Category Archives: Adventure

Man of Swords: The Queen of Scorpions – a Review

By Robert Victor Mills

(Part 4 of a 6-part series)

Review by Gio THE INFAMOUS 🦀

 

“There is no need for you to accompany us any further, young man,” protested Eridiathe. “Aye, there is no need,” admitted Rhoye, “but there is HONOUR, and WORD GIVEN. I will come, see you both safe to your bourne.”

 

The Queen of Scorpions is pure, grade A ‘Robert V. Mills’ finest. And by that I’m referring to the pure, unadulterated, fantasy adventure where honor, chivalry, and a WORD GIVEN still mean something! 

Once again, our hero finds himself in a ‘situation’, this time involving high priestesses, inquisitors, and a holy book that ignites a fierce hunt of those who try to spread its content throughout the Wandered Lands!

Rohye finds work on a merchant ship which cargo includes two ‘holy women’: Eridiathe and her young apprentice Giustinia. Little does he know that the content of their belongings includes a holy book for which they are being persecuted by Inquisitress Bethaina, a powerful and evil sorceress who will stop at nothing to see the alleged manuscript destroyed.

Of course Rohye cannot let two defenseless women be victims of this pure evil, and despite the opportunity to go his merry way he decides to stick around for the ‘fireworks’.

The Scorpion Queen is beautiful in its simplicity. You don’t always need a Machiavellian plot to have a good story. But it’s got to be well written, with memorable characters, and a plot that is solid and compelling. This story checks all those boxes!

So far, I would put The Scorpion Queen as the second best tale out of the four we’ve read from Man of Swords. I’m comfortable saying that this is another little gem of new fantasy fiction that is rare to find these days.

Another legend in the making!

The Devil out the Wych Elm by Robert Victor Mills – a Review

Part 3 of a 6-part review series by THE INFAMOUS REVIEWER

 

In the third tale of Man of Swords, we find our hero crucified to a tree and barely alive, before being rescued and restored back to health by a family of fauns. How did Rhoye ever get in this predicament? And why would this local family want to aid a total stranger?

Well you’ll have to read to find out, but my job here really is to analyze the writing from a PCP (prose/characters/plot) standpoint. Objectively and fairly.

The ‘highlight reel’ definitely belongs to the Faun family: father Olnbirch, mother Khirra, and young daughter Zairre. What distinguishes them is their altruism and devotion to live a quiet and peaceful life, never to compromise their beliefs and code of ethics. Zairre particularly has some very special moments. With her innocence, she can melt the most hardened of hearts ( well, almost any). The way these three characters are written is so delightful that we can’t help but feel emotionally invested in their whereabouts.

Trouble starts when a group of greedy miners start harassing our beloved family in order to take their land which supposedly is rich in gold. The family is not willing to leave their land and that’s when things get ‘complicated’ since Rhoye is by now back in almost full health and strength.

This reminded me of a Spaghetti Western film adaptation in a sense. Only that instead of taking place in the Wild West it takes place in the Wandered Lands. It is gripping, exciting…But it could have been executed even better in my opinion and here is why:

Pace: from the time the miners give the family their ultimatum to leave the farm there is a long chunk of time when not much really happens. It’s just Rhoye living with the Faun family and helping them around the farm. This, I felt, was too drawn out: they work the fields, go visit other faun neighbors, go dance at some local harvest festival…

Dialogue: some of the dialogues were redundant and unnecessary. If we witness a particular action scene take place first hand, we don’t need one of the characters to give a thorough account of those events in the first person later, because we already know all about it. This creates unnecessary bloating. 

Overall, The Devil out of Wych Elm remains a solid tale worth reading. Again, the Faun family, their reaction to adversities, their meekness, their willingness to not live by the ‘eye for an eye’ rule, all of that is what makes this so special.

Not the best we’ve seen from Mills, yet highly recommended!

The Sword and the Sunflower by Mark Bradford – a Review

Review by INFAMOUS 🦀

I truly wanted to like this story, and the author is a standout human being, but unfortunately I have to be objective and report that I could find very little to praise about here.

The story suffers from several issues; from character development, to pacing, to some prosaic choices, and even too frequent and unnecessary line breaks.

Basically the story is about two individuals, Stojan and Anastazja, who (after losing their beloved ones, respectively) find one another and build a father/daughter relationship, while traveling across a dystopian world somewhere in a post-apocalyptic future.

On the surface, the premises sound good and intriguing. However a further look will reveal several weaknesses in how this was executed.

We meet Stojan, a former captain turned assassin who lost his will to live since the death of his daughter 3 years prior. When he takes on a ‘job’ by a so-called Bishop to assassinate a particular individual whom the prophecy has indicated to be a future threat to the Bishop himself, Stojan embarks on a journey that takes a strange turn: he falls in love with Anastazja and can no longer fulfill his task.

Now, I get that Stojan has lost his daughter and he’s still mourning, but every time we introduce a character that has the power and influence of healing the pain of a loss, the new relationship has to feel organic and it has to build up in steps, gradually, to feel believable. This doesn’t happen here. From the moment Stojan sets his eyes on Ana he’s already fallen in love with her as a father with a daughter. It all feels rushed and kind of weird in a way.

Another weird plot choice is the way Ana’s biological father dies in the story. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I encourage you to read that particular scene for yourself.

The other problem I found was the pace: after the two main characters come together and embark on their trip across these lands, everything feels very slow and tedious. They cross the ocean from a region called Poliska (Poland? Europe?) to another region called Amira (America?), and the most exciting thing that happens is ending up in a Native American colony where they spend a whole year just enjoying the lifestyle of their host. Nothing significant happens, except for perhaps having two of the Indian tribal chiefs arguing over what new tribal name to assign to Ana (I’m totally serious).

When the two protagonists decide to leave the Indian community there’s more hiking, more riding horses across vast lands, and more NOTHING….

Some of the prosaic choices I also found not ideal given this world: in this futuristic world most people are illiterate or barely know how to read, yet their spoken language is very articulate and even more sophisticated than ours is today. It’s almost as if these people somehow went back to speaking Shakespearean English though not even having any books around anymore.

To conclude, it is with sadness that I must admit that the only true highlight of this book and most uplifting moment was when I finally turned to the last page.

If you think I must be exaggerating or being too harsh, by all means buy a copy and read it for yourself. I would love your comments.

 

INFAMOUS 🦀

Defying Fate Is Live, and Discounted!

Showtime!

Paradox Book 3 is ready for download–and discounted to $2.99 for a limited time.

Ike has ventured out on his own, now. He’s got a great head start, but still a lot to learn. A good deal of his college years are spent helping Coach Stauchel transform the Pumas into a winning team, but he still finds time to juggle love interests (“spinning plates”), begin designing a small warp generator, and prepare to fight in WWII. Unfortunately, some of those preparations will propel him into a future conflict on American soil.

This promotion is not without its hiccups already. Some folks I was hoping would help spread the word have ghosted me. There is a mix-up with one of the promoters. And, despite the early success of the first two books in the series, getting reviews has been like getting RSVPs for a Joe Biden rally.

Nevertheless, I expect good things. The hero is an adult, now, as are my loyal readers. And there’s a nubile blonde on the cover (which I’m revealing for the first time here…I think). If Defying Fate does really well, I’ll save screenshots and share the news once the numbers are in.

Thanks to everybody who buys my books, and extra-special thanks to those who rate and/or review.

Buy it on Amazon!

Buy it everywhere else!

An Interview with Milton Lane

By THE INFAMOUS REVIEWER Gio 🦀


Q1: what was the initial motivation to write Island of The Lost? And what or who influenced the final product?


ML: Before I had started writing Island of the Lost my ambition was to write an urban fantasy novel. At the time I was reading the Monster Hunter series by Larry Correia (paid link) and wanted to try my hand at the genre. As I was fleshing out the story and the world I soon realized I didn’t have the skills to tackle a story of that length and scope. In the end I shelved the idea, kept the notes for the world I had built, and set about writing a smaller more contained adventure. Island of the Lost was the result.

Hannibal Harken started out as a character who had built a legend around himself seeking out the weird and magical, cataloging what he found, and creating a vast encyclopedia to pass on that information to others. In the original idea he was a bit of a character who would be referenced but never appear. His journal entries would have appeared in the appendix of the book and would have served as a means of providing world building and lore without dumping all that information in the middle of the narrative. This idea is why Island of the Lost starts out the way it does.

In the end I would have to say there are two main sources of influence on this novel. I’ve always loved the 1920’s – 1940’s style action hero and Harken was meant to fit into that mold. I wanted the main character to be in a similar vein to Indiana Jones and Rick O’Connell. But it wasn’t until I was introduced to Doc Savage via Razorfist’s video on pulp characters that Harken really coalesced as a character. The Man of Bronze really is the first Superhero and the gold standard for this type of fiction. To understand what makes Doc such a pulp icon helps a writer understand the genre.

My second influence would be the Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. I loved the worlds they created in that series and it has served as inspiration for the world Harken and his friends inhabit.


Q2: are The Island of the Lost and your other (cyberpunk) novel your very first official publications?


ML: The Island of the Lost and The City Beneath the Eye (paid links) are my very first official publications. I have written quite a bit in the past. From short stories as a kid to a book trilogy when I was in early college. Telling stories has been a passion of mine for a while, though it was only for friends. Until recently I saw writing as a fun hobby but not something I would do as a profession. It wasn’t until Razorfist put out that Iron Age video that I decided to throw my hat in the ring and start creating for others’ enjoyment.


Q3: this book went through a ‘revision’ as stated under the book description on Amazon. Can you share with VP what exactly was revised and why?

ML: Oh yeah, the book went through a major revision! When I first started writing and connecting with other people on X/Twitter I became aware of what Brian Niemeier calls ‘Self-Publish Syndrome’. Self Pub opens the door for everyone to put together a novel and publish it through Amazon no matter the quality. Because of this, self published works carry a stigma of being poorly edited, poorly written garbage. I was determined to avoid that stigma, then fell face first into it.

As I finished the first edit on the manuscript, I knew I needed an editor to polish this story as much as possible. At the time I had let one of my coworkers know I was working on a novel and was looking for an editor. He had a contact that had spent over twenty years as a technical writer and this person had spoken about moving into editing as a side hustle. He put us in contact and we worked out a nominal fee for an editing pass of my manuscript. It was more affordable than some of the editing rates I was seeing at the time, so I went for it.

I got the manuscript back and there were a ton of corrections and suggestions made. At the time I was very pleased with the results and set about fixing the issues the technical writer had found. After the revisions I did a two more editing passes, confident I was well on my way to avoiding the pitfalls of self publishing.

I was riding high right after publishing, too. The initial reviews were positive, and I made more sales than I expected. Then the critical reviews came in. The reviews weren’t negative but they were brutally honest. Throw in a few direct messages from fellow writers who reached out to offer me some advice and one thing became clear: the story was good but the manuscript was a mess. Readers mentioned issues such as grammar, sentence structure, and pacing. From an outsider’s perspective it looked like I had just thrown my book out into the world without getting it into the hands of an editor.

This was a gut punch. Here I am asking people for their money and delivering a substandard product. It had to be corrected.

By this time I had made better connections in the Iron Age/Small Press/Pulp Rev circles. I had made a connection with a fantastic editor by the name of Daniel Riley who was working on editing my second novel. I was so impressed with his work and his dedication I sent him the manuscript for Island of the Lost while I got City Beneath the Eye ready for publication.

I figured, how many corrections could my manuscript really need? After all, I wrote a rough draft, did one round of edits, got an ‘editor’ to make corrections, then did a second and third pass. The problems should be few and far between, right?

Boy, was I wrong. Daniel took that manuscript behind the woodshed. He was absolutely brutal with his notes and corrections. Seeing all those notes was a humbling experience. But I was happy to see him tear it apart like he did. By being unrelenting in his edits, Daniel showed me he cared deeply about making my story the best it could possibly be. And the results speak for themselves.

The new version has been revised top to bottom, is leaner where it needed to be leaner, and is fleshed out in areas that needed some extra attention. Without Daniel’s edits my manuscript would not be at the level it needed to be.


Q4: we are seeing a ton of sword & sorcery in the indie circles at the moment, followed by sci-fi and some cyberpunk. But what I really think needs more of a ‘revival’ is the golden age pulp writing like you brought in The Island of the Lost. Do you think you could be the one carrying that torch, or do you feel like your heart is more into sci-fi  and/or cyberpunk?

ML: I do feel like classic adventure fiction has a lot of potential for a revival. Though I don’t think I’ll be the torchbearer to lead it. I see myself as following a path already laid out by other Indies who have worked hard to figure all this stuff out. Brina Williamson’s Merona Grant novels are in the same vein and from all accounts are very good. I also think Cirsova and Story Hack Magazine have published some pulp adventures as well. I’m sure there are others who have already published works. People like them did all the heavy lifting to create an environment for others to be able to successfully publish and start finding an audience.

For a proper revival I think it would take a Lester Dent or Walter B. Gibson type to succeed. Someone who knows how to spin a yarn, has the right combination of lived experiences and imagination to draw from, and can put out several adventures a year. I’m not sure who can pull it off, but I’m sure someone can.

To be honest, I feel like I’m still finding my feet as an author. The City Beneath the Eye is an outlier that I half stumbled into while trying to make a short story for a magazine submission. I don’t see myself doing much more in the cyberpunk genre but I have some plans for various books that would fit Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Science Fantasy as genres as well as more adventure fiction.


Q5: what I found refreshing is that your MC doesn’t get romantically involved with any of the female characters in the story. Nothing wrong with romance per se but sometimes these relationships feel forced or very routine-like. Was that something you intentionally avoided?


ML: Not getting the main character involved in a romance subplot was a conscious decision. I don’t find anything wrong with romance but it certainly didn’t fit here. When formulating Hannibal as a character I wanted him to walk the line between being a gentleman and a hell raiser. The kind of man who could navigate the complex social structures of high society by day and go drinking with the lads at night. With that in mind I wanted him to take a more classic approach to romance. Rather than the ‘Love interest of the Week’ where Hannibal shacks up with a different woman at the end of the book similar to a character like James Bond, he is very much a Gentleman in search of his Lady. I may introduce a love interest in the future, but I’d rather it be one important character. Someone who compliments Harken well.


Q6: are the places and locations listed in this story entirely fictional?


ML: The places and locations in this story are largely fictional but do pull greatly from real world locations that I’ve been to. The Invincible is similar to the Lusitania and Titanic while the Island has geography similar to the U.S. East coast. Though the layout of the sunken bay in the fourth act combines elements from Hanauma bay in Hawaii as well as fuel piers and stations I’ve seen.


Q7: not sure why, but as I was reading the dialogue, I just kept hearing the characters’ voices in an Irish accent. In your vision, what would these characters really sound like?


ML: When creating the characters I tried to ‘cast’ them with actors to give me a clearer mental picture of how they looked and talked. And, by referencing actors from various regions, I was able to solidify each character’s voice in my head. For instance: Hannibal Harken, to me, speaks with a received pronunciation style upper class accent, while Lord Blackwrym speaks with the accent of British aristocracy. The characters of Annabelle, Magnolia, and Sam speak with a southern drawl while Colin O’Shea has an Northern Irish accent. Javier, the man from nowhere, speaks with a generic American accent.


Q8: speaking of language, I believe that for this retro pulp style to really work, prose is crucial. One slip and modern euphemisms can make the whole thing collapse. I was really surprised that you really made that conscious effort to keep it all rooted in that wholesome prosaic style of the great pulp classics. How did you manage that in such a brilliant fashion?


ML: Like you, I hate modern talk in my period entertainment. I find it to be lazy on a scriptwriter or author’s part to add in that kitschy way of speaking that is so prevalent in everything today. If I’m playing Red Dead Redemption I don’t want Arthur Morgan sounding like a guy from a 1990s action movie. If I’m watching Lord of the Rings I don’t want lol-so-random Joss Whedon style snark. I want the creator’s best attempt at authenticity.

Its’ with that mentality I approached the dialogue in The Island of the Lost. I wanted people to speak as authentically to the period as possible. To achieve this I made a conscious effort to keep modern vernacular out of my story. This was a challenge as it took several passes to catch innocuous but modern idioms that would pull the reader out of the narrative. In the end I’m satisfied with the results though I know I’ll have to study more period literature and prose to sharpen the dialogue for future adventures. Thankfully one of the authors I follow on X/Twitter posted a link to an archive of pulp magazines so there’s plenty of material to learn from and enjoy! I wish I could remember who it was so I could thank them publicly and one day buy them a whiskey and cigar for the treasure trove of pulp goodness.

Q9: what can we expect in the foreseeable future from Mr. Lane the ‘classic pulp fiction writer’? Are we going to see The Adventurer back in action soon? I know it’s very easy to take the wrong turn with a character: write too much of the same stuff and people will say it got boring. Write a totally different story and people will say that the new stuff lost its original appeal. Can you disclose anything you are planning, now that you’ve made some true fans of this whole universe?


ML: For the foreseeable future it’s going to be self-publishing novels and honing my craft. I still have half a million words of writing to ‘get the suck out’ so to speak in regards to writing as a profession. Even if I’m producing novels entirely on my own I want to hit a professional standard. I’m comfortable telling stories that top out at 60k – 100k words which is close to the standard pulp length novel. I’m also looking to produce more short fiction and long fiction as I continue to grow as an author.

As far as what I’m working on, I have two books planned for this year. The first is a second Hannibal Harken adventure titled The Terror Beneath Mt. Misery. The outline is complete and work has already started. The other book I hope to have written, if not fully published, is a second book in the Cyberpunk dystopia of Salvation titled ‘Upon the Streets of Salvation.’ That book will complete the thematic arc of the first book and finish the duology.

I plan on doing more Hannibal Harken stories. Ultimately, my long term goal is to hit a professional level of 2.5k words a day and 200,000 words written a year. Once I hit that level I’m confident I could do one or two adventure books a year to a high standard. Like the classic pulp novels that inspired Harken’s world these will be serialized adventures rather than a series. I want each book to be a self-contained adventure that an interested reader can pick up and enjoy without reading everything that came before.

I am conscious of how difficult this type of writing can be. Go too far in one direction and you get formulaic and stale, drift too far in the other and you lose what made readers love your creation. My goal is to tell interesting tales of high adventure set in a world influenced by pulp and high-fantasy. With each novel a reader comes away satisfied by a story well told and leaves them dreaming of what else is out there just waiting to be discovered.


Tell us what you think in the comments, and subscribe for more great reviews and interviews with independent authors!

Island of the Lost by Milton Lane – a Review

Review by INFAMOUS 🦀

 

When I first decided to review this I was a bit nervous. What made me feel that way was the disclosure found under the book details on Amazon:

 

“Paperback and ebook editions have been revised and updated following customer feedback as of 31 OCT 23.”

 

To me that was an instant red flag as the term ‘revision’ these days can mean anything in a book. What was revised exactly is something I will further discuss with the author in an upcoming Q&A interview, so stay tuned.

By the time I was done reading, however, I knew this was going to enter our 5-star elite club here at VP! This novel absolutely delivers everything you would expect by looking at its cover (fantastic cover, by the way!). All my fears wiped away, Milton Lane absolutely crushed it by bringing back a traditional pulp classic genre that is authentic, respectful of those authors who pioneered the genre, and keeping a fine balance between fantasy trope injected with an acute sense of realism.

After surviving the mysterious sinking of the ship The Invincible, former Naval Officer Hannibal Harken (a.k.a. The Adventurer) finds himself stranded on an uncharted island with a group of other survivors. Now, facing not only the natural adversities that the island itself poses, but also some not-so-friendly locals, the Adventurer must rely on his skills, intuition, and a few unexpected friends, to survive and get back to civilization.

Pretty simple concept, and yet SO easy to bungle up if the writer doesn’t do his homework. Fortunately in The Island of the Lost (paid link) this is not the case. Far from it!

Lane is able to capture that retro pulp style we got to know in Doc Savage, Solomon Kane, and even The Shadow to an extent. The story moves along nicely beginning to end, the prose is classic 1930s-40s style with rich and witty dialogues. 

The characters are not dull and predictable. In fact, although there are a few good looking female characters featured, our main character does not get involved in a romance, or ‘demand’ a heartfelt kiss from the girl before going on risking his life. Not that there’s anything wrong with romantic tropes, but as an astute writer you also gotta know when this would aid the story or  simply feel too forced while doing nothing to propel the main narrative.

Last thoughts that really bring this review to a positive conclusion: this story is self-contained. It has a 1)beginning,  2)bridge, 3)climax, and 4)conclusion. You don’t have to wait for the next book in the series to find out what happens, yet, at the same time you hope there will be more adventures facing the Adventurer so that we can join him amidst strange lands, strange peoples, and the pursuit of TRUTH!

Man of Swords: The Eye and the Dragon – a Review

By THE INFAMOUS REVIEWER GIO

 

Note from THE INFAMOUS: this is the first of a 6-part review series that will cover each tale included in Man of Swords by R. V. Mills. I feel that Mills is the most exciting fantasy pulp writer of the last few years and his latest publication deserves a thorough breakdown which would be impossible to achieve in one single review. Hope you guys will tag along for the ride and enjoy this as much as we will!

 

 

“Through spilt milk of stars, whirls of worlds most wondrous, spirals of splendour spinning atop the fingertips of Gods, through void unimagined he raced to straits and reaches never by mortal seen.”

 

If this short tale does not find an initial overwhelmingly warm reception from a majority of readers, I will understand why. Let me explain.

This is the opening short story of Man of Swords (paid link), and it takes us back to a time of a young Rhoye before he was even called as such. This is not a very story-driven tale and that’s why some folks might find it too slow or even downright boring. Not much happens if you’re expecting epic battles, sword fights, or the rescuing of damsels in distress.

Basically this is about young Rohye’s initiation, the quest to find his identity as a man, and for the most part the story will take us into a world between reality and dream (I wonder what Uncle put in that drink they gave Rhoye!). 

Under the watchful eye of the old Shaman, young Rohye goes up the Mountain to sit in a cave where all sorts of lucid dreams will take him through a trippy interdimensional experience. 

Nothing makes sense on the surface but that’s the nature of dreams after all. It’s hard to deny traces of E. A. Poe and H. P. Lovecraft here.

Despite the slow pace, what makes this a must-read is its prosaic style. Mills is a master of the English language and this is a perfect example of it. It is a delight to read the beautiful words that create this world of visions and dreams. You feel transported to a dream world along with the main character and get to experience the ethereal realms young Rohye visits. THAT, my friends, is worth taking the time to read this opening act! 

It’s not always about the well-choreographed fight scenes or the intricate subplots. Sometimes you just gotta let the magic of exquisite prose take you to another realm!


Our series will continue in 2 weeks with part 2 of 6: “The Knight Who Would Not Kneel”

Citadel of the Seven Swords – a Review

You may have noticed that Gio has been reviewing a lot of fantasy lately that may or may not qualify as Iron Age (depending on who you talk to). Well, I also have recently bought some new fantasy and sci-fi by based authors. Maybe I’m not knocking down my TBR pile as fast as Gio is chopping down his, but I’ll have some reviews coming your way, too.

This is Book One of Erik Waag’s Wandering Sword Series.

The story opens with the protagonist (the wily Northman, Skarde) a slave bending the oar on a ship–due to misfortune from a previous misadventure.

I know we’ve been making many comparisons to Robert E. Howard’s fantasy lately (and that’s a good thing), but I’m not done yet. The beginning of this adventure felt very Howardesque.

Skarde escapes from the ship, and enslavement to the Iron Brotherhood–but is doggedly pursued even after reaching the seeming safety of an island.

That island is ruled by a cult with some serious muscle at its disposal. A literal titan  dwells in the fiery bowls of the island’s volcano, forging the seven swords of the title. The adventure takes us through the island’s underground labyrinth where, with the help of other slaves, and a powerful sorceress, Skarde hatches a plan to defeat the titan and the cult leader, and secure his freedom.

Waag shoots for verisimilitude in his action sequences. Skarde is certainly clever, agile, and strong, but is not superhuman and far from infallible. And the tension runs high in between the action. My only complaint is that the story feels like it’s just finding its rhythm when the book ends. No character arc or development to speak of–the reader is just getting to know Skarde, in fact.

This is not unusual for the first book in a series. And, of course, the current market is friendliest to series fiction–so it’s no wonder so many authors choose to write them. I found enough promise in Citadel of Seven Swords that I do want to read the next book. But I expect it to delve deeper into characterization (at least enough to make Skarde stand out in some way from other fantasy adventure heroes) and provide a more immersive reading experience.

Paradox Chapter Reveal: “Culture Shock”

I blogged about my decision to break Paradox into a series. I thought of the idea literally years before I committed to doing it. The cause of my reluctance was my compulsion to spin one self-contained, stand-alone saga with time travel, babes, action, football, and nuggets of wisdom for boys and men, and that’s what my rough draft was.

Having made the commitment to make it episodic, I then had to tweak the respective episodes so they wouldn’t read like literary fragments with no context. So each episode had to have it’s own story question, and it’s own wrap-up. But I didn’t want to contrive some kind of cliffhanger to end every book on. A cliffhanger here and there is fine, can even be good, but when they’re forced over and over again, I think it’s weak storytelling. Remember: I’m a reader, too. I bought a virtual “box set” once, with every book ending on a cliffhanger. I thought it was manipulative and annoying.

Anyway, I had to tweak stuff here and there, re-explain stuff from previous books, add on to first chapters, and in some cases write new chapters to fit this episodic format.

Book One (Escaping Fate) ends after the still-preadolescent protagonist gets a new identity, a new family, new “home” coordinates in the time-space continuum, and is about to begin his new life. In the mammoth-sized rough draft, the next plot point is that he starts that new life. But now I have to tell that part in a different book. What if A new reader picks this one up first for whatever reason? What if a reader finished Book One, but there’s been a delay in between and some of the details are fuzzy in his memory? This chapter was written to guide those readers into the new episode:

My Spanish wasn’t good enough yet to follow such a rapid-fire conversation, with advanced vocabulary. Still, I wouldn’t characterize it as an argument.

Mami sounded confused, sad, and worried. She never argued with Dad—at least that I ever saw.  Dad took good care of her, and she was easy to please anyway. Whatever disagreements they might have had must have been resolved quickly and respectfully, because they were never angry with each other. But that morning she was distraught, and pleading, while Dad was resolute and unmoving.

I stepped outside the adobe hacienda into the warm California air and the scent of citrus. I’d never seen Mami unhappy and didn’t know how to handle it. As much as I would have liked to restore her to her normal happy state of mind, this was grownup business and I had no jurisdiction, I strolled into the nearest row of orange trees. Quick as Tarzan, I climbed my favorite tree up to the highest branch that would support my weight. Normally I would read a comic book or one of Dad’s pulp magazines at my normal perch. This time I just took a seat and swung my feet back and forth.

I had witnessed more than my share of grownup bickering, and preferred to be somewhere else when it took place. Back in 1988 St. Louis, my biological parents argued just about whenever they saw each other. It wasn’t all that often, so I was thankful for that. Evidently they could only put up with each other long enough to make a baby. I guess it was all downhill from there.

When the Erasers murdered my biological family, I was shocked and sad for a while, but I didn’t miss them—except for Abel, my younger half-brother, sometimes.

I shifted my gaze from the huge, flat-roofed adobe structure over to the fake barn that housed Dad’s “Temperature Wheel”—the ingenious engine that turned the generator which powered the estate. To the south of both structures was a separate, enormous building with multiple garage bays. Some were garages, some were aircraft hangars. Dad kept them all under lock and key, not so much because thieves might find their way to the Orange Grove, but because some of the vehicles he stored there had not been conceived or manufactured yet.

Before I get too far along, I should probably explain that “Dad” was really my Uncle Simon. Even before my rescue from the time-traveling assassins who erased the existence of my family, my uncle had lifted me out of a pretty bleak childhood. It wasn’t him who saved me from the Erasers, though. That was one of his doppelgängers. Yeah—it gets confusing.

And no, the little Mexican woman inside the house wasn’t my biological mother, either—though she was my real mother, so far as I was concerned.

They came outside, now, Dad’s arm around her shoulders. She looked to the left, then the right, and called out, “Pedrito?”

Ya viene, Mama!” I replied, scrambling down the tree.

I hit the ground running toward her. She wiped her eyes and spread her arms, leaving Dad behind by a few paces. When I reached her, she embraced me with the warmth and affection I had become addicted to in a short time. I hugged her back and she planted kisses on my forehead.

“Oh Mijo, I mees you already!” she cried, giving me an intense squeeze. She let go and stepped back, taking my hands and meeting my gaze. Her brown eyes were glossy and edged with sadness. She switched to Spanish, but spoke slowly so I could follow. “Don’t ever forget that this is your home, Pedrito. Don’t ever forget that I love you and I am here for you. If you ever need anything, come home.”

“Dad says I’ll get to see you every weekend, Mamita,” I said.

“Don’t act like such a grown man—weekends are not enough! This house will be so empty without you, my precious one.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to stay here with Mami anyway, but Dad was sure he had a better arrangement.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too, Mami,” I said.

I knew nothing at all about love, with this one exception: I loved her. She was the best mother anyone could ever hope for. Were it not for football and Gloria Benake, Dad would have had to pry me away from 1934, and this woman.

Football.

Just months ago (in relative time) I had been indifferent toward the game. Now it was my obsession. Not just because it was simulated combat—although I did like that aspect of it. There was something else about it that appealed to me which I couldn’t identify. It was more than a game. More than a sport. On a football team you were part of something. I had never been part of anything.

I wasn’t great at punting or kicking, but I had good hands and could catch the ball if it came anywhere near me. I could run the ball too. And when it came to passing, I could really sling that pigskin. I thrived on solving the tactical problems presented by the other team. My instincts led me to call the right plays in most situations. A shoo-in for quarterback, right?

But my Achilles’ Heel was my leadership ability…or lack thereof. Dad had broken the bad news to me that I was a loner, not a leader. I had bristled at this pronouncement, but he was probably right. I had been alone more often than not as far back as I could remember. I had pals at school, but never really any deep friendships. Nobody in my biological family valued my company. I was alienated back in my old life, and socially inept, for lack of healthy models to emulate. When very young, I hated my isolation. By the time Uncle Si/Dad came into my life, I had come to prefer it most of the time.

Without much experience functioning in a group, and an acquired disinterest in such, of course I was clueless about how to lead one. So I wasn’t a natural leader, by any sober evaluation.

My desperate hope was that leadership could be learned.

Dad and I watched movies together, periodically. Typically we watched them twice in a row, playing armchair anthropologist. I didn’t say much on the second viewing, mostly listening to Dad’s analysis. He pointed out specific human interactions and compared them to what happens in real life. If they were realistically depicted, he would pass judgment on how smart, right, and/or effective the characters’ words and actions were. I learned a lot from his commentary about group dynamics while watching war movies. I had learned some leadership principles already, just in the months since I had come to know him.

Maybe I could rebuild myself. If I learned the lessons Dad was teaching me, perhaps I could be a part of something great. Maybe I could become a great quarterback—and not just in my own mind. I wanted to rise to the level that coaches, other players, people who watched games…they would recognize not only that I was part of something, but I was also great at something. Something I loved.

Normally, I was as uninterested in validation as I was in social interaction. But I wanted validation in this one area. I wanted it bad.

Dad and I climbed into his big Duesenberg roadster and drove off to start a new life, while Mami stood in the drive, waving goodbye.

The warm wind pulled gently at my hair as we drove down the long gravel driveway. When we were no longer within sight of Mami and the house, Dad opened a panel on the dashboard, cued up our new coordinates on the warp interface, and initiated the jump.

“Jumping” through a dimensional warp to different space-time coordinates gives you the sensation of driving into a swirling vortex that swallows up all sight and sound for a moment. When your eyes and ears latch back onto what seems normal, you’re somewhere else, somewhen else.

In this case, we were on a lonely road outside Bakersfield in 1953.

The road took us to a warehouse Dad owned in a burgeoning industrial park, where he swapped the Doozy for his hopped-up ’41 Willys. We drove that into the residential neighborhood where Dad owned a typical middle class home with front-and-back yards.

“I’ve been thinking about the Big Spooky,” I said, now that the wind noise didn’t interfere with conversation.

“Oh yeah?” Dad replied, eyebrows raised. He was the first adult I remember ever taking an interest in what I thought about anything.

“What if it has something to do with the Erasers?”

He already looked skeptical.

The Big Spooky was something he introduced me to during our summer vacation. At certain coordinates, I would feel an overwhelming sensation of dread for no apparent reason. It always felt momentous, or tumultuous. Sometimes the flavor was downright repulsive. Other times, it had an almost seductive quality. Dad had encountered it before and conducted an impromptu experiment to see if I felt it at the same times and places he did.

“Hear me out,” I said, “okay? The government covered up whatever happened in Roswell in 1947. Right? Wouldn’t the Erasers want to cover it up, too? I mean, if somebody was able to get the story out about what really happened, that could cause a split in the timestream. So the Erasers have to wipe out whoever had the real story, witnesses, and whoever else knew them. And we feel the Big Spooky there because of the deaths.”

Dad didn’t say anything right away, so I pushed on.

“Same thing at Jeckyll Island. Somebody found out what they were doing, and was gonna blow the whistle. Boom. In come the Erasers. That’s the obvious conclusion for the JFK assassination, right? The Olympiad? I mean, the Nazis had all kinds of secrets that could have split the timestream if the world found out what they were planning before the war even started. And maybe there was some technology that couldn’t be shown at the World’s Fair. If it had, it might have led to a split in the stream, so the Erasers had to kill off whoever would have introduced that tech..”

Dad sighed, but kept his tone bright. “I don’t think so, Sprout. I’ve been around enough death to know that, by itself, it doesn’t cause the Big Spooky. Was the Big Spooky there at the trailer park when the Erasers got your relatives?”

Anybody else would probably have avoided mentioning the murder of my biological family, assuming it was too sensitive a subject to broach. But Dad was painfully blunt—especially with me. Also, it often seemed he could read my mind, so it was no surprise he somehow understood that he could broach the subject now without triggering a flashback or traumatic breakdown.

I had been returning to the trailer from my daily run when my big dumb German Shepherd started going nuts. She was not very vigilant or protective, for a dog, but she knew something was wrong that day. I finally realized it, too, when I saw my biological mother’s body being carried into what looked, on first glance, like a hole in reality. I couldn’t see what was carrying her at first, but after a moment I noticed the visual anomalies all around the trailer. Then I saw Abel’s body folded at the waist, arms and legs dangling. He bobbed up and down as one of those patterns of distorted light carried him toward that hole in reality.

The Erasers, and their vehicles, were cloaked by an active camouflage similar to what “the Predator” wore in that Arnold Swarzenneger movie from a couple years ago.

Years ago? It was all decades in the future, now.

Anyway…the “hole in reality” was just an open cargo door in one of their camouflaged vehicles. After the hit was executed, the assassin team were disposing of the bodies. Erasing people from existence. They murdered my biological family, and my poor stupid dog, trying to kill me.

I puffed my cheeks and told Dad, “No, you’re right.”

He flashed me a sidelong grin and backhanded me playfully in the chest. “You’ve got the brain of an engineer. Can’t help but try to figure stuff out.”

He turned onto the street where my new home awaited. A middle-aged mailman walking on the tree-lined sidewalk with a canvas sack slung over one shoulder waved cheerfully at us as we passed. Across the street, two young mothers who had been pushing baby strollers in opposite directions on that sidewalk were having an animated conversation with each other. Both their smiling faces turned toward us and they waved, too, before resuming their discussion. Further down the street, a man, perhaps in his 20s or 30s, was playing fetch with a fuzzy little dog in an unfenced front yard, apparently having a great time.

Now I understood how Marty McFly must have felt in that scene from Back to the Future when he first sees his home town as it had been in the 1950s. In relative time, it had been months since my reality had been immersed in that St. Louis trailer park in 1988. But the radical contrast between that and this world that  previous generations knew (and took for granted) still left me flabbergasted. I half-expected all the doors of those nice, clean, middle-class houses to slam open and an army of the undead emerge. The friendly, carefree people who waved to us would shapeshift into bloodthirsty monsters who would converge on us and drag us, screaming, from Dad’s car.

Dad’s expression turned solemn. “Remember our conversation, Sprout: the Erasers are looking for you. It’s a vast continuum, and they’re not sure where you could be hiding. You should be safe at these coordinates, so long as you don’t do anything to draw unnecessary attention. What’s your name?”

“Isaac,” I replied. “Peter is my middle name, now.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “What’s our last name?”

“Jaeger.”

“Who am I?”

“My dad.”

“Who is Angelina?”

“She’s my mother.”

This was a sore point with me. Dad lived different lives at different coordinates, and in each life I knew of, he had a different woman—or “spinning plate” as I had come to think of them. I considered this to be unfaithfulness to Mami by him. By extension, me accepting this arrangement with another woman as my mother made me feel like I was being disloyal, too. I didn’t need any mother but Mami, and believed Dad shouldn’t need anyone but her, either.

“Good,” he said. “Make sure you always call her ‘Mom,’ and think of her that way. She’s a nice lady, so give her a chance.”

I nodded, not saying anything, lest it come out as a grumble.

“I’m really glad you and Hortensia think so highly of each other,” he added. (Hortensia was Mami’s name.) “And I’m sorry for how confusing this might be. But trust me: it’s necessary. You’re gonna live the best possible life this way. And I’ll make sure you get to spend time with her on the regular.”

I nodded again and he seemed satisfied.

“Stick to our cover story any time somebody asks you a personal question,” he reminded me. “We’re just normal people, with normal problems and normal aspirations. Copy?”

“That’s a good copy,” I replied, using the lingo I had learned from him.

Our house looked very similar to all the other houses in the neighborhood. He braked the Willys to a stop just past the mailbox, then backed it into the concrete driveway. He didn’t park it in the two-car garage because that was currently occupied by the Auburn Speedster and a Packard sedan.

As we got out of the Willys, the front door opened and Angelina appeared, grinning and greeting us in a thick Sicilian accent. “My two handsome boys are finally home!”

She was dark like Mami, but not as short, and without as much padding. Despite my resentment of her, I recognized she was beautiful. And even with an apron on over a simple house dress, it was obvious even to my pre-adolescent self that her body was, frankly, perfect.

She rushed over to meet me halfway and embraced me. “I’m so happy to see you, Isaac. Just wait to see what I have for you in the kitchen!” Despite the accent, she seemed to be comfortable with all the typical American colloquialisms.

Honestly, she was a sweet lady, like Dad said. She had no knowledge of Dad’s other lives, or Mami, so it wasn’t fair of me to think of her as “the other woman” trying to steal Dad’s affections away from their rightful recipient.

“Good to see you, Mom.”

It wasn’t that hard to say, after all.

She released me and turned to Dad. Their embrace was of an entirely different character. I averted my gaze, not wanting to see them play tongue tag.

They went inside holding hands, and I followed.

 

***

 

Bakersfield, California had just suffered an earthquake the previous year. Many houses had been damaged, and some destroyed. Real estate prices had dropped as a result. Developers rushed in to buy up land, promising to rebuild the town even better than it was before. Dad was one such developer.

We had met the Benakes at a campground in 1947, during summer vacation. Dad and Mr. Benake had a long conversation while I was developing an intense infatuation with his daughter, Gloria. Benake spoke of property values and investment opportunities around California. Dad did some research and decided Bakersfield, right after the earthquake of August, 1952, was when and where to buy property. He bought a lot, for cheap—including warehouses, restaurants, and several lots right in this neighborhood. He was raking in “passive income”—rent, mortgages, retail profits, and was working toward buying controlling stock in the phone company.

The Benakes, who were from Oakland, apparently found the opportunities in Bakersfield too enticing to pass up as well. They moved here a couple years before the earthquake—not having Dad’s advantage of temporal flexibility.

During Dad’s reconnaissance of the area, I had a chance to do some scouting of my own, and found the town idyllic. It turned out the kids I had met at the park would be schoolmates (except for Gloria, who was one of the “big kids,” in high school). They all lived in the same neighborhood I now did.

I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but most families at these coordinates were either able to buy a house outright, or pay it off within a few years. That was pretty rare where/when I came from. Even my mother’s shabby trailer back in St. Louis was a rental. So far as I knew, neither my biological mother nor father ever owned a home.

What really surprised me was how nice that Bakersfield neighborhood was—despite being inside the city. I thought only the suburbs could be this nice. Dad told me slums were the exception instead of the rule, in the 1950s.

There was no crime to speak of in Bakersfield. Every house had a well-tended lawn and back yard. The picket fences were more to keep toddlers contained than to keep other people out. The mail man and milk man seemed to know everybody by their first name, and performed their jobs cheerfully. Once in a great while a cop would come through the area, in a car or on foot—and even they were friendly. Kids could play in each other’s yards, or on the streets, and easily obtained parental permission to wander around or go to a store, and there was no fear that a kidnapper or some kind of sicko would nab us. To hear some of the mothers talk, the world was much more dangerous than in previous times…but it sure didn’t seem dangerous to me.

What really impressed me was how courteous, considerate, and respectful everyone was to each other. I had never seen that. The neighbors I’d had in the future were antagonists, busybodies, junkies, or thieves.

Ronny’s family were the only blacks in my new neighborhood. They kept their home nice, like everyone else, were neighborly, and shared the common values, so far as I ever saw. They fit in, despite how often I’d heard what a racist dictatorship America was back in the dystopia of the postwar era, where lynching blacks was a more popular pastime than baseball.

I’ll never forget the first time I witnessed the Pledge of Allegiance at school. I didn’t know what was going on, but I stood up like all the other kids, and approximated the same pose, as they recited words I wouldn’t memorize until later:

 

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

And to the Republic for which it stands:

One nation, under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

 

Ronny recited it along with the rest of the class, and seemed no more irreverent than anybody else was. In the world I came from, we were conditioned to believe America was racist, greedy, exploitative…the cause of all the world’s problems. All of us were influenced by the anti-American narrative, but especially blacks and other minorities. They hated white people in general, but especially if you said or believed anything positive about our country. This pledge honoring a republic under God was a real stunner. The culture in 1953 actually encouraged Americans to appreciate their country, and freedom. Americans of all ethnic backgrounds seemed to do just that.

There were a couple times I heard somebody make a racist crack about Ronny. Once it might be something about watermelon. Another time it might be purposely mispronouncing words to approximate stereotypical black speech. Another time it would be a comparison of Ronny to somebody else of the same color—like Buckwheat from Our Gang or Rochester from the Jack Benny Show. The kind that seemed to be the hardest for Ronny to ignore was somebody humming or whistling “Swanee River” when he made an entrance. Sometimes even his friends would do it. It angered me, but Ronny would just shake it off and go on. However, one time I spoke up.

“Hey, don’t talk like that. That’s not cool.”

“What?” the other kid protested, innocently. “I’m just joshin’. Ronny knows I don’t mean anything by it.”

“If you don’t mean anything by it, then don’t say it,” I said. “Words mean things.”

“Who do you think you are, Slinger?” I’ve known him longer than you have. Right, Ronny?”

(“Slinger” was the nickname I originally introduced myself with to these boys, after a recently famous quarterback: “Slingin'” Sammy Baugh. They often pronounced it with a derisive tone, due to what they considered my lack of humility, I guess.)

Ronny flashed a grin and shook the kid’s hand, so I let it drop, surprised and disappointed.

When I reflected on it, I considered Ronny’s position. He wasn’t trying to embarrass me after I stuck up for him—he was wisely defusing the situation. If such confrontations became ugly, they might devolve into some kind of black vs white conflict—in which case, he would be completely isolated and outnumbered.

The cracks and jokes stopped after that for a while; but then the habit began redeveloping. Whenever it happened after that, I simply began making fun of whoever did it. I zeroed in on superficial characteristics that the person had no control over—like freckles, big ears, a stutter, a lazy eye or a big nose. I would be relentless for the rest of the day—sometimes getting downright nasty in my harassment of the perpetrator. Ronny never participated in that. But one day we were both the first ones in the locker room for practice, and he made a point of shaking my hand.

“Be cool, Slinger,” Ronny said, with no irony in his tone. “Maintain an even strain, okay?”

That comment puzzled me the more I thought about it. I guess he was warning me to be careful not to make too big a deal about all the little backhanded slurs.

Still, our circle of friends caught on after a while. We all liked Ronny, and thought of him as one of us, but young kids can be superficial and cruel. Guys like Ronny were just natural targets for superficial cruelty. I had been on the receiving end of prejudice in St. Louis, and would always remember the unfairness and ignorant tyranny of it.

 

***

 

I got to know Kip, Charlie, Ronny and the rest of the gang pretty well. When pressed for my real name, I gave them my new identity details. As we grew closer over time, “Isaac” would be shortened to “Ike.” Some of them still called me “Slinger” when they were feeling buddy-buddy, or when I’d thrown a good pass in a game.

I got used to it. Like Dad said, Ike Jaeger was a big improvement over Pete Bedauern. Also, it drew a connection between me and the president of the USA: Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower, who was popular with a lot of people. If popularity was part of what it took to become a great quarterback, then I’d accept any help becoming popular I could get.

We played more sandlot football, but had a lot of fun together doing other stuff, too. We took trips to the soda shop (a popular hangout for kids of every age, though high-schoolers seemed to have a monopoly on the stools and tables), the record store (Dad bought me a period phonograph and pretty much all the records I asked for, so I made it my mission to learn and keep up on all the popular music of the time), the YMCA, and the hobby store.

My new friends and I talked about sports, comic books, radio shows and, increasingly, girls.

Like me, few of the boys knew that much about the subject. To us, sex was about breasts and lips. I suspected there was more to it than that, but I didn’t think about it that much, and didn’t yet have an appreciation for all the steps to that primordial dance. There was so much fun to have, usually it took a sighting of Gloria to get me obsessing about “sex” (breasts and lips).

It was a fantastic summer, but came to an end too quickly.

 

***

 

Once school began in Bakersfield, I was grateful that I knew some of the other kids, already.

After the first day of class, I brought the football permission slip home, assuming Dad would just sign it without fanfare.

Instead, I had to endure a health lecture before he would sign. He said it was related to the earlier lecture he gave me about life paths. Just as foolish decisions I made could put me on the wrong path through life, so could seemingly simple mistakes on the football field.

Me and other boys were growing bigger and stronger by the day, Dad explained. Serious injuries could occur now from collisions on the field that wouldn’t have broken anything when we measured at smaller proportions. It all had to do with mass. He wrote the equation out for me. Then he warned me about scrimmage drills at practice. I might wind up playing a position that required tackling—so I needed to do it right every time to avoid getting hurt. He took me out to the back yard and demonstrated how to deliver hits in football, then had me mimic the techniques. After training me how to tackle correctly, he commanded me to always do it that way—even if a coach wanted it done differently.

He said my physical conditioning was already more than enough for football, but he went on at length about eating habits before a game, and the importance of staying hydrated.

I doubted if any other boys had to go through all this to get their permission slip signed. It also told me Dad didn’t consider me a natural at the game. If I could ever get him to believe I was a great player, it was a cinch I had finally arrived.

 

***

 

I tried out and made the football team. Kip, Ronny, Charlie and Fredrico were on the team, too. Six had been my jersey number on the Bulldogs, so that was the number I asked for at Carson. The coach said somebody else had it, and threw me a jersey with the number eight. That was my number, now.

I was still far from an expert on the game, it turned out. I had never quite seen the kind of football practiced and played under Coach Filbert. He deployed a “single wing” offensive formation, which made for a run-heavy game, based largely on trickery—much different from what I’d watched and played. But at first I didn’t even get to play on offense. He had me in the defensive backfield, second string.

My fortunes changed one day in P.E. Filbert was the P.E. teacher, and on Fridays, if we behaved ourselves, he’d let us spend the period playing a game. On that day, we played a game with some similarities to “flickerball.” My team trounced the other one, because whenever I got the ball, and no matter how far I was from the goal board, I could lob a perfect spiral right through the center of the hole. At the very next practice, he had me try out for wingback. Apparently, in a single wing, anyone in the backfield could run or throw a pass…and the quarterback threw more blocks than passes in that offense. I was too small to be the fullback, but I could catch well. I was hard to tackle; and now Coach Filbert knew I could throw the ball a long ways, with accuracy.

The pads were skimpy and the helmets had no face masks. The uniforms were dorky-looking hand-me-downs and the numbers were random. But I was a real football player, now. Dad bought me a pair of cleats that fit well, and boy, could I juke and cut with those on. It amazed me what an advantage a good pair of cleats could give a player. I felt like John Riggins with those cleats on.

 

***

 

Classes in school were different from what I was used to. Teachers were strict, and their expectations were high. Goofing off in class resulted in a visit to the principal’s office, or swats with a wooden paddle—for everybody, not just white kids. Not finishing homework or studying for tests could get you flunked. I squeaked by in history, because I’d been studying parts of it at BH Station. Math and science were my strong subjects, so I held my own in those, and I was competitive and in terrific shape, so P.E. wasn’t any problem. But English was tough and civics seemed useless. I had to push myself just to maintain a B average.

Whatever my day-to-day concerns, I tried to keep my situational awareness sharp, as Dad had emphasized. The Erasers could come for me at any time. It was “standard operating procedure” (another of Dad’s terms) that they strike with no warning, and when their victims least expected it.

 

UPDATE:  This book is published! Click here to buy on Amazon.

Click here to buy anywhere else.

The Alchemy for Art Indie Library

The deck is really stacked against indie (independent) authors. It’s even worse for non-woke indie authors. You get no help with marketing from a publisher. Chances are slim your titles will ever be discovered in a brick-and-mortar bookstore. Your name isn’t associated with the prestige of the legacy publishing houses (dwindling, though it may be). Alternative media doesn’t care that you exist  and in most cases won’t plug your work to their audience. (Some of the alternate media outlets are controlled opposition and only promote ticket-takers, if they promote anyone at all.) The goose-stepping cultural Marxists who control the MSM and social media will get you censored/deplatformed/demonetized if they can, but if you succeed anyway, they will assassinate your character in the typical ways (“racist!” “conspiracy theorist!” etc.).

Thankfully, there are some folks who understand that indies should be taken seriously,* and through selfless effort, are trying to make their books more visible. Virtual Pulp (and the Two-Fisted Blog, before it) has always been a site that gave indies exposure, and now gets contributions from THE INFAMOUS REVIEWER GIO to amplify that effort. Writer Katie Roome also specializes in reviewing indie fiction at Periapsis Press. And then there is author Mark Bradford, who has built an attractive online aggregation of indie books.

Alchemy for Art (https://alchemyfor.art/books/) is growing, and I assume it will continue to grow. As of this moment, it boasts 12 authors and 33 books. The books are grouped by author, and by genre. Fantasy is the most represented genre so far, with sci-fi coming in second. But other genres are represented, including some that I write in.

My theory is that as more books are added to the list, the more readers will want to peruse it. So it looks like a win-win endeavor.

In other words, both readers and writers should visit the library. Authors should get their books added, and readers should check back regularly to see what books have been added.

 

* Indie books are much like tradpub books, in that quality varies. There are plenty from both sources that are terrible. The advantage of the indie end of the spectrum is that is where you’ll find the non-ticket-taking, non-woke authors. And because the gatekeepers have no direct control, that is where you’ll find  most of the superb storytelling in the book biz today, IMO.