G. Derek Adams's Blog, page 23

Spell/Sword Kindle Edition – FREE

For a limited time, of course.

Spell/Sword
FREE KINDLE EBOOK ON AMAZON
8/30 — 9/3. 2013.

Labor Day Weekend and some change. It coincides neatly with my trip to Atlanta for Dragon*Con — I’ll be wearing my Self-

Kindle Version

Promotion Helm of Shamelessness +3. I’ve printed up a ton of business cards to give to people letting them know about the deal.

The ebook has always been free to Amazon Prime members, and DRM free to boot — but now I’m doubling down. Anyone and everyone can own my book at no cost other than the time it takes to download it.  Even if you don’t own a Kindle, you’ll be able tor read it on your Mac, PC, iPad, smartphone, tablet, etc — via the free Kindle app.

Amazon  Reviews
Goodreads Reviews

I’ll be tooting my horn a good deal in leadup to the promotion — hopefully convincing you that my book is worth nothing.

More information about Spell/Sword : Buy the Book

When I’m Not Writing

Hey! Here’s that thing I’ve been working on that isn’t Riddle Box. My local and beloved community theater is putting on a production of Hamlet — a freaking rarity in those sort of circles. Here’s the super snazzy trailer video, if you’re in Georgia and want to come and watch . I’m playing Claudius and the Ghost, and I appear briefly in the trailer wearing a crown and an ill-fitting jerkin.

Paradox Headache

[Pro Tip: Don't EVER get me talking about time travel.]

Time manipulation can produce many unexpected and strange effects.

Several of which have only been hypothesized by researchers in the field. Eyewitness accounts are rare, and are almost completely discredited. The problem with this esoteric study is that it requires a unique vantage point — one would need to be able to observe multiple points in time simultaneously, using a common frame of reference.

Which is impossible, of course.

However, theoretical time researchers have postulated the following scenario.

*The Apple Tree Scenario.*

Premise: Time travel exists. One can witness the full life span of an apple tree, from seed to sawmill. The researchers choose two

Artist – Dani Azahed

points of reference, to limit the variables. The tree is 2 Years Old [a sapling] and the tree is 50 Years Old [full grown].

Experiment A: A researcher travels to the sapling and cuts an ‘X’ into the bark.

Result: An ‘X’ appears in the bark of the full grown tree.

Experiment B: The researcher applies a salve to the cut that accelerates natural healing and bark repair.

Result: The ‘X’ disappears from the bark of the full grown tree.

This scenario suggests that time seems to have a certain amount of elasticity. Cause rippling forward to effect – the observed node, or foci of attention alternating between multiple states dependent upon the actions taken in the past.

Of course this is a very basic thought experiment, which was not nearly exciting enough for these esoteric scientists. They began to hypothesize, what if the tree were a person? What would that person experience as they suddenly manifested a scar? Would memories of the assault appear in their mind, or could they simultaneously remember the previous continuity? And how would they feel when the scar disappeared? Can the human mind contain multiple concurrent events? Different versions of the same event all of which happened, and didn’t happen?

It gave the researchers a headache. So in a fit of self-mockery, the researchers dubbed the possible human effect, the *Paradox Headache.*

Genre Legends Given Brief Reprieve by Vainglorious Upstart

I’m too busy learning lines to work on Riddle Box this week, I’m behind schedule and that sucks for me.

But it’s good for you — I’m talking to you, the Joe Abercrombies, Neil Gaimans, and Patrick Rothfussessess of the world.

I’m giving you a break – I’m slowing down my minotaur-octane fueled march to genre supremacy, for like two weeks or

The devil’s gaze!!!!

something.  You have some time without me BREATHING DOWN YOUR NECKS.

Use it wisely. Build  the walls of your worlds tall and strong. Give your protagonists the most fiendishly devised magical weapons, backstories and clever sidekicks. DRAW A FANCY MAP OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL CITY WITH ITS RICH PAGEANT OF HISTORIC LORE SO I CAN KICK IT DOWN.

Because I’m coming. Me, Jonas, and Rime. And Sideways. And the pigs. And the magic chickens. And my rock and roll bard crooning on his ebony guitar, Lady Moon-Death.

WE ARE COMING. SWORDPUNK IS AT YOUR EXQUISITELY CHISELED AND WELL-WRITTEN GATES.

But you know, not for a week or so.

Consider yourself advised.

Something there is…

Something there is

like black iron

in the spine of humanity

fragment uit ‘123 DOOD’
Artist: illustrafrieke

not always, not forever

but enough

enough to preserve

to stand in the wind

enough to unbend knees

and grit teeth

found when we seek

proof again

that we are

to be feared

a horror of human will

great weapon of the mind

skeleton-metal and unbroken

singing in our bones

how terrible

and certain

the salamander birthright

of the children

of man.

Spell/Sword – Fanart by Erin L. Moore

 

Current moood: This cow.

This is some amazing artwork from reader, friend, and reader-friend Erin Lindsey. I’m putting it below the jump because it is just ever-so-slightly spoilerific.

And wonderful.

This is only for readers who’ve finished Spell/Sword!

 

Erin Lindsey Moore – Artist
ebeelove.com

 

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

I love the little details most of all, like her nail polish, and the little umbrella in  her adult beverage.

Real Life Cluster Bomb

And…whining.

We just moved into a new house that we are renting. A house that was not cleaned, painted, repaired or in any way made ready for our presence.  We have about 40% more stuff than can easily fit in the storage spaces in the house. Upon move-in we discovered three gas leaks, one in the stove. The stove is crammed full of food residue, and the floor underneath it is caked with grease.

Our landlord is doing everything they can to fix the problems and get the house up to snuff, but we’re still 20 steps back from where we wanted to start moving into the house.

I’m in a local production of Hamlet, playing Claudius and the Ghost. I have to be off book [all lines memorized] by Thursday. I’m about 30% of the way there, and have a full work week, plus rehearsal every evening.

So at work, in the evenings, getting up early to cram my lines — doing the best I can to unpack and get the new house squared away.

Plus  this wacky-ass writing experiment, Runeclock on top.

So, upshot — writing on The Riddle Box has ground to a halt. I’ve been trying to snatch some time here and there at work, but right now learning my lines is the most pressing.

I’m going to try my damndest to at least eke out 4 pages this week, bringing the rough draft to a nice 85 pages — but I’m kind of riding the whirlwind this week.

I honestly love weeks like this where I’m creatively taxed in multiple directions and mediums — but the extra toll of moving, unpacking, and sorting out the problems with the new house are making me feel stretched out and paper-thin.

But hey, the show opens next week! Then all that’s left is the crying. And the drinking. And the unpacking.

Runeclock- New Sessions

[HA. Still writing more for Runeclock than Riddle Box. Bad writer. BAD.]

Haunted House

The fire crackled and spit sparks into the air as the malformed log fell into the embers. Lucht had placed it with great care for maximum light and heat, but it required constant tending.

A rustle of leaves as the wind sidled through the trees of the Proust forest. It was late autumn and the winter chill slinked from tree to tree, occasionally sticking its head out to menace the children with its cool breath. Winter and the wind were old comrades and they hoped to hasten their time of celebration.

But for now the fire kept most of their plots at bay, and the evening dark also kept a respectful distance. Trigger considered howling at the sliver of moon he could spy through the canopy, but it hardly seemed worth the effort. A repast of over-cooked asparagus and sausage was digesting nicely in his stomach. The children sat around the fire, each preparing their marshmallow with the solemnity of a ritual. Mark jealously guarded the bag of white sweet fluff, but was easily overruled by the other’s requests and his sisters commands. Nora jammed another marshmallow into the coals to get the perfect obsidian-black crust she preferred. Jema sat nearby, a trifle jealous as Crim casually held his steel arm in the fire with a fistful of marshmallows.

 

To the Blackboard

The instructor’s voice droned on, a litany of suffering, torment, and bland history tumbling across his teeth like an ankle-deep brook. Mr. Tavis was a brilliant man, but he had a complete apathy towards the interest level or attention span of his audience. All he required was their silence.

The cadets did their best to remain focused with varying degrees of success. Exams were close, and the information they were wading in was pertinent and most definitely on the test, but the late afternoon sun made it all too easy to allow their minds to wander. The sun slanted across the far wall of the classroom and moved as all too slowly. The class would soon be over, but it was not quite yet.

“Now.” Mr. Tavis popped a brief pebble in the water. “That’s a brief review of the major events of the Blank Invasion that precipitated the War, does anyone have any questions before I go on?”

The short-statured man leaned against his desk, and scratched at the dry skin that plagued the back and sides of his neck. It had earned him an unfortunate nickname among the less-kind students of the Academy. Mr. Iguana. It didn’t help that he sometimes licked his dry lips, or allowed his wide eyes to move around the room like a desert lizard.

 

Runeclock – Under the Wheel

 

Drawn on by curiosity, by pride, by fear of being alone, the band of children slipped down below the Ferris Wheel, through the thick iron gate and through the tall iron door. The dog and the strange young woman accompanied them, hard on their heels like sentinels or comets. The children tucked their treasures away and went down into the groaning dark.

Where the Fairgrounds had been full of garish color and golden afternoon sun, the passageway was gray and dark green, lit only by intermittent globes of noxious orange. Their curiosity and pride was quickly shadowed, but the fear of being alone made them press close together — hands seeking hands as they chased the mysterious figure.

They passed through strange rooms and long halls. Old, cobwebbed dynamos and blinking boards beyond their knowledge. In the air was a flat smell that one day they would learn to recognize as gunpowder and the burnt ozone smell of rune-tech. They went on beyond sense or safety — above their breath they could hear the quiet footfalls of their quarry, leading them further and further underneath the Wheel.

At last they could go no farther, the passageway terminated in a wide bay filled with glass canisters and a few odd articulated automatons that seemed like they belonged somewhere above ground in the vast Fair — brightly colored paint and harlequin smiles flecked with rust and dust. But it was not these sights that made them all stumble to a halt.

In the center of the room was a massive square console bristling with light and humming with power. It seemed clear that this was the main power source and control for the Wheel — it was also obvious that this was not this device’s original purpose. Some vast heart of war that still beat here within the hidden interior of the Fair. But it was not this that made every eye grow wide and their hands tighten around their companions’ hands.

It was the man.

The man stood with his back to the them, one hand resting on the console, quite at ease. In later years the children would argue about the man’s height and the color of his wide-brimmed hat. Eight feet tall! The hat was blue, with a long blue feather! He was only six and some change, but the hat was black. Black as night.

But they would never argue about what he said then. Nor what happened then. In that they were all in awed, perfect agreement.

“An audience? I suppose it must be so. Great moments in history do require it, I suppose. The observers must be paid, must have their hire and salary, must validate the world with their silent affirmation.” the man turned and smiled at the children with a quiet, tender madness. “I suppose they will ask you what you saw, and who I was, and why this all happened. You will tell them this: I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world have so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world. And you will tell them that you were the witnesses of a grand event, a Beginning , a true beginning if the wash and wave of Time can truly be said to contain such things.”

The man pointed to an empty space just to his left with a long finger. “I have calculated this very carefully, exactly when it will be appear. How lucky or fated you are to be here to see this…the Greenglass Node!”

pop

And there it was, a node like the others they had seen in their lives — but also unlike. It was made of thick bottle-glass, and seemed a mistake — but still flared with green light as if it had a star in its belly.

The man flew into action, throwing switches and mashing buttons in a complex pattern. The waiting node seemed to respond in some way, become more solid or flare brighter. The console begin to emit sparks and a thin trickle of white smoke. A few of the nearby robots groaned with reflexive pain as the console activated them, desperately trying to offset the energy coursing through it.

The man doffed his wide-brimmed hat, and bowed with proud triumph. His face shone in the greenglass light as he reached out to activate the node. “Now truly I am the master of the Wave, I am the King of Time!”

The man and the node vanished together, leaving the room as empty as forgotten promises.

The children would not remember their panicked flight from underneath the Wheel, or the exact moment when they realized that the robots where fleeing alongside them, or the exact feeling of relief they experienced when the emerged into the Fair into the protective arms of the green-guards. Parents gave punishment, and more than a few nightmares were earned.

But they all would remember what the man said, and what he did. And the look on his face, the pure, terrible, awful joy.

Runeclock – Treasure

The green-guards Jak and Kanley lumbered onto the gazebo like a stork and a penguin. The two friends quickly scanned the Midway, but saw neither their young quarry or the danger that lurked between the garish-colored booths of steel and light.

The children regrouped and followed Crim’s lead faster and faster towards the great wheel. The golden sun was beginning to set and it’s fire showed the great bones of the Ferris Wheel stark-skeletal as they approached.

The steel-touched boy lead them to a tall booth right near the base of the Wheel. It was shuttered and dark. His rust-flecked hand sparkled in the late sun as he held it up in caution. The scatter-wag band of children, bandits, dogs, mysteries and wonders as one crouched behind a tall sign advertising the Wheel’s wonders as they watched.

With practised ease, Crim popped a latch with his metal hand, and slithered up inside the booth. A few breaths later and he emerged, triumphant with a battered cardboard box.

Crim came into the circle of the others with his treasure, and proudly displayed it all to see. There were more than a few toy ray guns, but also several action figures of various type painted in eye-scorchingly bright color. A gargoyle, a green knight, a tiny man riding a beetle, one ridiculous figure that carried a sword far too large for the plastic arms to bear the weight.

The steel-touched’s eyes sparkled. “Regular haul, ain’t it? Proper.”