Category Archives: Speculative

Fantasy, Reviews, Sci-Fi

Bridgehouse by J. Sebastian King – a Review

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Books like Bridgehouse by J. Sebastian King demonstrate that the indie scene can offer fiction literature that is as competent, as skillfully elaborated, and as professionally written as the best of them. 

This is a very ambitious project; it is vast, and complex, and it doesn’t hold back!

This is also not the type of story where everything gets spoon-fed to the reader. If you want a straightforward narrative, this might not be a good pick. If you want your mind to be stimulated and even challenged at times, pick up a copy today!

 

INITIAL DOUBTS:

Based on how the book is structured, I had my doubts that J.S. King would be able to pull it off, and this seemed (at first) like a house of cards about to crumble under its own weight. And here is why:

3 STORIES/1 BOOK:

Three separate storylines run parallel in this book, with three main characters each, for a whopping 700+ pages:

  • Captain Catherine A. Russo (classic sci-fi)
  • Lady Qona Itarte (space opera)
  • Pon er Lugal (sword and sorcery)

 

What I found annoying at first was how we keep getting thrown from one story to the next every few chapters, and with no apparent connections among all storylines. Obviously we know that these characters and locations must be all connected somehow but for quite a while we feel like we are reading three separate books, with the author dictating which one to read and when.

It’s only ¾ into the book that we start seeing clear links and connections, but the way it happens is so subtle that when it finally hits us we can’t help but be left in awe of what we are going to find out!

 

ATTENTION TO DETAIL:

King is very pragmatic in his approach to fiction writing and in some aspects he reminds me a lot of another author we have covered before, James Krake. These two are both very analytical writers who really stress all major and minor details of story writing. I was honestly waiting for King to slip at some point by trying to cover so much ground , but the guy doesn’t miss a thing; everything is accounted for, and no stones are left unturned. This can be particularly challenging given the scale of this vision–again showing that level of professionalism I mentioned earlier.

CHARACTERS/PROSE:

All main and supporting characters are well developed, they are all memorable and they feel ‘tangible’ to us because so much detail is revealed about them over the course of this story. 

The description of places, cities, buildings, mountains, rivers, and oceans is top notch, thanks to a prosaic style that comes off as seasoned and competent. Hard to believe this is King’s first publication!

 

MINOR ISSUES:

Only a few things I personally had minor issues with that are worth mentioning:

 

  1. Some of the language used in the ‘sword and sorcery’ story, with some F bombs and S bombs that at times felt out of place, especially on the lips of a character like Lilia (imagine LOTR’s Galadriel throwing S bombs if she got upset!)

 

  1. The military experience displayed by Qona Itarte in the ‘space opera’ story felt forced. Here is a woman with apparently 0 military experience; she is surrounded, outnumbered and yet always able to counter every move of the invaders on the battlefield.

 

  1. The English language used to create the native speech of some foreign tribes like the Nabadeans was hard to read at times, thus making some passages a chore to get through.

 

But again, these are just personal minor issues and pale in comparison to the awesome moments this sci-fi epic offers. They certainly don’t detract from the compelling aspects that make this a must-read work of fiction.

CONCLUSIONS:

What strikes me most about Bridgehouse is how professional it all comes across. It puts to shame not only a lot of indies but most tradpub as well. I look forward to book 2, but the real question is: is it going to be another 700+ pages with 3 books into 1? Just kidding of course! If King can capitalize on what he’s done here, I am convinced this could be one of the most epic fiction works of our times!

🦀

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Pet Peeves, Sci-Fi

Detour into Graphic Novels Part 2

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Last time I gave you the intro and the first misadventure.  Here’s what happened next:

 

After waiting months to hear back from the publisher, I finally accepted that whatever happened, that deal was dead.

But the old dream was revived and the juices were flowing. I decided to try getting the sci-fi graphic novel produced myself.

(Looking back, if I had to do it over again, I would, but still: I did not understand what frustration would overtake me in the next step of the journey.)

If I could find an artist I could afford, I’d foot the bill myself, run it as a series on Arktoons, then get it bound in paperback and release it that way. Maybe I should finally try crowdfunding, sez I. The story’s based, seasoned with some red pills, but it’s set in a world that is not a metaphorical stand-in for the geopolitics of 2022 Earth, so IndieGoGo or whoever might not cancel it mid-campaign. And there was a new gunfighter in town, I heard, called FundMyComic which specializes in comic book crowdfunding, and respects the First Amendment.

I’m really glad now that I waited on that crowdfunding idea, rather than put backers in the position of waiting years (at least two-and-counting, now) for me to deliver a finished project.

Thank God my financial situation has improved significantly since the period I went through from 2005 to 2017. But I still don’t have money to burn, now or two years ago. This project requires a big sacrifice in precious resources that are needed for other aspects of life. I had to get the best bang-for-the-buck I could scrounge, and even then I would have to do a lot of scraping just to afford the artwork. I’m not a known creator in comics, so it’s not like I could just start a Patreon account and expect backers to appear and start contributing to an artwork fund. I’ve got 11K followers on Amazon, but you’d never know it from the number of reviews my books get. And how many of them read or care about sequential art?

I already had a Fiverr account; so I began searching…I decided to submit Page 3 this time, because it would give me a chance to see how the artist would do with some of the vehicles and other tech.

The artist who I contracted with repeatedly asked for time extensions, and I allowed them. After waiting 9 days, he finally submitted a rough sketch that he had obviously just thrown together in a matter of minutes. Here I was thinking 9 days should be enough time to draw and color 6 spectacular panels. What I initially got was no better than what I could doodle myself.

 

Read the whole article on Substack.

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Sci-Fi, Superhero

One Detour from the Great American Novel

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I’ve mentioned before some of the reasons I took so long to finish the rough draft for Paradox. One interruption was what appeared to be an opportunity to write graphic novels:

 

For those who don’t know, I’m a novelist. I’ve had ideas for some comics & graphic novels for a long time—including many superhero stories which take place in a “world” I built as a boy and has evolved as I sporadically brainstormed about it in subsequent years.

My first creative efforts were pictures of superheroes, and later my own comics, panels drawn on whatever scrap paper I could find, plotting and character development handled on-the-fly, and assembled slapdash with staples, Elmer’s Glue, or whatever binding method I could improvise. My writing experience began as a necessary adjunct of those efforts.

My drawing was pretty good for somebody who was self-taught and seat-of-the-pants. I can honestly say I was a better freehand artist than anyone I ever met, until I went to college. I wasn’t in the same league as any comic artist from the Bronze Age on, but had I developed better habits and techniques, maybe I could have gotten there. I’ll probably elaborate in the future.

In my late teens, I drifted away from “kid stuff” (comic books) and began aspiring to more “serious” creative efforts (text-based fiction). I gradually quit drawing and began concentrating on writing–which, at the time, was a bigger challenge.

My shift to prose solidified over the years and the old sequential art ambitions collected layers of dust on the back shelf. Even so, the seeds of that superhero saga germinated in my mind and never completely faded away.

The old dream languished, increasingly resembling a pipe dream as the years stacked up and life took me further and further away from ever having the time to make a serious effort at that partially-developed idea on the shelf.

And then…

One day on Gab, a publisher who I’d never met or heard of (he was from Europe) DM’d me out of the blue. He said he liked my prose and asked if I’d ever considered writing a graphic novel before.

Little did he know the depth of my appreciation for the medium and my abandoned dream. The dream had never completely died, though my drawing ability had.

This would have been flattering, but at first I didn’t think the dude was serious; or I must have misunderstood him or something. But no: after exchanging messages for a while, it became clear he wanted me to write a graphic novel for him. He had published a couple (illustrated) based children’s books; which I checked out. Amazon banned one of them, which is a badge of honor in my view. I did buy and read one that survived.

Anyway, I dusted off another idea I’d been nursing for years (a sci-fi aviation adventure in another galaxy) and pounded out a rough draft. I had some experience writing screenplays, and comic scripts aren’t too terribly different.

The experience effectively gave me a jump-start. I got the bug to chase that old dream.

 

Read the whole article on Substack.
Feel free to comment here, there, or both.
Action, Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

Rogue: The American Dream – a Review

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This type of story that is wildly popular with most of the male population in the West–especially the part of it which still reads comic books. There’s no reason why the eponymous character of this comic shouldn’t collect a lot of fans.

The female supremacy grrrrlboss tropes come in at least two flavors. One features the 105 pound Playboy-bunny lookalike who can easily defeat, in hand-to-hand combat, a marine battalion composed entirely of 220 pound MMA champions. Less ubiquitous is the grrrlboss with a more masculine build, bigger and more heavily muscled, who can easily defeat, in hand-to-hand combat, a marine battalion composed entirely of 220 pound MMA champions.

Just by looking at one of the many alternate covers for this comic, you know it is about a busty-yet-hypermuscular woman kicking ass.

What it’s about:

The plot is pretty much Escape from New York. The protagonist is basically Snake Plisskin with tits (but without the eye patch, though she needs one) and a penchant for addressing others with faux-affectionate (sardonic) terms like “sugar” and “honey.” Her name is Rogue, but she sometimes won’t admit it. As a standalone narrative, the confusion regarding her name felt unnecessary and poorly developed. But perhaps there is backstory in previous Rogue adventures that would cause this to make sense.

Still, she is invincible and doesn’t really need to hide from anybody by pretending to be somebody else. I would add, “Besides, how many busty-yet-hypermuscular grrrlbosses strutting through the postapocalyptic landscape, leaving a swathe of fresh destruction in their path, could there be?” But never mind that, because such is not all that uncommon in the setting of this story.

Another character referred to Rogue as a Boomer, and Rogue didn’t dispute that. Meaning Rogue is in her 60s, at the youngest–yet she’s still as agile as a squirrel in its prime. Maybe this was also explained in a previous comic.

The society in this postapocalyptic world could be described as a dystopian matriarchy. But the federal strong-arm goons are coed–that way you get to see plenty battles-of-the-sexes with the grrrlboss dominating multiple men. Straight men go down like tenpins hit by a busty-yet-hypermuscular bowling ball. The only characters who come close to giving our Womyn Warrior any challenge are other grrrlbosses, and a homosexual.

Character:

Despite all the sardonic terms of affection, Rogue’s machismo is laid on thick in the dialog. Her lines would be condemned as ridiculously over-the-top if spoken by the Rock or Jason Statham. But whatever.

The art strikes me as mostly hasty rough sketches, influenced by Manga. In most of the action sequences, I was confused about what was supposed to be happening.

Rogue: The American Dream is not my cup of tea. But if you like macho chick stories, you can probably forgive the artwork. The campaign is underway right now.

Fantasy, Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

THE GLOOM OF THE GRAVE by Kevin G. Beckman

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THE WEIRD TALES OF SILAS FLINT (THE FLINT ANTHOLOGIES BOOK 1)

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Here we are folks: once again we get to follow Knight Templar Captain Silas Flint and his associate Supernumerary Ricardo Navarro on yet another adventure! What’s ironic is that this was the perfect occasion for our heroes to finally take some time off as no cases needed particular attention. But of course that is not bound to happen!

When Flint receives a letter from Professor Johansson he decides to go visit Johansson at a newly found air force base from before the war that ended all civilization. Being a student of history himself, he decides to take Navarro and Ms. Fletcher (you might remember her from The Witch’s Repentance) along for the ride, all three looking forward to seeing an actual military base from the old world.

Without giving any spoilers, we quickly find out that evil forces lurk at the air force base, and our power trio (Fletcher included ) is tested to their limits!

Beckman once again treats us to a fun ride that has good pace and good characters that come off as likable and relatable. Particularly, Fletcher brings a breath of fresh air, being herself a former witch. She is not allowed to use magic but life and death situations will test her to the limit. Will she be able to refrain from using her magical powers and keep her word, even though she is tempted to use them for good? Pick up a copy of The Weird Tales of Silas Flint today and find out!

This tale is fun and suspenseful, and again, it’s a clear example that a writer doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to write 5-star stories that we can all enjoy!

 

Join us in two weeks for the next tale: The Deepest Circle

🦀

Reviews, Sci-Fi, Western

Claudia Christian’s Dark Legacies – a Review

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I’ve never seen a project quite like this. It’s written by an actress and has a sequential art section and artist’s sketches interrupting a prose narrative. The main characters (even in the prose section) are based on people involved–who are credited as such. Sounds like this would be a fun collaboration.

Back in the ’90s I had friends who were fans of Babylon 5, which is where I think Claudia Christian made a name for herself. So an actor in a sci-fi TV series is now the co-writer of a sci-fi fiction publication–with the main character based on her. That character is Adjudicator Steele.

The Prose Section:

And Hell Followed Him is a western set on a Mars colony. Instead of a shady Indian Agent selling rifles to the Apache, there is a shady outlaw who has been selling people to the mutants. For dinner.

Agent Steele teams up with tough-as-nails Marshall Jake Reeves to rescue a kidnapped teenager before she, too, is eaten by the mutants. There seems to be more going on around Devil’s Ridge than meets the eye, and there’s definitely more to Steele’s mission than what we are told, for now. She hides her true agenda from the Marshall, and from the reader, but if this is just the first installment in a series, I’m sure all will eventually be revealed.

The plotting seems fine, so far. Avid western readers should feel right at home in this opening act. The text could have used some proofreading/editing, though. My guess is Chris MCauley wrote it, based on Christian’s ideas, but there was no other pair of eyes on it before it went to press.

The Sequential Art Section:

Steele is the star of this story as well. Here she investigates a string of murders on a Jupiter “mining platform.” Damage to the victims, plus footage of the murders, suggest the murderer has superhuman strength and wears a “morphic” suit of armor which is more advanced than the most state-of-the-art military combat armor.

It’s a simple mystery, easily solved, but also sets up a longer story arc involving Steele and her homicidal sister, who murdered their parents and now commands a space fleet and works out dirty deals with at least one planetary government.

I’m a little confused about the setting here. What is the mining platform, exactly? I think most of this story takes place indoors–in ships, maybe a biodome or airtight buildings, but some of it is outdoors where it rains. I wouldn’t think the climate on Jupiter would be very human-friendly, yet humans are evidently fine there with just a rain poncho and no oxygen mask or rebreathing system.

Nevertheless, the artwork is very nice. Penciller Staz Johnson seems very comfortable with comic panel work, and his cover art is even more impressive.

My Take:

I watched a few episodes of Babylon 5 back in the day, but never really got into it. I saw it as sort of The Love Boat in Space. But this series looks to be more like Trek Classic: more adventure, with some mystery (and western!) mixed in. It has the potential to be fun. I would like to see what happens in the prose story next, but would like it even more if they transform it into comic form, as well.

Pet Peeves, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Speculative

War for the Planet of the Apes

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As a fan of the 1968 Planet of the Apes movie, and even the first sequel, I’ve watched the revamping of the franchise with interest.  Between career drama, family tragedy, and other distractions in my personal life, I missed this film’s release in 2017 and was not even aware of its existence until a few days ago.

Of course I had to watch it.

What it’s About:

After the events depicted in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar has led his fellow smart apes into the woods and established a secret colony there. At the beginning of this film, the  evil humans (who apparently have nothing better to do) find the colony and intend to commit genocide against them.

Caesar needs to move the entire colony away quickly to a new settlement where they won’t be found, but breaks off from them to undertake his own revenge mission. To avoid spoilers, suffice it to say that from there, the plot builds toward a climactic battle at the end.

Who Directed this Thing?

Upon looking up director Matt Reeves on InfoGalactic, I was shocked to discover he is Generation X. For reasons that might occur to you while reading the rest of this review, I would have guessed Boomer–specifically a draft-dodging “campus activist” Boomer who probably still has a North Vietnamese flag tacked to his wall. I can only speculate about this: Maybe Reeves is a Boomer wannabe. Perhaps, like me, he grew up immersed in Boomer culture and, unlike me, adopted all of it as his own. (Full disclosure: I still love a lot of Boomer music and some of the American cars manufactured during their rising adult years are still my favorites. In fact, some of my best friends are Boomers.)

Cringe Factor:

The older I get, the more of a problem I have with cruelty to animals. The newest Ape movies have been hard to watch because there is so much of it. And, just like so many pinko directors before him, Reeves uses our empathy for the ape characters in an attempt to make us buy in to his themes and worldview.

On several occasions I felt like apologizing to my dog on behalf of all human beings. He sat watching me, waiting for me to turn off the TV and play with him–much less upset about human cruelty than I was.

Technical Ineptitude:

The screenwriter and director know absolutely nothing about the military, other than what they’ve seen in other movies and TV shows. Which is to say: damn little.

And that’s fine–as long as they steer clear of projects that depict military units and personnel. When film makers make their predictably half-assed effort, it grates on me

Hey, Spielberg is a leftist Boomer who (along with George Lucas) probably has a North Vietnamese flag tacked to his wall. But at least he hired an advisor for Saving Private Ryan so he didn’t vomit his ignorance all over the screen for the entire movie. There were moments when he obviously vetoed the experts’ advice, for the sake of dramatic tension and such. Because Hollywood Boomer. Can’t get your expectations too high with that crowd.  And this movie reminded me that Boomer director Francis Ford Coppola actually did a commendable job depicting soldiers at war (for a draft-dodging Boomer, anyway).

Dismissing exceptions like Spielberg and Coppola, when it comes to draft-dodging Boomers who make movies about war, there are two camps: those who believe the US armed Forces is comprised solely of the Marine Corps, and those who believe every swinging Richard in the military is Special Forces. Reeves was obviously discipled by the latter camp.

The evil humans are led by Woody Harrelson playing his own version of Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse, Now! Dude shaves his head and listens to Jimmi Hendrix while planning an idiotic defensive battle against other evil humans  who believe his methods are unsound and are coming to terminate his command, with extreme prejudice. At least there was no monologue about watching a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.

The “Special Forces” officers and men under his command demonstrate the tactical acumen of a young boy playing with plastic army men. (Maybe the real deal is like that these days. I know the standards have been plummeting across the board as good soldiers have been chased out to open slots for freaks, perverts, womyn and diversity hires.)

However, the movie’s human soldiers do have magic ghost-ninja powers that allow them to repeatedly and easily sneak up and get the drop on the apes, who apparently lost their animal survival instincts, hearing, sense of smell, and developed one whale of a myopia in their vision. At least for the parts of the story that require such handicaps. In fact, these seasoned, professional SF A-Team operators can even have hysterical conversations about 30 yards from an ape listening post and not be discovered.

There’s a lot more I could complain about on this subject, but that would make this a loooooong post.

Theme, Etc:

Much like a Stanley Kubrick film, the big question the screenwriter/director wants you to ask is, “Who actually demonstrates humanity in this story?” Hint: it ain’t the humans.

I give the filmmakers props for driving this theme home with a couple shots of soldiers showing themselves to be more feral than the apes with the motivational mass command and hoowah-ing that grunts are conditioned to perform (but Special Forces soldiers do not, unless their ranks are filled with guys from the Ranger Battalions).  They sounded more like apes than the apes, and this is the closest the movie ever gets to verisimilitude from a military perspective.

Humans are barbaric savages who would rather lose a battle and be wiped out than to miss an opportunity to murder some escaping, unarmed apes. Like the gorilla traitors they employ as “donkeys,” humans are fanatical killers who will follow idiotic orders blindly without question, but are incapable of empathy, gratitude, fair play, or any sort of decency. Except for Nova, who is a young girl in this movie.

Caesar, Luca, Rocket and the other apes are the only characters (besides Nova)  who have any humanity.

This movie really comes off like yet another symbolic summary of Vietnam, as told by a communist propaganda minister–like Little Big Man, Soldier Blue, Return of the Jedi, and Avatar.

Everything you’ll see here has been done before many times. There is no part of this movie that suffers from any modicum of originality.

The acting is fine and the musical score is competent. All the elements of filmmaking come together to sadden, depress, disturb and/or infuriate you over the mistreatment of the apes. And that is pretty much all this film is good for.

Alternate HIstory, Fantasy, Reviews

The Dweller in Drury Lane by Paul Leone

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THE DWELLER IN DRURY LANE AND OTHER CURIOUS CHRONICLES

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“Above all, she remembered the first time she saw Him, the first time she heard His words. These were good memories, holy ones. Ya’el tried to bury the other memories this place carried with it beneath them. As ever, she failed.”

 

If you follow me on social media and/or are subscribed to the INFAMOUS🦀 YouTube channel, you would have noticed the ample use of terms such as ‘NEW LEGENDS’ or ‘LEGENDARY’. And that is simply due to the essence of what I (and Virtual Pulp) do on a daily basis: exhorting authors to write good stories that resonate through time and that have, for lack of better terms, no expiration date. 

There is a point when a good story is no longer just a good story but becomes a LEGEND. Paul Leone’s The Dweller In Drury Lane is all that, and then some! If there is a work of fiction literature today that encompasses everything I always ramble about, this book right here embodies all those elements to their fullest! 

Before we dive in, I want to officially welcome Paul to our elite group of Virtual Pulp LEGENDARY authors, and look forward to a very needed Q&A interview later on!

What it’s About:

But what is this book with such a long title really about? And what makes it so special? To answer that question we need to mention what author/youtuber Bonsart Bokel stated some time ago: fiction writers should focus more on history while applying new and exciting concepts to it. 

Regurgitating good content that has already been written only creates predictable and boring books. 

We covered a good few authors recently who have adopted the alternate history approach with excellent results. The Dweller in Drury Lane can be categorized as alternate history based on the fact that everything we read is historically accurate, and it’s within this historically accurate environment that Leone works his magic (pun intended!).

The book is a collection of short stories divided in two groups: the first group of stories follows the adventures of Immortal Champion Ya’el, circa 65 AD Jerusalem. The second group follows the adventures of Lady Renee De Launcey and her Puritan maid-servant Innocence circa XVII England.

Characters:

Make no mistake, even though both main characters are female, they are far removed from the modern image of ‘strong independent WAMEN’ portrayed in our modern western pop culture. In fact, Ya’el is constantly torn by two seemingly polar opposite commandments, whereas Renee and Innocence are aware that they need the aid of men when dealing with powerful and dangerous foes.

As soon as we flip to page 1 we are immediately transported to another world thanks to Leone’s prose. There are virtually no traces of modern euphemisms and in fact at times I had to wonder if the author was someone who lived centuries ago. Every chapter  in the first half of the book feels like reading an ancient manuscript translated from Hebrew, Roman, and Greek into old English: think of Homer, Virgil, and of course the Holy Bible itself.

Secondary characters are as rich and complex as the main characters. I particularly loved the character of Coem, a young girl from Hibernia (Ireland) in search of vengeance for the murder of her family by the hands of another Immortal Champion of Sheol. THIS is how you write characters that resonate with us hours and even days after we close the book. Young Coem wasn’t able to kill her family’s murderer because mortal weapons cannot kill a Champion of Sheol. Ya’el decides to aid Coem and tells her of a weapon that can harm a Champion called Aurichalcum-the alloy of Atlantis. To which Coem replies:  “Then will that slice her skin?” How can you not LOVE that delivery!

Prose:

When we move to Part 2 of the book, we are now in XVII England and I’m not kidding when I say that I haven’t been this enthralled ever since reading Jane Austen’s prose! The choice of verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, modifiers, syntax, the subtle expressions typical of the period, are all top notch here!

The attention to the historical aspect also deserves great praise. Whether we are walking through Jerusalem in 65 AD or we find ourselves in the countryside of Great Britain in 1665 AD, we keep getting fed captivating historical data as the narrative unfolds. 

In closing, I encourage you all to grab a copy of The Dweller. If this interview doesn’t motivate you to do so, maybe the fact that you can download the entire book for FREE will.

 

Note from INFAMOUS:

This review will be followed up by a Q&A with author where we will uncover even more about all this, and I will also mention how a few years ago I read another book by Leone and wasn’t at all impressed by it!

🦀

Adventure, Marketing, Speculative, Sports, Time Travel

Paradox: Promotions, Surprises, and Reviews

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(Oh My!)

Seems like just yesterday I was agonizing over turning my monstrous doorstop-sized Great American Novel into a series. Now there are four regular-sized novels in the series published out of a probable six.

 

Pardon me while I flex:

Though they haven’t done as well yet as my Retreads Series, the Paradox books have all become bestsellers–and within a month of release, respectively. But wait…there’s more! Book Four: Provoking Fate made bestseller for two weeks without me lowering the price or running a promotion!

I am disappointed that I’m not getting reviews–those mercurial manifestations of “social proof” with an inordinate impact on visibility. But with all the strings Amazon has attached to posting reviews, that’s probably just how the ball bounces. The Paradox Series has been collecting ratings at a…ahem…rate that’s not bad considering how new it is, and that the author is a relatively unknown indie with no Youtube following. Or social media “influencer” status. Or marketing acumen. I dusted off my old Twatter account late last year, but my tweets are de-boosted to the point that out of 700 followers, only two see them on a regular basis.

Whatever. I’ve got plenty to be thankful for.

Pleasant surprises:

I discounted all my novel-length books for the most recent Big Based Book Sale, and scheduled a coincident promotion of Book One: Escaping Fate on Book Barbarian. The Based Book Sale began, and all my titles started selling. But for some reason, Book Two: Rebooting Fate outsold everything else. It had been a #1 Hot New Release back in December, but now shot up into the Bestseller chart again.

What’s more, Book Three: Defying Fate, which made the Bestseller chart back in February, was back on the chart, a few paces behind Book Two. I shared a partial spoiler about Provoking Fate at the top of this post. What I didn’t share was that it hadn’t even been released yet. It wasn’t scheduled to be published until after the Based Book Sale was over, so it climbed up there behind Book Two and Three from pre-orders…and at full price.

Bingo! Get it?

Rebooting and Defying remained in Bestseller territory for about a week.

Most authors who manage to crack the Bestseller list see their books remain toward the top for a while afterwards, propped up by their momentum. The visibility that comes with that attracts more readers. Hence more reviews. And reviews lead to better visibility. It’s a sort of feedback loop which wins the author thousands of reviews and gazillions of sales. My books, on the other hand…Amazon normally hides them immediately after the spike, and sales drop off a cliff. Reviews don’t roll in, and I’m left with little but a memory of the book’s 15 minutes of fame. Word of mouth really ain’t a thing anymore, so when Amazon hides it, it is swallowed by obscurity.

That’s why what happened next with Book Four was remarkable: after it went live, I went to the product page to proof-check the sample and saw that it was on the Bestseller list again–still at full price, with no promotion! If only I had checked for that earlier!

OK, I know: rah-rah me.

Your next chance to pick ’em up cheap:

Well, I have finally scheduled a promotion for Provoking Fate, for Friday 4/19/24. Price will drop to $2.99 (not just on Amazon, but everywhere) through the weekend. I’m interested to see how well it does with a little boost.

Also, I have advance notice of when the next BBBS and I’m gonna try to schedule the publication of Book Five: Resisting Fate to coincide with that. So at that time, both books will be discounted to 99 cents and we’ll see what happens.

About the books themselves:

The biggest challenge with Paradox was making it episodic. Taking one story arc, chopping it into six pieces, then tweaking each piece into its own separate arc with beginning, middle and end. I’ve got enough distance from where I sit now, that it appears the individual arcs are getting stronger as the series rolls along. Provoking Fate may just have the strongest opening act yet. Maybe that is evident in the sample Amazon provides, and accounts for it exceeding expectations.

In my opinion, the opening act in Resisting Fate is even stronger. I have no idea if readers will agree with me.

It would be great to get feedback on stuff like that. If not in a review, then even here in the blog comments.

Fantasy, Reviews, Speculative

EVIL NEVER RESTS by Kevin G. Beckman

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The Weird Tales of Silas Flint (The Flint Anthologies Book 1)

-a Review by

This is the third story we find in the Weird Tales, and it seems like Beckman continues to pleasantly surprise us with outstanding storytelling that is well thought-out and well written.

Though each story is its own, there is also a bigger picture in this world and events that keeps opening wider as we go along. And so we find once again witch hunter Silas Flint and supernumerary Ricardo Navarro exactly where the last tale left them.

What it’s about:

When a messenger delivers an urgent message that their aid is needed at a town where supposedly ‘werewolf’ attacks have been reported, the choice for our duo is easy: go investigate and possibly kill some werewolves!

Along the way, we have the chance to briefly meet Charles, Flint’s evil brother, and three very enigmatic witch sisters who will play a major role in the unfolding of the following events. Who are the three sisters? And why do they seem to aid Flint in his mission? 

When our heroes deduct that the murders were not random but strictly connected to key names in the current local political circle,  the story takes on a sort of mystery/detective tone which, coupled with some very captivating characters like Mr Oglethorpe, propels the story to new heights of fun, action, and inspiration. Why do I mention inspiration? You might ask. Well if a character like Oglethorpe doesn’t inspire you at some level I don’t know what will. His faith, resolution, conviction, and toughness, despite his advanced age, is only matched by Silas Flint’s himself! Love the guy and he definitely steals the spotlight!

To conclude, I want to again point out how these tales fully embody the spirit of classic pulp fiction while taking on their own shape and form. Needless to say, see you in two weeks with the next tale: The Gloom of the Grave.

🦀