The Dark Tyrant Series

If you follow my Facebook, then you already know the news: Dark Fantasy Press, the publisher that picked up my Dark Tyrant Series, of which Consequence was the first book, has gone out of business. That means they gave me back my rights to the series. For a short time, I didn't know what to do, but I reached out, and was able to strike a deal with Griffin Publishers, the publishing company behind the Utah Horror Writers anthologies, Old Scratch and Owl Hoots, and It Came From the Great Salt Lake.

Consequence will be re-released through Griffin in a few months. If you've already bought the book, don't worry, the only thing that will have changed is some minor typographical errors, and it will have some kick ass new cover art (to be revealed soon). Shortly after that, the second book, Canyon Shadows will be released. I'm already working on the third in the series, Alpha Protocol, and I hope to have it finished by the end of the year. I'd love to have it done sooner, but life gets in the way.

If you don't know about the Dark Tyrant Series let me tell you a bit about it. The series is dark urban fantasy/horror that takes place in Utah. Each book follows a different set of protagonists as they cross paths with the Dark Tyrant and his minions. The Dark Tyrant crashed into the Earth as it was first created, and was locked away deep underground in a prison by the combined forces of the Infernal Legion and the Celestial Armies. As the years passed, the Dark Tyrant regained his strength, slowly corrupting everything around it until it could find a proper host and free itself from its prison. The books themselves can stand alone and you can read the first three in any order. Some of the characters and locations will hop through each book, but it's not necessary to read them in any particular order. The fourth and final book will bring all the main characters together for a final showdown.

Consequence is about a man who is hunting elk in the Utah wilderness with his friends when the demonic apocalypse kicks off. A supernatural storm tears across landscape awakening all sorts of nightmares, as well as latent magical powers in the protagonist. He races to get home to his family, willing to sacrifice everything to make it there on time. The second book, Canyon Shadows is about a Sheriff in a small Utah town and an antiques collector who find more than they were looking for in some ancient Anasazi cliff dwellings. The events in Canyon Shadows lead up to the supernatural storm featured in Consequence. Alpha Protocol, the third book, is about a specialized team of soldiers, called an Alpha Team who's sole purpose in life is to respond to supernatural, cataclysmic events. They are dispatched to Salt Lake City to investigate the damage which occurred in Consequence and neutralize the threat before an Omega Team is dispatched to clean up. The Omega Team believes in nothing more than a scorched earth policy to fix problems of that magnitude. The Alpha Team races against the clock and the awakened, nightmarish creatures to get the job done in time.

As I mentioned before, the series is a dark urban fantasy because there is magic of all kinds, monsters, and the main characters can hold their own; however, it's also horror because of the mood, tension and sense of dread throughout the books. I like to think of the series as a really dark Jim Butcher or Simon R. Green mixed with Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft and a smidgen of Dungeons and Dragons. Shake them all up and add my own special ingredient and you get the Dark Tyrant Series. I grew up reading a lot of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. As I got older I transitioned to horror and urban fantasy, so it's no surprise that my own books would have all those elements. Keep an eye on this blog and my Facebook page for more information.