Declan Finn's Blog, page 28

Sunday Superversive Livestream: Declan Finn and Hell Spawn

So, I spent Saint Patrick's Day with Ben Wheeler, discussing St. Tommy NYPD on his podcast.



Also, I chatted about the dragons. While you're listening to me elaborate about how awesome I am, I recommend you at least take a look at my Dragon Award discussion post. I intend to talk up the Dragons at least once a month, refreshing my list of nominees each time.



And now, Ben Wheeler.

Return of the Dragons (2019)

While I am tempted to make hold off this conversation until the period of eligibility runs out.... the longer I hold off on this, the few people will hear about it. Not to mention that I knew it was time to have this discussion the moment one of my author friends took out a Facebook ad asking people to consider him for a Dragon Awards



However, best of all? I ACTUALLY HAVE CANDIDATES THIS YEAR.



Yes, unlike last year, where every other book I read was either dusty in my backlog or not in the right genre, I seem to have been reading nothing but SFF lately.



... Though in some cases, I will admit that I cheated. I've read these books before they've been released. Heh heh heh.



Anyway.



So, let's begin.


* * * * * *  * *



Best Science Fiction Novel


I have already reviewed Heroes Fall by Morgon Newquist. You might think .... whatever you like. But this was one Hell of a solid novel, and some of the best SF I've read in years.



What is it? Superheroes. If you liked Astro City, or JMS's Rising Stars, or, hell, the MCU, you're going to want to read this one, and I think you're going to agree with me that it's pretty kickass.




Best Fantasy Novel 

(Including Paranormal)


I have not yet reviewed Bokerah Brumley's "Keepers of New Haven: Woe for a Faerie" on my blog. That's coming soon. If you follow my writing progress on Facebook, you'll note that I have very little time lately for .... a lot. Last week I posted nothing on THIS blog, so that tells you something when I try to at least post three blogs and a music video.



Luckily for you, the book comes out TODAY.



How can I have already put it on my blog?  That's the joy of getting ARCs from your publisher. Heh heh heh. But for Brumley, she'll get her due. Oh yes, she will.  BWHAHAHAAHAHAHA.



Anyway.



I had considered putting one of Daniel Humphreys Paxton Locke novels up for this one (again, I got the ARC. Heh heh heh), but he was more interested in emphasizing another topic. Meet be below on that one.




Best YA / Middle Grade Novel


Mutter mutter mutter. The Kings Regret by Ligon is not yet out, so you'll have to take my word on it for this moment. I can't say too much. It's Steampunk YA.



Lucky for him, Jagi hasn't come out with another Rachel Griffin novel.








Best Military SFF Novel


Daniel Humphrey's A Place For War... Yes, this is what Daniel wanted to be nominated in instead of his upcoming Black Night's Agents, so I concurred.



For the record, no, I have not yet read David Weber's Uncompromising Honor. I suspect he will not need additional support.



And Brian Niemeier said a while ago, one Dragon Award was enough, so I'm not going to bother him getting him one for Combat Seed X









Best Alternate History Novel


This was a tough one.



Because in addition to Hans Schantz's Brave and the Bold (reviewed here), you also have yet again another Robert Kroese Iron Dragon novel .... which I will admit, I have not read, but let's face it, Robert isn't going to start to suck at this late date, now is he?



But,  honestly, I think we're going to have to lean into Hammer of the Witches, by Kai Wai Cheah, on this one.







Best Media Tie-In Novel


Thrawn: Alliance

Timothy Zahn is doing a Thrawn novel. Your argument is so invalid, it's not even funny.








Best Horror Novel


This is funny, since by the time the Dragons comes out, I will have SIX horror novels eligible.



Hell Spawn

Death Cult

Infernal Affairs

City of Shadows (Coming soon)

Crusader (Coming soon)

Deus Vult (Coming soon....ish)



..... But as I argued yesterday, it's best to nominate Hell Spawn and move on. And if you disagree and would like to nominate one of the other books in another category ... okay, but I'd like you not to split the vote too too much.






Best Comic Book


Flying Sparks, by Jon del Arroz.



Is anyone going to fight me on this one? Go ahead, name me something better. I dare ye.



Review coming.... yes, I owe a lot of people reviews. Stow it.






Best Graphic Novel



Good question. Any ideas?



Though I'm tempted to say the comic adaptations of PD Wodehouse by Chuck Dixon, just because Jeeves and Wooser are just so much fun.




Best SFF TV Series


I actually have a tossup on this one. Believe it or not



Reverie... which was a great little series over the summer that should probably get a nomination for the first year along.



And



God Friended Me .... what can I say? I enjoy it so far, even though I do expect it to go Person of Interest by the end of the season.




Best SFF Movie


The Meg...



No. No question. Just The Meg.



Yes, I'm biased, you damn straight. I've only waited 20 flipping years for this movie.



Though wouldn't it be funny if it's The Meg vs Aquaman?




Best SFF PC / Console Game



Spiderman, PS4, Insomniac games.



Yup. No hesitation. This was .... amazing.



As for ... Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game ....

AND

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game....

AND

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game....

You got me. Come at me, give me some suggestions in the blog comments, and let's see how this stacks up.




Other nominees.


You might remember that last year, I had at least half a dozen nominees for each category....



Nope. Not anymore.



Granted, I could suggest some nominees for you.



Hans' Brave and the Bold, as mentioned and linked to above.



A friend of mine, MA Rothman, has an SF book out that might be of interest.



Again, the upcoming Daniel Humphreys' Come Seeling Night is something I'd suggest in paranormal, but he wanted military.



....So, yeah, right now, I'm out of alternate suggestions at the moment. Maybe I'm just out of authors. Heck, I would love to nominated Simon R Green for Night Fall... but it is one of his lesser works, and really dropped the ball for the finale of his magnum opus.



If you want to give me alternate suggestions, please be sure to leave one in the comment -- author, title, and genre category.



As of now, let the nominations begin.

On the Dragon Award 2019

I've had people come up to me and ask what they should do about voting for my books for a Dragon Award.



Yes, really. It's odd. I don't recall the last time that happened. Maybe when I had two vampire books out in the same nomination period?



Anyway, I have people who want to nominate both Hell Spawn  and  Death Cult  in horror. Which is, of course, problematic. I'd joke about "What happened to Infernal Affairs," but one thing at a time.



Personally? To answer the question, I do recommend Hell Spawn  for best horror. In fact, if you were to nominated anything, I'd nominate that.



Now, if you're of the opinion that Death Cult  is at least as good, if not better, then how about we split the difference?



Hell Spawn is horror. There's no real question about that. But is Death Cult ? Frankly, are zombies even horror? Personally I find them boring, but that could just be me. Let's just say that there weren't as many zombies in Death Cult  than I thought there would be. It could be argued that this is less of a horror novel and more of a supernatural thriller.



Which I suppose puts this either in "military" or "fantasy / paranormal."



And to be honest, yes, this is my best guess on the matter. And yes, I do wish to push this book for the Dragons this year. To be honest, I wouldn't know when to start, since the eligibility schedule runs from July 2018 to June 30th 2019. I'd say let's start in July, when the eligibility period runs out, but let's face it, I don't think that's really practical.



With my luck, this will be the only year that the Saint Tommy series will be eligible for. I may not get back to it. Book #6 will be coming out in April. I may get back to it in a future year, though I'm not sure how practical it would be to try to nominate book #7 (if there is one)



But for the record, I'm going to have a more in-depth conversation on Dragon award nominations later on .... hopefully this week.

Sex, what is it good for (in novels)?

[PG-13/ R. And, for the record, this is a completely amoral blog post—preaching morals gives me a headache and upsets my ulcer.]



I did this post once upon a time. And while I've even reposted it once (I think), I was skimming through it the other day and contemplating some of the points I made. I've considered that I do need to expand on them. There are even one or two additional points I should focus on, especially now that I've had at least one major series where a substantial subplot was a romance story.... yes, while Love at First Bite is listed under the vampire romance genre, I don't really consider it vampire romance. Why? Too many explosions and Vatican ninjas for that.



1. Sex. What is it good for (in fiction)?



Were this a song parody, the next line would be “absolutely nothing.” But, given that I've had bad experiences with song parodies, I will forgo that.



But, seriously, sex... why bother?  In the context of literature, almost any novel with a sex scene in it has been, in my opinion, a horrid waste of time, energy, and irritates, at least, this reader.



To date, none of my books have sex scenes. Even though every single story has a married couple, or a dating couple, even the "vampire romance" novels have no sex.



Why is that?



Because I find them boring.



No, seriously. They're boring. If I'm in the mood for sex .... well, I'm married now, so that's not an issue. Why the Hell would I want to read about it? If I'm reading an urban fantasy or a thriller, I'm interesting in magic duels, shootouts, or high adventure. Not porn.



I am not certain how much of this is my own personal opinion and how much of it is a critique of how sex scenes tend to be inflicted on the reader.



The primary offender in this is the OSS, or the Obligatory Sex Scene.



My favorite example of this is from a 20 year old book called Mount Dragon, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Our protagonists have been chased through a desert, dying of thirst and heat, chased by a deranged gunman.  But they have finally found water and shelter from the sun

.... they are so happy they start having sex...



Blink. What?



The OSS I just mentioned is quick. It may have been a paragraph. It was unnecessary, came out of nowhere, and if it hadn't happened, not a single thing would have changed in the book.

Looking at it objectively, what is the point of an OSS?



PRO: “Physical intimacy shows the the relationship involved has gone to another level and has thus impacted the characters.”



Objection: Perfectly true, but does that necessitate a five page sex scene? Or even a page? If one wanted to tell the reader that, yes, two people slept together, I can do that right now: “X and Y fell into bed, kissing passionately as they stripped each other's clothes. They then turned off the lights and hoped they wouldn't wake the neighbors.”



Done. Two lines and a bit of smart ass can carry something a long way. It's perfectly PG-13. 890s kids movies were more graphic.



PRO: “Things can happen during the scene that are relevant to the rest of the novel.”



OBJECTION: True, but rarely does it necessitate going into intimate details. In fact, I would suggest that anything relevant to the plot could be covered in the next chapter. “On reflection, s/he noticed something odd while lying on his/her back. S/he didn't really notice it at the time, but now that it's quiet.....”



Done.



Exceptions can be made to this rule, obviously. If the couple rolls off of the bed as someone walks into the room, be it with room service or with a gun, then that is a useful detail.



I will even admit that there are graphic sex scenes where one can reveal character. But those are so extremely rare I can name you one author who has pulled it off. With John Ringo's Ghost series, several of the sex scenes are necessary, and two are crucial to the stories they show up in. Nearly all of them impact the characters in some way. And almost all of these scenes can be entertaining for reasons that are anything but sexual. They can be funny.



Why Ghost does what he does (and I don't mean sexual maneuvers or positions) tells the reader more about the character than a hundred pages of sex scenes from any given novelist....



Which leads us to Laurell K. Hamilton. Her claim to fame is that she "invented urban fantasy."  Which is funny, since I thought Bram Stoker did that. For nine novels, her primary series went well. There was sexuality here and there (a major character was a French vampire, after all), but it never really got in the way of the story. By book seven and eight, the main character was sleeping with both a vampire and a werewolf, but the OSS's were few and far between, and they were easily skipped by turning a page. Quite painless, overall.



After book #9, Obsidian Butterfly, several novels contained a hundred pages of vampire rituals of who gets to have sex with who. I skipped them.  I went back for book #15, because it featured the return of Hamilton's best, scariest character: a mild mannered, white-bread fellow named Edward, a mercenary who started hunting vampires because humans were too easy.



However, I had to skip a hundred and fifty pages of the novel. It was one, long and drawn out OSS. Not a menage a trois, but a bisexual sextet among Vampires and were-creatures. Much of the rest of the book had pages of Anita Blake defending her sex life. “The lady dost protest too much.”



Years ago, when the author herself was asked about the overabundance of sex during a Barnes and Noble interview, Hamilton's best defense was that “I only get complaints from men. I had two reviewers tell me that they're disturbed that a woman is writing this sort of stuff. ”



Ahem...



Dear Madam Hamilton: I get disturbed with John Ringo writing about a man and two coeds on a boat with bondage gear. For the love of all that's Holy, what makes you think that a bi-sexual sextet with were-furries would go over any better, no matter who or what you were?  This strange faux-feminism you're using to deflect criticism is based off of an anecdotal incident with two reviewers?  How about "I want more plot than sex scene," are you going to blame that on me being male? Really?



Again, I'll go back to John Ringo, only a different series -- the Council Wars.  One short story is seriously NC-17, and reading through it, I would be hard-pressed to see how it could be written otherwise. With Hamilton's novels, I could skip over a hundred pages and not miss a single plot point. That's screwed up.





Make it sextets with were-furries, they're even worse.





2. “I want a Heroine not an excuse for sex.”



Can I write a sex scene? Sure, they're easy. I've gotten requests from lady friends of mine for erotica (don't ask, long story).



But are they necessary? No.



Did I need intimate details to add to the plot, the character, or anything related to the story? No.



Frankly, I think a PG-13 novel sometimes requires more skill than an NC-17 rated. I find that sex sequences are a cheat, sort of like premium cable—just because you can use four letter words doesn't mean you have to write them into every single line.



I have actually made my lack of OSS's in my novels work for me.



In Love at First Bite book one, Honor at Stake , I had a make out session in a graveyard. I had several women fans tell me that "if this is what making out was like, what happens when you do a sex scene?"



Now, to be fair, I am tempted to do one -- a, singular -- sex scene at some point, when I go back to the Love at First Bite universe. Mainly because there has been a ton of buildup of multiple books, and the last thing I want to do to my fans is to have the fruition of an entire relationship happen offscreen. I will probably end up finding a payoff that's somewhere between being rated R and happening entirely off the page.



But honestly .... having no sex in my books has worked for me. In the Pius books, I've used the lack of sex for jokes (a long-term couple has never had intercourse because every time they do, someone tries to kill them) or I can move somewhere else in the plot and leave a married couple alone, or I'm just developing a relationship.



And hell, Tommy Nolan is married and has sex ... but he's married with one kid in book one, and his wife is pregnant in book three. I don't think I need to spell out what happens in between.



Just because an author can throw in a sex scene doesn't mean s/he must do so. Doing sex scenes well takes skill, and making them relevant takes talent; most people don't have it.



Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer had several moments where our heroine's sex life really was going to get people killed (think back to the killer frat house dorm room). Or one solid comedy routine (that poor, poor house in season 6...).



Sherrilyn Kenyon, a ROMANCE NOVELIST, wrote at least one book where the LACK of sex was a key plot point, and another where intimacy between the hero and heroine was surprisingly crucial to the story.



Ringo was mentioned above.



So, it has been done well. Just not very often.



To answer the opening question: Sex, what is it good for?



In novels... it can be good for something. It just rarely is.



You can check out the series mentioned below.




The Pius Trilogy    












 Love at First Bite

        



Hell Spawn

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Helloween - I Want Out �� (Cover by Minniva feat. Mr Jumbo)

One of the nice things about YouTube cover artists is that they expose guys like me to other bands. I tripped over Minniva on YouTube because she covered a lot of Within Temptation and Nightwish. Through her, I've run into a LOT of Sabaton.



Never heard of this group. But I'll be looking it up eventually.



Granted, I expect this to be a Libertarian anthem soon enough... okay, the basic "leave me the hell alone" Libertarians.







While you try playing through this, just do me a favor and glance over these books, see how you like them.



Ciao.




Hell Spawn  Death Cult








  Infernal Affairs  

Infernal Affairs, Chapter 3: SWATed

Infernal Affairs, Chapter 3, fight



Originally, I wanted an entire book much like this.



Then I realized that it would suck even more for Tommy if I just kept upping the stakes of what came after him.



But it's going to end ... fun.












Chapter 3: SWATed

The rest of the day went
normally. The schedule was normal: Church, breakfast, parish activity
du jour,
early dinner, and Jeremy goes to play with his friends, while Mariel
and I play with each other…

What? How else did you think
Mariel became pregnant?

Ironically, it was Jeremy’s
recently found fame that allowed for Mariel’s current condition.
After facing down a serial killer and being kidnapped by a deranged
death cult, Jeremy had become a source of fascination for his
classmates. This led to a lot of busy weekends of fun for Jeremy, and
lots of privacy for us.

Remember, when Catholics get
married, part of the marriage contract is to contribute to the gene
pool as much as possible.

By
nine o’clock that evening, we were all ready to sleep.

There is a reason that the first
words of every angel in the Bible tend to be “Be not afraid.”

That
is because angels of the Lord are totally terrifying.

In my dream, the body was made of
fire. The wings looked like butterfly wings, taller and wider than
the main body. And it looked like a Kaiju that would make Godzilla
crawl back into the sea and ask directions for the Marianas Trench.
Its sword was a cross between a big broadsword and a lightsaber, and
big enough to cleave the world in half.

When it told me to Be Not Afraid,
it sounded musical and lyrical, and at total odds with the creature
in front of me.



“Thomas Nolan! Judge and
Prophet of the Lord! Awake and smite the agents of Satan!”

I was out of bed, on my feet,
with a gun in my hand before I knew I was awake.

I turned and violently shook
Mariel awake. Her eyes snapped open and she reached for her side
table, then hesitated when she recognized me. At least she hadn’t
shanked me with the flip knife at her side.

I told her, simply, “One-A.”
It was the plan for her to hunker down and wait in Jeremy’s
room—mostly because his room’s door opened almost straight into
the staircase. Anyone who came up the stairs would get to the second
landing, turn left, and go up four more steps.

She got up and grabbed her rifle,
next to her side table. She slung the strap over her head, then
grabbed the shotgun, next to the rifle. Then she grabbed her pistol,
and held it in her other hand. I did the same, mostly to horde the
weapons as they hunkered down.

We were, after a fashion,
preppers. Mostly because after the first two home invasions by
supernatural and demonic forces, we came prepared.

I led the way as Mariel carried
the weapons behind her. I waited until she was in Jeremy’s room,
then handed her the shotgun. I left the rifle slung over my shoulder,
and carried the pistol in hand. It was a Browning Hi-Powered. It
wasn’t exactly department issue, but I had started a collection of
larger caliber guns since the death cult came for us.

I took the stairs carefully and
quietly. I took one step down from the top landing when the door
crashed in. I dropped to a crouch and waited. I didn’t scream out a
warning, since I didn’t want to give away my position. And since
the front door was made of metal, just kicking the door in wasn’t
an option, so they weren’t simple home invaders.

Also,
I was told to smite
the agents of Satan,
so I could only conclude that these dirt bags weren’t here to play.

They swept in like a well-oiled
machine, a snake-like line of men carrying body armor and rifles. The
first one looked up at me—directly at me, I’m certain—and
whispered, “Clear.”

The leader moved the muzzle down
and ahead.

I waited until I could clearly
see the tail end of this serpent. There were only six of them.

After the third one moved into
the living room and broke to their left (heading towards our dining
room), the fourth one stepped into the living room and moved for the
steps.

That’s when I opened fire. The
first bullet slammed into the armored helmet, slamming the man’s
head into the wall. The second round punched through the man’s
neck. He collapsed without a sound, but I had already moved onto the
next man in order. I took a step back, onto the landing, as I fired
again. Both bullets found their mark, though not the way I wanted.
One bullet merely collided with the Kevlar vest—but the force of
the round cracked the collar bone. The next one punched under the
arm, into the armpit, and pinballed around through the ribcage, caged
inside by Kevlar.

The third one turned his
attention to me, and I triple-tapped him. Three rounds from the
Hi-Power knocked him back, and he involuntarily opened fire with a
string of bullets that cut right above my head. I dove up the stairs,
getting out of the line of sight and line of fire.

I
scrambled up the stairs. I swung around the wall at the top of the
stairs. I dropped back to a crouch. The were well armed, and had good
tactics. The first thing I could think of was: We’re
screwed. Dear Lord. We’ll need some help here.

There were stomps as one of them
charged up the stairs. I was ready to intercept them as soon as they
appeared. But after only eight steps, they stopped. I couldn’t
figure out why for a second.

Then I heard the distinct
metallic scrape of a pin being pulled out of a grenade.

The instant the next attacker
leaned over in order to aim, I fired twice. His arm had been up and
ready to hurl his device. The helmet’s visor cracked and his head
snapped back with the bullet. The second bullet punched into his
wrist, shattering it. He fell back with a scream, and so did his
grenade. There were a few gasps from down below once they realized
what had happened.

I ducked back and covered my
ears. Which was a good idea, because the explosion was bright and
loud enough to make your eyes and ears bleed if you were too close.

Thankfully for my home, it was a
flash bang, not a fragmentation or incendiary.

Since I only had two bullets
left, I placed my handgun on the ground, then unslung my rifle. I
grabbed the pistol and darted across Mariel’s line of fire for the
little room leading up to the attic. We hadn’t decided what else to
do with it yet, so it was still filled with boxes of random stuff we
still hadn’t unpacked yet.

We all waited for a long moment,
listening intently. The next one up came up quietly. Mariel hadn’t
waited for the gunman to notice her. His helmet appeared, and she
fired three times. His helmet snapped to one side. His head crashed
into the window on the second landing.

It was followed by multiple
rounds of blind fire in automatic bursts. Mariel rolled out of the
way of the gunfire. This fifth gunman fired off a few rounds every
step, keeping Mariel back.

I waited as he came up, one step
at a time, one burst at a time. I pressed myself against the wall, I
almost felt him coming closer.

Then I heard the slide of an
empty magazine ejecting from the gun and thumping on the floor.


I wheeled around the doorway
before the gunman had even had a chance to grab a fresh magazine. I
jammed the muzzle of my Browning underneath the man’s chin and
pulled the trigger twice. The brain and bone spattered out of the
helmet …

And into the visor of the gunman
right behind him.


Oh Nuts.

I dropped the pistol and brought
up my rifle. It collided with the rifle of the other gunman, and he
smashed into me. He drove me into the room of junk, slamming me into
the door. The gunman reared back with his right fist. I jerked my
head to one side, and he punched the wall. He cursed.

I twisted with my rifle
counter-clockwise as I twisted my body the same way. The butt of my
AR-15 cracked against the gunman’s helmet while I slipped out of
the way. I shoved off of the gunman and raised my rifle.

The gunman spun. He smacked the
muzzle of my rifle off line as he raised his own. I raised my knee as
high as I could, then kicked down at the muzzle of his gun, shoving
it to the floor. As my foot came down, I reared forward, shoving my
left forearm into his throat.

I jammed my rifle down into the
boot of the gunman, then fired. He screamed. My left forearm was
still in his throat. I drove my elbow into the helmet, forcing him to
look to my left. My fingers found the back of his helmet, hooking
underneath it. I spun to my left and dragged the gunman down by his
helmet, throwing him off the wall. He didn’t go far, so I didn’t
raise my rifle level with him. I raised the muzzle just enough to
shoot him in the back of the knee. He screamed and fell forward, away
from me.

My rifle came up and I fired. I
didn’t even count the bullets I fired into him. I only stopped
pulling the trigger when he went down.

I took a slow, deep breath.

I swung around. “Mariel, don’t
shoot. I’m crossing your field of fire.”

I moved into the hall, then down
the stairs. I cleared the house in less than a minute. I lowered my
gun about the time that the sirens rang outside. I placed the gun
down and started turning on the lights, keeping at least one hand up
at all times. I knew the uniforms that arrived, one of them was Sgt.
Mary Russell.

Russell stood in the doorway
between the enclosed front porch and the living room, stopping before
the first body. She looked down at the body, then at me. She
considered me, then shrugged. “Nice boxers.”

I rolled my eyes. “Gee.
Thanks.”

She laughed as she shook her head
and holstered her gun. She looked over the bodies. “Dang, Wyatt.
Don’t you have quiet days?”

I
narrowed my eyes. “It’s been quiet for months.”

Her eyebrows went up, and smiled.
“Twice in one day, though? At least you’re making up for lost
time.”

I sighed. “Apparently.”

She looked down at the corpse,
and I did as well. The Kevlar was strange, mainly because there was
black masking tape on it… and the helmet. I glanced to the other
corpses in the room and on the stairs. The masking tape was on all of
them.

What the?

I stepped forward and crouched
down by the nearest corpse. I reached over to the edge of the masking
tape, gently teasing the tape over. I only needed a corner to come
off. It revealed the upper corner of a letter: S.


“Crud.”

Russell said, “What’s the
matter?”

I rose, and started to work my
way up the stairs. “I’m getting dressed. Call the LT. Call the
Captain. Then call Statler and Waldorf over at IA.”


“Why?”
she called after me.

I stopped on the second landing,
around the corpse under the window. “Tell them that the people who
tried to kill me are members of a SWAT team.”

Russell gave me a long look.
“Congratulations. I guess you’re a cop killer.”






Chapter 4: Picking Up the Pieces.

The SWAT team had invaded my home
at two in the morning. By 2:30, the neighbors were awake, and it
looked like my station house was having a block party on my street.
The SWAT van the team had arrived in was parked around the corner, so
the entire intersection would be blocked off until the scene was
processed. Ten patrol cars were used just to secure the area. CSU was
already there in record time, and they weren’t happy that Mariel,
Jeremy, and I had already walked all over the crime scene, since it
was mostly on our staircase.

CSU took photos of me and Mariel,
then confiscated our sleepwear. They collected rug fibers from the
front of Mariel’s night shirt to prove that she had been on the
floor. They took my clothing since I had blood spatter on it. We were
already informed that parts of the carpet on our staircase would be
taken away because of the burns from the flash bang. We were
processed before the rest of the crime scene, and we needed to get
dressed for the day.

Jeremy hadn’t been involved,
except in making the 911 call, and another call to the station. He
was already asleep on the couch. After being threatened at knife
point by a serial killer, and kidnapped by a cult with it’s own
Voodoo man, this was relatively boring. I was half afraid that when
puberty hit my son, he was going to turn into a thrill-seeking
adrenaline junkie. I could see a lot of ER visits in our future.

My Captain was there not long
after CSU finished with us. My Lieutenant barely beat him to it. Both
were in full dress uniforms, as though they were showing up to a
full-court press conference, or to a funeral. I didn’t relish
either prospect. They sat at the opposite end of the table while
Mariel sat at the other. She had been making coffee since the coast
was clear. They were all disposable cups, purchased after one of the
last CSU guys broke a cup the last time the house had been a crime
scene.

Then Alex Packard showed up. My
partner burst in through the front door barely dressed. He wore
loafers with no socks. His gray slacks were buckled, the fly only
half up. The buttons on his shirt were misaligned, but he’d given
up on the top two buttons, so it didn’t matter. His bright yellow
tie was draped over his neck, untied. What was left of his hair stuck
up at all sorts of odd angles.


“Tommy! Don’t say a thing!”
Alex called. “I’m your PBA rep, and I insist—”

I held up a hand. He stopped
raving for a moment as he stopped at the dining room table. He
grabbed the edge, and panted heavily. “Sorry. I ran. I lot. Gotta
never do that again.”

I restrained myself from rolling
my eyes. “Now that you’re here, we can start.”

Alex started to object. “Tommy—”

I lifted a tablet from the seat
next to me. It was normally Jeremy’s, which is why the case was
black with an Alex Ross rendering of The
Shadow
on the back. I tapped into the house WiFi, then turned it around to
my superiors and my partner.

Mariel left to go the kitchen.
She’d been here for the next part.

It was a full audio-video of the
entire attack. The cameras on the front porch, the stairs, and the
upper hallway caught every last moment. Not once did anyone hear the
word “Police!” or “Freeze!” The only verbal communication was
between me and Mariel. Everything between the officers was
communicated purely in hand gestures.

When the recording was over, both
of my superiors looked pissed off. They said nothing, and I didn’t
blame them. Officially, Internal Affairs should be the one to talk to
me right now, not them.

Right now, they were in an
awkward position. On the one hand, among fellow cops, there was
nothing more despised by the rank and file than a “traitor”—but
then, there is no one in the world more despised than someone who
turns on “his own.”


In the world of cops, if there is
a corrupt officer, most of my brothers in blue would probably prefer
to handle it internally.

If the situation is “I’m
going to take this drug money off of you as punishment for you being
stupid enough to deal in front of me,” most citizens would find
that illegal and corrupt. Many cops would dismiss it as being more
harmful to the dealer than the minimal jail time the dealer might
eventually be given, eventually. If it grows to be an institution of
extortion, that’s when most cops start getting uncomfortable. They
start splitting hairs with the question, “Is he extorting a citizen
or a career criminal?” If a cop starts abusing his authority to the
extent where the law-abiding are abused, other cops would much rather
take him into a dark alley and beat the crap out of him before
turning him in.

If the extortion and abuse of
authority extends to sexual favors, that’s more or less the point
where my fellow cops would rather throw him down a flight of stairs
before turning in said officer.

But really, the only person below
a traitor is a cop killer.

Now imagine the treatment that
would be given a police officer who tried to kill a fellow officer.

If you cringed, you have the
right idea. It’s one of the many reasons why even the most corrupt
cops would rather eat their service weapon than shoot at fellow cops.
If a cop killed another cop, the killer might risk having an
“accident” akin to falling into a wood chipper, feet first.

So both of my superiors were
facing a nightmare scenario, and doing the math on which was worse.

1: Headline, “THOMAS NOLAN
MURDERS SIX COPS.” This is the headline that wins a cold shoulder
from everyone in the department, and even future backup to “arrive
too late” to a full shootout.

2: “SWAT TEAM TRIES TO KILL
SAINTLY COP.” This headline gets every cop in the department to buy
me beers for getting them before they got me. Meanwhile, this also
puts every cop in the city under a magnifying glass, especially the
department out of which SWAT operated.

3: “COP ON COP VIOLENCE:
EVERYONE WINS.” This makes for a police department that closes
ranks and act amazingly cranky to the entire population.

This didn’t even count what
“Hizzonor” the Mayor, Ricardo Hoynes, would do.

Hoynes was already against cops
in general, and me in particular. Given that his Deputy Mayor for
Social Justice Programs was a zombie-raising Voodoo Bokor who had
tried to murder me a few months back, I could count on hearing a few
tasteful sound bites from the mayor during this entire ordeal.

Whether
or not Deputy Mayor Bokor Baracus (yes, this particular demonic
presence was that subtle) was just using the Mayor to further a
Satanic agenda, or if the Mayor was the greater darkness, was
unknown. Even my ability to smell evil was useless around City
Hall—there was so much evil in the air, it was impossible to get
directionality on its source. Alex dismissed it as being the usual
scent of politicians. I wasn’t so certain. The only bright side of
a Mayor Hoynes character assassination would be that everyone who
hated him (i.e.: every cop in the city) would be buying me drinks
until the press died down or until Hoynes found a new target.

So my Captain and LT had a lot to
think about.


“Let’s
have a conversation about who just tried to assassinate you,” my LT
said, taking the lead. “The patrol guys outside already ran the
SWAT truck and the IDs inside. The team lying dead on your stairs are
out of the Bronx. They’ve had a high casualty count, but then,
they’re SWAT, so that’s expected.”

I
frowned. “The
Bronx?
I’m happy I can even find
the
Bronx. I’m just as happy to forget that the Bronx even exists. If I
want to go the mainland, I go through Staten Island.”

Everyone smiled, except for the
Captain. “What’s the joke?” he asked.

I maintained strict control over
my face. There was always at least one person who never got the joke.
“I mean except for the Bronx, the entire city is on an island.”


“…Oh.
Right.”

Mariel came back from the kitchen
with a mug of coffee so large, I could put my fist in it. She slid it
in front of Alex. He muttered, “Bless you,” and took a healthy
drag from it.

I
held up my hands to refocus us back on the matter that brought
everyone into my living room. “Back to the primary topic: Why try
to kill me? I don’t
even know these people. Better yet, I don’t even know any of their
friends, relatives, or passing acquaintances.”

Alex jabbed in my direction with
the mug. “But they know you. You’ve been in the news a lot.
Curran? The Women’s Health Corps? The death cult? The Mayor?”

Thankfully, Alex had phrased
everything in terms that wouldn’t get the three of us thrown into a
padded cell. What he really meant was Curran,
that serial kill possessed by a demon,
and that
Moloch-Worshiping cultists who brought home sacrifices from their
abortion clinic day jobs
and … okay, in the case of Mayor Hoynes, everyone knew that the man
hated my guts. Hoynes probably hated me even more since I had leaked
some especially damaging insults about his constituents that he
boasted about to me and to Alex … and to our body cameras.
Seriously, for a politician, he wasn’t that smart. I wish there was
a good reason that he had been elected Mayor, but he was merely a
supposed libertarian who ran on the Democrat ticket.

But in response to Alex’s
questions, I rolled my eyes. “That was months ago. Why didn’t
they come after me back then? I wasn’t exactly in hiding. Hell, I
had reporters stalking Mariel and Jeremy for months.
I’d think a few SWAT guys could come and find me. The shooter at
the church this morning? He and his friends could have been random
EDPs from the internet who hated my guts. But them and
a
SWAT team?”

Alex frowned, shrugged, and drank
deeply from the coffee mug. “Well, I don’t have any better idea.
How about you, L.T.?”

My Lieutenant held his hands up
like he was being threatened with an armed weapon. “Don’t look at
me.”

I took a deep breath, and let it
out slowly. I’d gotten nearly five hours of sleep, but the
adrenaline letdown was getting to me. “We may have to table this
for tomorrow. Maybe someone can look into the SWAT team and maybe we
can piece together what their problem was? Preferably before one of
their friends on the force takes issue with how they tried to kill
me, and I got them first? I think—”

My train of thought was derailed
by a phone call. I hesitated for a moment. The ring tone was the
“Imperial March” by John Williams—Darth Vader’s tune. It was
the ringtone for “D,” the self-proclaimed “gangster” Daniel
David DiLeo. I knew
he was a criminal,
but I’d never seen him do
anything,
so I’d never had to arrest him. And he wasn’t evil, I would have
smelled it on him. Crime
was his business, not “thug life”—his and his associates’
business uniforms were black leather jackets, black button-down
shirts, button-down collars with the top button undone.


As D himself would put it, “You
can’t think you’re gangster if you can’t pull up your damn
pants.”

There were a few scattered black
jeans, and they wore their pants belted around their waists.

The
short version was that D
was a work acquaintance. Very much like the cartoon with Sam the
sheepdog and Ralph the coyote, who punch in and punch out of the
sheep meadow at either end of the Warner Brothers cartoon. Only D and
I were far more cordial when we were both on the clock.

I had listed D as a confidential
informant, so I didn’t hesitate long before answering the phone. I
held it up and explained to the others at the table, “This is my
CI, Mister DiLeo. I presume he knows something… I can’t think of
another reason for him to call.”

Everyone shrugged and nodded.

I picked up. “Hey, D. How are
you doing?”


“Don’t you hey
me, Detective. Someone just tried to whack me because of you.”

I blinked. I had rarely heard D
raise his voice. It was even more rare for D to yell in my general
direction. But given what he just said, I understood. “Would you
care to elaborate on that?”


“Yeah,
I’ll happily elaborate,”
D roared. “I nearly got shot by the damn gang
squad. The gang
squad.
I am a white
collar
criminal, man. The freaking gang
unit?
Just because I’m black. This is insulting. I should’ve known
you’d be a pain in the ass.”

I frowned. “Explain what this
has to do with me?”





“Don’t you pay attention to
what happens in your own station? There’s a hit out on you on the
Dark Web. It’s $10 million for your head. They don’t even want
you alive. It’s dead all the way.”









Click here to continue reading

Infernal Affairs, Chapter 2

After a shoot out happens in the church of a police officer, the only logical thing to happen next is, well, the clean up.



Here, I just wanted to hint at things to come.



Chapter 3 is when the fun really starts....



Yes, I know I just said that after I had a shootout in a church and on the street with three armed gunmen. What's your point?



Anyway, Chapter 2






















Chapter 2: Everybody Knows Your
Name

When my partner, Alex Packard,
arrived, the party was already in full swing. The entire church had
been sealed off, as had the surrounding block. This was especially
fun when you consider that the road to one side of the church was the
southbound service road for the Cross Island Expressway.

Alex strode in the front door of
the church, and up the stairs into the vestibule, now called the
gathering space for reasons that surpassed all understanding. My
family and I were on a bench in the corner and he came right for us.
He sat on the bench going at right angles to ours, leaned back, and
smiled.

Alex was a slender, older man. He
had an odd pot-belly in the middle of all of that skinny. It was
probably from years of booze, but I wasn’t going to inquire too
closely. I had never seen him take a drink. I only knew about his
former drinking problem from a demon, who had been psyching him out
at the time. His suit was gray and rumpled, just like he was. He was
balding on top, with a graying mustache that Tom Selleck would have
approved of. He carried a large paper bag.



“Really?” Alex asked. “Your
wife is pregnant. You’re with your kid—hey, Jeremy—and you’re
in church.
Church, Tommy. Can’t you take even one
day off?”

With my arm around Mariel’s
shoulders, I gave him a half-shrug. “They find me. They always find
me.”

Alex smirked. He shook his head.
“No kidding.”


“I’m really not.” I
explained the last words from the first gunman.

Alex winced. “No surprise.”


“Yeah!” Jeremy exclaimed
excitedly. His voice dropped to a whisper that only mommy, daddy, and
Uncle Alex could hear. “Because Daddy’s a superhero! They’re
always going to find him.”

Isn’t that an encouraging
thought? I
pondered.

Alex merely smiled at Jeremy.
“Kinda, Jerry.” He looked back to me. “I ran into Sarge on the
way in. She handed me a nice little starter package for you.”

Alex raised the paper bag. He
reached in and pulled out individual items, explaining each as he
went along. Everything was in clear evidence bags, sealed with the
red tape of the NYPD Crime Scene Unit.


“They went through the
shooter’s pockets. We had these.” The first item was a large
evidence bag that could have held the contents of Mariel’s purse.
“Anti-psychotics by the truckload. I’m actually surprised he had
the ability to walk upright.”

Alex placed it down on the bench
next to him, and grabbed the next bag. This one looked like the
contents of his wallet. “Membership cards. He was a registered
Demoncrat, as though we couldn’t tell from the Che T-shirt and that
he was trying to shoot up a church.”

I smiled despite myself. Alex had
taken to referring to anyone on the Left as a ‘Demoncrat’ ever
since a demon-possessed serial killer who worked for the Women’s
Health Corps tried to kill us—and after we discovered that the WHC
itself was, in reality, a front for a Moloch-worshipping Death Cult.
After a while, it did seem that evil had a particular political
affiliation.

I had little problem with him
saying it because he had genuine cause for a grudge. As most of New
York City either voted Democrat or just didn’t vote, I was a touch
more reluctant to brand all of them with the same demonic brush.

Then again, discussing much of
the fallout from the WHC incident was another conversation.


“And,” Alex continued,
“here’s the fun
part.” He pulled
out a smaller bag. This one clearly showed a large newspaper
clipping. It was one photo—me, from nearly a year ago, during the
incident with said demon. I didn’t know which headline it was
under. It may have been the one who framed my arrest of the perp as
Saint versus psycho or the one that claimed I framed an innocent
abortionist because I was a Catholic.



“He really was there for you,”
Alex explained. “Just you. We don’t have anything speaking to
why.”

Mariel scoffed at that. “Maybe
he was employed by LaBitch?” she asked, referring to the former
head of the Women’s Health Corps that Mariel had personally pushed
into a fire pit. “Or the Mayor? Or maybe he’s a dirty commie and
just doesn’t like high-profile Catholics like Tommy?”

I frowned. I opened my mouth to
dispute that … and gave up before I started. While I had spent most
of my life trying to keep my head down and out of the public eye, the
last year had been filled with enough various high-profile incidents
that if I had caught the eye of some nut cases online, they would
have had little trouble tracking my career.


“Lucky for me,” I said, “I
moved after that article was published.” There were two reasons for
that. One, the property damage caused the local village committee to
drive us out of the private neighborhood. Two, the newspaper article
that picture had been taken from had come complete with my home
address. The newspaper had issued a non-apology, but the damage had
been done, and we moved a little over eight months ago.

Unfortunately, someone already
knew my home address and had had sent zombies to my house shortly
thereafter.


“‘Lucky’ isn’t the term
I’d use,” Alex said. He shrugged. “But that’s not my problem.
My problem is they may hit me by accident.” He slid away the
evidence back into the bag. “For the record, the first shooter, the
one in the church, is connected to very little, unless we think the
entire Communist community is out to get Nolan.”

I chuckled. “In that case, time
to arrest Columbia University.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Funny.”

I frowned. “No. Not really.
Especially considering the number of people they murdered last
century.”

Alex laughed. “Columbia or
Communists?”

Mariel nudged me with the crown
of her head. “Is there a difference?”

I looked to Alex. “When you say
Communist …?”


“I mean that he’s a
card-carrying commie. He has cards in his wallet for the party, for
Anti-Fa.”

I winced. I had never had a
personal encounter with them, but I had read enough to know I didn’t
like them very much. For a group claiming to be “anti-fascist,”
they were amazingly, well, fascist. Their tactics ranged from
violence against people they disagreed with (which was anyone to the
right of Mao and Stalin) to … even more violence against property.
They had operated in Europe, beginning as anarchist Communists …
because orderly Communism was bad, surely chaotic
Communism would be even better? If you can’t take over a
government-- or in the case of Russia keep
one
–
maybe destroying it all would be progress? The European version of
the moment hated Catholics … Quel
surprise.


“We know that it wasn’t an
actual Antifa attack,” I said. “They tend to swarm. We would have
had a few dozen raiding the church just to rip me apart. It might
have even worked.”

Alex frowned. He was probably
considering the various and sundry abilities I possess, running the
odds of which would be the best option for going up against a riot.
After putting down an entire prison riot by myself the previous year,
surely a bunch of local thugs wouldn’t be a problem for me.

I wasn’t going to explain, yet
again, that I wasn’t a superhero. While I exhibited some of the
miraculous abilities usually discussed about saints, they weren’t
something that I could take for granted- or even explain why they
were given me. The powers came from God, not from me. I wasn’t a
comic book superhero, no matter what Alex or Jeremy insisted. Jeremy
had a good excuse. He was ten.

At least Jeremy knew better.


“Dad couldn’t do anything!”
he exclaimed. “Too many witnesses. Do you want to bust his secret
identity?”

Mariel and I smiled while Alex
shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. Well, it would be hard to fit into a
DD5 report. But that’s why I write them up when that happens.”

I said nothing, but said a silent
thank you prayer to God that I hadn’t needed any of the fancier
abilities that He had graced me with. While I still smelled out evil
on a day-to-day basis, there had been no need to be in two places at
once, levitate, drink poison, or heal deadly wounds. Considering the
circumstances I was in, I would be perfectly happy if I never needed
those abilities. Though to be honest, I was a little surprised that
it had taken this long for a situation to arise again. I had gotten
into so many firefights, I had a reputation. The calm between storms
had been so long, I hadn’t been called “Wyatt
Earp” in nearly a week.

So much for that going away.


“I’m told that the Bishop’s
not too happy with the whole thing.”

I winced. That was something I
didn’t want to deal with: Church politics. “Of course he’s not.
He’s going to have to reconsecrate the church.” I sighed. “Can
we leave now? Didn’t eat breakfast before we came.”

Alex shrugged. “I hear you. At
least there’s one good thing: you won’t be investigating what’s
left. With any luck, this will be an isolated incident. The first
shooter was just another in a long line of Demoncrat shooters.”

My brows arched. The secondary
shooters had had M4 automatic weapons, ready to take out cops and a
full church to get to me.



Alex sighed. “Yeah. I know. I
don’t believe it either.”






Continue to read the story here.

Infernal Affairs, Chapter 1: Martyr and Saint

I'm tough on my characters.



Take Detective Thomas Nolan, NYPD, for example.



I've killed friends.



I've killed friends of his children.



I've put him in the hospital three times.



He's been shot, stabbed, impaled, and beaten into the pavement ....



And that's just book one.



This book, well, it's time to see what Tommy can take.



Because this time, we're going to try to make him a saint.



By hook or by crook.



Welcome to Chapter 1 of Infernal Affairs.








Chapter 1: Martyr and Saint

Martyr --
a title in the Catholic Church for saints who died for their faith.
One that I never expected to have.


As I sat in the front row, side
seat of my church, Saint Gregory the Great, it only occurred to me
that at least the former title would be slapped upon my tombstone
when the bullets started to fly.


Father Jerome Delany, the
celebrant, was the first to be shot. The sharp crack
of the rifle echoed through as he started to talk about how God was
and is Love. He shuddered
with the impact as the five bullets punched into his chest. He fell
back with the last bullet, which was impressive for a man as old as
he had been.

My family and I were seated to
the right of the altar as you faced the altar. We were less
interested in being seen in the front and more interested in being in
a position to drown out the guitarist on the other side of the altar
from us with our singing. We weren’t good, but we were mildly in
tune, unlike the guitar, or the cantor.

I was with Mariel, my wife, and
Jeremy, my son. Mariel had long, wavy chestnut brown hair, round,
deep-brown eyes, a pleasant heart-shaped face, and a healthy olive
complexion. As Ben Franklin would say, we fit well together. Jeremy
was eleven, energetic, and …
very much an 11-year-old boy.

When the first shot went off, I
dropped to one knee and reached for my handgun. My wife Mariel bent
over to protect our unborn daughter. Our son Jeremy crouched so low
he was nearly under the seats. “Plan 22 C,” I said.

Both of them nodded. Ever since
the serial killer had broken into our home, we had come up with a
collection of contingency plans.


Plan C was always “run while I
lay down cover fire.”

Before they could even get off
the floor, I jumped onto the back of the chair in front of me. It
tilted forward and I jumped onto the next chair before it fell
forward, and I leaped to the small rail for climbing up on the altar
-- it had been installed for those who couldn't do steps without
holding onto something - and then took a giant leap to the center.

I went for the top of the altar
for multiple reason: first, visibility, and second, I wanted to be
the biggest, clearest target. Thank God none of the paraphernalia for
later in Mass was there yet.

The shooter was at the back of
the church, rifle held high. Since the first shot, everyone in the
church stood and ran. Few had ducked to cover, -along with those who
had merely tripped those trying to run.

And half the church had run
directly into the center aisle, in front of the shooters.

I dropped to one knee, gun up and
ready. I grabbed the microphone from the altar and bellowed, “Freeze!
Police!”

The rifle man turned, and swung
his muzzle up to aim for me.

I aimed high and fired. The first
bullet scraped along the barrel of the rifle, catching the ejector,
and drilling into his shoulder. It turned him around before a round
went off. He nearly decapitated a statue of the Virgin Mary. The
second bullet struck up just right of center mass (his right, not
mine). My third bullet missed by a hair, scoring him across the
forehead.

The shooter’s rifle came down.
He staggered back and grabbed his arm. He slumped up against the side
of a pew, grabbed his rifle with his good hand, and raised the barrel
to aim again.


I fired again, catching him in
the breast, right beneath the clavicle. He leaned straight back this
time, and went down.


The only way to get to him would
have been through the horde of church goers. I frowned, thought it
over a moment, and prayed a little.

I pushed forward in a leap …
that was aided by a little divine intervention. The levitation trick
that I prayed for was just enough to leap from the altar to the front
pew. I leaped from the back of the pew to the one behind it. I leaped
from one pew to another, looking like a parkour runner. I wasn’t
thinking at the time, giving only a brief thought to how I would
explain this if anyone had noticed -God’s little parlor trick.

I leaped off once the crowd had
petered out, landing in the aisle.


This also put me in direct line
of sight of the shooter.

The muzzle came up a few inches
and pulled the trigger.


It clicked.

The shooter looked as confused as
I felt. I lunged forward and kicked the rifle away from him. The
rifle had been damaged. My first bullet jammed the ejector, and the
last spent casing did not eject.

The shooter was a walking
cliché: socialist, hammer and sickle badge, Che Guevara shirt.


The shooter smiled at me and
laughed. “Almost got you, you capitalist pig. You won’t be lucky
next time.”

There was a burst of bullets from
outside. My head shot up. The automatic gunfire was unlike the
shooter I just dropped. I darted out of the back of the vestibule
(away from the altar), then through the front door of the church.

Outside the church was empty of
people. Since I didn’t trust to locate the gunfire by sound alone
(directionality of sound can be a pain in the butt), I turned right.
Because there had been an active shooter in the church, and no one
had appeared from the nearby police car parked near the entrance
behind the altar side of the church.

I turned around the corner. Four
men with M4 rifles were hosing down the three men crouched behind the
patrol car. I charged the gunmen. They didn’t turn. I was within
thirty feet of them when I opened fire. I emptied the magazine into
two of the shooters.


The empty magazine ejected from
the pistol as I came within arm’s reach of the remaining two
shooters. I hammered my pistol behind the ear of the shooter on the
left. His head bounced off the rear windshield he was hiding behind.
A second later, I crashed into the shooter on the right. I crushed
the shooter between my shoulder and the side of an SUV. I drove my
elbow into the shooter’s ear, and then pistol-whipped him. I went
back and forth with my pistol, smacking it against the skull of each
gunman in turn until they fell down.

I kicked aside the gunmen’s
weapons, reloaded my pistol, then took two steps back, covering
them. I called out, “Clear! NYPD! Plain clothes!”

Why didn’t they even
consider sending in more than one guy to the church? Because I’m
one guy going to Mass versus being ambushed by two armed cops. Duh.






Continue reading here.

Delain - April Rain (Minniva Cover)

I think I'm going to go back to my Saturday music blog post.  I would keep up the full films posted on YouTube, but so many of those get yanked, it's not worth it. Maybe again sometime.



The artist I've picked for the next few months is Minniva. I believe she's Russian, based off of her speaking accent. She's made a lot of songs sound awesome, even when I don't like the original singer.



This is a case in point. I'm not actually a fan of Delain in most cases. Very rarely does the lead singer work for me -- the previous post is one of those times. Minniva makes almost anything easier on the ears.



Anyway, a bit of music for your listening pleasure.







While you listen to her fairly pleasant voice, I'm going to suggest that you check out some of the following books.



Enjoy.






Hell Spawn  Death Cult








  Infernal Affairs  

Music blog: Masters Of Destiny

I tripped over this one recently. It was fun.










And while you're here, can I tempt you with some sweet, sweet merch?




Hell Spawn  Death Cult








  Infernal Affairs