruited me, will think of this as just extending the party a bit this week. You can follow her blog at http://hearth-myth.blogspot.com.

I’m supposed to discuss what I’m working on, how it differs from other works like it, and why I’m writing it. They’re all good questions.

My current project is the third book in the Wolf Dasher series, Roses Are White. In his third adventure, Wolf is pitted against Dexter Rose – the world’s greatest assassin, a man who uses magic to make himself look like anyone, so he can get close enough for the kill. Rose has been hired to murder three members of Alfar’s coalition government, culminating with the president. Wolf must unravel the killer’s clues so he can get there ahead of him and prevent him from completing his mission.

As the description suggests, I’m marrying a couple of different genres in this novel. The series has the flavor of a James Bond-style thriller. The villains are megalomaniacal, the plots are always world-shattering, and all the characters larger than life. However, it’s set in a fantasy world. Alfar is the land of elves. Steeped in religion and magic, the country is a dangerous place where several factions war for control of its destiny. Swords and sorcery are the primary means of conflict resolution.

Roses Are White is a bit of a departure from the first two books in the series, State of Grace and Red Dragon Five. Both of those are espionage thrillers. This third book is more a mystery, with a race against time to stop the killer before he can strike again. Even so, the entire series diverges from fantasies and thrillers in that it combines the tropes of the two genres into something new.

So why write this kind of book? There are several reasons, some commercial, some artistic.

First is that I’ve always wanted to write a spy thriller, but I just don’t have the requisite real-world knowledge about the intelligence communities to write something authentic. Of course, I could always do some research, but I’m not sure I want to attract any undue attention from the NSA.

And truthfully, what I really wanted to write was something in the style of the James Bond movies. That doesn’t require knowing anything about spies. You just have to understand the elements of a Bond film.

So I set my series in a fictional world, wherein I have all the knowledge necessary about the politics and the repercussions. It also gave me the opportunity to write stories with magic and monsters, and that’s really my forte.

But Wolf’s world isn’t completely unfamiliar. Alfar and neighboring Jifan are fictional representations of the political strife in the Middle East. Neither represents any particular world hotspot, but if you read the news, you will feel the echo of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Cold War. The danger represented by fundamentalist terrorists, and the schism between Islamic sects is woven into the action and into the culture of these fictional nations I write about. Wolf’s world is recognizable, even though it’s completely made up.

I’ve long felt fantasy (and other forms of speculative fiction) is a vehicle for authors to discuss real-world issues. I use the Wolf Dasher series to explore the current dysfunction of partisan politics in the U.S., the danger of religious extremism, and in Roses Are White, I take on the big topic of racism.

I quite specifically try to avoid taking a side. If you read carefully between the lines, you can pick out my personal positions. But I very studiously try to present multiple sides of an argument fairly. Wolf’s enemies are sympathetic to a degree. His allies are not always the kinds of people you want to root for. And even Wolf himself makes mistakes and doesn’t quite know where he should fall on certain lines. My hope is that, when a reader has finished one of Wolf’s adventures, he or she has something to think about.

At the same time, these are not philosophical treatises. They are thrillers that work in the James Bond film mode. Wolf’s adventures are action yarns designed to keep the reader turning pages well past bedtime.

In that way, I hope they are a very unique kind of book. I design them to be highly entertaining pieces of fiction that have something to say.

It’s possible I’m arrogant. Only readers and critics are truly able to comment on the literary worth of any particular book. But writing is about design and intent. Hopefully, I’m making an impact with what I create.

Filed under: e-Publishing, Red Dragon Five, Roses Are White, State of Grace, Why I Write Fantasy Literature, Writing Tagged: blog tour, John Phythyon, Roses Are White, writing

Inspiration Strikes without Warning

One of the awesome things about being a writer is sudden bursts of inspiration. They frequently come at unexpected times, and they often happen when you are doing something completely unrelated to a project.

Two weeks ago, I was on my way to the grocery store. I was driving south on Tennessee Street and gazing over at Watson Park, when I got hit in the brain with a creative lightning bolt. I’d been working on Ghost of a Chance, the fourth book in the Wolf Dasher series, and I was stuck. I couldn’t quite figure out where the story was going and how it was going to get to the conclusion I wanted.

I’ve no idea why grocery shopping should unlock my mind. I’ve driven my truck thousands of times without any sort of inspiration striking me.

But there it was — the solution I’d been searching for. My brain started racing with possibilities. Lots of threads fell into place.

I make my grocery lists on a miniature yellow pad, and I was very glad that I carry the whole pad with me to the store, along with a pen to cross things off as I buy them. When I got to the store, I pulled into a parking space, grabbed the pad, flipped to a blank page, and started writing furiously. I made two pages of notes, so I wouldn’t forget anything.

When I made it home, I only put the groceries away first, because I didn’t want the meat to spoil. As soon as I was done, I sat down with my master notebook, transferred my notes, and then reorganized the entire first part of the book, necessitating rewriting and reordering everything I’d written so far.

This week, I’ve been working on the fourth draft of Roses Are White, third book in the series (and due out at the end of the month!). You’d think I’d have enough to think about with one book. But, no, I was folding laundry between chapters when another thunderbolt hit me. It didn’t matter that I was working on Roses Are White; in a quiet moment, Ghost of a Chance leaped into my head and offered me another twist on the ending.

Creativity is a habit, I think. When you train your mind to think about stories and plot twists and turns of phrase, your brain keeps cooking them whether you are actively considering them or not. When they are done, they pop out of the subconscious like bread from a toaster. I’ve been in creative mode for weeks, and ideas just keep coming to me.

Of course, I still don’t know where they come from. They pop in on their own schedule.

But it’s always exciting when they do. It’s one of the most rewarding things about being a writer.

***

Speaking of the Wolf Dasher series, State of Grace, Wolf”s first adventure is free through Friday. You can get in on the ground floor at no cost in time to be ready for Roses Are White when it releases on April 29. Click here to download State of Grace to your Kindle-enabled device for free now!

ROSES ARE WHITE Release Date Set

I’m pleased to announce the release date for Roses Are White, Book Three in the Wolf Dasher series. The Kindle version will be available April 29, 2014. A print version will be out shortly thereafter. I’ll have a firm date for that soon.

In the meantime, here’s the marketing blurb for Roses Are White:

Death wears white. . . .

Dexter Rose, the world’s greatest assassin, has come to Alfar – legendary land of the elves – on a singular mission: topple the government, paving the way for a takeover by rival nation Jifan. He’s impossible to catch. A master magician, Rose can look like anyone with a simple spell. With a flick of his wand, his target is petrified, unable to escape or even move while he slits their throat. And he always leaves his signature calling card – a pristine, white rose – to remind others he cannot be stopped.

His plan is simple: three perfect murders of key officials, culminating with President Spellbinder herself. The only way to prevent the killing is for the coalition government to abdicate.

Only one man has all the right skills to go head to head with the infamous assassin and defeat him before he can complete his gruesome assignment. In a land of elves and magic, it will take a human Shadow to unmask Dexter Rose before it’s too late.

But Wolf Dasher is recalled to Urland. Control feels it’s time for him to move to a different theater. In Alfar, he’s become a liability.

May Honeyflower – Captain of the Elite Guard and Wolf’s love – doesn’t believe his replacement can save the president. She’ll have to find a way to get Wolf one more job in Alfar and keep him with her forever.

But is even Wolf Dasher good enough to stop a killer who’s never failed? And if he isn’t, what will be the cost?

Roses Are White is the third book in the exciting Wolf Dasher series. Following the action of State of Grace and Red Dragon Five, this fantasy-thriller mash-up blends super-spy action with magic and elves in an electric brew that will keep you turning pages. Love and bigotry, loss and redemption, sacrifice and savagery all collide in a pulse-pounding tale you won’t want to put down.

If you’re not familiar with the Wolf Dasher series, now is the perfect time to get onboard. State of Grace, the first Wolf Dasher book, is free for your Kindle-enabled device through Friday, April 4! Read how Wolf first comes to Alfar to find out who murdered his friend and colleague and uncovers a Byzantine conspiracy aimed at toppling the government and changing the balance of power in the world forever. Click on the link below to download it free!

Click here to download State of Grace for free.

Click here to purchase the second Wolf Dasher novel, Red Dragon Five from Amazon.com.

STATE OF GRACE Free this Week!

I’m coming down the homestretch on Roses Are White. My editor has given me back the third draft, so I’m in rewrite mode again. Everything’s on schedule for a late-April release. Woo-hoo! Wolf Dasher is finally getting his long-awaited third adventure.

To celebrate (and to generate interest), the original Wolf Dasher thriller, State of Grace, is free all this week. Now is the perfect chance to get in on the ground floor of my fantasy-thriller mash-up series that blends James Bond-style action with a Tolkienesque fantasy setting.

State of Grace introduces Wolf Dasher, a charming and explosive agent of Her Majesty’s Government in Urland. Wolf is a Shadow, a human being with innate magical powers granted by The Rift, a strange and poorly understood tear in the fabric of reality. He’s sent to the elf nation of Alfar to discover who murdered his friend and colleague, Sara Wensley-James. There, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy designed to topple Alfar’s coalition government and change the balance of power in the world forever. From the chilling opening sequence to the pulse-pounding finale, State of Grace is an exciting page-turner.

And, through Friday, it’s free! You can read Wolf’s first adventure on your Kindle-enabled device. And don’t forget to check out the follow-up adventure, Red Dragon Five, so you’ll be all set when Roses Are White releases next month! Click on the links below to get them!

Click here to download State of Grace for free from March 31 to April 4, 2014.

Click here to purchase Red Dragon Five from Amazon.com.

State of Grace is featured on the Kindle Books & Tips blog today. Here’s a link to the blog, so you can check out SoG and some other great books!

A Villain’s Struggle with Redemption and Revenge

I’ve been writing about the villains in The Sword and the Sorcerer the last few weeks, discussing general bad-guy traits and how some of the antagonists in the novel express them.

There’s one villain in the novel, though, who hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in these blogs. That’s Elmanax, the gnome who sets most of the book’s plot in motion when he convinces Lord Vicia of Eldenberg’s Council of Elders to murder Gothemus Draco, the world’s most powerful magician. Elmanax persuades Vicia he will help her launch a power play that will not only make Eldenberg the dominant force in the Known World’s politics, she’ll rise to the presidency of the Council.

On the surface, Elmanax is quite obviously a fiend. He is a conspirator and a manipulator, tricking Vicia into committing murder. He is a liar. He promises her the Eye of the Dragon, a magical artifact that is the lynchpin of Gothemus’s power, but he has no intention of giving it to her. He is cruel, happily attempting to kill anyone who gets in his way.  (He fails on multiple homicide attempts.)

But Elmanax is a more complex character than a simple demon, bent on harming those who interfere with his plans. Unlike the other villains in the novel, who are driven largely by greed and ambition, Elmanax is after two very different things — redemption and revenge.

Redemption

Understanding Elmanax’s motivations requires knowing his back story. About 12 years ago, I was doing research for a book on fairies. One of the tidbits I uncovered was that gnomes were magical creatures assigned to guard the treasures of the Earth, not short dwarves as Dungeons & Dragons would have it, and not bearded guys in pointy hats, who hang out in gardens and on well manicured lawns.

I decided to adapt this legend to The Sword and the Sorcerer. Years ago, Gothemus and his brother Zod stole the Eye of the Dragon from the underworld, where it was guarded by Elmanax. Gothemus discovered the Eye had power of the mystical forest, the Wild Lands, and he wanted control of them.  Gothemus and Zod defeated Elmanax and absconded with the Eye of the Dragon, setting themselves up as the most powerful people in the Known World. That had tragic consequences for Elmanax:

Cob, the Gnome King, had been displeased and cast him out. “The purpose of a gnome is to guard the Treasures of the Earth, not to turn them over to power-hungry humans,” he’d said, as though Elmanax had somehow been complicit in the crime.

Elmanax was thrown up from the ground and forced to live on the surface. How he hated the sunlight. It bleached his naturally brown skin until it was nearly the color of a human’s. It burned his eyes. The nighttime was only marginally better. The heat of the sun was absent, but the moon still cast hateful light over him like some putrid wave crashing from a despoiled ocean. The open air tasted foul, completely devoid of the flavors of the underworld. He could barely smell the stone up here it was so covered in grass and moss.

Those two barabrians got him exiled, and they’d made themselves rich and powerful with the magic they stole from Elmanax. It was insulting and infuriating and wrong.

Elmanax is not interested killing Gothemus to get the Eye of the Dragon so he can become powerful. He hopes that, by giving it back to Cob, he’ll be allowed to return to the underworld. He seeks to end his exile.

He becomes, at least slightly, a sympathetic character in this regard. Elmanax is in the position he is, because Gothemus and Zod were greedy. They stole the artifact from him, and he was punished for succumbing to their attack. Whether or not the sentence he received was fair, Elmanax didn’t create the situation he’s reacting to. Gothemus and Zod did. Elmanax is a victim.

Revenge

Elmanax seeks more than redemption, though. He’s not only interested in making up for a past failure and earning his way back home. He is bent on making Gothemus and Zod pay for what they did to him. He wants revenge too.

He convinces Lord Vicia to murder Gothemus Draco, because he knows that, once Gothemus dies, his spells will expire. Until they do, it will be nearly impossible to get the Eye.

But the practical concern is only part of his motivation. Elmanax wants Gothemus dead, because he hurt Elmanax. After years of exile, Elmanax is obsessed with killing the people who got him into trouble. He delights in the sorcerer’s death:

Elmanax taught [Vicia] the spells necessary to disguise the poison, so the old fool wouldn’t see it coming. He’d told her how to lure him out of his tower, so he would be vulnerable.

And damn if they hadn’t actually done it! The Council listened to Vicia, and now the dirty thief was dead.

Elmanax plans to kill Zod too, but he gets distracted when Gothemus’s magic mysteriously lives on after his death, making acquiring the Eye impossible. Furious with the setback, Elmanax again convinces Vicia to help him, and he doesn’t care what the consequences are so long as he gets what he wants:

Eldenberg and its Council of Elders weren’t coming out of this with the Eye of the Dragon. He was. Eldenberg was likely to get little more than a war. . . . If that was the case, the human world was in for an apocalypse.

Elmanax didn’t care. Gothemus Draco and Zod the Fearless had stolen from him. They’d based the entirety of their world on a balance of power they alone maintained. It was foolish and selfish. Now, the rest of the humans could pay for allowing themselves to be cowed.

Note here how Elmanax is using the same logic that got him exiled. He was bested by Gothemus and Zod, so Cob exiled him. Despite Elmanax’s feeling that that was unjust, he is doing the same thing. Gothemus and Zod bested the rest of the human world, so they rest of the world can suffer when Elmanax takes back the Eye. His sense of justice has been twisted by his desire for revenge.

The Fiends We Make

One of the points I wanted to make with Elmanax is that we must assume responsibility for the monsters we create. Elmanax was no one to the human world. He had no interest in humans, and he certainly bore them no malice.

But Gothemus and Zod set in motion a chain of events that led to murder and oppression when they stole from him. Elmanax was so hurt by Cob, he becomes a madman. At the novel’s climax he knows only his hatred. He only cares about getting the Eye back and inflicting pain on those in his way.

Elmanax is made by Gothemus and Zod’s greed. Gothemus essentially kills himself and destroys his brother’s operation in the future when he steals from Elmanax.

Certainly, murder and conspiracy are not justifiable or any less criminal just because Gothemus harmed Elmanax. But Gothemus and Zod have to accept responsibility for the person they helped make Elmanax into. They are as guilty as he is.

How we treat others matters. Bullying them, stealing from them, harming them reaps consequences that can be devastating.

***

The Sword and the Sorcerer is available now. eBook versions are just $4.99. A print edition is only $12.99. Twenty percent of the sales are donated to Freedom to Marry, the campaign to win marriage equality nationwide.

Click here to purchase the Kindle edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from Amazon.com.

Click here to purchase other eBook editions of The Sword and the Sorcerer from Smashwords.com.

Click here to purchase the print edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from CreateSpace.com.

Mailing List Subscribers Get New Stuff First

Every business has things it does well and areas where it needs improvement. I’m no exception. I work hard. I hustle. I study trends and try to capitalize.

But my mailing list sucks. All of my writer friends have robust mailing lists they use to let readers know about new developments and releases. I have one too, but it is to robust what President Obama is to uncontroversial.

So here’s the deal: you can sign up by clicking on the link below. If you do, you get email from me every month or so. You’ll find out the release date for new books, cover reveals, and get notification when new work is available. And you get it all before anyone else does. Yep, you’ll have the opportunity to be the first person to see a new cover or buy a new John Phythyon novel.

I’m not a spammer. I know people don’t need to read everything I’m doing at every moment of the day. I get it. You just want to know the cool stuff and when you can buy another book. So that’s all I use the list for. I don’t spam. I don’t overshare.

So go ahead and click on that link. It’s safe. You’ll only hear from me. Occasionally. When I’ve got something cool to tell you.

Click here to sign up for John’s mailing list.

50% of Sales Benefit Freedom to Marry Today

It’s the first Friday of the month, and that means 50% Friday is back! Today, I’ll be donating half the sales of my new novel, The Sword and the Sorcerer to Freedom to Marry, the national campaign to win marriage equality nationwide.

The Sword and the Sorcerer is a fantasy novel that features a gay couple as its protagonists. Over the course of the narrative, they are never questioned for their relationship. Everyone who meets them views their relationship as completely ordinary.

This is the world I would like to see — one where a couple is judged on what kind of people they are, not their sexual orientation. Thus, to help it come about, I’m donating part of my sales to Freedom to Marry. You can read more about this fine organization by clicking this link. Below is a description of The Sword and the Sorcerer.

I hope you’ll join me in the fight to establish equal rights for all Americans. You’ll get a great book in the process!

He wanted his father’s love. What he got instead will change the world.

Gothemus Draco – world’s most powerful sorcerer – is dead. Locked away in his tower are the tools for total domination of every city-state in the Known World. The person who possesses them can become a king, and everyone, it seems, has a claim – his warlord brother, the fairy from whom he stole a powerful artifact, even the sorceress who murdered him.

But the man who shaped the balance of power through wizardry isn’t done playing games with world politics. Just because Gothemus is dead doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have plans. Against all understanding, his magic lives on after his demise, preventing anyone from breaking into the tower.

Meanwhile, he’s left a gift for his son Calibot – Wyrmblade. The legendary dragon sword makes its wielder nearly invincible, and Gothemus has enchanted it with all sorts of new abilities.

But Calibot wants nothing to do with Wyrmblade or his father. He’s a poet with a powerful patron, and he’s been estranged from his father for years. All he desires is a peaceful life of composing verse and to one day marry the man he loves – a former soldier and advisor to the duke.

He may have no choice, though. Gothemus decreed Calibot should retrieve his body and lay him to rest. All signs point to a mysterious destiny Gothemus designed that Calibot cannot avoid.

With only the aid of his true love and his father’s inept apprentice, Calibot must leave the safety of his life at court and venture to the stronghold of those who murdered Gothemus, retrieve the body, and return it to his tower. Everyone with a stake in the future of the Known World will try to stop him, and Calibot must take care he doesn’t lose his life . . . or his soul!

The Sword and the Sorcerer is a full-length fantasy novel by the author of the Wolf Dasher series. Set against a backdrop of magic and dragons, of betrayal and greed, it is a story of one man’s journey to lay his father – and his inner demons – to rest.

Click here to purchase The Sword and the Sorcerer from Amazon.com.

Classic Villainous Traits: Selfishness

I’ve often attested writing villains is fun. They are frequently my favorite characters in the book. Not so much because I think they are admirable people, but because they are fun to hate.

The bad guys often share certain character flaws. It’s these shortcomings that make them villainous. They act on their base urges instead of on higher ones.

A common trait among antagonists in popular fiction is being selfish. A lot of villains think only of themselves — they want their desires gratified, their aims accomplished, their needs fulfilled — and they don’t give a damn about anyone else’s problems nor whom they have to hurt to get what they want.

Several of the bad guys in my new novel, The Sword and the Sorcerer, suffer from this particular malady, and I’ll explore below how selfishness plays out among several of the book’s key characters.

Lord Vicia: Power to the Exclusion of All

Of all the characters in the Sword and the Sorcerer, Lord Vicia is the most callous. She murders Gothemus Draco, the world’s most powerful magician. Ostensibly, she commits this crime for the purpose of improving the city-state of Eldenberg’s position in the power structure of the Known World. Gothemus and his brother Zod control the iron trade, and Eldenberg is in a weak position. As a member of the city’s governing Council of Elders, Vicia makes a move they authorize to take out Gothemus in an elaborate power play.

But Vicia isn’t really interested in Eldenberg’s political position on the world stage. What she really wants is power — power for her.

She sees this move as a stepping stone to the presidency of the Council of Elders and as a means to steal Gothemus Draco’s magic:

“Very well then,” Vicia said. “I shall move forward with my plan. I will deliver the Eye of the Dragon to the Council of Elders, we will master it, and then Eldenberg will become the foremost power in the Known World.”

She smiled at the hear-hears she got from everyone but Lord Hedron. Now she just needed Elmanax to do his part. As long as the gnome could deliver what he promised, she was going to be president of the Council of Elders and the most powerful woman in the Known World.”

Lord Vicia tells the Council she is doing everything for their benefit, but she’s really only interested in feeding her own ambition.

This goes horribly wrong for her almost right away. Against all understanding, Gothemus’s magic lives on after his death. Vicia is unable to do what she said she could, and the situation rapidly spirals out of control.

“Do you appreciate the political ramifications of these developments, Lord Vicia?” said an ancient voice Elmanax recognized as Lord Vestran’s.

“I do, my lord,” she said.

“This council murdered one of the most powerful magicians in the Known World — the very lynchpin on which the worldwide balance of power rested,” he continued as though Vicia hadn’t responded. “You persuaded us that, with Gothemus Draco dead, you would be able to procure the Eye of the Dragon. You insisted we would be able to use it to suppress Zod the Fearless and force Dalasport into a favorable trade agreement. You promised Eldenberg would rise as the supreme power in a new world order.

“Now Gothemus’s blood is on our hands, but the Eye of the Dragon is still securely locked in his tower. The means to get it out was stolen, and the thieves have escaped to Dalasport, where they will find a friend in Duke Boordin. He will no doubt inform Zod, forge a new alliance, and we will have a war on our hands we are ill-equipped to fight.

“Since poisoning Gothemus Draco, you have failed at everything you promised us you could do! And your folly has put us all in danger.”

The criticism leveled at Vicia is on the mark, but her concern is still not for Eldenberg’s well being. Whether the city prevails or falls in a war with Dalasport and Zod doesn’t really matter to her, except that it might rob her of her chance to ascend to the presidency of the Council. Vicia is selfish. She doesn’t care what happens as long as she gets what she wants.

Vicia wanted to scream. She needed to be able to bring the fugitives in quickly. If she could return them tonight, it would allay the fears of the Council. As it was, they were losing confidence in her. Vestran had warned her not to fail, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to persuade him to show mercy if she couldn’t deliver what she’d promised this time. Coming home empty-handed could result in her removal as an Elder . . . or worse.

Vicia is only interested in her ambitions.  And that self-centered attitude undoes her and the Council she alleges to serve.

Zod the Fearless: Blind Desire

Gothemus’s brother has similar motivations. Prior to Gothemus’s murder, the two brothers had planned to use the magical sword, Wyrmblade, to help Zod become king over all. Like Vicia, he seeks to be the most powerful person in the world.

That had been the plan. Zod would use Wyrmblade to become king over all. Gothemus would use the Eye of the Dragon to subdue the Wild Lands, and Zod would conquer the human world. Together, they would be all-powerful and invincible.

Also like Vicia, Zod doesn’t really care about anyone else. He’s perfectly comfortable with the idea of a world without his brother, so long as Zod has the sword that will make him a king.

But Zod’s selfish ambition blinds him to the truth: he already has everything he wants. Zod and Gothemus already effectively rule the Known World by controlling the iron trade and dictating terms to everyone else. Every other lord and magician is afraid of them. Not only are there really no more lands to conquer, Zod has everything he could ever need. His nephew, Calibot, puts it best:

“You’re already rich, Uncle Zod,” Calibot said. He put a sympathetic tone in his voice. “There’s no need for you to continue your business. You have no heirs to provide for. Return to your fortress and live out your days in comfort. Or take your riches and adventure until you can’t. There’s no need for you to be ironmonger to the Known World.

“If no one possesses the Eye of the Dragon, the balance of power doesn’t change. You just get cut out of the equation. And, since you have no worldly needs, that’s no hardship for you.”

Of course, Zod can’t accept that. He wants what he wants, and he doesn’t care what the consequences of getting it are. He wants to be king, so he’s going to be. He doesn’t want to retire, so he won’t.

And he can’t see that Calibot is right. He already has what he needs.

Moreover, Zod is too selfish to do something for anyone else. Despite being rich, he keeps his money to himself. He gives it to no one, and he wants to make more. He has no heirs, no wife. He has no legacy to leave behind. He only has his desire to have everything.

Gothemus Draco: Control of Someone Else’s Destiny

Despite being murdered in the first chapter, Gothemus is the story’s real villain. Vicia may be callous and Zod blind, but Gothemus is calculating in his selfishness. He wants control of his son’s life.

As the narrative unfolds, it becomes obvious that Gothemus has plans for Calibot. He laid them out years ago, and now, even though he is dead, he means to bring them to fruition. Calibot is constantly influenced by his father’s posthumous magic, leading him to what he fears is an inescapable outcome.

“He cast this elaborate spell, so he could give me his final instructions on how to get the Eye of the Dragon.” [Calibot said.] “He put all this thought into this careful strategy for me to get my ‘birthrights.’ But he never said, ‘I love you.’ He never said, ‘I’m proud of you.’ He didn’t even say goodbye!

“And now he wants me to use this stupid magic sword to break into his tower to retrieve another artifact. I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know what to do with it, but, by the gods, I have to get it and make sure it doesn’t fall into the hands of his brother or the gnome they stole it from.”

He continues,

“He didn’t know me. He didn’t care to. He let me walk away and was glad to see me go. He rejected me because of who I was.”

Here’s the real crime. Calibot wanted to be (and became) a poet, not a sorcerer like his father wanted. Thus, not only were the two estranged for five years prior to Gothemus’s murder, Gothemus uses his posthumous magic to interrupt Calibot’s life and try to manipulate him back onto the path Gothemus desired.

Gothemus Draco doesn’t care what his son wants for himself. Gothemus only knows what he wants Calibot to do, and he tries to take control of him to force him into it.

It is the most selfish act in the entire novel. Not only does it cause considerable anguish for Calibot, it completely undoes the balance of power Gothemus and Zod so meticulously set up.

Selfishness is one of those sins that causes a lot of harm — both foreseen and unexpected. It therefore is a terrific trait for the kind of villain readers love to hate.

–

The Sword and the Sorcerer is available now in eBook and print formats. Click on the links below to purchase a copy. Twenty percent of the sales benefit Freedom to Marry, the campaign to win marriage equality nationwide.

Click here to purchase the Kindle edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from Amazon.com.

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Click here to purchase the print edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from CreateSpace.com

New Novels Taking Shape; Old Ones Gaining Sales

Things continue to proceed nicely on this year’s publication schedule. I finished the third draft of Roses Are White Friday and sent it off to the editor. That should keep me on pace to have the fourth draft finished by the end of this month, which puts me in line for a late-April release. So far, so good.

That frees me up in the meantime to return to work on the next book in the series, Ghost of a Chance, which is good, because that one has been fighting me. I’ve got nine chapters written, but I’m not satisfied with the pace of the story, and I’m not sure it’s going anywhere just yet. I managed to figure out the ending last week, while I was working on Roses Are White, but there’s a lot of middle I still don’t have my arms around yet.

So this week, I’m editing the chapters I’ve already written. I expect I’ll probably pull them apart and put them back together in a different order, while adding new material in between. While I’m a big proponent of the Just Get It Written and Fix It Later philosophy of writing a novel, there are times when blowing it up and starting completely over is the right move.

I think this is one of those times. It’s not working the way I’ve been writing it. There’s something missing, and I haven’t figured out what it is yet. I’m hoping digging into it will reveal that.

So today and tomorrow I’ll be reading and making copious notes. Then, hopefully on Thursday, I’ll be able to start writing again.

In the interim, I’ve noticed an uptick in sales of the first Wolf Dasher novel, State of Grace. I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been blogging about the next two books in the series and have therefore generated interest, or if it’s a coincidence, but I like it either way.

If you haven’t read State of Grace yet, now is a perfect time. Roses Are White is due out next month, so you read SoG and the second book in the series, Red Dragon Five, and be all set for the next installment of Wolf’s adventures as soon as it’s available.

As always, thanks for your support. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Click here to purchase State of Grace from Amazon.com.
Click here to purchase Red Dragon Five from Amazon.com.