C.E. Martin's Blog, page 19

November 15, 2014

A Sneak Peak of 2015

Wonder what's ahead for the Stone Soldiers? Will the series continue on into 2015? Well, that depends on readers. As long as you keep buying, I'll keep writing.

Here's a look at what books 13 and beyond might be like. Feel free to offer up comments and questions in the comments, or just say which titles you'd like to see first!


HYDE AND SHEIK
When a rich oil baron in the Middle East decides to fund some supernatural terrorism, he turns to the writings of a long-dead Englishman. Now a supernatural formula for disaster is falling into the hands of zealots only too ready to get their monster on and wreak superhuman havoc around the world.

DO NO EVIL
The Hippocratic Oath has long been a pledge by physicians and healers around the world to do what they can for the sick and injured. But where do psychic surgeons fall on the subject? If you had the power to heal, would you be inclined to help or to harm? A body of stone might be impervious to the weapons of war, but it may not stop a faith healer with the power to cure or to curse.

THE BLUE DEATH
They're called Draugrs, Nordic spirits feared by even the Vikings. Part ghost, part vampire, all evil. When a Draugr awakens in the modern era, the Stone Soldiers will travel to the Arctic Circle and find that the fiercest warriors of all don't rely on just cold steel.

ISLAND OF THE DAMNED
Many have heard of the Bermuda Triangle and its Asian twin, the Dragon's Triangle, but there is one remote place on the globe that no one has heard about, because if you go there, you will never return. This remote island, far from the shores of any human settlements, is home to human and demon alike. But is it a dark fortress where the supernatural torment the living, or a prison for the most evil beings in history?

COLLOSSUS REBORN
A stone soldier may be a formidable enemy for the dark beings of the world, but imagine what a man made of metal could do. When an army of bronze beasts rise up in Europe and begin a campaign of death and destruction, the Stone Soldiers have to take on a resurrected legend from the ancient past--mass-produced by an industrial wizard of the modern era!



Look for these and other titles in the Stone Soldiers series in 2015, in digital and print editions!
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Published on November 15, 2014 09:00

November 14, 2014

WANTED: Honest Reviews!


CALLING ALL READERS!

Ads sell books, which means more readers, which means more books. But to get some of the bigger ads, you need reviews. Lots of them.

While a lot of you are reading Stone Soldiers, not so many are offering up reviews. So here's a little incentive for you. Post a review of a Stone Soldiers novel, short or Omnibus, and get your choice of one other novel, short or omnibus emailed to you free of charge, as a PDF (please, no pirating). Limit one freebie per customer. Offer ends December 31, 2014.

Just post a review, grab a screen shot and email it to Detachment1039@gmail.com. It's just that easy.
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Published on November 14, 2014 09:40

November 7, 2014

A LUCKY DAY TO DIE


It's almost here--the tenth book in the Stone Soldiers series. Look for it November 11, 2014, Veteran's Day, on Kindle Select.

When Mark Kenslir turns up dead in a Las Vegas morgue, its up to his last living relative to track down the killers and avenge his troubled spirit. One problem--the killers are former mobsters now serving a witch who controls The Strip with an iron fist. This sounds like a job for the Stone Soldiers. Unfortunately, Las Vegas has been a safe-zone for the supernatural denizens of America for decades. Vampire MD Laura Olson, Psychokinetic Super Soldier Josie Winters and the leader of Detachment 1039 head West for vengeance with no official support. At least not until they can show that Las Vegas' dark citizens need their amnesty revoked.
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Published on November 07, 2014 08:16

October 31, 2014

Happy Halloween!

Sorry to say, I missed my deadline this year and Stone Soldiers #10, A Lucky Day to Die isn't done yet. Almost, but not quite.

To tide you over til then, here's a few pages of what was supposed to be this year's Halloween release...


A LUCKY DAY TO DIE


CHAPTER ONE




As he looked down at his corpse, Mark Kenslir knew that he was dead. It was an odd feeling--one of regret and possibly a bit of relief. And while he wondered what now lay ahead for him, he could not look away from the body that had been his for so many years, now unceremoniously shoved into the trunk of a large sedan.
Nearby, the two men who had murdered Mark toiled in the darkness, digging a shallow grave in the sand. One of them abruptly stopped digging and turned to face Kenslir.
"Hey! Get out of here!" Francis Shirley shouted. "Shoo!"
Beside Francis, Leonard DeFazio paused and turned to see what his partner in crime was yelling about. "That's why you never let 'em know they're about to die."
"What difference does it make? Dead is dead!"
"The difference," Leonard said, frowning, "Is that when they know they're gonna die, they think they have unfinished business. And that is what you end up with. That's why I said two to the back of the head."
"Go on, shoo!" Francis declared again. The young mobster was clearly unnerved by the ghost watching him. He climbed out of the grave and stormed over, waving his shovel at Mark Kenslir.
"Leave him be," Leonard ordered, following Francis to the car. "Help me with his body."
"You don't know who you're messing with, ghost," Francis declared. "I'm a made man!"
Leonard smacked his boasting young partner in the back of his head, making his greasy black hair flop forward onto his face. "I said help me with the body!"
Francis sulked, but did as he was told, keeping an eye on the ghost that stood there, silently watching them. Moving to the trunk of their car, he lifted the feet of the tall body in the trunk clear, while his balding, fifty-something partner grabbed under the corpse's shoulder."Big sumbitch," Leonard growled.
He and Francis stumbled along in the dark Nevada desert, carrying the big body to the shallow grave they had dug. Blood and brains dripped onto the sand as they carried the body, falling from what remained of Mark Kenslir's face.
Francis kept glancing back at the ghost that stood silently by their car, watching them.
"Hey! Fuggettabout that ghost!" Leonard snapped when Francis nearly dropped his end of the corpse.
"I don't like the way he's looking at me... is he gonna haunt me now?""Nah," Leonard answered, dropping his end of the body into the shallow grave. "He'll just stick around here. That's why we bury 'em so far out of town."
"Ah," Fancis said, an evil smile spreading across his face. "He's bound to his body.""No. He ain't bound to nuttin'. But he's just a ghost now. Most folks can't even see him. He's got nowhere to go and no one to tell. Eventually, he'll move on."
Francis shrugged and picked up his shovel and joined Leonard in filling the grave.
"Ha!" The younger mobster laughed. "Serves him right, stickin' his big nose where it didn't belong."
He turned back to the car and shouted at Mark Kenslir. "I hope you enjoy the desert, you stinkin'-"
Francis' jaw dropped and he stopped shoveling. 
"Leonard!"
"What is it now?" Leonard growled, looking up. The color suddenly drained from his face as he saw red and blue flashing lights headed their way.
"Dammit! I told you we didn't need any headlights to get here!"
Francis looked scared now too. "I'm still new to this, old man! I can't see in the dark as good as you!"
Leonard threw his shovel down and reached behind his back, pulling a small revolver from his waistband. 
"The Lady ain't gonna like this, kid."
Francis' eyes went wide as he looked at the gun pointed his way. "Why does it have to be me? I just got this body!"
Leonard fired two shots into Francis' chest, directly into his heart. 
"'Cause you can't keep your damn mouth shut, that's why!"
Francis staggered a step, then his body went limp, dropping to the sand and nearly tumbling into the shallow grave he'd just helped dig. Where he had been standing, a black outline hovered in the air, shaped like a man. 
The dark shadow swept forward, merging with Leonard's body and vanishing into it.
Leonard looked at the gun in his hand and considered shooting himself. But they were too far from the Strip. They'd never make it back. He had no choice.
Leonard threw the gun down and put his hands on top of his head, interlocking his fingers. 
"I hope you're happy," he declared, glaring at Mark Kenslir's ghost.
Kenslir was anything but happy. He'd just been murdered and dumped in the desert like garbage. He scowled and fumed, his translucent, ethereal fists clenched in impotent rage by his sides.
Then a smile crossed his face as the lights of a police vehicle came closer. His murderers were wrong about one thing. Mark Kenslir did have someone he could go to. Someone he could tell about his death.
In Miami.
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Published on October 31, 2014 18:00

October 5, 2014

Wrapping up at Frightnight Filmfest 2014

Today marks day 3 at Fright night Filmfest, put on by the Fandomfest folks. Once again a well-organized show... it's just missing visitors. If youre in Louisville today swing by--plenty of walking room.




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Published on October 05, 2014 10:07

October 2, 2014

Finally, a book trailer...


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Published on October 02, 2014 07:45

September 30, 2014

A special sale for spooks and specters!


$.99 Kindle copy!
Grab a copy of Shades of War now--on sale through October!


Colonel Mark Kenslir has defended America from the supernatural for over fifty years. In that time, he's killed many men. Now one of those vanquished enemies has come back from the grave--and is raising a spectral army from Civil War battlefields for revenge. 
The Stone Soldiers must find a way to stop an army that is already dead, before it reaches Washington and plunges the country into chaos. Aided by his cryokinetic granddaughter, an amorous vampire M.D. and his petrified men, will the Colonel stop the forces of darkness or will Washington fall to the shades of gray? 


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Published on September 30, 2014 19:32

August 24, 2014

Sizzling Summer Sale!

Beat the heat with the Stone Soldiers! We're slashing prices so you can download, go to a cool, dark place in your home and read til it's not so hot again...

Now through September, download

Mythical (Book 1) FREE

Brothers in Stone (Book 2) for $.99

Blood and Stone (Book 3) for $.99

Or grab all three in Stone Soldiers Omnibus #1 for $.99!!




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Published on August 24, 2014 07:44

August 4, 2014

Fandomfest 2014--In pictures

This past weekend, my family and I ran a booth for my pals Destroyerbooks at Louisville's Fandomfest. It was a long three days, with pitiful sales and not many convention goers, but there were two things that made it all worthwhile:
1. Seeing my daughter nerd out and grin ear to ear when she met Karl Urban and got his autograph
2. The amazing costumes we saw. Far more costumes than I expected.
One of my and my daughters' favorite parts of any fan convention are the awesome costumes. We snapped loads of pics this year, and below I'm going to put a few of my favorites. Most of the pics we took were from my oldest, and to be honest, I didn't know who they were. A lot of Anime, that were very nice, but not something I'd seen. I'll let her pick some of her favorites and add them later.
My teen helper flipped out when she saw this screen-quality Tardis on Saturday (both my girls are huge Whoovians). It was definitely a favorite at the show. We watched the hundreds in attendance take pictures with it all weekend.

The Tardis was accompanied by a wonderful Dalek--if you can call a mass-murdering robot wonderful, that is. I was impressed when I first saw it, then they opened it up and revealed it was a motorized chair inside, so a person could ride around. I didn't see it in motion, but dang this thing was cool.

 My daughter snapped this pic for me, of my favorite Doctor Who character, River Song. Now why won't my wife do something cool like this? And yes, River had her Lake Silencio six-shooter strapped on. 

Of course, the cutest Doctor character in attendance was this young lady, dressed as the hologram Rose Tyler that guided the War Doctor. She is NOT Daenerys from Game of Thrones--despite people complimenting her on that character all day. She was THRILLED my daughter recognized her character, although I'm not sure who was more excited: Rose for being recognized, or my daughter Sam at seeing this unique cosplay. Best part was a few minutes after more pics were taken, Rose ran over and profusely thanked Samantha again for being the first person to correctly identify her. A really sweet girl with a great costume.

In addition to all the awesome Doctor Who fans in costume, we were really impresed with this Portal costume and working Portal gun. Super cool. Even if she "didn't have the boots yet".

And, of all the Castiels we saw all weekend, this is the only one I recall with wings. I wish we'd have talked to her, as in looking at this photo, she would make a great model for one of the characters in Stone Soldiers--Josie Winters. If she was local and does model, this was really an opportunity missed. Great costume though, and I love how she hammed it up for my daughter's pic.

What impressed me most about this Zatanna was not her great costume, but the fact she actually knew who Remo Williams was! We were there representing our pals at Destroyerbooks.com and she stopped after we took her picture to look over the books and told me she remembered the Remo Williams movie from when she was a kid. I was kind of surprised that she knew the character as young as she is, but obviously anyone who has such a great costume is definitely cool enough to know the Destroyer!

Now, most guys would have looked at this girl and started drooling, but considering my age, and the fact my oldest LOVES the character Mystique, I was more interested in getting a picture for her. And I want to point out something not so obvious: both of these folks are talented artists. They had to have painted each other! And the details were impressive, especially the muscle tones. I was curious and wanted to ask how long this took, but I didn't want to seem like some creepy old dude, so just thanked them and let them go on their way. Very impressive, even if Nightcrawler's tail was painted on. (also, NIGHTCRAWLER!!!! Nice to see him at Fandomfest since those turds at Fox dropped him from the movies...)

A great version of an established character is a lot of fun, but I like the creative twists on characters, like this awesome Steampunk Deadpool. My youngest would have loved to have seen this, but she'd gone home already so she had to settle for this picture. 

Okay, by far this is the most awesome Steampunk anything I've ever seen. I wanted to grill this guy about this incredible costume but let him wander off. Good thing too, as moments later, Karl Urban passed our booth, walking around, checking the show out. He bumped into Steam Dredd and they talked for several minutes. I wonder what they said?

Almost forgot, there were cars at the show too. We're all big Scooby Doo fans in our house--when my oldest was 6, I even handpainted a Barbie Van to make the Mystery Machine for her birthday (there were Scooby Barbies out back then), so I HAD to have this picture of my girls. Despite their protesting and complainign they didn't want their picture taking. Hey, I EARNED this photo. Sucker's going up on my desktop.
Custom costume sometimes work and sometimes don't. This one totally works and is truly incredible. I wish we could have gotten a better pic of all the amazing work in this Kentucky Fried Samurai armor. It was incredible. 
Accompanying the KF-urai was the Spartan Burger King, a truly clever spin on costuming, even if it is, well, spartan, compared to the KFC Samurai.

Finally, the most awesome costume I have ever seen in my life was this guy's Colonial Marine. You can't tell it here, but this was so detailed and incredible. It was beyond screen-quality. Not only was every little detail there, and the rifle was really metal with a functioning ammo counter, but his helmet was unbelievable!
Not sure if you can make it out, but the eye piece, in addition to raising and lowering, actually lit up with information!!!!! And the helmet was actual metal. The marine told me he'd wished he had made it plastic, rapping it with his knuckles to reveal the sheer awesomeness of it. This is really a costume that has to be seen in person to fully appreciate. 
That's all for today, but I'l let my teen pick some of her favorite animes, and tell me what they are, and post them later. 

Thank you to all the cosplayers for making this show fun!

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Published on August 04, 2014 09:56

August 3, 2014

Thanks for your support!

Thank you to all the great folks I met this weekend at Fandomfest 2014, in Louisville, KY.

Had a lot of fun promoting Stone Soldiers and my pals at Destroyerbooks. Greatly enjoyed meeting all the swell Destroyer and Supernatural fans in the area. Looking forward to the next convention.

Check back later this week for pictures we took of all the great cosplayers' and a list of links for all the folks we met.

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Published on August 03, 2014 17:39