David Lee Summers's Blog, page 55

Powers of Darkness

When I read Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker last month, I noticed that the part sections featured epigrams from a Bram Stoker book I’d never heard of before called Makt Myrkranna. It turns out this was the version of Dracula serialized in the Icelandic magazine Falkjonan from 1900 to 1901. The thing is, this isn’t just a translation of Dracula as most of us who discovered it in English know, it’s a completely different version. The title translates as Powers of Darkness and in 2016, Valdi...

The Astronomer’s Crypt Trailer – Take Two

In March, as most of the United States began to shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic, I received word that my publisher was willing to return the publishing rights for my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt to me. This was not altogether a surprise. I knew Lachesis Publishing was changing the focus of its business. Still, Lachesis had treated the book well and they had sold lots of copies, helping it to reach Amazon’s bestseller lists a couple of times. What’s more, it meant that the beautiful trailer I...

Dracul

Last month, I was invited to join the Vampyre Library Book Club hosted by Boutique du Vampyre in New Orleans. The first featured selection was the novel Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker. Dacre Stoker is the great grandnephew of Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and the manager of the Bram Stoker estate.

Dracul

The novel Dracul imagines that Bram Stoker was inspired to write his most famous novel by events from his life. It’s known that Bram was a rather sickly child and there were fear...

Perseverance in Space

Last Thursday, I woke up early to watch as NASA’s Mars 2020 mission was launched. The mission includes the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter drone. The mission’s main goal is to look for signs of ancient life on Mars and collect rock samples which may be returned to Earth.

The launch of the Mars 2020 Mission

The rocket launch itself couldn’t have been more perfect. The weather at the Florida launch site was beautiful and the rocket lifted off the pad, flying straight and true...

Black Leviathan

Black Leviathan

On the surface, Black Leviathan by Bernd Perplies is a retelling of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, where dragons are hunted by airship crews. The dragon slayers use kite-like craft to get close to the dragons so they can kill them with spears. I was interested in this story because it reminded me of my short story, “The Slayers,” which appeared in the August 2001 issue of Realms of Fantasy Magazine. That story also retold Moby-Dick with an airship crew hunting dragons and using ...

Weird Westerns on Sale

The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...

Frightfully Good Deals

The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...

Discover Hadrosaur’s Anthologies

The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...

Journey through Time and Space

The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...

The Pirates of Sufiro are Back!

I’m excited to announce the publication of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition of my very first novel, The Pirates of Sufiro. For the last year and a half, I’ve been going through the novel and giving it a complete makeover. My one guideline was that I didn’t want to change any events that would impact the sequels. This way, if you happen to pick up a used copy of one of the sequels, you won’t feel completely lost.

The Pirates of Sufiro

The Pirates of Sufiro is the story of a planet and i...