David Lee Summers's Blog, page 24

An Old Friend of the Family

Back in June, I had fun reading Fred Saberhagen’s novel The Holmes-Dracula File, where Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula share a mysterious adventure involving the giant rat of Sumatra. Because of that, I decided to continue on and see where Saberhagen took me in the third novel of his Dracula series, An Old Friend of the Family. This novel moves the action up to the “present” day. Of course, this means the time the novel was written and published, circa 1979. In An Old Friend of the Family,...

Shiver Me Deck Plates!

My writing journey began in earnest with the series that would come to be known as the Space Pirates’ Legacy series. I published the first novel, The Pirates of Sufiro, in 1996. The series was picked up by LBF Books, which would be acquired by Lachesis Publishing. The series remained with them for some fourteen years until the rights reverted to me. In 2019, I released a new first book of the series called Firebrandt’s Legacy and then re-edited all the books for release through Hadrosaur Produc...

Join the Owl Riders!

The Clockwork Legion series came about from three things happening around the same time. While walking through my neighborhood, I happened upon a family of burrowing owls. Each day I passed, I lingered a little longer and crept a little closer—I knew I started to get a little too close when they whistled at me and grew agitated, moving from foot to foot, almost like they were dancing. Right around that time, my neighbor told me the story of a witch, supposedly buried in one of the local cemeteri...

Join the Ultimate Battle

I met Greg Ballan during the time we were both published by Lachesis Publishing. When Lachesis decided not to take any new books for publication, I was fortunate to eventually acquire Greg’s Hybrid series for Hadrosaur Productions. This is a terrific series if you like superheroes. Of course, if you have a super-powered being, you have to challenge him with villains who push his powers to the limit. Greg does just that in this series. As we reach the final two weeks of the Smashwords Summer/Wint...

The Weird and Wild West

I’ve been a fan of Weird Westerns ever since I first discovered the television show The Wild Wild West starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. I loved the idea of adding aliens, mad scientists, and maybe even some magic into the west. Later, I would discover comics like Jonah Hex and books like Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, which would increase my appreciation of the genre. Today, I’m highlighting three of Hadrosaur Productions’ Weird Western titles. The first is a short story collection by vet...

New Worlds to Explore

At Kitt Peak National Observatory, I’m proud to support a NASA-funded instrument called NEID deployed at the WIYN Telescope. NEID’s job is to gather data on known exoplanets, getting better information about orbits, sizes, and masses, plus following up on some exoplanet candidates initially detected by space-based telescopes such as Kepler and TESS. Steve Howell, who served as Kepler’s Project Scientist, was at one time WIYN’s Telescope Scientist. He came to me a few years ago and wondered if we...

Get Ready for a New Scarlet Order Novel

My big writing project so far this year as been my third Scarlet Order vampire novel. Right now, the book is in the hands of beta readers while I work on some short stories. Still, I hope I’ll be able to wrap up Ordeal of the Scarlet Order and get it through edits before this year is out. At the very latest, the novel will be available in early 2024. This year’s Smashwords Summer/Winter sale is a great opportunity to get ready for the new novel. I’m offering the two earlier novels at half off th...

Travels Through Time and Space

Summer is a great time for travel in the northern hemisphere where the days are long and there’s time to get out and explore. While traveling, I like to load up my e-reader with great books. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, it’s winter. Still a great time to have a good book ready for a long night. The Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale continues and today I present one title that will take you on an adventure through time and I present an opportunity to travel to a distant planet. Whether you’r...

Revolutionary Deals for Independence Day

Happy Independence Day! I hope you’re having a good day with friends and family. For the holiday, I enjoy a nice cookout and the opportunity to watch a good fireworks show. I’ve had to work some nights at Kitt Peak National Observatory for Independence Day, but I’ve still managed to catch fireworks shows on some of those nights. We don’t shoot off fireworks from the observatory, but from our mountaintop vantage point, we can see fireworks shows in several of the surrounding cities, including Tuc...

Monster Deal on Monster Books

Today, I’m at the Colorado Convention Center for Fan Expo Denver, where I’m talking to people about my books and I’m showing my wares. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll drop by. You can get more details about the event at https://fanexpohq.com/fanexpodenver/. Today is also the beginning of the Smashwords Summer/Winter sale which runs all month long. The sale gets its name because it’s summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern. If you’ve not purchased from them before, Smash...